Grandmother MaMoe

She was a sharecropper, a cook, a fisherman, our family doctor, a mother, a grandmother, and a house servant and nanny at the plantation house. All of us cousins called her “MaMoe” but her given name was Willie Mae. To everybody in the country she was known as MaMoe. Story has it that Charles, the oldest cousin, and son of Aunt Sadie, use to call her “Mama’s Mother.” Over the years it got shorten to “MaMoe.” I don’t remember anyone calling her Willie. I thought MaMoe was her given name until I started researching our family’s history.

She was a kind, gentle, loving and caring woman. She wasn’t a tall woman and she wasn’t a short woman. She stood about 5’5” and weighed about 140 pounds as best as I can remember. Her hair was black, long, thick and sort of wavy. Not kinky and curly like other Black folks. Her skin wasn’t dark black or brown-black, but reddish-black. She had a prominent mole on the left side of her lower jaw. It was prominent because it was pointed instead of being flat. She always wore a sun dress with flowers on it. The kind that mama use to make Frankie and Bettye from flour sacks. On top of that she wore a half apron that had a pocket. The pocket is where she kept her handkerchief and snuff. In the handkerchief is where she kept her money. She always carried the money tied in the corner of that handkerchief. She would sometimes give us cousins a nickel, a dime or pennies to buy something when we went to the store with mama.

Her favorite seat was a wooden rocking chair. Sometimes she would sit in the living room in front of the pot belly stove if it was too cool to be outside. On nice days she would sit on the front porch watching people go by. She dipped sweet garret snuff and would have a pinch between her teeth and gum. Her rocking chair and snuff went together like grits and eggs. She was an expert at getting that brown colored stuff out her mouth. She could hit the same spot in the front yard with spit without trying. She had good follow through. She would rock back and forward and once she had the proper momentum, on the forward rock she would let one fly. “Plop”, it would fall to the ground, kicking up dust, in a cluster with all her other great efforts. If a little drool would hang up on her mouth, she would wipe it with the bottom of her apron. When she made a near perfect spit a peaceful look would come over her face as if to say, “Great shot MaMoe.” Later she became more sanitized and kept a can nearby to spit in.

She was the oldest person on the plantation. People were always coming by to see MaMoe. They brought her fish, wild game, fresh vegetables from their gardens, pecans, blackberries, pears and peaches. Some came to sit; talk, to eat, while others came by to see how she was doing. When you have been around as long as she had it was assumed that you knew all the answers. She was look upon with respect, admiration. There wasn’t much that she had not seen or heard about. She could not read or write. But what she lacked in formal education was more than compensated for by her wisdom. She wasn’t a big loud talker. She was quiet and unassuming, but she always had something to say when asked. She was a strong influence our family. All the son-in-laws treated her with respect, and kindness; like she was their mother.


MaMoe could cook anything, but she was especially good at cooking wild game. Venison was one of her best dishes. Not everyone can cook venison or other wild game. Most cooks think you have to cook it to a crisp for it to be done. But overcooked, it’s dry, tuff and tasteless. The venison that she cooked was tender, moist and flavorful. She made rabbit and squirrel stews that didn’t last long at the dinner table. In addition to wild game, she made fried chicken and fish that family stood in line for.

Her sweet potatoes got candied or baked in their skins on a bed of hot ashes in the fireplace or pot belly stove. She cooked a lot of savory pot foods that were simmered slowly all day. Black-eyed peas, crowder peas, butter beans; collard, mustard, cabbage and turnip greens with a piece of salt pork added all fell victim to her pot. And she always had corn bread on the side to soak up the pot liquor and small pieces that the fork couldn’t get. MaMoe’s foods looked, smelled and tasted good. Her daughters Sadie, Novella, and Jessie were all good cooks that put out good looking and good tasting foods. Now Mama’s food on the other hand was okay in a pinch but to me it didn’t have a personality. It was too bland and flavorless. I ate more at my aunts’ house than at Mamas. It wasn’t that Mama was a terrible cook, but more because she didn’t have the time to just cook. She got up early in the morning cooked breakfast, feed all of us and then went to work in the fields. At lunch time she came home early, made lunch and fed us again. And she did the same thing for supper at the end of the day. To her it was a job she had to do and she just got it done.

MaMoe was the family doctor who had an old fashion country cure for all of our common ailments. She was a specialist was root tea. Sassafras root tea with a little peppermint and honey cured a nasty cough. Vapor rub mixed with sardine oil rubbed on the chest took care of common colds. Cod liver oil cured an upset stomach. A taste of turpentine spirits did the job on a bad case of worms. We gargled salt water for a sore throat.

During hot summer months her skin would turn beet red instead of a darker shade of black from the sun. She wasn’t working in the fields but she walked from Aunt Sadie’s house to the plantation, working in the garden or fishing. I don’t remember her working in the fields with us but I am sure she did since she and Grandpa Frank moved from Mississippi to Louisiana to work as sharecroppers. At some point after they had been living on Islington Plantation, around 1928, she and Frank parted ways. After all the children were grown, she went to work at the plantation house as a servant and nanny.

When she stopped working at the plantation house she cared for Aunt Sadie’s children and all the rest of us cousins when my Mama and her sisters had to work in the fields. A kind, gentle, loving and caring grandmother, she had a sense of humor when it came to disciplining us. She had a bunch of us to keep in line. When it was time for one or a bunch of us to get a whipping, she would make you go to the willow tree for a switch. Being the smart kids that we were, naturally we brought back the smallest one we could find. It did matter because she wore that one out on your back side and made you go get two or three more before she was done with you.



MaMoe was born April 10, 1890 as daughter of Pete and Lizzie Jackson. She was raised by her grand parents Umphrey and Dicie (Dicy) Bowens. In 1870 Umphrey lived in Como, Mississippi on a plantation owned by M.F. Gilchrist. Living with Umphrey were Dysey, who was 27 years old, and three children: John, age 6, Lizzie, age 4 and William age 1. Lizzie was MaMoe’s mother.

The 1900 Panola County Census shows Dicey, 44 years old, born in April, 1856 in Kentucky as head of household. Living with her are Umphrey, 21 years, born August 1878, Lizzie, born October 1872, Mack , 18, born March 1882, grandson Harrisan Neil, born May 1886, a great grand daughter, Simathria, born October 1872 and a granddaughter, Willie (MaMoe) who was born April, 1891.

MaMoe was an avid fisherman. The whole family was fishermen; Mama, Sadie, Novella, Sammie and all the cousins Charles, James, Gabe, and me. When MaMoe wasn’t working at Islington Plantation House you could always find her on the bayou below Aunt Sadie’s house with her favorite fishing companion Annie Green or “Miss Nig" as we called her.

There wasn’t anyone who could out fish her with a cane pole. (Well, there was one person who could give her a run for her money. That was daddy). There was never a shortage of fish around our house. It seemed like she fished every day. But in reality, I think she only fished two or three times a week. When it rained and was too wet to work in fields the men would work on equipment at the plantation house. The ones who didn’t have to work fished. MaMoe, Aunt Sadie, Mama, Aunt Jessie went fishing. Sometime James, Gabe, Charles and I would go along.

MaMoe always had a fishing pole “set out” in the bayou in front of Aunt Sadie’s house. She would tie the end of the cane pole to a tree with wire or rope. This way when a fish got on and she wasn't there, it couldn't pull the pole into the water.

She baited a large single hook with salt pork or a worm when she could talk one of us into digging them for her. In the morning she would go down and take off any fish that got caught during the night. Most of the fish she caught were bottom feeders like catfish, carp, gasper goo, “grinter,” or buffalo. She would check her poles at noon and when we came home from school she would make one of us go check her poles again. If she had caught a fish we ran up to the house to tell her. She stopped whatever she was doing and hurried down to the bayou to take the fish off.

With all the overgrown trees about she didn't have a lot of room to rear back and set the hook on a fish. Instead, she grabbed the cane pole, jerk up as far as the tree limbs would allow her, and run up the hill, pulling the pole behind her. When the fish reached the bank she would run back down the hill, grab the line, with the fish flopping around in the mud. She was yelling at us to not let the fish get back in the water. But none of us wanted to touch it. Holding on to the fishing line, she stepped on the fish's head and took the hook out. She put the fish in a bucket with water that she kept in a shaded place on the bank.

MaMoe was particular and sometimes downright fussy about her cane poles. Charles cut bamboo or cane poles for her from a standing patch of bamboos down in the field behind the graveyard. Bamboo grew everywhere, but she wanted it from way down in the fields instead of from bayou someplace closer. She was partial to the ten footers. After it was cut, and she was satisfied with its look and feel, she would hang by tip next to the chimney to dry.

MaMoe and Frank moved to the Tallulah area during the 1920’s from Como, Mississippi. They lived on a plantation in Quebec, just North of Tallulah, with their first four children: Ester, Willie Mae, Hince and Fred. The other children: Novella, Sadie, Katie, Jessie, Sammie, Ophelia and Ollie were born in Louisiana. Ophelia and Ollie were twins who died early. She and Frank moved to Islington Plantation (Folk) around 1927.

When Aunt Sadie moved from the plantation during the late 50’s MaMoe continued to live with her in town. When her health started to fail and she got to the point where Aunt Sadie couldn’t take care of her at home anymore, she was reluctantly put in a nursing home. She died in the nursing home in January of 1982 at the age of 92. She and Aunt Novella were buried on the same day.