My Mansion

Photo by Patrick O’Dell

grew up in what I guess you’d call a chicken coop. It was this place that used to be a chicken house. It had concrete floors, but we made a living place out of it. Eventually it burnt down. It was rough living there. It was hard when I was a child. I’ve worked since I was 12. I started out just sitting with people. I’d go out and sit with old people. I wanted to work any way I could so I could get out of that chicken coop. It had one little coal-and-wood stove for heat, and that didn’t warm it up adequately. It was not good. We’d cook on an electric stove, but sometimes there wasn’t enough food. There was always something like fried potatoes at night, and we’d each get a serving—enough to keep us from being hungry. We used to get commodity-program cheese too, and we’d eat cheese sandwiches. My dad had a rough time. He was a drunkard when I was growing up. He isn’t one now, praise the Lord. My sister wanted to marry at 13, and she got mad at my dad because he didn’t want her to. So she went and said some abusive things about my father. My brother said some stuff too. Daddy and him used to romp just like you do with your child, but my brother had nosebleeds, so he had blood all over his shirt and the law enforcement believed him when he and my sister went to make these charges against my father. My daddy spent a year and four days incarcerated in the county jail. He developed a nerve problem while he was in there. That’s why Mommy had to raise us kids. The two kids who accused my father got put in foster care and then got sent back after Daddy was sent to jail.

Photos by Patrick O’Dell