My great grandmother, Lena May Haynes, is seen in the photo above on the front row of Calvary Baptist Church in Waycross, Georgia, where she raised her nine living (of ten) children after my great grandfather died at 57 of heart complications. She lived in a small cinder block house where the kitchen was the heart of the home that had just two bedrooms, as I recall. I don’t know where everyone slept, but I do know one of her girls lost a toe when one of the boys chopped it off with an ax or a hatchet while making lye soap in a big pot in the back yard.
My late father wrote a piece on her life, which I’m including below, and I took that text and created a found poem from it.
Granny Haynes
Lena May Kinsey Haynes
family and church her highest priorities
insistent on traditions
Christmas party Silver Dollars
made life fun
made us laugh, dried our tears
gathering in her home
churning ice cream
eating watermelon and fried chicken
listening to the stereo
aprons strings binding her family together
Common Threads 