Celia Williamson may not have been born on or raised on the Sunflower Plantation like many of those who attended the June 2 reunion, but she is still part of the family.
And according to her, that’s how everyone associated with the agricultural estate sees the other, as family - not necessarily blood-related but family all the same.
Williamson admitted that she grew up in Indianola but fondly remembers going to visit her grandparents out in the farming community every weekend.
She now lives out there in the home her grandmother owned, and she serves as “kind of a caretaker” for the Bethany Baptist Church, which is one of the home churches for many of the settlement’s families.
There are two houses of worship on the plantation. The other is the Nazarene Church, which is less than a mile away on the opposite side of the Drew-Merigold Road.
Williamson said the road was kind of the divider to the community.
Since the churches are situated on either side of the road, she said it appeared as though those on the south side went to the Nazarene church and those on the north came to the Baptist church.
Williamson said that Bethany is the only church she has ever been a member of, and at one time, there were over 200 members in the church.
The original building has since been torn down, and the current one was built on the opposite side of the road and has been added on to as the families and congregation grew.
She said everybody worked on the church, even the children laid the floor.
The long-standing hand-painted sign that graced the front yard was toppled recently by a tornadic wind that blew through the area.
She said the tornado cut across the edge of the church and threw the sign out in the road. According to her, the wind was so strong it blew a single pecan through a wire fence and sliced it in half without breaking it up.
“Mostly, everybody out here had lots and lots of children,” she said. “My daddy was the oldest of ten.”
He was raised on the plantation, which is incidentally located about midway between Drew and Merigold. His parents were among the first to settle there back in the early 1900’s. And at the age of 18, he became the primary caregiver for his siblings.
Life on the plantation was not easy.
They had to work. That was their livelihood Williamson said.
“If they didn’t farm, they didn’t eat,” she said. “Daddy talked about having to go out and make sure that the livestock was tended to before he went to school. Before they actually got to eat breakfast, they had to go feed the livestock while my grandmother was fixing their breakfast.”
The farm animals were their machinery.
“They didn’t have tractors. It was done with mules. The bigger the family, the quicker you could get your crop out,” she said.
Despite the hard work, Williamson said there was a uniqueness about the community because they worked together, each family helping others in the time of need.
She shared several incidents where due to sickness and death, the community pulled together to help one another.
“Its like family. They were a team.”
That parcel of land dates back to the late 1800s, when Frederick W. Taylor and James Crate purchased about 7,000 acres, from the Delta & Pine Land Company.
Every two years, on the first Saturday in June, the families of those who lived there return to the Bethany Baptist Church for the biennial Sunflower Plantation Reunion.
The gathering is an opportunity for former residents, their children, grandchildren and in some cases great-grandchildren to visit, reminisce and share stories.
One such tale involved a Mr. McIntyre who was apparently filling up a propane tank on the back of his truck when a man named Danny climbed on board. Mr. McIntyre told him to get down and it appears Danny was slow to respond, so McIntyre opened up the gas hose and froze the back of Danny’s pants.
Danny reportedly got out of the truck “pretty fast” after that.
The reunions are held in the even years and nearly 200 people attended Saturday’s get-together. Each reunion also typically includes some first-time visitors.
This year also marks the 78th year anniversary of the Bethany Baptist Church, which was founded by 19-year-old Curtis Askew in 1940.
Askew was able to attend the last reunion in 2016 with his bride, even though he was nearly 95-years-old at the time, but remorsefully, he passed away last year. However his wife was back with the family at Bethany for this year’s reunion.
Many of the original settlers have passed on, but their achievements and memories live on through their descendants who ingeminate the interactions they had with those who labored alongside them to survive.
“They worked together, (whether it was killing hogs and sharing the meat or picking cotton), they were like family, they knew about hard times, but they were good times. It just created this bond with the people, with each other, not blood related but act as if they were family.”
Some of the offspring of those who originally settled there still live on and farm the land. Williamson said.
“They’re hooked to this community some kind of way, everybody here.”
Her brother, for instance, still farms 400 acres he inherited from the paternal and maternal sides of their family.
Photographer Sarah Beaugez was the only one with no original link to the group, however she now says she is “connected with this incredible community of people” and gives Williamson credit for the association calling her, “pure gold.”
The organizers collect addresses and phone numbers throughout the year and send out invitations advising of the next reunion. For those who are computer and smart phone savvy, they connect through their Facebook page, Sunflower Plantation between Drew and Merigold, apparently there is another Sunflower Plantation somewhere, she said.
They have completed and published a cookbook that not only contains over 800 tried and proven recipes but also records the names of the first families to settle on the plantation along with historical photos acquired from the National Archives and Records Administration. The books are for sale and can be picked up or mailed out.
One of Saturday’s attendees and speakers, Jack Haynes, a 94–year-old WWII veteran who still farms, is identified in one of those historic photos.
The summation of Williamson’s view of the plantation, “It’s a great place to be from, to have grown up and consider yourself a part of.“
