Poughkeepsie, Arkansas

I bet not too many of you have heard of Poughkeepsie, Arkansas. This place is an important place. Its historic, at least to my family. Its historic for many reasons:

1. This location is where my Grandfather was born
2. This location is where my Grandfather brought my Grandmother right after they were married
3. The house is where my Grandfather's brother was laid out when he died. My Great Grandmother had it that way because she was too ill for her to go to a funeral home.
4. Its where a lot of my relatives live. Matter of fact it used to be called "Medlock Country".
5. My father now owns the land and the house where my Grandfather was raised and now also owns the farm where my Grandfather worked and my Great Grandfather worked. This is historic because this land has never been completely the Medlock's its always been shared in some way. It is now owned entirely by the Medlock's.

As a Preacher's Family or even a Preacher's daughter this means a lot. What I see in what I wrote is history of my family. What I see is roots. Roots for me has always been a thing that slipped my fingers. I never had a childhood friend, never had a house I could say I was raised at, and many other things. This is a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing was that I got to meet all kinds of people, I got to learn early on how to adjust to different things, but the bad, no roots. We never had planted roots.

When Blake and I went to see my family we loved seeing this land. For Blake it was interesting because of different things. For me, I saw firm planted roots. I saw land that had my ancestors thumb print. For instance, the homestead. On the front of the house there are two screen doors. They look fairly new to this tin top house. These two screen doors have letters on them. One that says "J" and the other that says "K". These initials stand for my Uncle Joe Kelly. He and my Aunt Mart (my Grandpa's sister) owned the homestead for a long time, I guess my Grandpa didn't care to have it, they put those screen doors their. This brought me back to a memory of the first time I went out there. My Uncle Joe was a diabetic, so at Thanksgiving my Aunt Mart would make a sugar-free apple pie for him. Knowing my love for apple pie he said I could have a piece of his special pie. Well, I took one bit and YUCK. I quickly looked at Uncle Joe and handed him the rest. He laughed and said, "it just doesn't taste the same." I said, "no sir" and quickly went outside with my brother Marshall and my second cousin Derek that is when the adventure started. Derek had a air b-b gun! Man, we had so much fun shooting at old tins, shooting the old outhouse, so many things. All of those memories just by seeing two letters "J" and "K". A couple others came when we went inside, I could remember exactly where the bed was that my Grandfather was born on and my Aunt Mart telling me stories. There were other things, but I also wondered as we looked around what my Grandfather was like, what my Great Grandparents were like. What did they talk about in that house. What could those old, old walls tell me. I finally felt connected to some roots, something that was firm. That old house, with its rusted tin roof, falling apart back porch, and many other things is special, its historic. Many people may go by that house and not think twice about it, but to me its better than going to see the White House or some other great historic location, to me that house shows my families roots. After so many years of going up and down the Mid-West and Deep South I have a place I can point to and say, "this is where my roots are". Not too many people have that chance.

So thanks Dad for buying that land. Thanks for digging deep for our family and having a special place for us. Thanks Marshall, Mark (my brother-in-law), and so many others who are working that land, thanks for working so hard to bring back to life something that looked dead and over grown. And thank you God for giving this to us.