I Must Remember This: A Southern White Boy’s Memories of the Great Depression, Jim Crow, and World War II by George Thomas Youngblood
I recently purchased and read this book by George Thomas Youngblood. George Thomas Youngblood was born in 1929 in Barnwell County, South Carolina and died in Texas in 2007. He is related to the Youngblood family that moved to Emanuel County, Georgia from Barnwell County, South Carolina.
He tells his memoir of growing up in rural South Carolina during the Great Depression and during World War II. His tales are told with a humor and charm as only a southerner can write about growing up in the south land. If you are old enough, his stories will bring back nostalgic childhood memories of a period of time that will never be relived again; if you are younger, these stories will show you how your parents, grandparents or great grandparents grew up in the south during the 1930’s and 1940’s.
This is a must read book for those persons interested in southern life during earlier times.
You can obtain it from bookstores such as Amazon.com
From the book description:
Joe, George, and Richard Youngblood, three white brothers growing up in the rural South during the Great Depression, live in a world of paradoxes: love and hate; doubt and faith; and sadness and humor.
In his poignant memoir I Must Remember This: A Southern White Boy’s Memories of the Great Depression, Jim Crow, and World War II, author George Youngblood shares stories about everything from the brothers’ first awareness of death, sex, and race to the truth about Santa Claus. They smoke rabbit tobacco, tremble at ghost and snake stories, watch haircuts for excitement, get baptized, and gawk at locomotives and alligators.
Hard times draw the Youngblood family closer to their father’s black farm workers. With one family in particular they form a symbiotic relationship in the hostile world of poverty, disease, and segregation. I Must Remember This is Youngblood’s family story as they hope, work, and laugh with little cause—and succeed with basic honesty, respect, and an astounding sense of humor.