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The Easiest Way to Pineville
- University of Arizona Press
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16 The Easiest Way to Pineville The search for my own human kinship began with the place of my origins: Pineville. And getting there meant going through New Orleans. On a recent day in April, I flew to the airport named for Louis Armstrong, for the Satchmo himself, after the Crescent City had for years ignored his contribution to its image in the world of jazz. In New Orleans, I rented a car, drove through the city, took Interstate 10 east, crossed Pearl River, and stopped at the Mississippi Welcome Center. A young volunteer was of little help in answering questions about history, and in particular had never heard of Pineville. I was shocked, as it is but a few miles from the Welcome Center, just inland from Pass Christian (pronounced locally as “Pass Christy Ann”). His map didn’t help either of us. Just as I was leaving, a man in line behind me volunteered, “Mister, the easiest way to Pineville is when you come to Exit 24 off Interstate 10, turn right and head south on Menge Avenue, cross the river, then start asking questions.” Good instructions. Within an hour I was parked in front of Pineville Elementary School. This short drive through the piney woods had already launched me back in time to the place about which so much lore had been recounted in my family over the last eight decades. Crossing Wolf River wrought magic. Though housing development has changed things, the woods, the rural ambience, and the river itself were just as I remembered them. My image of that quiet village of 1920s fortune-seekers was well preserved by family oral history, and for the moment I prepared to put the puzzle together. Familiar placenames abounded, and the Universal Map of Gulfport-Biloxi provided cartographic detail. The Easiest Way to Pineville 17 Finding the school office was easy, and as I entered I heard a voice and someone appeared from down the hall. “I’m Jimmye Hillman,” I introduced myself, “and you are?” “Jackie Graves, the principal. You must be the man who has been inquiring about the school’s history, who wrote the county superintendent ? And your sister, Jean Allgood, you say, has been active in Gulfport schools and social life for almost fifty years?” “Yes, ma’am!” We connected immediately. “My father was principal here in the early years, about 1920–26, I believe. I began life here. We lived out in the country on Red Creek Road near Wolf River.” The conversation became easier, and Jackie, as I was permitted to address her, kindly assisted my search. She said, “The two-storied wooden structure was a small high school, but after World War II the present building replaced that and we are now a sixth-grade elementary school and part of the Harrison County system.” My conversation with Jackie, and my recollection of those childhood days, created instant excitement. Fragments from Hillman family files, and the tattered memories of three ninety-year-old former Pineville students, whom I affectionately call “nonos” (for Pineville schoolchildren with Principal Hillman in front of Ford Model T school bus, ca. 1920. [44.200.77.59] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 10:19 GMT) Beginnings 18 “nonagenarians”), gave me valuable material to begin some fragile reflection. Jackie Graves was a very impressive black woman and teacher. She won me by her knowledge of the school’s history. Old pictures of horse-drawn and Ford Model T school buses, the children’s school choir of the 1920s, and of individual teachers during that era grace the walls of her office and the halls. She assisted me in regaining insight into the heritage of Pineville School, Harrison County, and the surrounding area. Her parting words to me that day were, ”I am very honored to follow in the footsteps of some very important people, your father included. And I endeavor to maintain the rich culture and charm of this little schoolhouse.” Without doubt, Pineville is in good hands. Timber and turpentine barons led the boom on the Mississippi Gulf Coast through the turn of the century and World War I. Land promoters sold plots for pecan and satsuma orange orchards, later for tung oil farms, arable agriculture being unprofitable on these coastal meadows. My father, Joseph L. “Bud” Hillman, young and recently widowed, came to the Gulf Coast in 1920, but left a baby boy in Neely in the care of grandparents. A veteran of World War I, and...