Do you have that legend in your family that you've heard about since you were three? We have a legend in my family, and her name was Ada Lou Mullinax. She was my great grandmother on my maternal line. Unfortunately, I never got to meet her because she died two years before I was born. I feel like I know her though because I have heard stories about her all of my life.
At just over five feet tall, this diminutive woman was the picture of southern grace, but she had enough fire and grit in her to light up an entire town. She was born on October 15, 1901 in Talking Rock, Georgia and spent the majority of her life in a small Alabama community called Alder Springs. She let my mother and all of the other grandkids know in no uncertain terms that she was too young to be a grandmother so they could call her by her first name. In the south, her name is pronounced “Ader.” Years later, she decided that she wanted the grandkids to call her momaw, but they all told her it was too late—she would always be Ader to them.
Alder Springs doesn’t even rank as a town. It’s so small that you could blink your eyes and miss it. You won’t find it on many maps because it’s too insignificant to warrant a pin dot. Even today, few people are aware of its existence. What made my great grandmother so special then?
Ader lived in a precarious and pivotal time in southern history. Ader and her husband owned a farm where they raised cotton. For centuries, cotton had been the livelihood of the South, but things were changing. Cotton was no long yielding the income that it once had. And it couldn’t have come at a worst time—on the eve of the great depression. When Roosevelt came into office, he proposed the New Deal as a way to keep the south somewhat solvent. The government started paying farmers to plow under their cotton to help drive up the price. The farmers during this era had to embrace the winds of change in a very personal way. I have the highest admiration for these tenacious, stubborn people who toiled their life away on a strip of land in a remote area of Alabama.
To these people, their word was their honor. They faced their trials with optimism and courage. Ader spent her life helping other people. With tears in her eyes, my mother often speaks of the time when she didn’t want to go to a school dance because she didn’t have a nice dress to wear. She came home one afternoon to find Ader making her a dress. They couldn’t afford to buy any new material, so she took one of her favorite dresses and remade it for my mom.
About a decade ago, I was helping my mom move from Texas to Alabama when I came across some notes that she’d jotted down about Ader. For as long as I can remember, my mom has talked about writing a book about her. I became intrigued with the story and convinced my mom to work with me so that we could write the story of my great grandmother and all of the other heroes of that forgotten time. Once we got started, there was no turning back. LIVIN’ IN HIGH COTTON was published in 2004. Writing LIVIN’ IN HIGH COTTON gave me the opportunity to unearth and bring to life the legends of my childhood. There’s something about putting a story on paper that makes it immortal. My mom and I had always had a wonderful relationship, but working together has enhanced it and taken it to a new dimension. We have both rejoiced in our triumphs and suffered through our failures—together. I learned a great deal about where I came from and the tremendous legacy that has been left to me. I learned the importance of family and how vital it is to keep good records to pass down to the next generation. But most of all, I learned about myself. I’m so very grateful for the lifelong journey that began with a few scattered notes.
