{"id":9518,"date":"2023-04-27T20:31:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T20:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/?page_id=9518"},"modified":"2023-04-27T20:31:31","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T20:31:31","slug":"mrs-james-hand-oral-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/mrs-james-hand-oral-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Mrs. James Hand Oral History"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][divider line_type=”No Line”][vc_column_text]\n

Mrs. James Hand Oral History<\/span><\/h1>\n[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line”][page_submenu alignment=”center” sticky=”true” bg_color=”#008542″ link_color=”#ffffff”][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/manuscripts-and-guides\/” title=”Manuscripts & Subject Guides<\/strong>” id=”1682627102779-2″ tab_id=”1682627102780-9″] [\/page_link][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/guides-to-the-collection-page\/” title=”Collections Portal<\/strong>” id=”1682627102790-1″ tab_id=”1682627102791-10″] [\/page_link][page_link title=”Visit<\/strong>” id=”1682627111887-8″ tab_id=”1682627111888-5″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/visit\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”Make a Request<\/strong>” id=”1682627112716-10″ tab_id=”1682627112718-8″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/requests\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”About Us<\/strong>” id=”1682627113625-3″ tab_id=”1682627113626-6″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments-archives-museum-about-us\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”Yearbooks Online<\/strong>” id=”1682627114310-6″ tab_id=”1682627114311-6″ link_url=” https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/yearbooks-alumni-magazines-delta-state-histories\/”][\/page_link][\/page_submenu][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]Interviewer:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 William M. Cash<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interviewee:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mrs. James Hand<\/strong><\/p>\n

Date:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 November 29, 1973<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is William M. Cash of Delta State University interviewing Mrs. James Hand, Jr. of Rolling Fork, Mississippi.\u00a0 Today is November 29, 1973.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In another tape we have covered the Moore family as a pioneer family in Rolling Fork.\u00a0 In this tape, our concentration will be on you, Mrs. Hand, and Mr. Hand.\u00a0 Would you give us some biographical information concerning your parents perhaps when they came to this section.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My parents came to Mississippi as bride and groom in 1897 to live on and manage the family plantation of Baconia.\u00a0 I was born on November 30, 1898, on the Indian Mound just south of Rolling Fork, on the Mound Plantation, which our uncle, Daniel Lawson Moore, owned and where he spent the winter months.\u00a0 When I was one year old we moved back to Kentucky where my sister, Lillian Dudley Moore, and brother, Dudley Bowman Moore, Jr. were born.\u00a0 When I was we moved back to Baconia where we remained except for the summer months because of the mosquitoes and malaria where we went back to Kentucky each summer until the plantation was sold to a Mr. Holland and later to Edgar Bagget.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to tell you something about our early school training.\u00a0 We had a one-room school just below the house on Baconia.\u00a0 Miss Neal of Vicksburg was our teacher.\u00a0 And then after that we rode our horses to Rolling Fork to the schoolhouse which now is called the Baggett Apartment.\u00a0 When the roads were good, and never real good, because in the summertime they were about six inches deep with dust and in the wintertime there was at least eight inches to a foot in mud.\u00a0 We would drive our horse and buggy some days when the weather was good and when it was real muddy sometimes the axle would drag the mud was so deep.\u00a0 The in the spring when the overflow came we would have to come in a motorboat from Baconia to the Mound place,\u00a0 Mound house and stay there with my uncle from Monday until Friday when Pap would come back and get us and take us home for the weekend.\u00a0 When we were staring there in the water over all the land, we walked up the railroad to the courthouse where we had school.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What do you remember about your subsequent schooling, especially perhaps your schooling in Kentucky?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, when I was a junior in high school here my sister and I were sent to Kentucky to Kentucky College for Women at Danville, Kentucky.\u00a0 This school later became affiliated with Centre College, and we were there and when I finished there I came back to Mississippi.\u00a0 In the meantime my family had moved from Baconia to Edwards, Mississippi, because the p plantation had been sold at that time.\u00a0 So, I came back to Rolling Fork to visit a friend and go to a dance, and this friend introduced me to a young man she thought I would like to meet by the mane of James Hand, Jr. and it was a nice meeting.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I might ask you, perhaps this is a bit personal, but did you have a tremendously long engagement or was it shortly after this that we had the marriage?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well the engagement lasted a very short time.\u00a0 We were engaged in quite a short time, and we were married in April of the following spring and I moved back to Egremont and lived there for five years before we built a home in Rolling Fork.\u00a0 Our older son, James Hand III was born at Egremont.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now, from my understanding, originally your husband was involved in the timber business.\u00a0 As a struggling young couple did you find this to be a successful venture?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, not for long.\u00a0 The floods came.\u00a0 He and his father after Jim came home to Purvis after World War I acquired six thousand acres of timber east of Egremont and had a sawmill, hardwood sawmill, but the following spring the water from the overflow was seventeen feet deep at the mill, so it did quite a bit of damage.\u00a0 Not only to the mill but to the pocketbooks.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Certainly coming from that tragedy and adversity in the early years of the difficulty in timber, Mr. Hand has become a very successful businessman, but he\u2019s become even more than that.\u00a0 He\u2019s become a great Mississippian as well as a great American.\u00a0 He\u2019s been extremely loyal to his community, to his state, and his achievements and record of service to his fellowman are certainly well-known to the Mississippi area; and we would just like for a person who knows him best to share with us some of his achievements and some of his honors and certainly all of these have been well deserved.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 James Hand, Jr. was born in Purvis, Mississippi on July 30, 1893.\u00a0 He attended the University Military School at Mobile, graduated there in 1911, and went to the University of Missouri for his B.S. degree in Agriculture in 1915.\u00a0 He was president of Phi Kappa Psi social fraternity and inter-fraternity council, Gamma Sigma Delta honorary agricultural fraternity, Chi Chi Chi inter-fraternity president.\u00a0 He was a field artillery officer in training school at Camp Taylor, 1918, and a second lieutenant reserve, Board of Supervisors, 1924-1928, Chairman, Official Board in the United Methodist Church, and also was a Sunday school teacher for many years.\u00a0 He was one of the founders of Delta Council and president, President of Mississippi Economic Council, State Chamber of Commerce, Progressive Farmer Man of the Year in Agriculture in Mississippi, University of Mississippi Man of the Year, Advisory Council to College and University Presidents, Advisory Council to Mississippi Department of Education on Vocational and Technical Education, Committee of 100, Chandler – School of Theology at Emory University, National Agriculture Advisory Committee under Eisenhower, Mississippi State Committee \u2013 Agricultural Administration, former director of Mississippi Power and light Company, director of the Bank of Anguilla, member of the board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners, former director of First Mississippi Corporation.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Omicron Delta Kappa, honorary, Mississippi State University.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, and former member of\u00a0 Mississippi Forestry Commission, former president of the Rotary Club; board chairman, treasurer, six farm equipment dealerships; President of five farm corporations; Board Chairman of two finance corporations.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Certainly, this is a most imposing list of achievements, but there is something else that certainly contributes to a man of his stature.\u00a0 I think perhaps, you, as a person who knows him best might just describe what traits does Mr. James Hand, Jr. posses?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I have the vocabulary to do it justice, but he is a generous, sympathetic, loving and warm person; a wonderful husband and a wonderful father.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Certainly a very important phase of community life would be the activity of the women.\u00a0 For example, Mrs. Hand, we might talk a little bit about the Methodist women, some of their projects, your Sunday school, WSCS.\u00a0 Would you share with us some of the activities of the ladies of the community regarding your church?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, we have had a very active group of women throughout the years.\u00a0 Just mow in the last three or four years we have not been as active as we might have been although we are always interested in finding out what we can do to help anyone in distress or ill in the community, and especially when the tornado came through the Delta and so many were made homeless and injured.\u00a0 We did all we could and our fellowship hall of the church was just turned into a storage place for all kinds of clothing or anything anyone had to spare to help and really it was amazing how much we could do at that time.\u00a0 And speaking of the tornado, there were so many injured who were brought to the school gymnasium and wrapped in blankets and talked and fed and taken care of there until they could be placed in the proper places.\u00a0 Our society does try to think of anyone ill in the community and visit them and take them flowers, something that they might enjoy, and some refreshments.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do you have separate Sunday schools here for ladies and gentlemen or do you have the mixed classes or perhaps do you have any of what we might call church cooperation with civic clubs, things of this nature?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, yes we do.\u00a0 I would like to say that for years the WSCS served the Rotarians a dinner in our church fellowship hall using our kitchen of course so that was something that we could do for the community and also to make a little money f or the society.\u00a0 We do have in the Sunday school a number of classes.\u00a0 Of course, the very young and then the others and on up, and a class called the fellowship class where the young married and on up have their classes together and they like it so well, they don\u2019t like to come on to the older classes.\u00a0 We are having a hard time getting some new members but we do have the men\u2019s class and also the women\u2019s class and we have some mighty faithful teachers in both and in all the classes.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Taking a slightly different approach here, do we find garden clubs for example in Rolling Fork?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oh yes, years ago we organized a garden club.\u00a0 In fact, it was organized right here in this living room and as usual when anyone takes a lead to do something of the kind they get a good job.\u00a0 I was made first president.\u00a0 And, many others have served very faithfully.\u00a0 To name a few, Mrs. Harry Carpenter, Mrs. George Cortwright, Mrs. Blaine Barrier, Mrs. Cauley Cortwright, Mrs. Dudley Moore, and many others and the garden club is still very active and under good leadership.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do you have literary clubs or activity clubs of this type in the Rolling Fork community?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Years ago we organized a literary club, the Delphian Club.\u00a0 We met in the residential hotel when Mr. and Mrs. William Gibbons had the hotel and Mrs. Gibbons was so gracious to have us meet there each month because she had a nice large room for us.\u00a0 And then we have of course bridge clubs and a Rook club years ago.\u00a0 We started playing\u2026<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do you have and active P.T.A.?\u00a0 Certainly it should include both parents but often times P.T.A. is identified with women\u2019s activities.\u00a0 I\u2019m certain that P.T.A. here perhaps has had excellent leadership and participation from the ladies of the community.<\/p>\n

Mr. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, we do have an active P.T.A. Years ago when we needed to make some money one thing I remember we did was to have a womanless wedding and if you want have something that will draw a crowd and make some money just have one.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Certainly we have not intended to include all of the numerous contributions that the fine ladies of the community have made but just in summary could you perhaps think of anything that we may have omitted?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, I\u2019d like to mention during the war we had a room in the courthouse where the ladies gathered several days a week to make and wrap bandages and to make other things.\u00a0 I can\u2019t recall just what they called them that the soldiers needed to carry the things in, little kits I suppose, and so we did work there very faithfully.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cash:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mrs. Hand, I have noted a plaque of Mr. Hand\u2019s service as president of the Delta Council.\u00a0 Seems that I also recall that James Hand III also served in that capacity.\u00a0 Am I correct?<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hand:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, so far as I know they are the only father-son presidents of Delta Council and our son-in-law Rives Carter is vice president just now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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