Miller Taylor
Ancestral Lore - "The Old Place"
“I've Always Lived Where There Were Pine Trees and Corn Grew.”
Geneva Lynnette Hester Dailey, Born February 12, 1922
This collection of images depicts my Grandmother returning to the major locations of her life, scenes that live on in her unwritten stories and oral histories. She is seen on the ancestral farm known only as “The Old Place,” which was originally purchased by her grandfather. She points to the chimney within the collapsed remains of the house he built there during the Civil War, the place of her birth. In the small community of White Oak she stands in the neatly planted rows of trees that were once her backyard and looks towards the barren hill where her and my Grandfather's house once stood many years ago before it was destroyed by fire. In front of a backdrop of worn wood and peeled paint, she stands by the doorway of the old Post Office that her husband walked through everyday while serving as a Rural Letter Carrier after returning from WWII. In her current home, where I grew up, she plays the harmonica and shows her favorite picture: an image of her father, Graham, posing with a pistol that she still keeps today. These are the scenes still given life through oral history, the settings of our Ancestral Lore.
Ancestral Lore - "The Old Place"
“I've Always Lived Where There Were Pine Trees and Corn Grew.”
Geneva Lynnette Hester Dailey, Born February 12, 1922
This collection of images depicts my Grandmother returning to the major locations of her life, scenes that live on in her unwritten stories and oral histories. She is seen on the ancestral farm known only as “The Old Place,” which was originally purchased by her grandfather. She points to the chimney within the collapsed remains of the house he built there during the Civil War, the place of her birth. In the small community of White Oak she stands in the neatly planted rows of trees that were once her backyard and looks towards the barren hill where her and my Grandfather's house once stood many years ago before it was destroyed by fire. In front of a backdrop of worn wood and peeled paint, she stands by the doorway of the old Post Office that her husband walked through everyday while serving as a Rural Letter Carrier after returning from WWII. In her current home, where I grew up, she plays the harmonica and shows her favorite picture: an image of her father, Graham, posing with a pistol that she still keeps today. These are the scenes still given life through oral history, the settings of our Ancestral Lore.