Sent by Melvin J. Collier, cousin and decendant of our Reed family tree.
http://africanaheritage.com/_Ancestor_Story_.asp?AncestorID=20
At the age of 18, I heard my mom and her sister say, “We didn’t start out as Reeds. Granddaddy’s last name used to be Barr.” “Well, how did he become a Reed”, I asked. My aunt responded, “Our aunt told us that he was a slave for a Barr Family in South Carolina and was sold to a Reed.” I began to ask more questions. I wanted to know more - more than my mom and her sister knew at the time. My thirst for knowledge about my ancestor led me on a quest to quench that thirst. After talking with more elders in the family and embarking on a genealogical journey, Grandpa Bill Reed’s story began to unfold.
My great grandfather was a man who loved to sit under his sycamore tree and tell his children and grandchildren about his days in South Carolina. He relayed stories of how his father was sold, never to be seen again, stories about the older sister who raised him, and how and why he and a group of other recently freed slaves decided to come to Como, Mississippi. As family members relayed the stories they remembered from his mouth, it was obvious that he was a man who wanted his children to know their history as they strive for a much better life. He wanted his family to know about the family he was separated from physically but not emotionally.
The stories he told and the keeping of those stories by the family elders have manifested into a family journey, a journey to the place where this great man had come from and the place where his stories began. Several years of genealogy research found this place to be Abbeville, South Carolina. Bill wanted to return to South Carolina to visit, but that opportunity never came. He died in 1937 at the age of 91 in Senatobia. However, his descendants will be making this journey for him, 138 years after his departure in 1866. The old plantation house of Lemuel Reid is still there. On July 8, 2004, this is where Bill’s descendants will honor his memory. This historical event will be in conjunction with the 2004 Reed-Puryear Family Reunion in Atlanta.
Grandpa Bill Reed always kept his father and other family members in his heart. He named his youngest son after his father who was taken away from him when he was 13. Pleasant Barr was sold to a local named James Giles, who packed up, left Abbeville, and headed west to Ripley, Mississippi, taking Pleasant with him. Unbeknownst to Bill, when he came to MS in 1866, he never knew that his father was just 60 miles away. He also never knew that his mother, grandmother, and other family members were just 90 miles away in Pontotoc, MS. They were taken there after William Barr had sold him and several siblings to his cousin, Lemuel Reid. The descendants of those family members have since been found. Despite Bill’s hardships as a slave, he never forgot the place where he came from. His willingness to talk about his life has enabled his family to go back and honor him in that place that he once called home.
A recent online article in the Senatobia, MS newspaper can be viewed at http://www.thedemocrat.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1867&dept_id=136530&newsid=11388586&PAG=461&rfi=9
Special quote from Dr. Leroy Frazier (great-great grandson of Bill Reed and Interim Pres. of Morris Brown College, Atlanta, GA): “The family research led me to discover that the ancestor of a professional friend of 30 years (Dr. David Beckley, Pres. of Rust College) was my great great great grandfather''s sister who both were separated and taken to different areas of the same state, never to see each other again."
Melvin J. Collier, Southaven, MS 38671
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What a reunion that is going to be. You must be excited!
Cynthia
(((HUGS))) and much love, your friend in tx., karen lynn. :D