2007

Visiting Jackie's grandmother in Holladay, Tennesee.  Sister Elizabeth, Jackie, Hannah, Mary Jones, Robert.  May 2007.

Jackie told me,,,

That...

Her mother was married to Kenneth Still, a policeman, in Polk City, Florida.  They had a son named Jason Still.  After that son was born, her mother found out her husband was having an affair with another woman.  Jackie's mother then started an affair with her husband's friend, Richard Adams, who was also a policeman.  Phyllis got pregnant with Jackie, and her husband divorced her.

Jackie said she was responsible for herself when she was a child. She had to get herself up in the morning and get herself to school.  She had to find a way to get clothes to wear to school and keep them clean.  She remembers at one time living in a trailer with an electrical cord ran for the neighbor’s house for power.

Sometimes she stayed with her grandparents, Don and Mary Jones.  She said Mary would sometimes mistreat her, but Don was always kind.  Don drove a truck for a living, and when he had a run through the town where Jackie lived he would swing by her house and take her to McDonald’s to eat.  This is the only good memory I remember Jackie telling about her childhood.

Don and Mary at one time owned a farm.  Jackie remembers they had goats.  Also, Mary owned or operated a restaurant. Jackie can remember working with her grandmother at that restaurant.

When I met Jackie in 2003 she was estranged from her mother.  She had no contact with her mother during the time I knew her until about a week before her mother died in 2006. Jackie spoke to her mother once or twice on the phone during that week.  Jackie said her mother died of complications of AID.