Personal Childhood Web

Mother and Pastor-(Jennie Rollins) My mother is the nurturer of the family. She was the one that stayed home to make sure we got school on time. When we came home from school, mom has a snack ready for us to eat. We would change clothes and sit at the kitchen table and do our home work. She would help us with our homework while she prepared dinner. My mom was the person who took care of disciplining us when we needed it because she was the one that was with us all the time. My mom was the person who looked out for other children in our neighborhood. Parents would give her permission to pick up their children from school if they were sick. She would make sure we made it to and from basketball, track and football practice.  Each holiday we would gather together in the kitchen to cook our meal. She gave each one of us a dish to be responsible for. That was her way of making sure that we felt a part of the holiday and the meal. My mother is also my pastor; she along with my father was always our spiritual leaders, but I was sixteen years old my mom established the Hope Community Baptist Church. All of her children join under her leadership because my dad was called to his churches, so many times he would relocate to a different church.

Father-(Milton Rollins) - My Daddy is a pastor and he was a preacher before I was born. My father was the head of the house; he was the provider of the house hold. We always considered my dad to be the clown of the family. Daddy is still considered the clown of the family in fact. He was the one that would normally read us our bed time stories every night. Every night we looked forward to hearing all of the voices of the story book characters come to life. My daddy was always active in our lives. My daddy was always at every school event that we were involved in. He would take off from work when we were in school plays or concerts. He would make sure that he did not take any preaching engagements if we were a part of something major at school.

Grandmother-(Lucile Harrison) - I was raised in Georgia so I was around my maternal grandmother. My grandmother was affectionally known as “Ma”. Ma was the baby sitter; she would look after my bothers, sister and my cousins. She would watch us as played in the sand in her yard. My grandmother would tell us stories about her growing up (she was 94 when she died) she was in her 80’s when she shared her stories with us. She would tell us stories about how her parents and grandparents survived slavery and the depression. She told us that she only completed the third grade. At night, she would sit with us and teach us how to spell. She also told us secrets of how to learn to spell words. She also shared with us how she learned to spell words by looking at her medicine bottles. I remember Ma and My aunt Minnie cooking Sunday dinners; we would go to Sunday dinners there after church. Ma would make what she called sweet bread which was like a cake that was made from regular flour instead of cake flour and it was denser that a normal cake. She would make her grandchildren sweet bread every week. Grandma would always encourage each of her grandchildren to get an education. She always told us to go as far as we could; she said that she did not have the opportunity to get the education that she wanted. 

 My aunt – (Minnie Harrison) - She was my mother younger sister. She was the 12^th child out of 13. She was like a second mother for me. She did not have children, but she always had children with her. She would let us follow her everywhere she went except for work. My aunt had a way of making each of us feel special. I remember taking the girls with her one weekend and the boy the next. She would take us to Hardees and before we returned back to my grandmother she would tell us to hide the evidence because she did not want the boys to know where we went. We would hide the bags, but would still run and tell the boys anyway and the boys would do the same the next week. My aunt was always telling us how beautiful we were. She was always buying us small gifts to let us know she loved us. We knew that she did not have much money, so everything that she did for us was extra special.