Ms. Annie Mae Williams

from staff reports

Writer Sarah Williams considers her new book, Backside of the Country, fiction, but readily acknowledges that it was motivated by her mother, Ms. Annie Mae Williams. The characters are fictitious, but the stories that her mother and father, the late Mr. Willie Williams, told during her childhood, created the design of the story.

According to the author, “Mama has always been there for us and has been our inspiration. Mama and Daddy encouraged all of us to do something with our lives. I don’t think any of us would have gone as far as we have without them pushing us.”

Both Mr. Willie and Ms. Annie Mae were born in Mississippi, where, along with the majority of their friends and neighbors, they were sharecroppers. Like others who had little beyond the bare necessities, they didn’t really know they were poor, having no one to compare themselves to except others in the same situation.

Mr. Willie, in one of his stories, described to his children the kind of work he did while living in Mississippi. He would ride close to the butt of a mule with bales of cotton placed where the rider would ordinarily sit, as he took cotton to the gin.
Sarah Williams recalls that he would sometimes seem sad as he told the stories about his life as a young man, not because he was ashamed of his life during that time, but because what he experienced in his younger years was so similar to what slaves experienced all their lives.

When Sarah and her siblings were growing up, the Williams house was as full of young people as today’s community centers. Most afternoons when Ms. Annie Mae arrived home from work, children would be everywhere, some dancing and some just involved in conversations. She’d run them home, but they would come back in about half an hour.

Even now, years later, Ms. Annie Mae is always busy, whether cleaning, taking friends on errands, attending social functions, or furthering her education. As a young woman she had a thirst for knowledge but was unable to finish school while living in Mississippi. After moving to Asheville, she had to defer her dreams of education as she raised her family, but at age 64 she earned a GED through Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. Currently she is enrolled in a computer class at the Reuter Center at UNC-Asheville, and uses her home computer regularly.

Ms. Annie Mae notes how far the family has come. “I’m proud of my daughter’s achievements, and very proud that she wrote Backside of the Country. She persevered until she found a publisher to publish her book. Yes, I gave her the idea, but she did all of the research that went into her book, and her imagination took her characters farther than my real life could have taken them.”

Sarah Williams notes that her mother lacked much of the formal education that her children enjoyed, but all her children “still listen when she tells us what she thinks. She is one of the brightest people I know.” Nor has Ms. Annie Mae slaked her own thirst for knowledge. Sarah notes that even now, “Mama is encouraging her grandchildren to get an education and move on with their lives.”

Excerpts from “Backside of the Country” are online at www.authorsden.com/sarahwilliams and at www.freewebs.com/sarahwms, where visitors can sign Sarah Williams’s guestbook.