A Family Christmas Present

I was born in the early 1950s in Edgecombe County near a very small town called Leggett.

I was the youngest child of 12 (8 girls and 4 boys). My momma and daddy sharecropped on a farm. They raised chickens and hogs, and we always had plenty of food on the table. I was born in late November, and Christmas was right around the corner. Momma and Daddy would always prefer to be paid just before Christmas for their farm work. Well, the year I was born, I was lucky to arrive in the hospital. When they brought me home, Momma gathered all the other children and told them they wouldn’t be getting any Christmas from Santa that year because they had to pay the hospital bill. Years later I was told that my older sister asked my parents, “Can’t you send her back to the hospital?” To this day, we laugh and joke about that.

Patricia Whitley, Rocky Mount, A member of Edgecombe-Martin County EMC