ACT I

In the 1950’s when I was a boy growing up in Cincinnati, my mother, sister and I traveled to the family farm in Marion Junction, Alabama. Every summer, like migrating birds returning to their place of birth, we also returned to the homestead. In my mind, the farm was where the maternal side of my family began. As I grew older, the farm became an incubator for questions about the past.

The farmhouse had a fireplace in the living room, and over it hung portraits of two “old people.” I knew that they were important because of the premium location that their portraits occupied. I learned that they were my maternal great-grandfather Amos Roscoe, and great-grandmother Amanda Toodle Roscoe. I would often look up at them as I walked over the creaky floor, wondering what they were like.

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