Memories of a Missillmich Woman

Meet the Woman

My name is Alma Ruth “Pumpkin” Pittmon.  “Sometimes I am called? Big Al, but I prefer Pumpkin. I was born at home, “March 20, 1949” to Joseph and Bettie Pittmon, in the country about ten miles from Mound Bayou, MS., and ten miles from Drew, Mississippi. “This house,” I called home was really my great uncle’s house; we were just renting from him by the way of “Share cropping”.  I was told I had a round face and yellowish complexion like a pumpkin.   My grandmother, Estella “Daniels” Clay gave me the nick-name “pumpkin” after my complexion.  My parents Joseph and Bettie had thirteen children and only nine of us lived.  I am the third child of nine children.  My mother’s sister Ruth, named, me.  “Alma Ruth,” her and my dad’s cousin.  My parents were having a baby every year. Mom told God thirteen lies. Every time she got pregnant, at the time of delivery when she starts having those labor pains, she would say, “Lord, please let me get through this, and I promise I won’t do this again”.

I could describe myself as being a good-hearted and caring person, who loves people.  I’m always willing to help anyone.  I am a day dreamer, quite sensitive, quiet, compassionate, generous, and, an extremely shy person that doesn’t approach people willingly or voluntarily.  I’m not a “diamond”; I am a “rock”.  As a matter of fact, I‘ve never had a diamond, and if I did, I wouldn’t know it was a diamond.   I love people, not materialistic things.  I guess, I’ve lived a sheltered life, I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know until I left Mississippi to live in Illinois.

I was a very good kid growing up. I only received two whippings in my whole life.  I received one from my mother for giving my sister Mae the sign with my finger, basically saying, “Kiss my ass.” The spanking I got from my dad was for calling my oldest sister Phine, a “Whore”.   I didn’t know the meaning of the word.  I discovered how naive I was after leaving the country and moving to Maywood, a suburb of Chicago, Ill. I was one dumb country girl without the street mentality.