{"id":2118,"date":"2020-03-31T20:23:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T20:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/?p=2118"},"modified":"2020-03-31T20:23:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T20:23:00","slug":"emma-perkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/biography\/emma-perkins\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Perkins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mama knew best – Joe, siblings continue Perkins legacy<\/strong>
(Friday, February 13, 2004
Pete Kendall<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/td><\/tr>
Joe Prekins learned right from wrong
from their mother Emma Perkins<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Raise a toast to Emma Perkins for the entirety of February\u2019s Black History Month. She was a fine woman. She taught her son Joe Perkins right from wrong \u2026 usually with the tongue but occasionally with the strap.
\u201cWhen I was 16, I decided one Monday morning to take a trip,\u201d Joe, 48, recalled. \u201cI didn\u2019t tell anybody. I rode the bus to Jacksonville, Florida, to see a friend.
\u201cI was gone six days. When I got back on the bus, the first person I saw was my mom walking on the square.
\u201cI hollered at her out the bus window. She shook her fist at me. When I got home, I got a whipping.\u201d
It may have been his last. It wasn\u2019t his first. Mama Emma was loving but stern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hardly got away with anything,\u201d Joe said with a chuckle. \u201cWhen it was time for a whipping and she didn\u2019t want to use a belt, she\u2019d say, \u2018Go get a switch out of that tree.\u2019
\u201cAnd you\u2019d better bring back the right switch. One day, she whipped me for half a block. I don\u2019t remember if she used a switch or a belt.\u201d
\u201cBoth,\u201d reminded Joe\u2019s sister, also named Emma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parents Emma and Willie Perkins have passed on. Their legacy has been preserved and treasured by Joe and his brothers and sisters \u2026 Herman, Willie, Allen, Johnny, Jimmy, Mary, Florene and Emma.
\u201cMy mom and dad moved to Granbury in 1955 when I was six months old,\u201d Joe said. \u201cThey worked at Hood General Hospital, which is now the Opera House inn.
\u201cMom was a cook at the hospital, and dad was a dietician and janitor. We came from Franklin in East Texas. We moved here with one of the doctors, I believe Dr. Jenkins.\u201d
The Perkins brood resided at 527 N. Crockett near the Santa Fe tracks in those years.
\u201cA black family lived where the post office is now,\u201d Joe said. \u201cThe parents\u2019 were Pearl and Earl Anglin. He shined shoes on the square. After he passed on, his son shined shoes.
\u201cA black woman lived almost directly in front of the present post office. I don\u2019t remember her name.\u201d
Joe now resides on Horton, a stone\u2019s throw from the old North Crockett address across the Santa Fe tracks.
\u201cQuite a few blacks lived in Granbury in the \u201960s,\u201d he said. \u201cMiss Martha (Anglin, Earl\u2019s sister) lived on this side of the tracks in the bend. She was kin to another black family, the Leonards, who were our neighbors on Crockett.
\u201cKeith Street was a historic street. Dip Keith lived there. He had two boys named Pete and Sol.\u201d
Joe is a cheerful adult. He watches John Wayne cowboy movies. Joe was an equally cheerful child.
\u201cI had a lot of fun,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we lived on Crockett, we would come to this side of the tracks to go to the Baptist church (Mt. Ebo) and the school beside the church.
\u201cAll my brothers and sisters went to school there. They would take me with them and baby-sit me while they were in school.
\u201cI remember my brothers wouldn\u2019t let me do this or do that with them. When they finally started letting me go along, we\u2019d walk down the railroad tracks and go to the river, when it was a river.
\u201cWe\u2019d fish and hunt and swim. That\u2019s where I learned to swim.\u201d
Good thing. \u201cWhen we lived on Crockett, a friend and I built a boat and put up a big stick in it with a flag that said \u2018\u2019River Rats.\u2019
\u201cWe took the boat to the river to a place we called pump hole. I fished that hole a long time. We put the boat in the water and got in, and the boat went straight to the bottom.
\u201cI got out of the water. I don\u2019t know how. All I know is I looked up and saw my mom, and I got whipped all the way to the house.\u201d
Such tales, tall or short, are popular at Perkins family reunions.
\u201cWe have reunions on my mom\u2019s side and dad\u2019s side,\u201d Joe said. \u201cSometimes, we\u2019re able to go, and sometimes we can\u2019t. This year, the reunion on mom\u2019s side is in New Orleans. I\u2019m going to love New Orleans.\u201d
He learned about life from mom, dad, brothers and sisters. He was smart enough to learn a lot on his own.
\u201cYou can\u2019t pick a color,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s always going to be somebody prejudiced against somebody else. I don\u2019t like to judge, and I don\u2019t like for anybody to judge me.
\u201cOne of these days, we\u2019re all going to have to answer for what we do. When the Lord asks me, I\u2019m going to say I did what I could to try to help out a little bit.\u201d
He owns a concrete business. He pours, and he touches up that which has been poured by others.
\u201cI fix markers in cemeteries, and I pour curbs and put gravel in plots. My wife (Becky) says, \u2018I\u2019m beginning to worry about you. You hang out in cemeteries a lot.\u2019
\u201cI tell her, \u2018I\u2019m going to end up in a cemetery one of these days. I\u2019m getting ready.\u2019\u201d
He is also one of Hood County\u2019s more renowned volunteers. He barbecues for such festivals as the Cresson Homecoming.
\u201cI like helping people when I can,\u201d Joe said. \u201cI try to be active in the community. There\u2019s no pay, but down the line it comes back to you in some kind of way.\u201d
He\u2019s celebrating Black History Month quietly \u2026 reflectively.
\u201cI think about the past and how far blacks have come. And blacks have come a long way.\u201d
He\u2019s celebrating it where he intends to celebrate many more.
\u201cI don\u2019t like big cities. I\u2019m gonna be here till I\u2019m outta here.\u201d
Outta here does not mean a bus to Florida.
\u201cIf I disappear again,\u201d Joe said, \u201cthey\u2019ll know I\u2019m camping. I love to go camping.\u201d

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mama knew best – Joe, siblings continue Perkins legacy(Friday, February 13, 2004Pete Kendall Joe Prekins learned right from wrongfrom their mother Emma Perkins Raise a toast to Emma Perkins for the entirety of February\u2019s Black History Month. She was a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2119,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions\/2119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}