Johnny Cash - grace grits and gardening

I’m practically related to Johnny Cash. Not really, but sometimes it feels that way. In the 1970s when Daddy bought the farmland next to the Cash home place in Dyess, Arkansas, we became connected. Instantly. It doesn’t matter that we were never properly introduced or that the Cash family had already sold their land. The soil has a way of connecting people. Like blood.

I think Johnny Cash would agree.

When Dr. Ruth Hawkins and Arkansas State approached Momma about donating or selling a portion of our land to the Johnny Cash restoration project for parking and whatnot, we hem and hawed around wondering, what would Daddy do? Then we decided to donate it anyway. It just felt right.

Johnny Cash Boyhood Home

That donation scored us an invite to the VIP Inspection Tour last Friday, a sort of preview before the August grand opening. (Really Momma was invited, and the rest of us tagged along as her entourage per usual.)

The impressive affair began as it should with an old-fashioned southern picnic—fried chicken, mashed potatoes, collards, black-eyed peas, cornbread, peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream. The fabulous StillBillys, a rockabilly band from Northeast Arkansas, set the tone with music from Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and of course Johnny Cash.

Picnic lunch provided by Whitton Farms and Tyboogie’s Cafe

The Dyess Administration Building, which by the way strikes an uncanny resemblance to Elvis’ Graceland, has been beautifully transformed into a first-class museum detailing the settling of Dyess Colony under the Works Progress Administration. Oral histories, photo displays and original artifacts profile the acute struggles borne by families who paved the way for us.

Dyess Colony Administration Building

A whole slew of Cash family members attended this shindig, traveling from Tennessee and beyond, including Cash’s youngest daughter, Tara, and siblings Tommy and Joanne who were born in Dyess and lived in the house. Addressing the crowd, they cracked jokes and shared memories. In short, they were down to earth and grateful for the transformation and preservation of their home place.

Really, they seemed like regular Mississippi County folks. And they traveled in grand style too.

Joanne Cash Yates (motorcycle) and other Cash family (pickup).

But now for the highlight of the day…Johnny Cash’s boyhood home has been restored and furnished with period pieces, some donated by the Cash family, others donated by area friends.

Johnny Cash Boyhood Home, Kitchen

Although I’ve been down the gravel road and seen the house too many times to count, I sensed a difference on this special day of commemoration. The very land felt hallowed—not only because Johnny Cash came from such a simple place, but because anyone survived such hardship wrought by the Great Depression and flood of 1937.

Walking through the cramped hallway, I sensed the loss of a time when modest spaces were filled with large, close-knit families who struggled and celebrated together. Working. Sleeping. Eating. Praying. And in the case of the Cash family, making music.

Johnny Cash’s bedroom

Gazing out the window across delta gumbo, the same delta gumbo Johnny Cash longed to escape, I understood the source of his music. The brutal, raw honesty of the land is what inspires me to write.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

At a very early age…I was very aware I was part of nature—that I sprang from the soil. – Johnny Cash

How High is the Water Mama – Johnny Cash

Grand Opening for this Arkansas State University Heritage Site is scheduled for August 16, 2014. The site will be open on a limited basis and by appointment for group tours beginning in late April 2014. Click HERE for additional information or phone 870-972-2803.

An amazing number of famous people came from the tiny little corner of Northeast Arkansas that I call home. Parhaps Mark Twain’s mighty Mississippi was an inspiration. Or maybe the smell of crop defoliant whips up the creative juices. Possibly the most notable resident of Mississippi County was Johnny Cash who rose from modest roots to become one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century.

Arkansas State University now owns the Cash home, and restoration efforts are underway. Fans will soon be able to visit his childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas, a small town located along the Arkansas Delta Byways.

The community of Dyess itself is history lesson, planned as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal Program. Five hundred poverty-stricken farm families were given a new start with a twenty or forty acre farm, a five-room, white-washed farmhouse, adjacent barn, outhouse, and chicken coop. Only white families of “good moral background” were selected. Each farmer drew an initial advance to purchase the property along with a mule, cow, groceries and supplies until the first year’s crop came in, at which time it was paid back. In three years’ time, the farmer received the deed to the house and land. The Cash family got in on this new deal.

The forty acre farm immediately adjacent to the Johnny Cash place is owned by my good moral farm family (on the other side of Johnny Cash’s temporary chain link fence). We didn’t get the land from President Roosevelt. Daddy bought it outright years ago from an attorney who took the land in trade for legal fees.

In addition to the home restoration, Arkansas State has plans to construct a museum and renovate much of the town of Dyess. The restoration buzz continues to grow. I imagine convoys of people making this pilgrimage to a place we Mississippi County residents knew was special all along.

These are exciting times for Northeast Arkansas!

talya

Grace Grits & Gardening

a look inside: Johnny Cash Boyhood Home

Johnny Cash: Restoration of Childhood Home, Dyess, Arkansas

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.