I Survived Lake Lanier

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome one and all to the Professional Homegirl Podcast. Before
we begin today's episode, we want to remind you that
the views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those
of the host and guests and are intended for educational
and entertaining purposes. In this safe space, no question is
off limits because you never know how someone's storyline can
be your lifeline. The Professional Homegirl Podcast is here to

(00:22):
celebrate the diverse voices, stories and experiences of women of color,
providing a platform for authentic and empowering conversations. There will
be some key king, some tears, but most importantly a
reminder that tough times don't last, but professional homegirls do
enjoy the show.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
What's a Professional home Girls? It's Shagar Epine here, and
I hope all is cute.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
This week's episode is a real treat, so we're just
gonna jump right in. Okay, So I have been working
on this one since last year, right and as you
all know, I dropped my spooky series every October. So
originally I wanted to share this episode then, but my
guests and I we couldn't get our schedules on the
same page. Because you know, life be lifeing but you
know your girl doesn't give up, okay, And I'm also

(01:27):
cash this word. I am also a firm believer that
delay does not mean denial. So my guest is here
to share her story today on surviving the infamous Lake Lanier,
known for its eerie history, unexplained drownness, and supernatural encounters.
Lake Lanier has claimed countless lives, but My guests live

(01:49):
to tell the tale. However, Lake Lanier is just a
fragment of her story, from seeing spiritual beings as a
child to enduring the heartbreaking loss of her sister in
a murdered suard side. My guess journey is a testament
to unshakable faith, resilience, encourage in the face of unimaginable challenges.

(02:10):
So this is one of those episodes that you don't
want to miss, guys, So please grab your headphones and
get cozy, because I survived Lake Lanier. Starts now, y'all.
Me and my guests was just key king, and I
was just telling her don't be all nervous and stuff,
because I know she far from shy to my guess,
how you feeling. How you doing?

Speaker 3 (02:29):
I'm doing well and I'm feeling pretty good. I have
no complaints. Add on, Hey.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Guys, yes, y'all, I am so excited to have her
on the show. We've been working on trying to get
her on the show since since October, right or before then?

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yep? Since August? Yeah right.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Listen, one thing about meghbors, one thing about me, y'all.
Y'all know, I am very persistent. I was texting her,
I was emailing her. I was like, please, when the
time it's right, I really want you to be on
the show. And we finally made it happen. So I
really appreciate you taking the time at your day to
speak with me.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
I appreciate your persistence.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Sae, there we go. Yeah, well, I'm one of the
main reasons why I want to have you on the
show because I've been doing a lot of research on
Lake Lanier, and I have never seen a black person
share their survivor story, have you.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Well, no, and I had actually not even talked about
it for years until you saw me do until the
TikTok that I did Surviving Likely Near in nineteen ninety seven,
I hadn't talked about it in about twenty years. It
had been a long time before I even brought it
up again because of the memories and stuff and all
the emotions that came along with it. It was just

(03:44):
not something that I talked talked about because normally when
you do talk about something like that, people automatical because
they don't know about Oscarville first of all, and neither
did I. Like I said, I only learned about Oscarville
like three years ago. Oh wow, about ten years ago
that I learned about Oscarville. So I had no clue
of what was going on. But once I found out

(04:06):
about Oscarville, that made me understand why there was trees
underneath the water, because I'm never understood that. So, yeah,
I've never heard anybody tell me that they've almost drowned
there and that they made it. Most people don't make it.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, Well, for those who didn't know, Oscarville was once
a thriving black community before being submerged to create Lake
lan NERD. So do you feel like the history of
Oscarville is well known or do you feel like it's
intentionally overlook.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
I feel like it's been hidden or you know, some
time now because nobody and my family even knew about
Oscarville either. Yeah, I mean, my mom is eighty two
years old from Alabama and she had never heard of Oscarville,
you know what I'm saying. So I think it's more
of something like out of sight, out of mind, let's

(04:56):
bury it and let's hide what's going on. And if
you don't uh, I said, let's say read or ask questions.
Some things we won't know, you know. So Yeah, I
think that I don't think that it was something that
they wanted us to know about. That's why they created
Lake Lanear.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah. I agree, because I feel like if you're not
from that area, then you wouldn't know, because I didn't.
I didn't find out about lke Lanariir until like a
couple of years before, maybe like five years ago.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, it's been three for me.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah. So why do you think people are so fascinated
by the ghost stories and myths surrounding Lake Lanary because
your story went viral. Your story went viral a couple
of times.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, did probably because it's a lot of people in
the world that experienced paranormal things, and that not just
saying just in the lake. There's a lot of people
who experience things in their homes growing up as children,
and it's not stuff that you can just readily just
go and talk to anybody about you know what exactly.

(05:55):
People you have, you have to keep that stuff in
for like years and years and years because you feel
like if I go tell somebody about it, they're not
gonna believe me. They're gonna think that I'm just making
up some stuff. Because there was quite a few people
who had, you know, some crazy stuff to say, Like
my inbox went off. That's kind of why I went
silent for a minute, because my inbox it was crazy.

(06:16):
They got kind of crazy what they were saying, like
we're stuff like, you know, like I'm trying to start
a race war, and I'm like, I'm not trying to
start anything. The only thing that I did was tell
my story. And in the process of telling my story,
there was already they were already doing on the Lanear Trail,
you know what I mean, They had already did the
Lanear movie. And then it was so specific how God

(06:39):
told me to name it Surviving Lake Lanier nineteen ninety
seven because he knew that he had already had people
out there that was making a documentary called Surviving Lake Lanier.
So that way I wasn't stepping on their toes and
they weren't stepping on mine, you know what I mean.
And then they reached out to me and we all
got together. They made it happen, just like you just

(07:00):
made this happen. That made it happen, and that's how
the documentary came about. But yeah, I haven't. I don't
know of anyone other than myself opening up my mouth
and saying something. Who even knew about Oscarville?

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah? Did you ever experience paranormal before?

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Oh? Yeah, I've been. I've been living with this my
whole life. I've been a fear my whole life. I'm
a seal. I can see, I can hear, I can smell,
I can feel sounds weird. But all that my whole
life since I was a child. I had a crazy
childhood growing up. You know, I was one of those
kids who they used to say that witch ride your
back and slanging around the room, you know what I mean. So, yeah,

(07:44):
it's nothing. Paranormal things is nothing new to me. I've
been dealing with this stuff my whole life.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Was there ever a situation where you were scared when
you was a kid?

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Pretty much my whole childhood. It took my mom to
you know, tell me to teach me about please the
blood of Jesus. You know, as a child, that's what
your mom teaches, you know, you plead the blood of
Jesus and that'll allow you to be loosed. But I've
had some experiences even in my home growing up where
there used to be. I know, it's gonna sound so

(08:15):
crazy to some people, but for there's a remnant of
people that I won't sound crazy to. And that's the
remnant of people that God got me here for. There
was just like a little demon, I called it a
little m and he was very visible in my home,
like like to like go from in my house, like
we had the first area of the house was the
front area where all the kids lived. The first the

(08:36):
living room, dining room, all that stuff. Then you had
the kitchen which separated the back of the house, which
was the den in my parents' room. So if you
were in the den watching TV or something and the
doorbell around, you had to run full speed to the
door because if you didn't, you was gonna see that
little thing I call it a little m. He would
be standing like right in the corner. It was a

(08:57):
little short, little green emp be in my house like
We found out years later that some man who lived
there before us committed suicide in the house. I don't
know if they had something to do with it or what,
but me and my sister, having my sister Tavia, I
don't know if I should be saying their names, but anyways,

(09:17):
we grew up with a lot of paranormal activities going
on in our house. Is all the way down to
the clowns that oh I don't fuck with no clowns now,
I don't fool with them girls, right, I don't fool
with them.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
And I love like scary movies and stuff, but clowns, Nah,
that's not my bag.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
And I used to want scary movies, but I don't
watch them anymore. I don't. If I do, it has
to be daytime for me to watch a scary movie.
I will not watch a scary movie after dark.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Well, I will say there was a period of time
where I took a break from watching scary movies because
I was just like, I think I was just going
through my own little spiritual awakening with certain things, and
I was like, oh no, let me take a little
break because things were starting to get a little too
weird for me. So Yeah, I definitely understand you with that.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Now, do you feel that the media and local authorities
do enough to inform the public about the dangers of
the lake?

Speaker 3 (10:11):
Because I don't live there, I don't live in that area,
I can't really tell you what they do because I
don't live in that area, right. You know? Now, my sister,
her husband, he was raised in that area, so he
knows about the lake. He spent time on the lake
and everything, you know what I mean. But I don't
think he even knew about Oscarville. I think he learned
about Oscarville at the same you know, during this whole

(10:34):
situation of surviving Lake Lanier. I don't think he even
I don't think that they told him the stories.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Did he have any experiences or did anything feel a
little weird to him that you know of?

Speaker 3 (10:44):
I know, if I'm not mistaken, I don't want to
lie on my brother in law, but I'm almost positive
that one of his friends growing up lost his life
in that lake. I'm almost positive that my brother in
law is the one that gave me that story of
one of his friends. I haven't talked to many people
that grew up around the lake, other than one other

(11:05):
teacher that well, a social worker that works at my
son's school. She would come around quite a bit and stuff.
But it's like, ever since she saw the documentary, she
don't even come around them all. She used to, Like,
it's a lot weird things that started happening around where
I live. Like I'm literally trying to find a place
to move right now, right now, Like that's I'm telling you.

(11:28):
The reason why I kind of went quiet is because
strange things started happening around where I live. Like the
people out here where I live, they know that that's
me on the documentary. My children are very proud of
their mom, so you know they are walking advertisement of Hey,
check out Surviving Lake Lanier on Amazon Prime. And we
had a situation where one of the neighbors I have

(11:49):
a grandson. He's a mixed young man, right, so he
has some friends. That's their neighbor. We all live in
the same Traylor Park or main in fact, your home park.
How you want to say it, I.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Don't want to give you. But you're in the south
right right, okay, right?

Speaker 3 (12:07):
And uh so, when when it was found out that
that's me, you know, lady with the big old Afro.
That's that's her. They began to not want their kids
to play with My son. Told my grandson that his
uncle was going to be the downfall of him, which
would be my son, that his uncle would be the

(12:27):
downfall of him, the little black boy, you know what
I mean, Just like little stuff called CPS on my
my granddaughter, well, my granddaughter and grandson both the same on.
Their mom had CPS go over there to the house
and you know, just saying all kinds of stuff. But
the reality of the situation was he's a racist, which

(12:48):
that is what he is. He's a proud walks around
probably and says it and created strife between children. Mmm,
just by me bringing just for me, share my story,
you know what I mean? My garbage can do you
know what I mean? The garbage cans I've bought because
they don't have it on the they don't have it

(13:08):
on the city right, so they have a private they
have private people who come out here and do the trash.
My garbage can has been stolen time after time after time.
I keep spending thirty five forty five fifty dollars on
garbage cans. Write my name, not my name, but my
my house number and all that stuff from there, and
some kind of way. Even though we got cameras out here,

(13:29):
my garbage cans keep coming up missing, packages come up missing.
I mean, just I've had none of these problems for
the last four years that I've been out here. I've
been out here this year would be four years, and
I've not had no problems ever since August. I've had
some crazy stuff going on around where I stay. I've

(13:49):
received some crazy inboxes. You know. It's just like crazy stuff.
You know. I'm saying that I'm trying to create a
race war, you know, and I'm not doing it. It
has nothing to do with a race war. Has something
to do with knowing who you are, Okay, knowing your
story and telling your story has nothing to do with
his story. Has something to do with our story and
want to know our stories, you know what I mean.

(14:11):
So not out of fear or anything like that, but
out of wisdom, because I do have children that run
around out here and play and have a you know,
I just have I'm actually looking for a place to
move right now.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, do with everything that's going on, do you have
regress of sharing your story?

Speaker 3 (14:27):
No? I do not, because greater is he that's in
me than he that's in the world. I'm a strong
believer in the word. I stand on it, you know
what I mean. So hey, it is what it is.
God created me for such a time as this to
tell the story. He allowed me to live for a reason.
So I mean, there's no reason to be afraid. If
I was gonna be dead, I would have died then.

(14:48):
And that's not the only time that the devil has
tried to take me out of here. But that that's
not the only near death experience I've had. I've had
several throughout my life, you know what I mean. But
I'm still here to be sitting right here talking to
you right now. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
I mean, so you spoke about the negative responses you received.
What were some of the positive responses, because I know
a lot of people have to reach out and just like,
thank you for.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
Now. I got way more positive than negative, way more
positive than negative. I got so many people of all backgrounds.
I'm not gonna just say black people, white people, trying
to I mean of all backgrounds reaching out and saying,
you know, if you ever decide to do anything where
we go to the lake and just pay homage to
the falling you know what I mean to the town.

(15:33):
I mean, I have several different people who say that
they would love to do that. Please keep them informed
if anything like that about Yes, I would if the
I'm not gonna say if I'm gonna say when when
my pockets are blessed to be able to do that,
then by all means I am if I find some

(15:54):
if there's some people who want to step up and say, well, hey,
let's go in together money you know, money wise, I'm
gonna ask anybody for anything. But if anybody want to
come together and do that, I'm I'm about that life.
Yes I would.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
I would know you about that life.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, I would. I would, And I would bring my children.
Now I'm not telling you I'm gonna get in the water.
I'm not even gonna tell you I'm go out on
a boat on the water. No, No, I'm not doing
that now. And I did do that during when story, Yeah,
yeah I did. I did get the opportunity to go
out there and do that, you know what I mean.
And that bought a lot of peace to me too.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Oh after you after nineteen ninety seven, yeah, free, But
I didn't know I didn't know that you went back
out there because I know you have a fear for
large bodies of waters and pools, so I didn't be
out on the boat. Yeah, okay, so we'll get to
that part because I didn't know that. Wow. So you
do believe that there is a spiritual connection between physical

(16:50):
places and spiritual energy.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yes, I do. I do. I believe that there was
a movie. I can't think of the name of the movie,
but it was as if life left, like when people leave,
their lives leave like stains in the earth, you know
what I mean. I don't know. I just know that
when I do know this, when my husband passed, I'll
just give you a little snippet. When my husband passed

(17:15):
and I went to the hospital to sama goodbyees after
they called me and let me know that he didn't
make it. We had to take him off of the respiratory.
We had to take him off of that. He survived
for a few hours, several hours actually, they called me
and they told me that that he had passed. So
and I didn't want to see that. So I was

(17:36):
not there when he took his last breath because that's
not something that I.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Wanted to see.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Right. So, but when I went there and I went
in that room, it was so quiet, and my husband's
snort really really loud, so for it to be so quiet,
it was just like a not eerie But it was
one of the most peaceful, beautiful feelings that I could.
I can't even explain it to you. How beautiful he
he looked so beautiful. And I stood over the bed

(18:04):
and I leaned over like this to look into his face,
and at the same exact moment, he his spiritual self
was standing on the other side of the bed. He
looked like crystallized water. The closest thing that I can
tell you to what I saw was like TC Don
gold Chase. You know that. He looked like that. And

(18:25):
we both at the same time leaned over and looked
at him, and like looked at each other. And the
chaplain was in the room, and I turned around and
looked at the chap His eyes was big. I said,
did you just do that? He said, ma'am, I don't
really know what I just saw. I said, oh, you
know what you saw? He saw the same thing that
I just saw. You know what I mean? He was
like crystallized water. So I know for a fact one

(18:48):
hundred percent that just like there's a physical world, there's
a spiritual world, because I saw him in the spirit.
Four months later, I saw my father the same way.
Like I was laying on my couch and my home.
I didn't know my dad was gone. I saw the
crystallized man, which like look right at my face while
I was laying on the couch here like peep down
in my face and look down on my face. And

(19:09):
I was like, said, other, then, is that you. I said,
just give me a sign if that's you, because I'm
not afraid right now, I'm not afraid, So give me
a sign if that's you. Twenty twenty minutes passed by,
no sign like the twenty one. Like mark twenty one,
it happened again, and I was like confused because I said,

(19:32):
give me a sign if that was you, and nothing happened.
And then right after it happened that second time, my
phone wrong. It was my mom saying that my dad
was happening. Yeah, that was my dad. No one can
tell me that my dad didn't come to see about
me before you left, you know what I mean, before
he I don't know how it goes. Nobody has ever

(19:53):
taught me on that. I've never heard people in church
say that when you pass away, when a person passed away,
they sole for a little while or something. I've never
heard that. You know, you see it in movies, but
I've never heard anyone say it. But I've experienced it
in real life by actually seeing my loved one after
they passed from life from a from a physical body

(20:16):
to a spiritual body. I've actually saw that with my
eyes twice.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
You know, I feel like a lot of people can
relate to those instances because I had a situation like
that with my grandmother and before she transitioned, I had
a dream that she was gonna leave, and so next
thing you know, she did pass away. So it's like
sometimes I be feeling like the spirit world be preparing
you for certain things before it happens, especially when somebody
that's near and dear to you. Yes, because in my

(20:51):
dream when she was when she passed away, I was hysterical,
but I couldn't see her face. But I'm like, who
else would I act like this with it? And then true
enough the time, So I believe you. I believe in
all this stuff sometimes because I think a lot of
times it's just to be a little you know, reminders
and get you ready pairing things of that nature. So yeah,

(21:11):
So what knowing the full history of Oscarville had changed
your decision to visit lake Land Are in the first place.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
No, because actually I didn't know anything about Lakeland Air.
I was in job corps, so it was a field trip.
So I was excited about going to the lake, you
know what I mean. That was like the closest thing
to the beach to me, being that I'm a Florida girl,
you know, and I'm in the middle of Georgia, in
the middle of nowhere. To know, for them to say
We're gonna go here, that was exciting to me because
it was to me it was like, I'm going to
the beach, right, you know what I mean now to

(21:41):
be on the beach and me, I'm going to stay
at the shore. I'm not ever going all the way
into the water. But for some reason I trusted, like
I said, I got on the float and I trusted Sammy.
We went out in the water and everything happened the
way that it happened. But I don't I'm not the
person who goes into the ocean water. I don't.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
I mean just after.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
This was actually like Lanar, this was actually this actually
happened at Lake Lanier. I was twenty one years old
when this happened.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
You know what I'm saying. You say you don't go
into the ocean at all. Was that before the incident
or after we did? You always have a fear of
body of water.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
I've always had a fear of large bodies of water.
But as a child, when we went to the beach,
my dad could swim, My uncles could swim. You know.
As a child, we went as family groups and my
dad would put us on his back, and he would
swim in the ocean, you know, swim in the water
with us on his back and stuff like that. But
I've never actually been out in the ocean on my own,
you know what I mean, on a float or anything

(22:40):
like that. You know what I mean. I've always been
afraid of big bodies of water.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
So what made you.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
Because I wanted I'm a protector. I'm a protector. I
feel like the whole world all around me and it
ain't gonna touch me. I mean, I don't know, maybe
you know that's a mental illness. I don't know, but
it's the way that I actually feel like I'm a protector,
and I'm a protector of the people that I love.
And if I call you my little sister and you

(23:10):
need me, I'm gonna show up for you. If I
call you my friend or whatever, I'm gonna be there
for you. And being that twin was she was younger
than me, you know what I mean, and she wanted
to go out on the floating. Well, I'm your protector. Now.
I know that I can swim good enough in my
mind not to drown because my sister in law, she
was in the Air Force at eighteen, she taught me

(23:31):
how to swim in the pool though, you know what
I mean, in a pool, So I knew that I
could swim good enough not to drown in the pool.
But at the same time, the water didn't seem like
I didn't know anything about. There was a drop off.
You feel me when you walk out into Lake Lanier,
you're walking in water. You're walking like the water may

(23:54):
maybe come to your waist as you want to maybe
as you're walking out. I didn't realize that where we
went it was a drop off. So when I went
off the float, I was in the drop off period. Yeah,
that's where I was going because I was in trees.
I wasn't where there was like a sandboy, it wasn't
no sand and all that. When I dropped off and

(24:16):
went Now, I went down between trees. Mmm.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
And you men, So there's something like there's something turned
y'all over, Like how did y'all get underwater?

Speaker 3 (24:28):
A boy did that. I don't want to just call
him the demon, but I called him the demon back then,
and I still called him that today because I don't know.
Just when I'm talking about it, I say the demon,
you know, I mean the demon boy, you know what
I mean. But it was a dude who actually came out.
We were actually out there smoking. I'm not gonna pretend
like we was out there, you know what I mean.

(24:49):
We were just out there sun bathing and stuff because
we wasn't. We went out there so we can smoke
without getting caught smoking, you know what I mean. So
it was out there smoking, and he came out there.
And like I said, twice before that he had smoked
with us, but on campus, not away from campus, you
know what I mean. So the second, the first time
he smoked with us, his eyes turned red he looked weird,

(25:11):
So I was like, okay, lord, he looked like a deanon,
you know what I mean. The second time we smoked together,
I couldn't handle it because I'm like, he actually looked
like a demon, you know what I mean. I can't
sit him. So after the second time, there is no
more hanging out, no more chilling. So we end up
out here. We're on the field tip here he comes. Now.
I haven't said to him, man, I can't I'm not

(25:32):
smoking with a weed with you no more. I don't
want to be around you. I haven't said anything like
that to him, you know what I mean. So he
didn't know that. But when he came out there, I
let him know just then we're not ain't nothing, you
ain't hit my blood, pretty much what he pretty much said,
you know what I mean. And he went under the water,
and I'm thinking that he's going under the water to
swim away, but that's not what he did. He went

(25:52):
under the water, went under the floating, and then came
up from under the floating and knocked us off the floating.
Twin went that way. I went that way. Stand with
dread saved Twin obviously, because she didn't die, you know
what I mean, And there was nobody around for me,
and I wish I can. I wish that some kind
of way. I pray to God that Twin is still

(26:13):
alive and well somewhere in the world. And I pray
to God that at some point it can get to
her so that I can talk to her and then
maybe we can come together and talk to you, yeah,
you know about the situation or whatever. So I can't
readily tell you what was going on with her because
I was in the process of what I was going

(26:35):
through with going down up between them, you know, the trees,
and just like in awe of like, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Could you say you wasn't stared at first? You said
that she was actually amazed.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Fear had left my body. There was no fear once
I hit the water. I can't tell you what I
was feeling on the fall. I can't tell you on that,
but once my head went under that water, there was
no fear. I was amazed at what I saw because
just like we go outside and we look at the
trees in our yard, how tall, and the trees they
were under the water, and I was just like, whoa,
what's trees? Down here. And then I heard a boy

(27:08):
crazy and it said you're under the water. And I
was like, oh, no, Lord, not like this, not like this.
And then that's when I heard that same voice, just
as calm as you please, tell me to take my hands,
cuff them like this and do a flying motion. And
I did that and I came up out of the water.
When I came up out of the water, I looked around.

(27:30):
There was no one around me, so I screamed as
loud as I could. My thig mom touched and then whoosh,
back under the water. When I went back under the water,
same thing. Fear completely left my body. It was as
if I was amazed, like whoa, that really is trees
down here? Now? After that point, I don't know. I

(27:53):
don't know. It's like a blank space. And I've been
asking God to show me, but I'm not gonna go
be hypnotized anything like that to try to see and
asking God. You know, in that space, was I unconscious?
You know, what was what was going on? Because nobody
was around me, so it had to take whoever, however,

(28:13):
it had to take them a minute to get to
me because nobody was right there.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
You know what, I mean.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
All I know is I realized at some point I
was no longer under the water and I was alive,
and I opened my eyes. That's how I know I
was being carried by a black man, a man of color,
you know what I mean. Because my head was resting
in his chest like this, my arms was around his neck,
and he was carrying me like I was a baby.

(28:39):
He sat me down on the shore. He walked me
all the way to the shore. I don't even remember.
I don't even remember him swimming me to the shore.
There is no recollection of being swimmed anywhere. He walked
to me. When my eyes opened, I was being walked.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Do you think he was real?

Speaker 3 (29:00):
I don't know. I don't want to sound crazy, but
I don't know that crazy.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
I think.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Listen, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
That's why I said, if if a person did that
and you hear the story, please say, hey, that was me.
You know, I'm the person that saved you. I'm the
person that SUTs you down on the shore, you know
what I mean? Like, please stand up and say that.
Because I don't know. I can't tell you who that was.

(29:26):
All I know is I was set on the shore
when I sat down, I came out, my head came
up like this, you know, and then my eyesight was
the boy and I said, tell me that I ain't
tried to trow on me. And then the dudes because
I was popular, you know, I've always been kind of
a popular.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Girl, you.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Know.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
I can tell you know, all the guys kind of
like they just went automatically into defense for me. And
it was a big brawl on the side of the lake.
We ended up having to pack up and we had
to leave. He was terminated that night.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
So Waite, So you and Twin never talked about this
after that, y'all just went y'all separate ways.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
No, we were in job We was actually in job
corps together. I just don't re never burn any of that.
I just honestly don't. I can't tell you anything that
we talked about. I can't tell you I can't see
in my head, like like literally I'm sitting here trying
to go inside my head and look and see. I

(30:32):
can't see a conversation.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Do you remember why you'll stopped talking.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
No, the only reason why we stopped talking is because
we moved to two that we was in two different
places in life. I ended up marrying the guy that
I was dating in job Corps was a guy that
I started dating in job Corps. We ended up getting
leaving job Corps together abruptly, so she was still there. Okay,
he got kicked, he got terminated, and I left with him. Okay,

(31:00):
he got terminated and I left with him. We went
to Kentucky, we got married, and then we started our life.
It wasn't until on the way from Kentucky to Atlanta, Georgia,
which is where we ended up moving to that I
saw Twin again. And that was maybe two maybe two,

(31:21):
two to three months after I left job Corps. She
was she had left too, But I didn't know none
of this, you know what I mean. We talked on
the phone every now and again, but I don't even
remember the things that we talked about. I do know
that we ended up in Tennessee. We went through Tennessee, Nashville,
to be exact. She did come up to the train station.

(31:44):
We sat across the street from the train station and
we smoked a couple of blunts during our little layover.
Then we got on we got on our bus. We
headed on to Atlanta. She got her car and went
on back home or wherever. Life for me took some
crazy turns. I ended up married. I also ended up

(32:06):
being in an abusive marriage. So life for me kind
of took some crazy turns. And when life take those
turns like that, you don't really want to talk to
people much because you don't want people to know your secrets.
People to know you know that you're going through what
you're going You're going through that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
That's my next question on how this surviving this incident
at such a young age shift your perspective on life.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
Well, I experienced death as a nine year old girl,
so my perspective on life was already pretty much what
it was by then. You know. When I was nine
years old, my sister was the victim of a murdered suicide.
Her husband shot and killed her. He shot her five
times in her chest with her baby girl laying in
her arms, and then he went to their apartment and

(32:56):
he shot itself in the head. So I experienced that
at night at nine years old, I saw my sister
dead with bullet holes, you know what I mean. So
I experienced death on a very serious level at a
very early age.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
So and what happened to her daughter.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
She they they got her out the house. She's living
well today, she has a daughter her own self. She
has a son as well. They're both grown up with
their children, you know, living their lives today. But yeah,
it ended up kind of crazy because his family, his mom,
she didn't even raise him, and she didn't even know

(33:34):
my niece and my nephew. But because their dad, because
my sister's husband want call him by his name, his
name was Jack, excuse me, because he was retired from
the military. She was just like, you know, we wasn't
gonna get the money, a son's money or whatever. So
they came. She was a woman who lived in Maryland,
and she was a foster mom. She had lots of

(33:55):
foster kids and stuff. So of course they sided with
her mom and dad, you know, older parents, nine children,
you know what I mean. And then she's living up there.
She got a big old house, she got foster kids,
so you know that means she got money because you
get a check for each kids.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
You know, that's a hustle right there.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Right, So they took the kids from us, and the
children was torn away from us like almost immediately and
given to them. We had my parents had to go
to court and all that stuff. It was. It was bad. Wow,
And I had to go through that at nine. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
My condolence is I can only imagine what that did
to you on your psyche as a as a child
and alone a woman.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah. So wow. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
So when you think about stories like that or things
that you have witnessed, and then also you discovering the
history of Oscarville and the mini deaths that happened in
Lakeland near, do you ever have survivor skil.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
I'm not gonna say I have survivor's guilt because it's
God's plan and everything, but I do get emotional, like
right now, these excuse me. I do get emotional because
it's the question of why me? And then you understand
why you one day because you're bold enough to say it, Well,

(35:23):
most people probably wouldn't say it, you know what I'm saying.
I'm bold enough to say it. I've always known that
I'm going to say something in life and it's gonna
be people that's gonna get mad at me for it.
I've never known. I didn't know exactly what that that
was going to be, but I've always been the misfit.
So it ain't never came hard to me. To me

(35:43):
to say the thing that other people won't say, That's
always been pretty easy for me. But I'm not gonna
say any that I have survivors remorse because I feel
like I'm supposed to be here. I feel like I
would say for a reason, I have four of you
for children, I have my sons. He's twenty six. I

(36:03):
for twelve years I could not carry a baby past
two months, so lost. I had fourteen minutecarriages. Oh wow,
tooble pregnancies, all with my husband. And uh then after
that I had three children back to back. Mmm. So
I've always defied the odds when it came to a
lot of things in my life. I've always been a

(36:28):
picture of what the definition of to find the odds
would be.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Shod You got my eyes wandering up. Listen, We've been
talking like since yesterday. She was like, we talk about
any and everything, just.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
Right.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yes, I'm an open book.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Wow my god, what a what a what a story?
What a life? Yeah? Man, you definitely to put this
a pin of paper.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah, if only I uh, I gonna say new how
sometimes it takes people to show you the ropes to
different stuff or to encourage you to do different stuff.
I didn't even know that people would even be interested
in lit on me.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, well, you got your little sister here, So i'm'a
definitely keep in contact with you. And then I have
some couple of things I've been working on that I'm
gonna definitely include you in so we can get your
story out there. I mean, just some experience. Fourteen miscarriages,
let alone, like to have your faith not on waiverybody.
That speaks a lot about who you are as a woman.
So and I think a lot of women can relate

(37:32):
to that, because especially when you really want a baby.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
So, yeah, I lot sixteen babies in all. Yeah, well,
well seventeen because to tell my story, I have to
tell the true story. My first time having six when
I was fifteen, I got pregnant and I didn't have
the baby. I didn't have abortion or anything like that.
I was pretty I pretty much got a whooping and

(37:57):
it resulted in me not having a baby, right right,
So I ended up losing the baby. But yeah, I've
had actually fifteen miscarriages and two tuber pregnancies, and I
had my last three children off of one two. After
the doctors told me that I would never be like

(38:18):
So that's for anybody who the doctor ever said that to.
After the doctor told me that I would never be
like a normal woman, my chances of having babies were
cut in half, so I would never be like a
normal woman. Again. It's where I was told that I
should just have a hysterectomy and just leave it alone.
But I knew what God showed me in my dream.
When I was pregnant with my big son, I had

(38:38):
a dream and in the dream I had him, which
for some reason, I knew that the big boy beside
me in the car was the baby and my belly
some kind of way in the dream, I was aware
of that. And then the three children that was in
the back seat, I couldn't see their faces, but I
could see that two children was like the same size,
one was a little darker than the other one. And

(38:59):
then there was another little boy who was well, I
didn't know if he think he was a little boy,
but he's a little boy. Another child that was brighter
than all all the children that was in the car.
It was a Latin. They all had hit full of hair. Okay,
so I have my ten year old son who he
just turned ten October thirty. First, I have promise in
Zion who promised birthday is actually tomorrow. Zion's birthday is Thursday.

(39:21):
Those are the two little twins he is. There are
my Irish twins. And then I have my twenty six
year old son and he just turned twenty six back
in October as well. I have two kids, two children
in October, two children in January. But I was told
that after I had my big son that and after
I had especially after they took my two, they told

(39:43):
me that I would never be like a normal woman
again and my chances of having children couldn't have. Twelve
years later, I had three babies back to back.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Wow, you can't tell me God ain't real.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
He is, and you can't tell me he don't have
a sense of humor either.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Oh real funny.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Yeah, you can't tell me he don't have a sense
of humor because you don't wait to time. I'm thirty five,
thirty six and thirty eight. He needs a baby, but
he knew what he was doing.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
So ever, so everything you have been through, do you
know what your purpose is in life? Have you discovered
that yet.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
Okay, so it's gonna my my friends tell me that
it's not this simple, but for me, it's just this simple.
This is my purpose in life to do what Spirit,
God the most high, which you want to make us
a person, everybody feel more comfortable. Whatever he tells me
to do when he tells me to do it for

(40:50):
whom he tells me to do it for. Whenever he
say whatever he tells me to say, when he tells
me to say it to whomever he tells me to
say it to. I think that's my person purpose. I
think that's my purpose, to be somebody that's gonna be straightforward,
somebody who's not gonna tell you a lie, Somebody who's

(41:12):
not gonna sugarcoat the truth. Somebody who you can come
to unapologetically, you know, and talk to about whatever. I'm
gonna listen to you. I'm a great listener, you know
what I mean. If it's something that I can internally,
if it's something that I can take in, internalize and
shot back out to you in this way. Well, Hey,
you know, I'm a glass half full person, never a

(41:33):
glass half empty person. So I'm gonna always find a
bright side to no matter what it is. Most people
say why mean, I say, why not me? Yeah, yeah,
So I don't I don't know. I know, I've had
dreams of speaking to people before. I've had dreams of
standing up on stage and talking to lots of people.

(41:56):
I've had I've had you can maybe call them visions.
I don't know, but I've had dreams of stuff like that,
you know what I mean. But I'm not readily a
person that just I'm a person that plays the background.
I'm not a force type of person. I'm sitting it
back and just kind of like if I do right,

(42:17):
and anything that I do, I'm not trying to bring
light to the fact that I did that right. You
know what I mean. I'm gonna do it from my
heart because that's what my heart said do. But you
don't owe me nothing for that. Give God the glory,
give him thanks, tell him. Think you ain't got to
tell me nothing, because if it was of me, I
probably want to dead it, you know what I mean.
That's just how I feel about it, you know what
I mean. So I feel like I'm here to be

(42:37):
obedient to what the spirit of God saying.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
When he says, when he say it right, you know,
being at this you surviving Lake Lanar in nineteen ninety seven.
Here we are in twenty twenty five, and you saying
that you just you know, learned about the history a
couple of years ago. Did that help you rediscover your
understanding what your relationship with God?

Speaker 3 (42:57):
Well? It helped me to, oh, can I want to
say it right? It helped me to know that when
he's speaking to me, to not to not waiver from that,
to not say, well, no, I ain't really hear that,
or to say or not to say you know, oh,

(43:18):
that's just me, you know what I mean. Like sometimes
I discredit myself and I'll be like, well, in the past,
I've just credited myself. I would hear God say certain
things and I wouldn't move on him just because I'd
be like, what if that's me? Because you know, I've
been told before that I was schizophrantic, you know what
I'm saying. So I'm like, Okay, what if that's just me?
You know what I'm saying. So I don't want to

(43:40):
in any way say something that I'm not supposed to say,
or do something that I'm not supposed to be doing.
Like I don't know how to explain it. But I've
always had these core values within myself, my mother and
my father's older parents. My mom is eighty three years old.
I have two sets of brothers and sisters. I have
a set that's in their late fifth fifties to sixties.

(44:01):
And then my brother Max, he just turned I think fifty.
I'm forty eight. I'm gonna be forty nine. He's two
years older than me, so I think he's like fifty one.
And then I'm forty eight. And then I have a
sister that's forty seven. And then I have a sister
that's five years younger than her. You know what I mean.
It's like two we had two sets of kids. My
mom had two sets of kids. But I don't know.

(44:23):
I just I get confused sometimes. So I'm not the
I don't readily like to talk to people. I'm just
gonna be very honest with you about that. I talk
to my friends, my family members and stuff like that,
the people that know me that I'm used to. But
I'm not a big people I'm not gonna say I'm
not a people person because I can deal with people,

(44:44):
you mean, because I stuttered sometime, and I can be
trying to say something one way and it don't come
out that way. It may come out sometimes and sometimes
my words may seem a little harsh sometimes, like I
have to pray about the way that I say stuff.
Like sometimes people think that I'm upset when I'm not upset.
I'm just passionate about what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Me too, I'm not.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, I'm not yelling. I'm I'm just passionate about I'm
a very passionate person. April fourth, okay.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Okay, because mine is coming up in February. I'm very passionate.
Like I had to really work on my delivery because
I'm just a straight shooter.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Yeah man, yeah, yeah, So you get looked at a
little weird at times growing up, you know, as a
you know, growing up, I was, like I said, considered
the misfit or the My mom will say I was
very very very very very outspoken. She will tell you
that I wasn't a bad child, but some other people

(45:42):
might say I was bad, you know what I mean,
because I was the child that would say the stuff
that everybody thinking, but won't nobody say, right, It never
was a problem for me just to say it.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
So what would you say to someone who has lost
faith after facing a life threatening situation, and because I
feel like you have been through so much but you
still love and know who God is, I.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
Would say, first of all, you have to have the
mind of why not me instead of why me? See,
when I had my first miscarriage, I called my big
sister on the phone and I share this story because
this is how I make This is how I've made
it through every tragedy in my life since then. I

(46:30):
called my sister. I was crying. I said, Cynthia, I
lost the baby. She began to pray for me, and
she was long when her pressure it was like, God,
thank you for seeing Chad faithful to be able to
go through this situation and still love you. I was
twenty one years twenty two years old when she prayed

(46:52):
that over me. When she prayed that prayer. So since
I was twenty two, I've always said God, thank you
for showing me faithful to be able to go through
whatever this is and still worship you, still praise you,
and still tell people how good you are. So I've
always taken all the things that I've been through in

(47:13):
my life. I've never really looked at it like it
was about me. If I can just be honest, I've
always looked at it as if there's gonna be somebody
at some point in my life that I'm going to meet,
and the only person that can tell them how to
get past whatever that thing is or whatever that hurt
is or whatever that situation is would be me. Because

(47:33):
I went through it. I'm one of those people that
you can't just tell me nothing. If you don't know nobody.
You can't just tell me. You can't tell me what
somebody else told. You can't tell me somebody else store.
You gotta tell me what you know, you know what
I mean. So because I'm that type of person, you know,
I'm that type of person for other people too. So
I just think that I would say, if you made

(47:59):
it through it, if he brought you through it, he
gonna take you to it whatever it is that you desire,
if you just hold on and believe and trust that
we don't know everything. But there is some people, Hey, listen,
in the Bible. If you believe in the Bible. It's
some people that don't even believe in the Bible. But

(48:19):
if you believe in the Bible, there's a big g
and then there's little g's to sum that all up.
I work with the big G, none of the little g's.
And if you work with the big G, you know
what I'm saying, and you listen to the big G.
Big G will lead you everywhere that you need to
go through, everything that you need to go through, no
matter how hard it is. You just gotta stay in

(48:40):
your mind and stay in your mind and say it's
almost like coaching yourself, encouraging yourself. You have to coach
yourself through it. Sometimes people can't tell you. Sometimes people
can't tell you nothing. But I been through something so
and I don't readily just volunteer my stuff, you know
what I mean. The only reason why social media I

(49:03):
got to hear my story is because of my daughter.
If it wasn't for my daughter, I would have never
shared that. All credit goes to my daughter. Promise for that,
her name is promised. All credit other than God. God
first did my daughter. Because when I saw the TikTok
with the bottom of the it just stirred something up

(49:25):
in me and I was like, oh, promise it did
something to me. I was like, promise that was that's
what was down there. And so graves and all that stuff.
I had no clue all that stuff was down there.
I had no clue. And my daughter was like, Mom,
say something, and I was like, no, I promise, I'm
not gonna say nothing. Because I'm kind. I can talk
a lot to the people I talked to, but to

(49:46):
the people that I don't talk to, it's like I
don't talk. It's like I'm a mute, you know, I just.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Right.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
So she was like, Mom, says something, and I was like, no, promise,
is not gonna say She's like, Mom, say something, and
I did. And then that's when people wanted to know
my story. So I gave it to him. And then
God told me that morning before I did surviving, likely
near nineteen ninety seven, I was in my shower and
my daughter was like, Mama, you're gonna do a story
time and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do well.

(50:15):
And I just don't know when. And I was in
the shower. And all my life, I've had dreams and
visions of this certain life right of a certain life,
and I have not ever yet. I'm forty eight years
old and I've had a good life, but I have
not touched the surface of what I've dreamed yet. So

(50:37):
when I was in the shower, I started praying and
I was just like, you know, lord, you know how
I am. People get on social media, and then social
media the world just tear them apart. You know what
I'm saying. And I'm strong, but I'm sensitive too, so yeah,
you know what I'm saying. So I was like, you
know what am I supposed to do? And I heard

(50:58):
this voice say it sounds just like me. But I
heard the boy say, remember the life that you dream
about and you always wonder how you gonna get there?
And I was like, yeah, I'm talking talking just like this,
like I'm talking to you. I was like yeah, and
the boy said, this is how you're gonna get there.
And I was like, okay. I got out the shower.

(51:21):
If you look and then put on any makeup or anything,
I'm actually sitting in the bathroom. I got out the shower,
I put on a dress, I sat down on a toilet,
and I pushed myself to just get it out. Yeah
right there there. You know what I mean, Well, tell me.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
That you did, because I feel like, like I said,
I've been trying to have this conversation with a survivor
for many years of a person who survived like Lanair.
And honestly, my podcast is for women of color, and
I cannot you were the only person I found that
was a black woman that was willing to share her
story or that has that has shared her story. I
have not found any other person of color that has

(51:54):
shared their story when it comes to surviving like Lanir.
And I'm pretty sure they out there.

Speaker 3 (51:59):
Yeah, well, I hope they come forward, I mean, and
and talk about it, because actually it's actually been very therapeutic.
Yeah for me, it's been healing for.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Me right right, Yeah, I can imagine.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
I can't say anything. And even with the little in
boxes and stuff, you know what I mean, the little
incidents that's been going on, a little stupid stuff, that's
just God moving me on to a better place in
the first place, you know what I mean. My kids
they have to go through it because when my husband
passed away, I kind of like freaked out because I
was like, oh Lord, what I mean, what am I

(52:37):
gonna do? Okay, I gotta i gotta figure this out.
We lived over in a condo over here, and I'm
just like, Okay, the people who work in a condo.
I don't like these people, and Lord, I gotta figure
out something. So I came out here with his it's
manufactured homes and they're they're not for rent, they're all
for sale. So I got one. My my grand baby

(52:59):
was being born, we all moved over there. And then
the situation where my husband happened, I'm just like freaked out.
So I'm like, okay, okay, I got to try to
own something so if something happens to me, people will
want to raise my children. I gotta have something to
make them want my children, you know what I mean,
Because ain't nobody readily from what I seen when my
sister past, when my sister was murdered and her husband

(53:22):
killed himself, people ain't really just trying to take in children,
you know what I mean, getting no check right and
then especially if you got your own children, you know
what I mean. So I was like, okay, So I
got to create a way so that if something happens
to me, my children always got a place to live.
So I got two manufactured homes. You know that. I

(53:44):
have my granddaughter and her mom brother. They live in one.
They're paying that one off. I live over here. I'm
paying this one off. I'm looking for a place to
move so that my son and his wife, because my
son just got married, him and his wife and girls
can move over here. And I'm gonna take my three
and we're gonna move somewhere else. And my son, he's

(54:05):
a corrections officer, so you know you ain't finna come
up and here messing with him and his wife. Both
of them are corrections officers. My granddaughter's mam. I call
her my baby mama. If you hear me say my
baby mama, I'm talking about her, my baby mama. She's
a corrections officer too. Ain't nobody finna just come walking
up in their house is messing with because they pile pile,
you know what I mean. But you know me by myself,

(54:26):
you know, with the kids you made, people want to
play a little bit.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
So I'm imund and find out.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
They show live and I want that to have to happen,
you know what I mean. I want I want my
daughter to see soft mommy.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
You know, I.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Want them to see soft mommy, not you know mommy
from the west side Eighth Street all day, you know
what I mean, off the blocks, not huh. You know
what I mean, even though they know about them, but
that's not who I want them to readily see. I'm
trying to raise you know, productive citizens of the world,
productive sentizens of the world, you know, so they can

(55:04):
go anywhere in the world and be Okay.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
That's a fact. Yeah, so we almost finished. But what
lessons do you think that we can learn from the
story of Oscarville?

Speaker 3 (55:17):
The first story? The first lesson I think that we
should learn is to know our history. Yeah, to care
about our history, to uh be people. Because somebody said,
I can't think exactly who said it, but somebody actually said,
if you want to hide something from a nigga, put
it in a book.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
That's a fact. I think Malcolm X said that, though he.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Might have been telling us that somebody else said okay,
because but I'm almost positive he might have been telling
us about Willing Lynch for somebody. I don't know if
it was Willy, because I know I think it was Willy.
He was winning that faid that, But almost positive was

(55:58):
Willy who said that you want to have something from
a nigga, put it in a book. Because they think
people think that we don't read, so pick up some
books to read. Learn about your history, even if you
don't know your own family history. Okay, so you was
born in this town or in this city, don't read
about your town your city, you know what I mean.
Learn about your history always. Yes, it does. And if

(56:21):
you don't know what's coming, how you gonna know how
to deal with it if you don't know what's being like.
I don't teach my children black and white. I know
that sound crazy. None of my children will call you
a black girl, or call me a black woman, or
call themselves black. They'll tell you I'm brown. M Yeah,
they say you're brown. Now if it's a white person,

(56:42):
they might say you pale, they might say you pink. Hell,
they might say you're bleed. You know what I mean,
because after you saved, you know, sometime you know what
I mean, depends on what you look like. But that
they're not gonna say black and white. My children are
they special, man, you know what I mean. I'm into
it all the time with the school board, and I'm
just gonna be honest. They're always at me because of

(57:05):
the way that I see things. Yeah, you know what
I mean. I'm not writing you a note every single time.
If my child say Mom, I need a mental health day.
People can say at work, you know what I mean?
And my child need to stay at home today because
they just ain't finna be their best at school today.
Because I want you to be your best self when
you walk out there, though, And if you got some
stuff that you had to deal with last night or
this morning, you might have been said, you might have

(57:26):
been thinking about dad, You might have been thinking about
things you might have been thinking about Paul, Paul, you know,
my kids have went through some traumatic things. They lost
their daddy. Four months later they lost their grandpa. And
the same day, the same day they lost their grandpa,
they lost their auntie. She goed my o. She died
the same day my daddy, did you know what I mean?
So my kids have been through they had to go
through their mom and dad separated because my husband and

(57:48):
I were separated for five years before he passed. He
had a girlfriend and everything, you know what I mean.
So they have had to deal with some stuff. So
if they one of my kids coming to me and
be like we Mom today, I'm just not feeling it,
stay home and I'm not writing you a note every
time my child stay home to tell you why because
I'm my child's mother. All your explanation or nothing, as

(58:10):
long as the work get done and the grace reflect
the work being done. Don't keep all you I'm not
writing you anything, so I get in to it with
the school board A lot behind that. You know what
I mean, because I don't write.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Notesl So besides knowing your history, is there anythios, any
other lessons you think we should know and that you
don't write notes?

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Yep. Also believe in something or you're a false anything.
Believe in something. Listen to yourself. Trust yourself, you know
what I mean. Don't trust nobody more than you trust yourself.
It ain't nobody on earth that's more trust trustworthy in

(58:59):
your life than you.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
That's a fact. If you don't know what I mean,
who will?

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Right? When God bless you with certain things in your hands,
he blessed you with him because He trusted you with them,
it ain't for you to take it and deny yourself
or put your own self down and say well I can't,
I can't, I can't. I wasn't designed and go touch
somebody else and say well, hey do this. No, he
gave it to you, so you do it. Trust yourself,

(59:26):
trust the God in you, which every one makes you
feel more comfortable because people believe differently. And I try
to speak in a way that I don't offend anybody,
but I stand true to what I believe. You know
what I'm saying. So trust yourself. Don't trust nobody more
than you trust you, other than the big g.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Yeah. You know earlier you spoke about how you will
be willing to go to Lakelander and pay homage to Oscarville.
Do you think they should just close it down? Like
what do you think should happen with lake Land?

Speaker 3 (59:55):
See when you ask me questions like that's not it's
gonna get controversial. I think they should drink that. I
think it should be drained. I think that after all
these years, I think it should be drained. I think
that all of the people that's buried down there should
the graveyards. It's twenty five graveyards down there, you know

(01:00:15):
what I mean. That's people loved ones that they can
never visit. That's bodies you know of people that their
loved ones can never visit, you know what I mean.
So I think it should be drained. I think that
would be a nice thing to do. Drain it and
then let the rightful owners of the land rebuild. Why

(01:00:38):
can't we have it the people who belong them, the
people whose families lost their lives there. It's rightfully theirs.
I don't care if you got somebody to sell you
the land for a little bit or nothing, but they
what you bought, whatever piece of property you bought, Uh,
it wasn't worth the lives that was lost, you know
what I mean. So, I mean that's just me. If

(01:01:01):
I was the person that was in power and I
could just make things happen, it would be drained, it
would be clean, and then the land would be giving
back to the people. What y'all choose to do with it,
that's on y'all. Whoever the descendants of the families are,
whatever they choose to do with they land that their
ancensitors took the time to build this place up, with

(01:01:25):
the sweater, their brows and all that stuff that they
had to go through, even before they even created Oscarville.
Ain't nobody just give them Oscarville. They built it. So
for all the people that built Oscarville, they bloodline their families.
Who knows, that's probably some of our families, you know,
what I mean, some of our blood lines and stuff,
give it back. I'm a strong believer in giving people

(01:01:46):
what they belong, what likely their Yeah, what's rightfully theirs.
I'm a strong believer in that. You know, we can't.
This was so messed up and so used to people
taking stuff, stealing stuff, raping on stuff. That's how my
daughter say, raping on people, raping on you know, and
we don't even know, we don't even have a clue.

(01:02:10):
And then when somebody like me stand up and say something,
you have other people that look like me too, man
have something negative to say, or she making that up.
Oh that's not true. Well, if you was to just
do a little bit of research, you will find out
it's not just Oscarville. You will find out that that
major park in the New York City that was a

(01:02:30):
black town once that uh what is it called? Something
park like And there's so many places that's place in Alabama.
There's places all over the world like that, you know
what I mean. So I think that we should do
some research and get to know something, read something for ourselves.
But somebody told us that Central Park, yes, who was

(01:02:52):
a black town too before it became the part I
can't really readily tell you the name of it, you
know what I mean. Yeah, I'm not gonna just make
up something sound intelligent, but I can't tell you. If
you do the research, you will find out that there
was once a black community thriving there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
Yeah, you know. Well, I'm happy that we were finally
able to make this happen. I'm gonna have to bring
you back on the show because what a story, what
a life you live?

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Can y'all can y'all guess see you? Can they see
how beautiful you are? I see you in this moment
to see just how beautiful you look than you You
just looks so beautiful right now, You're just glowing and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
I love you. Yes, so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
No, We're gonna definitely keep in contact. I'm gonna figure
out some things. So definitely gonna incorporate you in so
we can get your story told. So you have a
little sister to me, a professional homegirl. Yes, so definitely
reach out whenever you need some help and support, or
just when you start giging down your ideas. Let's start
brainstorming on some things.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Okay, I have books. I have books already for years.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Yes, so we're gonna make some things happen for sure.
And to my listeners, if you have any questions, comments
to the concerns, so you want to just say hey girl, hey,
please make sure to email me a hello at the
psgpodcast dot com. And to my guests, thank you, thank you,
thank you. After what a couple of months, almost six
months now, we were able to make this happen. So
thank you so much for wanting to be a part

(01:04:26):
of the Professional Homegirl Podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
Yes, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Yes, and until next time, everyone later please okay. The
Professional Homegirl Podcast is a production of the Black Effect
Podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

(01:04:53):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Don't forget to subscribe and break the show, and you
can connect with me on social media at the PhD
Podcast

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Host

Eboné Almon

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