Her voice on the phone was strong and — even after over 30 years — familiar. In spite of a family member’s mention that she is suffering from the initial stages of Alzheimer’s, her responses were perceptive.

Panola native Frettie Lee Lloyd Adair marked her 91st birthday last April in Milwaukee. She’s been there since 1981, having migrated there with her husband, the late John Adair, to join three daughters. Her story has been replicated many times in this county and across the south in the 20th Century shift toward mechanized, large-scale agriculture.

Born and raised in Pope, she was the “baby of the family with her twin,” the late Eddie B. Lloyd, said her granddaughter, Lillie Carr of Batesville. Among her brothers and sisters was Batesville funeral director, the late Hezzie E. Lloyd. Her other siblings  were Mrs. Aron Lloyd Rudd, Bethel Lloyd, Kirk Lloyd, Henery Lloyd, Check Lloyd and Oliver Lloyd.

Much of her early life revolved around the cotton economy.

“She picked cotton, hoed cotton,” Carr said, while raising six children. Her daughters are Johnnie V. Adair of Batesvile, Johnnie Florience, Betty Bivens and Emma J. Adair, all of Milwaukee. Her stepsons are Jim Adair of Batesville and the late Charlie Adair of Des Moines, Iowa.

It was as the demand for farm labor decreased in the 1960s that Adair came to work at our house, ostensibly as a maid but in the complicated and often inexplicable manner of southern relationships, our lives were soon intertwined with hers in a way that no job title or description really covers.

Confidant might partially describe her role. Commentator might also add a dimension. In the hectic Howell household of the 1960s, as my brother, sister and I came and went, fought, made mischief, made messes, made noise and lots of it, it was Frettie Lee who usually knew where everybody was, had been, was going and when they said they’d be back.

By that time, Frettie Lee had long been a resident of the Eureka community, having moved there after her marriage to John Adair. My mother’s roots were also at Eureka, so she also enjoyed Frettie Lee’s version of the Eureka news. And I am sure that, in turn, Frettie Lee provided for her family what must have been an amusing commentary on the goings-on in that hectic Howell household.

Frettie Lee was quite a conversationalist, which may have led to her granddaughter’s suspicion that Alzheimer’s is creeping up on her.

“I noticed this at her eighty-ninth birthday, being real quiet and smiling a lot,” Lillie Carr said.

Frettie Lee’s progeny in Panola County now extends to five generations to her great-great granddaughter, Sheniqua Carr, age 13. Sheniqua is the daughter of Sandra Carr, the daughter of Lillie Mae Carr, the daughter of Johnnie V. Adair, the daughter of Frettie Lee Adair. (Her progeny also extends in many directions, including Germany. When Lillie Carr returned one of my phone calls, she apologized that she had been unable to answer when I had first called. “I was on the phone with my sister in Germany,” she told me)

“It’s cold here; it’s cold in the wintertime,” Frettie Lee told me by phone last week, an observation that my daughter, now a veteran of two Milwaukee winters, has also shared with me though somewhat more graphically.

And though she has now been away from Panola for 27 years, she holds home close to her heart, especially her home church, Olive Ray M. B. Church near Plum Point.

“We have a nice church down there. I hope to be able to come down soon,” she said. “When I get able, I’ll be down.”