The Meridian Star sat down with eight Meridian residents to learn their stories about the city’s history.

To see the residents tell it in their own words, watch the video below. To read about each individual, scroll past the video. 

Doris Martin, 89

“You could play in the streets and play with friends and nobody worried about you,” Martin said about her childhood in Meridian. “You didn’t have to lock the doors. We played softball in the streets.”

Martin got her first job with a telephone company though her father had arranged for her to get a job with a local bank.

“My daddy expected me to go work in a bank,” Martin said. “I said, ‘Daddy, I didn’t ask you to find me a job, I’ve already got a job.’ ”

Martin would work for the telephone company, a stroke of luck, she said, because her husband, Emmett Martin, needed to move to Louisiana for schooling and she could transfer her position near his school.

“I stayed at home for 15 years and then I said, ‘I need to get out,’ “ Martin said. 

Martin got a job with the Naval Air Station, serving as a security specialist and completing the paperwork to allow security clearances. 

After 60 years, Martin knew it was time to leave.

“My grandchildren were growing up and I want to go retire,” Martin said. 

Martin said Meridian had changed since she grew up, from a place where no one locked their doors to a city where people didn’t reach out to help like they used to.

“This used to be a real friendly town,” Martin said. 

One of the biggest changes has been the shopping options. In the past, Martin said, one had to visit several stores to finish their shopping.

“Now you can go to one store and just about get it all,” Martin said. 

Marianne Jenkins, 81

“We would go out into each of our friend’s houses and our parents knew we were safe,” Jenkins said. “I was shy but I made good grades.”

Jenkins recalled a family maid who had a son that her family wanted to support financially.

“He was real smart but he didn’t have a daddy,” Jenkins said. “We all went together to put him into law school.”

Jenkins’ mother worked and would come home to fix dinner.

“When she put food on the table, if you didn’t come in to eat then you didn’t eat,” Jenkins said. 

After dinner, Jenkins said her mother would sew clothing for all of the five girls, often staying up until midnight. Jenkins said she learned to sew and made clothing for her own children. 

“I was the first one in my family to graduate from high school,” Jenkins said. “Back then, everyone wanted to quit school and go to work but I went ahead and finished… everybody thought I was real special because of that.”

Jenkins worked at a downtown department store, an area of town she said thrived.

“Most everybody shopped in (downtown) Meridian because we didn’t have a mall,” Jenkins said. 

Jenkins said she remembered several theaters that closed in the area, such as The Royal and Alberta, that she missed walking to with friends.

“We didn’t have a ride,” Jenkins said. “We walked everywhere we went.”

Jenkins remembered seeing the King himself, Elvis, when he performed in Meridian.

“He was in a parade before he became famous,” Jenkins said. “We went to see him and stood at the top of the bleachers. But as soon as we heard him singing we got down to where he was.”

Myrtle Abel, 91

“I grew up on 8th Street. At the time, it was sort of an elite area,” Abel said. “There were moneyed people, lots of old houses.”

Abel remembered grand mansions, some of which have been destroyed.

“It was quiet, even at night during the summer,” Abel said. “We had a long block to play on.”

Abel recalled filling a stocking with leaves and tricking passersby with the “snake.”

In school, Abel said she loved English, even working at The Meridian Star and WTOK in the 60s and 70s. Now, Abel’s friends said she writes poetry. 

“We went out to the parties and wrote about that,” Able said about the Society page she wrote for at The Star. “We had a column on the weekend about everything going on.” 

Abel worked at the Star during the Civil Rights movement, specifically the Freedom Summer when James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were killed.

“All the big reporters came from up North,” Abel said. “It was a big education for them… it was Philadelphia, a quiet, sleepy town, and reporters said they expected to see blood on the streets.”

Abel said she remembered the manhunt for those involved.

“It was just a few people,” Abel said. “A majority didn’t want all of that.”

Abel also remembers the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

“One of the guys came in and said, ‘My wife said Kennedy’s been shot,’ “ Abel said. “And I remember that we had some heading trouble with Kennedy. We’d make it and throw it away. Make it and throw it away.”

Trail of the Lonesome Pine, a 1936 film, was the first technical picture that came to the Temple Theatre, Abel said. But more than the selection, Abel and others valued the Temple for their air conditioning.

“We’d go down there just to cool off,” Abel said. “Put your feet up and run back and forth.”

Edward Cooper, 74

“I was born 12 miles from Lauderdale, to the east,” Cooper said. “I stayed there until I was 19 years old and married.”

Cooper said that the closest grocery was a 12-mile walk and said he didn’t finish school but worked as a heavy machinery operator. 

“I didn’t make it beyond the sixth grade,” Cooper said. “But all of my kids run their own businesses.”

Cooper’s mother got sick and, as the oldest child, he took care of his younger siblings. 

Cooper said that since so few had cars, one man in the community owned a school bus and would transport the whole neighborhood from Lauderdale into downtown, to the courthouse and to 5th Street, for a quarter.

“If you missed him, you didn’t get to the store,” Cooper said.

When Cooper eventually saved enough for a ’57 Chevrolet, he said ran that car until the fenders fell off. 

“But I think it was better then than it is now,” Cooper said. “The neighborhood used to all raise the children.”

Cooper remembered getting 10-cent ice cream cones from a place in York, Alabama and getting his first TV when his son turned four years old. 

“He’d watch them cartoons on Saturday and you couldn’t get him to do anything until I cut it off,” Cooper said. 

Charles Lowery, 83

Lowery, a lover of history, has a book his daughters made for him of the Recollections of Lauderdale County. The photos date back to a series of tornados in the 1800s to the modern day.

“There’s a lot of history here,” Lowery said. “I’ve always liked history as far back as I can remember.”

Lowery moved to Highland Park in 1946 after his father, a former coal miner in Alabama, got a job at Smith’s Bakery. 

“When I was a small boy I went in and swept the floor, other odd jobs,” Lowery said. “I made $3 to $4 a week.”

But Lowery’s life changed when, at the age of 16, he saw a girl scooping ice cream at a drugstore in the Threefoot Building. 

“I’ll never forget it,” Lowery said. “I’’d go in there and get me some ice cream and she got to where she’d give me ice cream and that’s what got me married.”

Lowery went home to tell his family, but no one celebrated.

“When I went to tell my mother and my mother thought I was joking,” Lowery said. “So when the day came and I told my mother I needed some clean clothing, she said, ‘What for?’ And I said, ‘Because I’m getting married!’

“She about hit the floor when she found out I was serious.”

The two married when Lowery was only 16, making it difficult for him to support his new wife. So Lowery needed to legally change his age in the courts.

“They changed my age and it cost me $25,” Lowery said. “So I went back to work.”

Lowery said he raised his children in the church, to have respect and to be nice, something his father taught him.

“He said, ‘Let me tell you something,’ when I just about 13 years old. He said, ‘It doesn’t cost you one penny to be nice,’ “ Lowery said. 

Lowery kept after his children, keeping tabs on them when he was so young himself.

“They were hard to keep up with… but we had them tell us where they were at all times,” Lowery said. “I didn’t finish school and that’s something I wish I had done.”

Raymond Fountain, 91

“I grew up off of Highway 45 South near the Clarkdale School,” Fountain said. “My dad was an auto mechanic and we rented a house.”

Fountain remembered the area being poor and sparsely populated at the time. Fountain eventually left Meridian to serve in the Navy for four years.

“When I went into the Navy, dad had to sign for it because mom wouldn’t,” Fountain said. “And I left my sweetheart back home. We corresponded daily.”

When Fountain returned, he married his sweetheart and started selling automobile parts before starting his own company, the Meridian Parts Company. 

“My wife was a fine woman,” Fountain said. “She waited for me when I went into the Navy and was still waiting when I got back.”

On dates, Fountain would take his future wife to the movies and order food, usually burgers.

“We used to go to drive-in movies,” Fountain said. “That way we could hold hands, steal a kiss.”

Betty Downer, 86

Downer’s father, Bill Campbell, was the president of the Motor Supply Company and furnished parts to vehicles throughout the area. She grew up with the Rosenbaum family next door and remembered being a troublemaker.

“We spent our days trying to get into trouble,” Downer said. “But I made very good grades and I was obedient to my parents.”

Downer remembered going to Camp DeSoto in Alabama and loved canoeing, which she earned a letter in. 

“It was just fun,” Downer said. “Eloise Temple owned it and she asked me if I’d like to come.”

Downer went to school at the Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Virginia and taught mathematics at Kate Griffith and Lamar School until she married Edwin Downer.

“I courted him,” Downer said. “I started chasing him in the third grade and I finally got him after I graduated college.”

How did she chase him?

“With vigor,” she answered. 

Downer and her husband moved to Japan with the Navy, an experience she enjoyed. 

“I didn’t have time to be homesick,” Downer said. 

Lula Colbert, 82

“I grew up near Meridian, we lived out in the country,” Colbert said. “MY father died when I was a little girl and I went to work when I was very young.”

Despite working so young, Colbert had a different attitude about the work.

“We took it as a joy and went about our own business,” Colbert said. “That was our foundation.”

Colbert remembered killing a hog in the morning and cooking it all day, making cane syrup and pouring it into ‘lasses cans.

Colbert’s youngest sister had a physical handicap and couldn’t work in the fields, so Colbert watched over her sister while her mother and two other sisters worked in the fields. 

“I never left home and I never married,” Colbert said. “I stayed there with my mother and it was a joy to me.”

Colbert said her sisters and mother all had died, and was grateful for her age.

“My older sisters got married… and I helped raise their children. They’re so good to me,” Colbert said. “I had the chance to go other places in the world but I didn’t make up my mind to go. I was  a person who never wanted to leave home.”

Colbert remembered old department stores throughout downtown Meridian, saying no one shopped anywhere else.

“There weren’t other places to shop but right in downtown Meridian,” Colbert said. “Back then, you had to cross the railroad tracks and you had to be extra protective or otherwise you might get hit.”

In addition to the clothing stores, Colbert remembered the black drug store, where you could get “good old root medicine” for your aches and pains.

“I live in Meridian and I love Meridian,” Colbert said. “I remember when this was all hills and swamps.”