The Seventeenth Child

For ages 9-12. Born in Virginia in 1929, Mabel Walthall grew up working tobacco with her large sharecropping family during the middle years of the century.

She was the seventeenth child in the combined fourth marriage of Percy and George Walthall.

Her stern father liked his independence and kept moving the family, but he kept his children in school.

Her mother was strong and warm. She could bundle tobacco all day long, make a dress from a feedbag, or a dessert out of potatoes.

Older siblings who had moved North to find work would come and go.

Although it was the Depression and hard times, Mabel's life was full, with family and friends, church activities, work, and the humour and devilry of a country childhood.

In Mabel's childhood world, there were still people, both black and white, who had little or nothing.

They got through by hard work, faith, and sharing the good things when they came.

Theirs was a unique American place and time. This is a true story of that life, told one episode after another, by the woman who was the little girl who was the seventeenth child.