Crews takes break from her columns

Tri-City Ledger columnist, author to travel

Local resident Earline Smith Crews, author of two books entitled 'Life With the Top Down' and 'Fading Memories', detailing life in rural south Alabama, has decided to take the next several months off from writing articles for the Tri-City Ledger to decide what next step she and her husband will take since they recently put their 11-acre property in the Barnett Crossroads community up for sale.

Turning 80 in the next month and recently celebrating their 57th wedding anniversary, Crews and her husband spend a lot of time traveling, exploring both family and local history, a source of many of her articles. Crews said she enjoys the people, places and history she has discovered but wants to take a break to slow down and see what the next six months or so will bring.

"The reason that I'm deciding to stop at this point is because we've got our place up for sale, and if it sells, we will be in a rush to find someplace to live, build something else or take a year off and travel," said Crews. "It would just be hard and I don't want to feel obligated and pressured. I'm about to turn 80 years old and I think it is just time to just step back for a moment. I humbly and honestly appreciate everything from everyone. I have not gotten one negative comment about my articles. I've gotten a lot of support. And people have bought my books, they've been very supportive."

Crews said people are asking her when her next book is coming out and she says it will probably be in the middle of next year. She said, with a chuckle, that according to her son, Jon, "Mom, if you have to go out, it is preferable to go out on top."

Crews' computer recently crashed, which prevented her from accessing the stories she has written, even though she has them in other places, so they are not lost forever.

"I really had truly intended to write through the end of the year, making it three years, but something caused my computer to go crunk," said Crews. "I've got my stories in the two books and the ones your paper has published, so I will be working on the next book."

Born Jan. 31, 1941 in Flomaton, in a shotgun house near College Street, that has since been torn down, Crews' family moved to Atmore when she was about a year old. World War II had begun and her father got a job working in a shipyard in Mobile and moved to Atmore to catch a ride with his brother and brother-in-laws to go to work daily.

On Thanksgiving weekend of 1945, when the war was declared over, her father moved the family back to Barnett Crossroads and purchased his sibling's share of his old family place.

Crews began school in first grade at Wallace in 1947, the last year Wallace had 12 grades. The next year, when Crews was in second grade, the 10th through 12th grade were moved to W.S. Neal.

"In 1948, they sent the last three years of Wallace and all the little feeder schools to W.S. Neal in East Brewton," said Crews. "The little outlying schools around the county were called feeder schools and we went in and some of us graduated from W.S. Neal, McCall went to Flomaton and Huxford and McCullough went into Atmore, so that took care of Escambia County schools at that time."

Crews then went to Wallace until the ninth grade and her last three years at W.S. Neal High School, graduating in 1959.

She had several jobs following her senior year and eventually kept her job at Chemstrand Corporation, (now Monsanto) where she worked for the next 10 years and eight months. During that time, she married Lamar Crews in 1963 and became pregnant with her first child in October of 1970.

"When I got pregnant with Peggy, we'd been married seven years," said Crews. "I went out on maternity leave and I didn't return. I stayed at home and became a mama."

After several months, Crews' husband got transferred with his new job with the state of Florida Agricultural Department, and the couple moved to Pasco County, Fla., where they lived in Dade City for seven years. Son Jon was born in 1976, when daughter Peggy was in the second grade.

Another job transfer moved the family to Okaloosa County, Fla., and Peggy began third grade at Laurel City, where both Peggy and Jon graduated.

Lamar, graduated from the University of West Florida in 1969 and was a member of the charter class, just before daughter Peggy was born. Both children, Peggy and Jon, would eventually graduate from UWF also.

Crews said she actually started writing her life stories onto a legal pad in the mid 80's, but remembers the first time her writing garnered attention.

"My first writing experience I got any attention for was in fourth grade," said Crews. "I wrote a poem in fourth grade and my poem was chosen to be put on a poster board and put on the wall for display. We were studying transportation and the superintendent of education came for a surprise visit and complimented me on my poem. From then on, I had always written poetry."

Crews said even though she dabbled in poetry, it was much later she decided to write about her life growing up, after her mother-in-law told her to write it down.

"She used to say, 'Put it down, that way your children, grandchildren, and somebody looking back on the situation might ask where you were, at what time, why, what it was like then.'"said Crews. "Lamar always messed around with family history, and so I started writing, then got on computer, and started putting in my stories."

Crews said she decided to post a story she had written one day, from an experience around 1951, when her teacher knew a passenger train was making its last trip through Wallace, and got the whole class a field trip to ride on it. Crews said she did not realize it at the time, but that was an historic ride.

"This one was called the Selma to Pensacola run and it started early in Selma and come through Repton, Wallace, and turn on tracks at Fannie, and go into Flomaton, the big junction. It was a one way trip down. That was when the old train station was there, it was just beautiful. I remember the sounds, how big it was and the distinct smell-like PineSol and diesel fuel."

With two published books under her belt, Crews is working on a third book but has not determined a title yet.

Her books, 'Life With the Top Down' and 'Fading Memories' can be purchased at Walmart, Barnes and Noble, Book a Million, and Lulu.com and pictures she has taken on her travels as well as family pictures can be found on her Facebook page, along with stories she has posted from the past.

"I have a few more fields to plow," said Crews. "I appreciate the letters and phone calls and the lovely folks who buy my books and enjoy my stories. Life is good."

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