cover image We Were the Land's: The Biography of a Homeplace

We Were the Land's: The Biography of a Homeplace

John Head. Longstreet Press, $22 (240pp) ISBN 978-1-56352-528-5

In 1997, the author, an Atlanta journalist, decided to buy a farm in Butts County, Ga., that had been purchased in 1939 by his deceased grandfather, Buddy Fitch. Driven by nostalgia and a curiosity about Fitch, Head spent nearly two years restoring the dilapidated farmhouse and trying to figure out how Fitch, a poor black man, had been able to raise the $2000 necessary to buy the farm from a prominent white family, and why, shortly after the purchase, he began selling off acres. According to his family, Fitch had been a joyless taskmaster who relentlessly drove his children to work long hours on the farm to the point of denying his daughter (the author's mother) the opportunity to finish school. Anyone involved in house renovation will relate to Head's problems with unreliable contractors and incompetent plumbers, described here in humorous detail. He was rescued by Ben, a talented handyman, who assisted him with the backbreaking work for free because during the Great Depression Fitch had given Ben's father work and saved his family from starvation. Motivated by the discovery of this heretofore unknown charitable aspect of his grandfather's character, Head researched further and discovered that Fitch was able to buy the farm by applying for a government loan and then sold off the acres to make the payments. Although parts of Fitch's story remain elusive and the farmhouse is still not completed, Head's affection for the Georgia countryside and the ways of its people, and his ability to capture their cadences, yield satisfaction. (June)