Research is foremost and enjoyable throughout the process of writing a historical novel. Now that Song of Jaybird has been published, I am rediscovering connections that have become part of “the circle of writing and researching.”
In 2020, I spent a day researching at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture to learn more about life in turpentine. Last Friday, Polly Huff, curator of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, Georgia Museum of Agriculture, wrote an article on Song of Jaybird posted on the ABACGMA Facebook page. The article's title was “A teenager in 1900 in Ray City, a WPA interview in 1939, and a book in 2024 all tell a similar story of life in turpentine.”
Huff begins her article with a story of Cull Stacey, “I’m Going to Georgia to work in Turpentine,” from the Ray City, Georgia, history blog. Cull Stacey came to Georgia to work the pines in a turpentine camp. During my research, I listened to Cull Stacey’s recording of how he learned the song “I’m Going to Georgia” on loc.gov.The song describes turpentine workers always being in debt and running away to another camp. One of the jobs of a woods rider was to bring them back.
Huff also writes about Zora Neale Hurston’s work with WPA, documenting her experience in Aycock & Lindsey Turpentine Camp. Hurston’s work gives us another example of life in turpentine when she rides with a woods rider, which was another resource for my research. Even though Song of Jaybird takes place about thirty years before Zora Neale Hurston entered Florida’s Cross City camp, the labor and conditions were just as harsh regardless of the time frame. I often comment on how her work influenced the writing of Song of Jaybird because she studied anthropology and wrote about folklife.
What I appreciated about Polly Huff’s article was how she completed a ‘circle of research’ for me in her article. I love that phrase, which I cannot take credit for. It was written to me in a letter by Deborah S. Davis, CA, Director, Professor, Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections (another connection and part of the circle) when she responded to the announcement of Song of Jaybird, “Thank you for letting us finish the circle of research.” My research in the archive’s library at VSU focused on their South Georgia Folklife Project (1998-2004) as part of the oral interviews conducted with those who had worked in turpentine or were children of turpentiners. These interviews helped give me insight into the life of turpentine as described in other personal experiences and documentation, which I had the privilege to read and hear at the Valdosta State University Archives.