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Reflections: I Sat Around A Campfire With William Faulkner
Enjoy our “Reflections” post — one of many vignettes and stories featuring memories of days gone by. This installment is from J.W. (Jay) Mitchell.
If you would like to contribute your own Reflections story, send it, along with photos, to hottytoddynews@gmail.com.
William Faulkner
I don’t want to mislead anyone, I was not a close acquaintance of the Great Faulkner, and not many people were. In fact, I’m not sure he had many close friends. Please forgive me if I sound disrespectful, I’m certainly not a Faulkner expert. I do consider myself fortunate to have even have been in his presence. I assure you that he didn’t know me.
Now to my campfire story.
Although my immediate family, (mother and father) was poor, sharecropping in the Mississippi Delta, my Mother had a very rich Uncle.
His name was Campbell White, and he amassed a fortune clearing the land around Marks, Lambert and Crowder Mississippi, before and during the Great Depression. He only had a third-grade education but became one of the largest logging operators, land owners, farmers and richest men in the North Delta.
He was a real man’s man, tough as a pine knot and loved the outdoors, especially hunting. The only thing that he loved more than hunting was drinking whiskey and University of Mississippi football.
When he retired from farming his several thousand-acre plantations in the late 1940s, he moved just outside Oxford so he could be close to his beloved Rebels. He bought a nice home and several acres about five miles from the University.
Uncle Campbell’s favorite hunting sport was fox hunting. Not the English kind but just sitting around a campfire, drinking and listening to the dogs run at night. He had a pack of about eighty high-quality fox hounds. In those days (the late forties and early fifties) we didn’t have any deer in the Mississippi hill country; they were killed out during the depression, so you could run your dogs and not worry about them leaving the county chasing a deer.
When Uncle Campbell came to the Oxford area, he brought all of his fox hounds and one nice black man with him. He soon realized that he needed more help with the dogs. Life just got better for my family and me.
Uncle Campbell gave my Mother 21 acres of land that joined his property if we would build a house and me and Daddy help with the dogs and the hunts.
Sometimes I think that we would have been better off if we had just bought the land, but we couldn’t have afforded it.
Loving the Rebels and going to all of their games plus being a big donor to the University, my Uncle had made several acquaintances from Oxford. For several years he had invited a few down to his hunting camp in the Delta. I found out years later that William Faulkner and Ike (Doc) Roberts had accepted his invitation. “I don’t remember this.”
Anyway, when he put on one of his big Oxford Fox hunts he would invite some of the Oxford “Big Shots.” None of these people meant anything to me; I was too busy helping Dad keep up with the dogs while they sat around the fire getting drunk and having a good time.
Well, I remember one hunt when Uncle Campbell, “Doc” Roberts, Bramlett Roberts, Stan Landrith and William Faulkner had more fun than they needed. Mr. Landrith got sick and moved away from the fire and upchucked. (Now I didn’t say he was drunk, I said he got sick). Uncle Campbell told daddy and me to stay and round up the dogs; they had to take Mr. Landrith home. Dad and I stayed near the fire blowing the fox horn and collecting the dogs. Less than an hour passed when they can back. Mr. Landrith had lost his false teeth, and they started looking. Somebody went to where he had upchucked, and there was his denture, I will never forget it, Mr. Landrith picked them up, wiped them on his pants and put them back in his mouth, and they left.
At this time, I was just a kid and put no importance to being on a hunt with William Faulkner; I didn’t know who he was. Several years later and going to University High School, where the English and Literature teachers tried to make him a Saint, did I think that I might have had a special moment?
Growing up in Oxford at that time, I didn’t appreciate him. We saw him on the street and made fun of his crazy English riding boots and pants, he was so different from the locals and certainly not friendly.
I am in my seventies now and own several Faulkner first editions in my Faulkner library. I have had to get over my biases and learn to appreciate his genius, I have done that.
OK, so this isn’t much of a story, BUT, did you ever go Fox Hunting with William Faulkner?
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Ouida Tomlinson
June 9, 2017 at 9:14 pm
I guess I am old enough to admit family secrets without being too embarrassed. I think this Stan Landrith (actually it is Landreth) is a relative. I’m impressed that he hung out with William Faulkner, with or without his false teeth. I am also wondering about this Campbell White. I remember my grandparents (who lived in the Burgess community) being friendly with a Mr. White and his wife. They seemed to be impressed with him – perhaps because of his money? I was very young at the time, and my memory of Mr. White may not be so accurate. I am thinking that perhaps he and his wife may have lived in a brick house on Hwy 6 West about 6 to 8 miles out of Oxford for a short time. I was born in 1940, and my mother and father built this house in about 1940-42. By the time I was 5 or younger, they moved into Oxford and may have rented it out for a period. Thanks for your story. I enjoyed reading.
Bettye H Galloway
June 10, 2017 at 9:32 am
Good story, Jay. Give us more!
Waite Ligon
June 10, 2017 at 11:25 am
Great story indeed! Enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing.
Ouida Tomlinson
June 10, 2017 at 3:48 pm
As I have thought about it more, I am wondering if the Whites lived in my parents house on Hwy 6 West, then the Whites probably bought it. At some point later, Louis Ragland of First National Bank and her husband bought the house.
Jay Mitchell
June 12, 2017 at 1:33 pm
Ouida, you are correct. Uncle Campbell bought your parents house on Hwy 6 west. The Raglands bought the house from him and was our neighbors . Girl, I remember you—Wow, you were so pretty and I am sure that you still are, it has been years since I last saw you.