Idella: Preface and Acknowledgements Austin Mitchell Language Arts Per 2, January, 2011

The Preface

What is her purpose in writing the book? Idella wants to set the record straight on her life with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in Cross Creek: “ I think young readers and students of Mrs. Rawlings work have a right to know the truth as I saw it before I am gone…Truth is truth and has a right to be written down.” “ She was a human being with human faults and troubles and so am I”

How does she achieve her purpose? She uses a collection of stories and anecdotes about her life with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. “ These are the recollections of a black woman who lived with, cared for, and struggled with a famous author.”

She says that a lot has changed for her and all of the black people since her times with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: “ We’re not often called ‘Negroes’ or ‘coloreds’ or ‘niggers’ now; we’re African-Americans.”

She describes the house at Cross Creek with affection and melancholy: “Time has taken its toll, of course, and the house does not look as pretty or the grounds quite as perfectly kept as they were then.”

She does not look back on her days at Cross Creek with “longing for the good old days.” “It stands as a reminder of how far we have come from those days of hard work and segregation.”

Idella makes it a point to let the reader know her mind is still sharp. “I said I was getting older, but please don’t think that age has dimmed my lights. Like my father, whose mind was clear and whose memory was remarkable until his death at the age of 101, I remember clearly all those years at Cross Creek.”

Acknowledgements

She commented that many black people in those days were afraid of white people, and it was this fear that caused them to be obedient. She also commented on how white people communicated to black people in those days: “In our first years together Mrs. Rawlings was just like other white people; she talked At me, not to me. Whatever she said do, I did.”

She mentions that a lot of people have urged her to write her memoirs, including: Her cousin Dorothy Sally Morrison from Cross Creek State Park Mary Keating, a teacher in Reddick Geri Anderson a reporter from Ft. Lauderdale

The paragraph that catches my attention: “But I couldn’t help thinking that there are now whole generations who have grown up since those days and know very little about how things really were. That’s when I made up my mind that it was time to begin writing, and this book is the result.” This paragraph caught my attention because it’s saying that the amazement and lack of understanding of that time by the PK Yonge students that she talked to helped sway her to write this book (Go Blue Wave!)