Small Town Legends, An Appreciation
At Woodville's newly-opened Community Grocery, Wilkinson County's finest get their place in the spotlight via local artwork
Although our home address lists us as residents of St. Francisville, the closest settlement is actually Woodville, Mississippi, which is ten miles away instead of twenty. For most of the century or so that my wife’s family has made this house their home, they tended to look first to Woodville for the everyday stuff of life, whether that be groceries, a church to attend, farming equipment, or a school to send the kids to. Indeed, for the first hundred years of the family’s connection to this patch of farmland, Woodville was the community that they called their own. So, in August, when a new restaurant named Community Grocery opened its doors on Woodville’s handsome but rather benighted Courthouse Square, we were excited. When you live in a place where the concept of home food delivery is as alien as the moons of Jupiter, rare is the day when any new dining establishment—let alone one serving a delicious, meticulously-prepared menu in an historic building—opens within what could legitimately be described as “popping” distance from your house.
Community Grocery is the very definition of a passion project—an all-in collaboration between two couples with deep affection for Woodville and equally deep concern for the social and economic stagnation that has trapped their town in a cycle of decline. At the south end of Courthouse Square, Whitney and Wil Seal, and their friends Katie and Clint McCurley, have renovated an 1840 building Woodvillians usually remember as Sarphie’s Jewelry, and opened something precious in any small town—a space where people from all walks of life have a chance to feel like they belong. From the day the doors opened, Community Grocery has begun doing exactly what its name suggests: serving as a social gathering point and a third space for a community that really needed one. The recipe by which they have achieved this has many ingredients: the building is beautiful, the dining room is bright and buzzy, and the menu is accessible, flavorsome, and prioritizes local ingredients (look for a cuisine review coming in in these pages soon). But for anyone who has called Woodville “home” during the past half-century, the detail that really clues them in is the series of painted portraits that dominates the dining room. They depict people who left an indelible imprint on Woodville in ways great and small, but always beneficial. Some, like the composer William Grant Still, who was born in Woodville and went on to become a towering figure in the Harlem Renaissance, found fame far beyond this corner of Wilkinson County. Others, like Hazel Johnson, who founded Woodville’s beloved Hazel Burger stand, had an impact that was purely local. There’s Polly Rosenblatt, who devoted her life to fledging Woodville’s Main Street program; and Scott Dunbar, the supremely talented bluesman from Lake Mary, whose music remains a source of pride and belonging for anyone who grew up here in the fifties and sixties.
Then there’s Brother Waites, who taught history to every high school student who attended Woodville’s tiny Wilkinson County Christian Academy between the seventies and the nineties. According to everyone who knew him Brother Waites was far more than a history teacher. He was more like a steady, universal grandfather whose eyes closed when he smiled, who never opened a book when he taught, who chaperoned every high school trip, and who bestowed a nickname upon every student who crossed his path. Laura Lindsey, who attended WCCA from 1981–1994 and remembered these details, told me that her nickname was “Sweet Pea.” Her husband, Tim Lindsey’s, was “Bones,” and his older brother, Lyle’s, was “Quad-L,” (for “Lazy Lloyd Lyle Lindsey.”) My wife (aka “Cottontop”) went to WCCA from fifth grade through high school. Brother Waites was the first person she knew who had traveled overseas. For a small-town girl consumed with the desire to travel, he made conceivable the notion that she, too, might one day get to see what the world beyond Woodville had to offer. Whitney Seal told me that sometimes, when customers see the portrait of Brother Waites, they burst into tears. Then they sit down and start telling their own stories, because they know that they are home.
Brother Waites wasn’t famous; there’s next to nothing about him online. But alongside the others whose portraits speak for Community Grocery, his contributions made Woodville a place that its residents could feel was “their” place. Perhaps every small town has characters like these. Most aren’t famous, but they’re the glue that fosters identity, permits pride, and binds communities together across time. Sure, these local legends are all gone now, but on the south end of Courthouse Square their sparks can still be found. For Woodville and small towns everywhere, may the flame of community pride and growth that they nurtured continue to grow.