The youngest of five, Ella Neavins was one-year-old the
day they buried her mother. Her father had abandoned
them months earlier when he left her mother for another
woman. Her widowed Aunt Mary Bell took in her sister’s
children and raised them as her own. “She never
mentioned what my father didn’t do for us. She taught me
to work, to be independent, and to take care of myself.”
As a child, young Ella picked cotton and threshed
peanuts alongside her aunt whom she called Mama. Her
aunt also took Ella with her to deliver babies. By the time
Ella was nine-years-old, she could deliver a baby on her
own and knew how to turn a breech baby during labor. For
payment, she said, “They would give us pieces of hogs or
deer meat. My mama taught me how to love and care for
people, and I had everything a poor child could ever want.
I didn’t have the best things, but I was appreciative of what
I had. Nowadays, kids want all this expensive stuff. But I
wasn’t raised like that. There was no such thing as Santa
Claus. Mama said, ‘I’m your Santa Claus.’” It was important
to Ella’s aunt that she understood that Christmas gifts were
the result of her labor of love.
Ella met her father, Lloyd Neavins, for the first time
when she was 17. Remarkably, she forgave him for the past
and opened her heart to a new relationship as his daughter.
A year after graduating from high school, Ella gave birth
to a daughter, Nancy Denise. She moved to Jacksonville,
28 Toombs County Magazine