Crabapple Blossoms and New Beginnings

Crabapple Blossoms draws you into the warm rhythms of Georgia farm life as the Depression came and went. Grace Smith and Sue Hunter skillfully capture the sounds and sights of tobacco cultivation and harvest, games children played using only their imaginations, humorous interactions with family and friends, country church services and funerals for pets. The sisters' account of a time at Berry College illustrates the unique nature of the school where sewing and tractor driving could be part of earning tuition-of a place where young people from farm families could learn skills and earn degrees that would open a new world to them. The stories of teaching school vividly present the problems in the days of few standards, a front row seat for what racial integration meant and some frank-and sometimes sardonic-observations of the often illogical curriculum reforms that will be familiar to anyone who taught or sat in a classroom during the last half century. "In 'Crabapple Blossoms' Grace Smith and Sue Hunter bring the world of girlhood days on a Georgia tobacco farm, college days at Berry and teaching careers to life. With humor, honesty and style, they tell a unique story-one that captures the changing South in context of school, church and family" -W. Winston Skinner, Newnan, Ga. Writer and historian