Tyrrell County Upbringing

Those who have never lived in a small town are often hard-pressed to understand the very nature of such a compact community. In my town, news didn't come when the Scuppernong Reminder was printed and delivered on Wednesdays, but instead was passed around as fast as a phone call could be made. If someone was in need of help, the community was there. And if someone died, everyone would come out to celebrate the person's life. It might be hard to envision an environment where, not only does everyone know your name, they also know your entire family. In my case, they often were my family.

I am from Tyrrell County, which is the least-populated county in North Carolina. Our population sits around 4,000 people, and the county seat of Columbia is home to only 500. This serves as our only real town. Technically, I come from a smaller community called Gum Neck, but anyone who ventures out of the county always lays claim to the town of Columbia since that's where our addresses are from. Though, most of the time, I still have to correct people and emphasize that it's Columbia, North Carolina, not South Carolina. Mail has been re-routed more times than I can count because of that mistake. And it's also easy to spot someone who is not from or familiar with the area because they inevitably mispronounce Tyrrell. It's not Ty-Rel, as outsiders often try to emphasize, but instead pronounced Turl. More than one syllable is unnecessary.

We were a small community and, compared to the larger areas that I've lived in since going to college, Tyrrell County was almost a county outside of time. I'm often asked how I lived in such seclusion when I was younger, and when I return home for visits I often wonder it myself, but growing up none of us in the community knew any differently. I didn't know what I was missing because I didn't feel like I was lacking anything. I didn't have internet, despite it being the last decade of the 20th century, so I couldn't surf the information superhighway. However, I had the library and that opened up the world to me. There was no cable television, but instead the three main channels of PBS, NBC, and CBS. The ABC station would come in when the antenna was turned just right, but that was seldom. Entertainment didn't come from a screen, but instead from my imagination. Wintertime was spent inside making up elaborate stories with my cousins. Summertime was spent outside, the house deemed off-limits once breakfast was over and I was allowed back in when suppertime rolled around. The heat and humidity didn't feel so bad when my cousins and I were busy traipsing through the woods or out on the ditch bank seeing how many fish we could catch. We didn't lack for anything.

With a population as small as Tyrrell County, not only did I know everyone growing up, most of the county population was a member of my extended family. Cousins were my classmates, Uncle James was my principal, and Miss Patty taught me English just as she had done with my parents before me. In those rare instances when it was hard to figure out just where people fit on the family tree, they'd be deemed a cousin, an uncle, or an aunt depending on their age. With that commonality, I always knew that there was someone looking out for me no matter where I went. It didn't matter whose house I ended up at, when it was mealtime I was always welcome. And if I wanted to spend the night, it was no problem. School trips were more like family vacations, with any number of adults ready to discipline me or protect me just like my parents would. That sense of family community continued throughout my life, as I made subsequent visits back home. When I returned, during my college summers, to teach summer enrichment classes at the elementary school, my first and second grade students were the next generation of my cousins.

As you can imagine, with such a small population, school was an interesting situation. When I talk about the size of my school to those outside the immediate area, their first reaction is to ask if I went to a private school. No, the Tyrrell County school system was just that tiny. We had one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school. And my graduating class had only 15 students. Of these students, 8 were in the academically-gifted program, which meant we were even more condensed into a smaller classroom environment for honors classes. I've heard college friends complain that when they were growing up, the smart kids were looked down upon as nerds, but that wasn't my experience. It wasn't a stigma to be smart in our class, it was an expectation. Being in honors classes meant you had a chance to seize opportunities outside the county. With little to no money in the community, academic achievement was a way to ensure that financial support for college was coming. Without that guarantee, people were regulated to carry on the family tradition of staying close to home in labor-intensive jobs. Those who managed to go to college, like me, are celebrated for their achievements no matter what career paths we've pursued.

Growing up, I took for granted that everyone's living situation mirrored mine. No one was deemed poor in my town because none of us had money. No one was a stranger because the term didn't exist in our community. And no one was alone because there was always someone around to give a friendly wave or a comforting hand on the shoulder. So, when I went to college at UNC-Chapel Hill, it was a culture shock, but one I was ready for. I often joke about my entry into UNC because my Freshman dorm had more people in it than my hometown. Yes, it was a big change for me, but I had been given the emotional and intellectual support in my community to want to push out into the unknown and discover the world outside the boundaries of Tyrrell County. It never meant I fully left that existence behind, but simply that the foundation my upbringing afforded me has made my life that much richer and grounded. I am grateful that I had the experiences I had because it made me the person I am today.