Lynn Oldshue portrait by Gary Brady // Other photos by Lynn Oldshue
Lynn Oldshue believes that people need to be heard, even strangers. Born into a newspaper family, she perhaps has this reverence for people’s stories in her blood. Regardless of where it stems, that mission has certainly guided her over the years, her words and pictures giving platform to thousands of lives.
She began her storytelling journey in 2011, founding The Southern Rambler, an innovative indie magazine that dove headfirst into the local arts scene, shining a light on its vibrance and importance. Four years later, the Mississippi native found herself boarding the public transportation system in Mobile, interviewing bus riders about their lives. This led her to more strangers across Mobile and Baldwin counties, approaching them in restaurants, on park benches, in line at grocery stores and everywhere in between to learn their stories. The more she asked questions and listened, the more surprised and enthralled she became by the people she met. These stories evolved into the online blog Our Southern Souls. It grew exponentially, along with Oldshue’s career, as she added reporting for Lagniappe and Alabama Public Radio to her arsenal.
Amidst the growth, her man-on-the-street-style stories remained central for Oldshue, captivating all who read them. With calls for a book of her stories, “Our Southern Souls” was bound and covered, releasing in November 2021. The collection of 177 stories, ranging from heartwarming to heartbreaking, immortalized the human experience in the South. The book’s release was far from the end; after all, there are always more strangers to meet and more stories to tell. Oldshue’s continued interviews soon necessitated another book. “Our Southern Souls, Vol. II” released last month. Like its predecessor three years earlier, the sequel contains pages upon pages of life experiences from across the South, told with honesty and intention. Whether great or small, all are important. Here, she shares a taste of it with MB.
“We outgrew the shack, and
I wandered around looking for a house. My family calls it ‘pootwaddling,’– when you get in the car and don’t know where you are going.” – Daisy Grimes
Her daughter-in-law started calling her ‘Daisy.’ Her grandkids call her ‘Grand Daisy.’ She was a tomboy — the only girl in three generations. She played with slingshots, roamed clay pit canyons and picked cotton for her uncle. She married Johnny when she was 14; they were married for 62 years. Their first home was a two-room fishing shack that they fixed up. It was one of the happiest places she ever lived. Daisy started a church, raised her kids, and helped support her family cleaning houses and selling Amway. An 86-year-old friend had recently died, and we sat on her porch talking about getting older. She thought he was old, then remembered she was 85. She gets up in the morning and aches all over. She thinks, “Old woman, you’ve got a tiny bit of time left; get out of bed and do something,” and she does. She still takes food to friends who are sick and leads prayer time before Sunday School. Her advice is to enjoy life and help others while you can because old age happens fast and “it’s too late” comes way too fast.
“I slept in the streets, abandoned cars, back porches or homeless camps for 12 years – incarcerated for three of those years. As horrific as the situation was, I learned good people were out there. Old ladies would feed me. One woman owned the property I called ‘Crackdonald’s’ because I could get anything and go. She always packed a gun, made it clear no one was going to mess with us. Even the cops respected her.”
—Cindy Wright
Cindy said she was a good mother; she wasn’t a good wife. Nobody told her she was supposed to take care of her husband, too. Things went south, and they divorced. She was on her own — no college education or marketable skills, couldn’t even afford the power bill. The kids went with their dad; he had resources. She lost her life as she knew it — no idea how to get it back. An old classmate took her out to dinner and offered her cocaine. She was so low that she would’ve taken anything. She took it for three days before realizing it was crack. Too late. At 48, she was addicted, unaware addiction runs in her family, making her predisposed.
Cindy turned her life around in a recovery program at Waterfront Rescue Mission and still has her job working at the Waterfront Thrift Store in Mobile. She turned 68 a few weeks after our interview. She attached $68 to her shirt on her birthday and announced over the store intercom that she had money to give away. One catch: the shopper had to donate to the Waterfront Rescue Mission right then — she would match up to $68 dollars. Cindy does this every birthday, giving to the program that gave her life back.
“We stayed in a circle of foxholes, but the Japanese tried to infiltrate these areas at night. The rule was, ‘Don’t leave your foxhole after dark because anything moving above ground would get shot, even if it was our own man.’”
— Bob Hasewinkle
Bob was in the Battle of Okinawa. He was hit by a mortar shell fragment with two others trying to take a hill; they were hurt pretty badly. An American tank saw them and radioed for help. A dark-headed guy with a beard arrived in a Jeep, shooting them full of morphine and putting sulfur powder on their wounds. That guy was wounded later that day. Bob says there’s a 99.99% chance he was Desmond Doss, who refused to carry a weapon into combat or kill an enemy soldier because of his personal beliefs. Doss became a medic and saved a lot of infantrymen at Okinawa. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, and his story was told in the movie ‘Hacksaw Ridge.’ Bob had a “million-dollar wound” from that piece of shrapnel, bad enough to get him out of the war and bring him home.
I met Bob in the Walmart checkout line in Fairhope. He was wearing a World War II Veteran cap — you don’t see many of those veterans out in public anymore. I got Bob’s phone number and interviewed him the next day. He was 97 and still walked, biked, lifted weights, danced with his wife and went to the Fairhope Yacht Club. He hopes the lesson from his story is to keep learning from history.
“That Sunday Evelyn came to church, I was wearing a navy-blue suit, blue shoes, a blue-and-red tie, had a fresh cut, was clean-shaven and was looking like a champ. I scanned the crowd to get a vibe. There was somebody I hadn’t seen, but knew I needed to see. I scanned again and locked in on Evelyn. I caught her eye, smiled at her. She smiled back, fell for it, hook, line and sinker. After dinner, I reeled her in. She’s been with me ever since. Every promise I made to her I
tried to keep.”—Hiriam Stanton
“Hiriam and I have been married for 37 years. We met working at the Grand Hotel. I couldn’t stand him. Years later, I felt someone watching me at New Era Church. I scanned the congregation, then looked up at the pulpit. It was Hiriam. He smiled. I smiled back. After the service, Hiriam asked me to dinner. I said no, but my aunt said yes. So, I went. Hiriam had already cooked steak, cornbread, rice and gravy. He can throw down on some cooking. I changed my mind: Hiriam was okay.”
—Evelyn Stanton
Hiriam cuts grass for the City of Daphne, but preaching is his calling. When I met the Stantons, their home had just burned to the ground. They were staying at their daughter’s house, balancing loss with time with grandkids. Hiriam says God didn’t take their house with nothing
in store. They are just following His plan.
“I was one of about five people in the world who could stand on one finger. I saw a circus performer do it in 1947. I worked on it for almost 15 years. I fell many times before I could stay up for 10 seconds. I turn 94 on February 12. I can’t stand
on one finger now.”—Dr. Gene Perkins
Gene was an original faculty member at Mobile College, now the University of Mobile. He taught there for 48 years and was the last of the original faculty members when he retired in 2011. He taught kinesiology, exercise physiology and statistics. He wrote textbooks on health and statistics because there weren’t any good ones available. He also taught all of the athletes. Every year, on his birthday, he brought in the workout wheel that he made. He told his students that anyone who could do one rollout with the wheel would get an A in the class. Then Gene showed them how to do it. He was in his 80s and could still do 30 of them. The young athletes would try and fail. Only one person could do it, and he made an A on his own. Gene did that every birthday until he retired. He also wrote poetry and made wooden toys.
Gene passed away in February 2024. He was 95.
“Destiny has cerebral palsy. Doctors said she wouldn’t be able to walk or talk. For a long time, she didn’t. Now she’s marching and playing the drum in Mardi Gras parades with the Magnolia Breeze Youth Ensemble. These parades are everything to Destiny.”
—Destiny and JaLonna Law-Johnson
Destiny’s older brother played in a youth band. She wanted to join, be like him. Her family was skeptical; Destiny loved it. But there was discrimination about Destiny being in a wheelchair, so they left the band. The drum instructor, LaDarrell Bell, quit and started Magnolia Breeze Youth Ensemble to include Destiny and all kids. Destiny started out playing the cymbals from her wheelchair, and her mother, JaLonna, pushed her in the parades. Destiny moved from cymbals to a smaller tenor drum, playing by ear and learning every part. She also learned how to walk and now marches the whole parade playing her drum.
“Our Southern Souls, Vol. II” is available at The Haunted Book Shop, Page & Palette, and Ashland Gallery; or it can be ordered online at www.OurSouthernSouls.com. Lynn will have author events on November 12 at Page & Palette and December 8 at The Haunted Book Shop.
All proceeds from “Our Southern Souls, Vol. II” will be donated to the Magnolia Breeze Youth Ensemble. The all-inclusive therapeutic band gives all kids a chance to learn an instrument and participate in parades and events in Mobile.
