Which Pharaoh? Which Tunnel? The Problem with Context for Handed-down Stories

A problem with stories that have been passed down orally is their tendency to lose their context.  We often hear these stories as children or as distracted adolescents who don't wonder about the wherefores.  By the time we wonder about the supporting details, the storytellers are gone.

A prime example of this are the Bible stories which were passed down orally for generations.  By the time someone decided to record the Bible stories on something less porous than human memory, some pertinent details had fallen out.  We who write down these things are left with the problem of context.  We know that Moses grew up in the court of a Pharaoh.  The annoying question is WHICH PHAROAH?  Was it Thutmose, whose name resembles that of Moses?  Long answer short: We don't know. 

One trick of the skilled storyteller is vagueness.  In order to tell a story that is no longer complete, we improvise.  So Moses grows up in the court of Pharaoh who has no other name.  His story is so powerful that it transcends the detail.  Most of us don't care who Pharaoh was.  It is Moses' story that grabs us and holds on, and a nameless Pharaoh still serves his purpose by being the antagonist who spurs the Israelites to follow Moses into freedom.

This was my challenge with my grandmother Grace's miracle stories.  Grace, daughter of the star-crossed Jtun and Pearl Holt, believed in miracles in our time.  I grew up hearing Grace's first-hand stories of angels and deliverance.  But if she ever told me where they happened, I wasn't paying attention and neither was anyone else in the family.

In chapter three of Precious Jewels, we come to the first of Grace's miracle stories.  In this story, she encounters an angel in a tunnel when she is a little girl.  As I started pulling the details together to write the book, I realized I didn't have much information beyond the bare bones of the miracle story. 

Where exactly was Grace's tunnel? 

Through census records, city directories, and Seventh-Day Adventist publications of the early 1900s, I was able to trace the steps of the young, headstrong mother and her two little girls, from Yazoo City to Vicksburg to Jackson, Mississippi.  These locations weren't exactly a land o'tunnels. 

As I continued to get online "hits" on Pearl, Ruby and Grace Holt, I found the greatest number to be in Jackson.  Could I convincingly place a tunnel in Jackson, Mississippi?

I feared not.  It seemed an insurmountable problem until I began thinking out of the box.

I pulled up Google's streetview feature and virtually prowled the streets of present-day Jackson with an open mind.  I prowled in the neighborhood where they had lived and attended church, and where Grace's sister Ruby married her red-haired Yankee.  Most of the neighborhood is now an urban wasteland, but as I passed derelict houses and vacant lots, I discovered the W. Pearl Street train trestle.

Large enough to accommodate several train tracks, it is supported by rows of arches disappearing into the dark center.  It looked like a tunnel to me, and I could well imagine the fear it inspired in a little girl nearly 100 years ago, a little girl who had already formed the habit of turning to God when she was afraid.

I sat transfixed in my chair with a goofy grin all over my face.  Maybe rediscovering the location of Grace's tunnel wasn't a cool as seeing an angel, but it felt mighty fine!