By Jack Mayfield

A Sense of Place

For those of you looking for that last present to buy, I have a suggestion. The Lafayette County Historical and Genelogical Society has ready for purchase volume three of a reprint of my columns in “A Sense of Place.” This volume has the columns that were printed in the Oxford EAGLE from Jan. 12, 2009, to Dec. 30, 2010.

Oxford residents who cut out my columns each week and mail to their friends and relatives that no longer live here in Oxford and Lafayette County, here is a way that you can eventually send them all of the more than 575 coumns I have written to date since Aug. 26, 2004.

Back in 2013 I gave copies of my column, as printed in the EAGLE, to the Society located on the second floor of the local public library on Bramlett Boulevard. Dr. Will St. Amand and Dr. Gerald Walton had asked if I would let the Society reprint my columns in volumes of 100 or so columns each and then sell them to the public as a fundraiser for their group.                                                            

This Christmas marks the edition of volume three.  It covers the period from Jan. 1, 2009, to Dec. 30, 2010, (column number 219 to column number 324). Volume one was printed at Christmas 2013 and covered the columns from the first column to column 102, published from Aug. 26, 2004, to Sept. 28, 2006. These were all the columns that were published without a photograph of the subject of the column.

Volume two covers column 103, published on Oct. 6, 2006, to column 218, published on Dec. 26, 2008. These are the first columns that each have a photograph of the subject also volume three has photographs of the subject. The first three volumes of “A Sense of Place” cover a total of 324 published columns.                                                    

Dr. St. Amand has already started on volume four that will cover the period Jan. 7, 2011, with column 324 to column 427 published on Dec. 28, 2012. There will be a need for a volume five and six to cover the balance of columns that have been published in the EAGLE.

Each volume has an index or table of contents that breakdown the columns to subject matter categories. When the last volume is printed there will be an index of all volumes combined so that you will be able to have all the columns in the series by subject matter.

The volumes are broken down by four main subjects. They are: the Town, Lafayette County, Ole Miss and Nostalgia. Of the total of 324 columns in the three volumes of those are 181 Town, 21 Lafayette County, 112 Ole Miss and 10 Nostalgia.

Each volume costs $20 and can be picked up at the Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library on the second floor in the historical and genealogical society’s reference room.  If you would like for me to sign your volumes, just leave your copy or copies at the reference room with a note of what you would like along with your phone number, and I’ll sign it for you or personalize it for a specific person on your gift list.

The photograph with today’s column is one from the Patricia Brown Young Collection. Since the Christmas Parade on last Monday evening is still fresh in your mind, I thought I would give you a look back at a past parade from 1946. I was just about a month old when the photograph was taken and lived just a few blocks down South Lamar at our family’s home. I do not believe I was in the photograph.

Jack mayfield is a historian and Oxford resident. You can contact him at jlmayfield@dixie-net.com.