NOXUBEE COUNTY — As Troy Clyde Eaves lay dying, his seven children gathered round to do what they had done with their father all their lives, play music. Bluegrass and gospel music. Around midnight, a curious thing happened.
“While we were singing, he came out of a diabetic coma,” said Phillip Eaves, one of Troy Clyde’s three sons.
Then, according to Eaves, the father joined his children in singing the Ray Price hymn, “Until Then”:
My heart can sing when I pause to remember
A heartache here is but a stepping stone
Along a path that’s winding always upward
This troubled world is not my final home
“He sang that song about four hours before he died,” Eaves said.
That was two years ago this October. Troy Clyde Eaves was 90.
It’s Friday evening and we’re at the shop of Kenny Lowery, who is married to Clytee Eaves, one of Phillip’s four sisters. We’re in the Butler, a small community in south Noxubee near the Kemper County line.
In contrast with the rolling black prairie just to the north, this sparsely populated region is surprisingly lush. Driving Butler Road from Mashulaville, verdant pastures turn into gentle hills covered with rows of pines. The winding two-lane blacktop offers unexpected vistas of wooded hillsides.
As was the case for the father, trees provide a livelihood for the three sons.
“Dad cut pulpwood all his life,” said Phillip, 55, who owns a logging business.
Timber and music are threads that connect this family. Four of the seven Eaves children play an instrument and three of their spouses sing.
“Dad started me off when I was 11 or 12,” Phillip said. “He wrote for me the chords of ‘Do Lord,’ and I would practice it in my room.”
The shop is a large, airy metal building with particleboard interior walls. There is no air conditioning. An array of fans keeps the air moving. Even so, most of us have shiny faces. Tools and household clutter are pushed back to make room for rows of tables. A single deer head hangs high overhead.
This is a family gathering. Five of the seven Eaves children are here with their wives, children, children’s friends and a few neighbors.
As folks trickle in, Dylan Eaves, 19, and his brother Eli, 11, take their guitar and mandolin outside to rehearse. About four years ago, the two fell under the spell of mandolin virtuoso Allen Sibley when he played at a similar gathering here.
The brothers took lessons from Sibley, and appear to have been quick studies. As they practice their licks under an overhang in front of the shop, a setting sun bathes the scene in warm yellow light. Two dogs loll about in the gravel parking lot; aunts pass by carrying covered dishes and pitchers of iced tea. We could be in Kentucky, or West Virginia, or the mountains of east Tennessee.
Dylan answers my questions, “yes sir” and “no sir.” Says the family used to get together every Monday night to play. Now, it’s every other month or so — more often when it’s cooler. He works with his father’s logging business.
When asked if he sees music as a possible career, he’s non-committal.
“I love it. It could be a career, but I kind of like getting with the family and playing around,” he says.
Later, I introduce myself to a young girl with Dylan.
“I’m Morgan, the girlfriend,” she says extending her hand. Morgan, 17, lives next door to her boyfriend.
Dinner is potluck with barbecue sandwiches. There is homemade ice cream, chocolate and lemon. Iced tea and water are the beverage options.
After the meal, Uncle Phillip rounds up the boys. A mic is set up at one end of the shop. The mood is relaxed. The musicians alternate bluegrass with gospel.
Uncle Phillip puts the boys through their paces. They swap instruments. People mill around, tell stories, gossip, sing along. A covey of young friends with Dylan huddle and whisper among themselves. A young girl, hardly more than a toddler, gallops on a rocking horse throughout the performance.
By 8:30, the party is winding down. We say our good-byes and promise to come back with friends who are pickers.
“Be careful,” says Sherrie, Phillip’s wife. “A lot of people don’t see that stop sign where the road Ts into 490, and they keep on straight.”
As I pull out onto Butler Road, I put on a Neil Young CD, roll the windows down and let the summer night blow through the cab of the truck, on the lookout for the stop sign at Mashulaville.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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