The Jacksons were never rated as wealthy, but were classed as good-livers by all standards. Cattle was the chief product of their farm, but William Jackson saw to it that there was always an abundance of foodstuffs planted so that his family of seven would have plenty to eat.

  There were four girls and three boys in the clan. There was always plenty of milk and butter and country-cured meats; they raised sugar cane, and so had plenty of syrup to go with hot cakes on winter mornings.

  The house was small for such a large family. It had four rooms with two set aside for bedrooms. Typical of the Southern country home, there was a front porch with a swing under the big oak tree that stood beside the front porch. A smaller china-berry tree was on the other side.

  * * *

  BOTH PARENTS of Ruby Jackson were deeply religious. Her father was a steward in the African Methodist Church, while her mother was a Sunday School superintendent and later a stewardess. Their home was one of those where family prayer and group singing of hymns and Sunday School songs were habitual.

  Naturally, in such a home, nobody danced, and playing cards was not even allowed on the premises; not even dominoes or checkers were allowed. That would seem to this stern and devout couple too much like harboring the very works of the devil.

  Such was the atmosphere surrounding the very early life of the child Ruby Jackson, later to become Ruby McCollum.

  FEBRUARY 28, 1953

  The Life Story of Mrs. Ruby J. McCollum!

  WHAT AMUSEMENTS did Ruby Jackson and her brothers and sisters find to offset the fact that they weren’t allowed to dance or play cards or such other amusements? How did they provide an outlet for their pent-up emotions and desires, filled as they were with the vigor of virile youth?

  They often played those old games which came from England centuries ago: “Heavy, heavy, hangs over they head”; or “Old horse, I ride him,” and the like. These staid games have entertained millions of rural families in the South of the past. They were the kind of games played in Ruby’s home at night when the family gathered after supper was over and the dishes washed. It was “sport” around the big kerosene lamp in the living room.

  * * *

  ON AFTERNOONS when there was nothing for the children to do on the farm, they gathered around and played the usual games loved by small children, “London bridge is falling down,” and the like.

  One thing was mandatory, however, for the Jackson children: they HAD to study the Sunday School lesson and they had to know it in advance. That was a “must.” Nonetheless, in their way, they had fun.

  Around Live Oak today they will tell you that Ruby McCollum seldom visited people. Perhaps this is because she was not allowed to do much visiting during her childhood. Her parents did not approve of such, and her mother, Mrs. Gertrude Jackson, was the disciplinarian of the family. She whipped soundly when she thought it was called for.

  Clemon Jackson, the oldest son, said most of their whippings came when they stole off to visit and play with other children.

  “Mama promised us a whipping if we did that,” he said, “and we sure got it, too. Oh, yeah, Ruby got her share. When Mama said a thing she meant it. She was not the kind that had to wait for Papa to come home to get order. She got order right now when she spoke or we caught it.”

  * * *

  RUBY JACKSON, on the whole, was an obedient child, but when the kids did make up their minds to steal off and play at someone else’s house, Ruby took her licking with fewer tears and less noise than any of the others.

  She had had the fun she had determined upon, and she took her whippings in payment without the usual screams and without seeking to justify herself.

  She made an outcry, however, when her mother—as harried and hard-working mothers sometimes do—erred in fixing the blame for some misdemeanor. When Ruby was not guilty, or felt justified, she defended herself with a few well-chosen words. It was an insight then into the type of woman she was to later develop into.

  Ruby gave no trouble either about attending church and Sunday School, nor Fessenden Academy. She was quick in study and quiet in classes. Something of a “lone wolf,” she made few intimate friends. But the few friends she did make she held close! Sarah Davis, who later married her brother Clemon, and Tommie Lee Ward were her close and constant chums.

  * * *

  BUT AS QUIET as Ruby was, so far as conversation was concerned, she was quite much of a “tom-boy.” She shinnied up trees and “skinned the cat” with the best that any of the boys could do. She gave a good account of herself in a fight with them, and played marbles with them ardently. She was very enthusiastic when it came to yard-ball.

  When Ruby reached the age of ten, she took to reading a lot, and the things Ruby Jackson read were always romantic love stories. As time went on she spent more and more time that way and less on the romping games with the other children. It was a sign of “things to come”—even at that early age.

  William Jackson seldom meted out physical punishment to his children, but there was one occasion on which he took his three oldest ones into camp.

  They were Clemon, Ruby and Hattie. Father Jackson had some fine watermelons which he had ordered not to be touched.

  But the three youngsters looked upon them and yielded to temptation, taking a melon under the shade tree where they gorged themselves until it was all gone. Father Jackson came upon the rinds before the children had prepared a good excuse. Ruby explained it by saying that Maybelle, their dog, had eaten the melon. But this wasn’t good enough for their father and he gave the three children a sound thrashing.

  * * *

  WITHOUT MUCH schooling themselves, both Mr. and Mrs. Jackson wanted their children to be well-schooled. The Rev. Leonard Francis Morse, now dean of Lee Theological Seminary at Edward Waters Junior College, in Jacksonville, Fla., taught the Jackson children at Fessenden Academy.4

  The Jacksons did not handle too much cash money, but they found a way to pay for the tuition of their children. Since they had more cows than anything else, they swapped beef for tuition. Before Florida’s “no fence” law went into effect, the family ran from fifty to sixty head of cattle at a time. When the law was passed, they found they did not have enough land for pasturage, so the herds were drastically cut—by necessity.5

  But Ruby Jackson went on to finish high school and then her normal course at Fessenden in 1929 when she was nearly nineteen.

  Three traits of personality emerged strongly in Ruby Jackson’s early life.

  The most striking of these manifestations is that she revealed little about herself. Even when she made words with her mouth, she really said nothing about her inside feelings. She was extremely self-contained.

  The second thing was that she was retentive in material things. Never did she make any great clamor for clothes and the things most girls crave, but what she did get, she took very good care of. The little pocket change which came to her, she could hold onto much longer than any of her brothers and sisters.

  The third strong characteristic was a maternal instinct which was out of the ordinary.

  (Continued next week)

  MARCH 7, 1953

  The Life Story of Mrs. Ruby J. McCollum!

  The maternal instincts which swept over Ruby Jackson when she was a child were to play the key role in her later life. Dean L. F. Morse of Fessenden Academy says that by the time Ruby passed puberty “she was a very pretty girl, but seemed unaware of it.”6

  Boys and even grown men began to give her looks, but she went on being quiet and reserved, a good student in school and busy about the home and church. She didn’t seem to realize that she was possessed of a power that made itself felt upon the men and boys who saw her. How fatal it was to be, time alone was to tell, as the world now knows.

  Ruby’s mother allowed her to start receiving company when she was 18, and she seemed satisfied to wait until then with utmost calm. While she was 17, a local youth made an open bid for her heart and hand and boldly made an earnest proposal of marriage . . . only to be turned down.

  Her [r]easons? They were a sure indication of what was to come in her heart and what was in her mind: the young man just didn’t attract her. He lacked the different strengths she admired in a man. Utterly female, she wanted to be conquered and have a great store of strength to lean upon.

  He lacked the “get-up” that she hoped for, and, she felt, a lack of mental vigor, too. “I could not see myself loving a man who could see ten things and not even understand one. I wanted a man who could see one thing and understand ten, a mate would could [sic] cope with life and give me protection.”

  During this period, she was seldom allowed to go to Ocala, the nearest sizable town, but she found activities around Martin where she lived. She became extremely active in church work and was a delegate to the Sunday school conventions and the district conferences.

  * * *

  HER CLOSE friends were the heart of all the activities in Martin. Ruby organized a singing-band made up of her brother, Clemon; Sarah Davis, Tommie Lee Ward, Helen Smith and herself. Ruby sang lead and the group became widely known in the area, singing for churches and other such gatherings.

  Upon her graduation from Fessenden Academy, Ruby taught school for a year at New Chapel, a small community not too far from Ocala. She must not have cared much for this experience because there is no comment about it, nor is there any comment about why she did not continue after that one year. She just taught school for a year, period.

  But it was about this time that the new shape of things to come began to make itself felt within her. Internally, she began to sense a lack. There was no one around whom she could drape her intense feelings, her great capacity for love.

  * * *

  SHE HAD made a tremendous discovery! She found that she had a singular power over men: It was no trouble at all to bend them to her will. She was one of those females who appear now and then in human history. Something drew men to her and bound them!

  Ruby had confidence in her powers, but it was a disappointment in a way: she moved men, but—so far—no man had ever moved her! It was in this period around eighteen that she began to have recurrent dreams. There were four to the series. Of these, only one was clear so that she could remember the details upon awakening.

  In this dream she found herself in a strange community and entering a large, beautifully furnished home. She was not only expected there, she was welcome. A muted, throbbing rhythm said over and over: “Come to me! Come to me!” Somehow it seemed to be her home. Love and satisfaction radiated the place.

  This dream troubled Ruby. Walking around the little four-room house that was her home in Martin she could not imagine why she should dream of so much comfort and luxury being hers. At that time, Ruby Jackson had never heard of the sub-conscious. It never occurred to her that she might have wishes that had never emerged into the conscious.

  * * *

  SHE SAW [the dreams] as a prophetic sign, though how such a thing was to come about, she had no idea. The years were to prove her right! Years later, in Live Oak, she was to recognize the house the moment she saw it. It had been built by a Negro bolita banker, whom her future husband—Sam McCollum—was to defeat and come into possession of the nine-room house!

  At eighteen Ruby was full of internal conflict. As yet she had been attracted to no man. She had been trained to despise and fight against physical pleasures and desires as sinful things inspired by the devil. She had had that background at home.

  So, naturally, she was distressed to find that so many men leered at her. Young and old men of her own race just could not seem to pass her unnoticed; white men winked their eyes at her and followed her, or secretly nodded at her to please follow them. The only part she liked was the secret knowledge that she had power over men.

  * * *

  NOW, WITH her shapely and well-developed body blooming, she felt herself a woman. She had laughed and worked and suffered to a certain extent. There had been a hurt in her life which she had revealed to no one. Her tears had been in utter secrecy. Now she began to feel an emptiness in her existence.

  She felt like a blossom on the bare limb of a pear tree in the spring . . . opening her gifts to the world, but where was the bee for her blossom?7 Yes, numerous men had gazed upon her with open desire, but so far their looks had raised no mingling-blood call in her.

  She wanted beauty and poetry mingled in her life, something to make her everyday side-meat taste more like ham. Sometimes, deep, deep in the mood of her strange yearning she would picture herself reclining on soft grass in a beautiful rose-scented setting on a white moonlit night.

  Ruby Jackson was now ready for life and love!

  (Continued next week.)

  MARCH 14, 1953

  The Life Story of Mrs. Ruby J. McCollum!

  The sun had gone home, leaving its footprints in the sky. The drifting mists gathered in the west to arm with thunders and march forth against the world. Lightning flashed against the horizon and the thunder rolled into crescendoes. Ruby Jackson stood at the front gate of the Jackson home in Martin, Fla., seemingly unconscious of the approaching summer storm.

  She stood there questioning fate. For some time now she had been living at her own front gate, ready for departure. Internally, she had outgrown the confines of Martin, Fla.

  The horizon of the world was her hatband. Ruby longed for fulfillment of her natural desires, and so she was restless beneath her always outward calm. Neither relatives nor friends suspected the intense fires that raged within her.

  Ruby now was twenty years old and, yes, she wanted a mate. She was of a good respectable family in Martin, unsoiled by the lap and wash of slander. She was considered physically attractive, and what there was to choose from in her community she could have had.

  * * *

  BUT BY NATURE, Ruby did not walk in footprints. Secretly she saw no reason why her life must follow the pattern of her surroundings. Her family and friends did not know the real Ruby and she was conscious of it. “Often,” Ruby said, “you can make people follow you, but almost never can you make them understand.”

  Yes, like all girls of her age, she had flirted briefly here and there. She found something dead about the young men she had known so inside her she drew away as mortals do from a corpse. She was looking for LIFE.

  Now she had met Sam McCollum, a young man a little older than herself. The McCollums were prosperous farmers over at St. Peters, a small community near Ocala, Fla. That had been nearly a year ago and Ruby was still thinking Sam over.

  * * *

  SHE WAS attracted to him, but she debated whether or not he had what she wanted. She wanted many things that her life and surroundings so far had not afforded her. At times she felt that Sam had in him that which would bring fulfillment of her dreams and then, again, she wondered.

  Was Sam McCollum masterful enough? That was what she debated within herself as she stood at her father’s gate that day at sundown. Internally, she was ready to set out on her journey to the big horizon. Was Sam the vehicle to take here where she wanted to go?

  Sam attracted and charmed her more than any man she had met so far. He had both mental and physical vigor. Secretly, he stirred her tremendously. He was full of things. Sam made a little summertime out of a seemingly nothing and they both lived off of it for the hours that they were together.

  * * *

  SILENTLY unsatisfied by her narrow surroundings, she had been fumbling around the door-knob of life and Sam McCollum had opened that door! If only she could be sure of his capacities, she would love him for it. But so strong were her desires that she felt that she was not yet ready to commit herself. Better wait and see.

  She had met Sam McCollum at her church. He had come to attend a special program that Sunday afternoon nearly a year ago. Ruby had a leading part in the program in addition to her group singing. Sam saw her and he liked what he saw.

  It took nearly two more years for Ruby to finally make up her mind to marry Sam McCollum. In that time she discovered that Sam had what she wanted. He was witty and gay, and beneath his casual exterior Ruby found that he had drive and ambition in him. He had a way of commenting and saying things that were always entertaining. And his small community did not satisfy him, either.

  * * *

  THOUGH THE McCollums had a going farm, Sam took to picking oranges—quick and generous pay—and construction work. He often went away from home on jobs like that and came back with a pocket full of money and stories of what he had heard and seen in the larger and outer world where he had been.

  Outside of her own requirements in her future husband, Ruby had another obstacle to overcome. The McCollums were something less than enthusiastic about her. After she began to go steady with Sam, his brother, Buck, and his father came over to Martin frequently, but the rest of his family held aloof.

  But, even Buck warned Sam that Ruby was inclined to be too possessive and domineering. They accused her of seeking to cut him off from his family. She must be the “be-all” and ruler of his mind and Buck saw his brother crumbling before the determined Ruby Jackson, for all her quiet ways.

  “I told Sam years ago that woman was going to kill him.” Buck raged when he heard of his brother’s death. “He had got so under her influence that he wouldn’t listen to me.” (Sam McCollum died of a heart attack after his wife killed Dr. Adams.)

  * * *

  RUBY JACKSON felt certain of two things when she became Mrs. Sam McCollum at a quiet home wedding at Martin in 1931: she was sure that she had a go-getter, a winner in economic ways and a vigorous mind, and she felt certain that the opposing McCollums could be no trouble to her with Sam.