Walking in the Shadow of My Past

Description Arie Gay Vines Artis, born April 22, 1922 on the Tillman Norville farm in Pitt County, was the matriarch of the Glorifying Vines Sisters. Her remarkable memoir is a a story of the courage, family strength, and love that ultimately brought forth one of the most dynamic family gospel groups of the 20th century.  She was named Arie after her grandmother, “a beautiful little girl born in 1859 on a slave plantation somewhere in North Carolina.” Her memoir details all her children, beginning with Leory, who died at 7 months from pneumonia. After Rosa Bell: Freeman Jr. was born next. We called him Bro. He was born during World War II. I called him my war baby. I pulled both of them [he & Rosa Bell] in that same wagon to the field that I worked the plant beds. I remember Rosa Bell trying to hold Bro and dropped him. She was trying to help me, but Bro was bigger than her. I thought having Bro would help Freeman [their father] move on from Leroy’s death, but it didn’t. His drinking was getting worse and worse. . . .  From chapter 8, “Birth of the Vines Sister”: It all started with Deacon Gay walking to church passing the house. The children would wait for him every Sunday, and he started talking to them and giving them candy. Boot and Audrey followed him to church and asked if they could sing, and he had them sing in front of him, and they did.  . .  Soon they were singing in the junior choir at Union Grove Free Will Baptist Church, and what a choir it must have been. She names 14, including 4 sisters and Bro. Daughters Audrey and Alice are keeping their family tradition alive, and the State of North Carolina is rightly recognizing the Vines family’s indomitable spirit and its cultural and historical importance when they receive on their family’s behalf a North Carolina Heritage Award in Raleigh on June 7. • • •