I was just making rough calls when I was directed to call a woman who might have been related to Farris Moore. The first person that I spoke with was a woman in her 60's who told me that she remembered hearing of a story about the Black man who owned his own grocery store. She told me that I needed to talk to her mother, but she would not give me the phone number. So, I called her brother, who gladly put me in touch with the old woman.The brother who was also up in age told me that it would seem very far fetched for an African American man to own his own store in Mississippi in the 1930's and 1940's. I told him that I thought it to be odd too.
Anyway, I called a woman named Eleanor, and I told her what I was looking for. She said that she remembered hearing talk of someone named "Forrest". I said, but his name is pronounced Farris.....like the state fair. She said that they ( black folks) pronounced it Forrest. I realized at that point that I probably was doing myself a huge disservice, by pronouncing it Farris because no one in that age group would know who I was speaking about.
Anway, she told me that she heard the story about a man named Farris who had a grocery store up on Military....Military Rd. that is. The conversation continued this way:
the old woman: Did he run the sto?
me: He owned the store.
the old woman: I know you say he owned it, but did he run it.
I knew then, that this woman knew exactly the story that I was speaking of. My heart started racing as I felt that I was getting closer to some info about this man. In any event, I told her that I didn't know if he ran the store. But, that I was told that he owned it. She continued:
"Well, when I was a little girl, my mother and the old folks would tell the story of the first Black man who owned his own sto and his one telephone in Columbus. It was a bit of a joke. They say the Black man decided he would call down to the sto on Military and ask for them to bring him some t'eat. And the White people told him what he better do, and the man was calling from his own house talking on his own phone."
She told me that was all that she knew, but I had the feeling that she knew more. I asked her if it was ok for me to call her again sometime to see if she remembered anything else about the old tale. She said it was fine. But, I didn't call back until 2012. By then, her daughter told me that she was deceased.
