Eli English: a few more thoughts

Jerry and his grandmother's adopted daughter, Gladys

In my previous post about Eli English, my great great uncle and Hannah's brother, I wrote about how I came into contact with a man named Jerry through Ancestry.com. Eli's generosity and kind heart left a huge impact on Jerry's life, and I couldn't be happier Jerry shared his story with me.

During the course of our emails, Jerry mentioned an old video I might be interested in. Created in 1967, Beyond These Hills shows the North Carolina Fund and WAMY Community Action bringing water to Blevins Creek, where Eli lived with Minnie and Jerry. Until this time, residents would walk miles to fetch water every day from a nearby spring for their basic needs. At about 10 seconds into the video is Jerry's grandmother's house: a white house with a storage shed in the foreground with a board walkway leading to it. I really love how this video captures the dialect of the region. The North Carolina Fund celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2013.