Thoughts on my Cultural Roots

Angela Carroll
COM 360
Dr. Wilson
9-27-11


It’s amazing to me the sheer amount of difference between me and my very ‘Southern’ ancestors. Just to list a few, we have differences in our: ways of living, beliefs, values, environment, ways of enjoying ourselves, and the foods we eat. On the other hand, my ancestors do have some things in common such as the celebrations we enjoy and our love of nature.

I find unsettling to think that some people I’m related to owned slaves and fought on the Confederate side of the Civil War. Though, I’m also proud to say that some of my relatives worked crops on farms, made clothing in their own homes, and lived through the Depression and times of war while taking care of their many children.

At least the ancestors on my mother’s side and many of my family today come from the Appalachia Mountain region. Yes, I admit, some of them live and have lived similarly to those in the documentary we saw in class, however, most do not.

My great grandmother’s father, my great-great grandfather, George Vendable Stancil, for example, owned his own home and had a farm, complete with cows, chickens, pigs, and even a mare.

Both my great-great grandfather and great-great grandmother, Aida Josephine Stancil could also read and write and taught their three children how to read and write as well, despite not going to school themselves.

The Stancils were, like almost all of my ancestors, mostly agrarian and worked on a farm, children included. George and his family worked in the fields collecting vegetables to sell in the market. Ada also made nearly everything at home including clothing, pillowcases, jam, smoked pork, and soap.


Our shared love for jam=awesome!

My grandmother Grace remembers having to get up early in the morning and working some at the farm before walking several miles into the center of town to attend school. Young children were expected to work like the adults, unlike in today’s American culture.


Free Loader!


Agrarian families tend to have many children because children are a source of help on the farm and can help take care of their parents. Pronatalism, “an attitude or policy that encourages childbearing”, was apparently a common theme in the culture of my ancestors (Miller 78).As an agrarian family (and also possibly because of my ancestor’s Southern Baptist religion) my ancestors tended to have many children.

George and Ada had only three daughters due to the difficulty with the Great Depression and various wars during their life time and because of the decrease in need for extra hands (Miller 78). George’s mother and father, Elizabeth and Cader (or Cade) Stancil, on the other hand, had a total of eight children while, according to my grandmother, Ada’s mother, known only as Mrs. Anderson, had a total of eleven children.

Speaking of my great-great grandfather Cader Stancil and my great-great grandmother, Mrs. Anderson, I think it’s time to briefly discuss the more disturbing parts of my cultural roots. Of course, I try to keep cultural relativity in mind but I, as a product of the more open culture, can’t help but feel a sense of revulsion.

Cader Stancil was a soldier who was a solider in the Confederate army and was enlisted in the 52nd Georgia Infantry Regiment in Company C. I can’t exactly say what Cader Stancil’s motives were in joining the army. He could have felt pressured to do it or he could have simply felt that people should keep slaves, I might never know.

Mrs. Anderson, on the other hand, was definitely for slavery. From what my great grandmother and my grandmother, Linda, have told me, Mrs. Anderson and her family were rather wealthy and owned three-hundred acres of land, a big farm, and slaves. Now, according to my grandmother and great-grandmother, as wealthy people, Mrs. Anderson and her family were the “nice” slave owners.


The Andersons apparently owned other human beings to tend to their domestic needs such as cleaning and cooking and even gave them a small house in the backyard to live in. Great grandmother Grace told me that the Andersons released the slaves but that, “…they wanted to stay.”

Now here’s another source of cultural differences between me and some of my family and that is our perceptions of the reality of slavery. I suppose it may be a product of my education and the times I’ve been raised in but I don’t feel the need to defend people who owned other human beings. I’m able to practice cultural relativity and understand why they did what they did and the context of which they did it in, but I’m not about to attempt to dilute the truth.

At least some of my ancestors owned other human beings.

I doubt that the people who were owned for several years, had nothing but the clothes on their backs, and had nowhere else to go, chose to stay where they were guaranteed food and shelter because the people they served were kind owners, but, really, can I ever be sure?

As appalling as some of my cultural roots are, as twisted and covered with thorns as they can be, there are some more appealing things and people I’m proud of. I respect my great-great grandparents, George and Ada Stancil and the way of life they led.

Of course, I can look down the strict division of labor they followed, like Ada being responsible for all the cooking and making all those pillowcases, and the way they punished their children,behind closed doors and with a 'switch', I too remember this method of punishment.

But I also realize that they laid the groundwork for what I am today. I realize that, like it or not, with all the good and bad that comes with it, I’m of the Appalachian background.


Miller, Barbara D. (2010). Cultural Anthropology in a Globalizing World (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall: New York.