Editor’s note: This column originall was published in the Tuesday, June 14 edition of the Times-Journal, just two days after the death of Kathryn Tucker Windham. 

I felt it was important to publish it once again, marking the one-year anniversary of my meeting with Mrs. Kathryn.

Today, my cornbread and black eyed peas just won’t taste the same.

 

How do you go about writing a column or an editorial honoring Kathryn Tucker Windham? How do you go about putting pen to paper — fingers to keyboard — and write something that tries to encapsulate the emotion you, and many others, feel about someone described as “iconic,” “legendary” or “a treasure?”

As Mrs. Windham told me on New Year’s Day, “you just tell a story.”

For the better part of two days, the staff of the Times-Journal has talked to her friends, her family, her colleagues and even those who may have just met her in passing. And in each case the comments have struck the same chord. They have consistently been comments of admiration, respect, love and a deep emotional connection to an individual they may have met a thousand times or just once.

In my case, I had the luxury and the sadness of meeting Mrs. Windham just once in person.

In just those few minutes in her home on New Year’s Day, while I enjoyed a plate of black eyed peas and a piece of cornbread, she went about interviewing me in the same fashion she had interviewed thousands of people before.

She asked me where I was from, why I got into the newspaper business, what I liked most about the business and what I thought of Selma. And with each response I became a little less nervous about talking with an individual I had only known through reading her works. In just a few short moments I became her guest, her fellow newspaper professional and, I hope, her friend.

I snapped a few photographs, talked to some others and then sat back and admired the way she made each person who came to her home feel just like she made me feel … welcomed.

Shortly after returning to Selma after more than a decade and becoming editor at the Times-Journal, I received a card from Mrs. Windham. It was clear she had written cards like this before. She had the spacing down perfectly to get everything she wanted to say on the inside two blank pages provided.

And while the full contents of that card, which was dated Sept. 20, 2010, is something I will hold dear, there is one passage I would like to share and end this column with.

“Welcome back to Selma. At age 92, I am not as active in civic matters (or anything else!) as I once was, but I love Selma and want to see her blossom again. God bless you!”

Thank you, Mrs. Windham. Having known you, as short a time as it was, was truly an honor and a blessing.