This is my story about the lights. Not “I Saw the Light” song of popular singer Hank Williams but my experience and memories of some special lights in my life.
When I was five years old, we moved home from Houston, Texas, after Daddy had been drafted into the Army. I am not sure what time of day we were able to leave Houston but what I remember most was traveling at night in the truck, Daddy, Mama, Julia, and I. I had developed an earache and it became so bad that Daddy had to stop; in one of the towns on the way (seems like Nacogdoches) – after dark – to look for a drug store to get something for my ear. Maybe it was paregoric which was still available, and I believe over the counter at that time; but whatever it was, it worked.
At any rate we were able to travel on. The trip was not a jolly trip because we were uprooting the home we had recently made in Houston where so many of Daddy’s family were then living. We also had Mary Edna, Mother’s niece from Alabama, living with us in an apartment in the home belonging to my Uncle Elmer and Aunt Lenore. In addition to leaving our new home, it was war time and things were uncertain and I am sure that Daddy and Mother were anxious about all of that. In spite of the anxiety of moving home, Daddy felt it best to have Mother back where her people were while he was gone to the Army.
We were traveling in our truck, not a new truck, but I don’t remember many details about it. It had only the one bench seat that trucks had in the early 40’s so it wasn’t particular roomy with the four of us although Julia and I were still small. Somewhere along the way the fuel pump on our truck played out and Daddy had to replace it. I realize now that I am not sure whether he stopped and got one or if he had one in the truck with us all the time which I believe is what happened. At any rate it was very dark and we were on the side of the road. Mama struck matches for Daddy to be able to see what he was doing. I don’t remember a flashlight, just the matches. Not a very good or safe situation but it did give us a lot of laughs over the years. It was something that we would now call a “bonding moment.”
Possibly, as a child and with all the travel, I fell asleep. My next memory was still of night or very early morning and that of crossing the Tombigbee River Bridge below Aliceville and seeing only water everywhere. I don’t know the time of the year but it had been a flood and water was in every direction. It seemed that only the road stood out above it. Then I saw lights everywhere. Having left Pickens County not too many months before I was shocked to see all the lights and with the high water, the lights were reflected making it look as if more lights were there. It was frightening and scary to me as a child. Mother and Daddy reassured me that it was not scary but was the German Prisoner of War Camp that had been built at Aliceville.
It seemed that for years I could remember coming over the river and seeing the water and those lights and then this past Sunday night I revisited that memory in another place when I approached the Federal Correctional Institution at Aliceville in the early evening hours, dark and with rain and midst around me. Then coming up the hill going south on Highway14 toward Aliceville and seeing the prison and camp with all the lights. Lights are everywhere. It was like seeing the Prison of War Camp over again in another time.
I thought at that moment these were memories that should be recorded for my family. As a final note to this writing, I want to share with the family that I was one of three to go into the camp for the first worship service on Sunday, December 23, 2012. Then I was also one of three who went into the prison for its first worship service in August, 2013. Then I was elected one of the Co-Volunteers of the year and given a beautiful plague to commemorate that. I have spent many hours and much energy over the past 20 months through my work with Pickens Baptist Association and the 100 Godly Women and Friends (which now has more than 200 members).
It has been such a fun adventure – sometimes very stressful, very tiring, very mind boggling but a part of a wonderful ministry that I wouldn’t take anything for. Part of my bravery in attempting this came from Julie and Randall and Thrath Curry as they encouraged me to go out and try it and God made it all possible. The script could not have been written more perfectly for me to serve or to enjoy it.
To God be the glory, great things He has done and great in my life are the things that I have been able to be a part of.
-Bonnie Windle, January 7, 2014, Spring Hill, AL
The featured image shows a severe storm near the Aliceville Federal Correction Institution, courtesy of Kelley Williamson and SevereStudios, Inc.