Walking on Air by Janann Sherman

Author:Janann Sherman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 2011-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Almost as soon as she touched down in Memphis, Phoebe joined the staff of Free Enterprises, Inc., an organization dedicated to saving “this country from socialism and communism.” She was put in charge of a television “Freedom Series,” a Sunday afternoon talk show. “It was a real thrill,” she told the press, “to come back home and find that our people here have not been unaware of the dangers confronting them … I am instilled with the old spirit and am now joining the fight to help in any way I can to re-establish constitutional government in this country.”1

At present I am not committing myself as to what I think should be done, but one thing I am certain of, and that is that there must be drastic changes made in our Government if we are to keep our way of life. I have always been a great believer in States Rights. To me that has always been the balance wheel that has protected this country from the entanglements that have caused the rest of the world to be in such constant turmoil. Personally, I am a Democrat. I have always been a Democrat but my country will always come first before party and before any kind of world government.2

In October, she undertook a three-day tour of twenty mid-South towns distributing 100,000 invitations to attend presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower’s riverfront speech in Memphis.3 She was soon disillusioned with Eisenhower as president, however, for not reversing the course of what she saw as socialism.4 Over the next few years, she flirted with a variety of right-wing groups as she became increasingly concerned with the direction of the country.

During her first summer home, Phoebe fulfilled a dream she and Vernon had long shared of retirement to a farm. She bought 427 acres in Panola County, Mississippi, near the small town of Como, investing her $22,000 savings and assuming a $47,000 mortgage.5 She christened her new home Rancho Fairom, combining the first few letters of her maiden and her husband’s name.6 The property of rolling grassy hills sprinkled with small ponds included a ranch-style home. She stocked her ranch with cattle and settled in. The place was lovely, but lonely. Since she was less than fifty miles from Memphis, Phoebe returned frequently, leaving the day-to-day operations of the cattle ranch in the hands of a foreman.7

Things did not go well for Phoebe in Mississippi. She had problems seeking honest and reliable help; her cattle business foundered as unpaid bills mounted. She decided to try something else. Five years after she bought her ranch in Como, she traded her property to Mrs. J. L. “Flossie” Koger for a hotel and cafe in Lambert, Mississippi, another small community about forty miles to the southwest.8 The business, located on a trapezoidal lot beside the railroad tracks, included the twenty-one-bed Lambert Hotel and the City Café, located in the same building, with seating for thirty and a vintage jukebox. She borrowed $5,000 from the Bank of Lambert to help establish her business.

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