By Donna Traywick
Mt. Olivet News
Wasn’t Sunday a glorious Easter Sunday! Shady Grove had a 7 o’clock sunrise service.
Brother Tim McMillen is Shady Grove’s pastor. Terza Methodist (part of the Panola
charge with Mt. Olivet) also had a sunrise service. For the 11 o’clock service at Mt.
Olivet, the choir did a cantata entitled “From the cradle to the cross to the crown to the
second coming”. Brother Ricky Reese is Mt. Olivet’s pastor.
I can remember sunrise services at Mt. Olivet in the 1950’s, Bro. Ed Wilson was
minister. Sunrise Service really meant sunrise service. This was before daylight savings
time was brought in. The sun was just barely peeking over Mt. Olivet hill. Most of the
time it was very chilly. We got a real feeling of the meaning of resurrection one year we
celebrated Easter on Jim Jones Mountain. Jim Jones is the second highest elevation in
Panola County. Terrapin Mountain, not too far from Jim Jones, is the highest before it
became grown up with pine trees and other vegetation you could see for miles and
miles.
The Jim Jones family had been a prominent African American family since the slave
era. Jim received only a third-grade education. As an early adult he found some medical
books in an abandoned doctor’s office. He became fascinated with medicine. It wasn’t
long before he became a self-styled veterinarian. He made many trips to our house. I
remember on one occasion we had a big plow horse down with the colic. He treated her
and, in a few days, she was up in the field again. On one occasion he brought me a
bouquet of daffodils from his home.
Jim Jones Mountain was first called Goat Mountain. He seems to have hundreds of
goats on the hill. Without a fence they never seem to wander to gardens in the valley
below. As I wrote in an article some time back, he sold the goats for $1 each. The late
William Jake Thompson, Sr., was said to have purchased two goats a year, dressed
them out at his house. He hung them up in a smokehouse, and he was said to have
meat all year. Without any type of refrigeration, how did meat keep from spoiling?
Hog killing time was a big time at the Palmertree Place. People came from everywhere
to help and get some of the fat, lard and especially the chitlins. The proper name of
course is chitterlings, but we actually never knew the proper name. We used every part
of the hog except the chitterling; women would come and start cleaning them so they

could take them home. Brother Doug Pepper on Shady Grove Road just advertised that
he had just received several cases of chitterlings, I don’t know the price.
Now that Easter is over, I guess stores will take away the Easter bunny and all things
related and saturate the stores with the next holiday. The next holiday is Mother’s Day,
May 11. Start now to make this holiday one that your mother will always remember.
I write my article every Sunday afternoon after everything is quiet. This Sunday as I got
ready to write the electricity went off. I thought- that’s ok. I will just lay back on my
heating pad and listen to my Jerry Lee Lewis CD! What? How spoiled are we!
Reach Donna at donnatraywickmusic@gmail.com