Sisters found memories in family home
Men in suits and cocked hats and women in their finest dresses sit for studio portraits. A girl in pigtails grins on picture day. A wrinkled man in overalls welcomes a group of children. A boy and girl splash in a swimming hole. A beauty contestant rides in a long Chevy convertible.
Those slices of life from a simpler time in Marion County are documented in a series of photographs discovered in a family’s collection.
Three sisters made the drive from south Louisiana Friday to Columbia to share them with the people here.
Gwen Mendoza, the oldest sister, led the trip and held a manila folder filled with the pictures, mostly black-and-white, dating from the 1930s through 1970s. They feature some members of her family from the Goss community. Others she doesn’t know.
Mendoza found the photographs in their old family home in Goss, now torn down and replaced by a Dollar General, and hopes someone in the area will recognize the faces from long ago.
“I couldn’t throw them away because it’s like throwing away these people,” she said.
Mendoza, 65, and her sister, Cathy Leblanc, 61, have fond memories of the world shown in the pictures from visits to Marion 
County during their youth. Their other sister, Debbie Gros, 52, is from their mother’s second marriage, and she also accompanied them to Columbia Friday. All three sisters live today on the same street in Thibodaux, La.
They brought the historic pictures to the newspaper and also visited the cemetery where relatives are buried to place flowers.
They shared their family’s story in friendly and distinctly Louisiana accents.
Their late father, Shelby Phelps, was from Goss. Their parents divorced when they were young, but the family still made frequent visits to the Columbia area.
“When I came to visit, even as a young adult, I felt like I was coming home when I saw the red clay,” Mendoza said.
They said they were very close to their grandmother, Margie Patterson. They said she was born a Haik in Florida but was raised by a foster family, the Wards, in the Silver Creek community in nearby Lawrence County. They don’t know the story behind their grandmother’s birth and said she didn’t want to discuss it when she was living. She was a health care sitter and member of Goss Baptist Church. She died in 1999 at age 89.
Her husband, Buford Patterson, was technically their step-grandfather, although they said he was the only grandfather they ever knew. He was a Goss native, member of Goss Baptist Church, a heavy equipment operator for Marion County and a member of Carley Masonic Lodge. He died in 1981 at age 68.
Growing up during visits to see their grandparents, Mendoza recalls going to Bible school and swimming in creeks. She walked down to the water during her previous visit a couple of years ago.
“I just wanted to put my toes in it one more time,” she said. “We had some nice childhood memories.”
Mendoza left the photographs she found at the C-P’s office and said she would love for someone with a connection or other interest in them to have them. They’re available for viewing at the newspaper office.
Pictured Above: From left, Gwen Mendoza, Debbie Gros and Cathy Leblanc look over old photographs Friday that they discovered at their grandmother’s home in Goss. The three sisters from Thibodaux, La., wanted to share the history with the people of Marion County. Photo by Charlie Smith
