The most important details in this chapter are that the narrator is Mary Phagan-Kean, a great niece of William Jackson Phagan and Angelina O'Shields Phagan. At age 15, the narrator is certain of one thing their life will be shaped by their relationship to little Mary Phagan. They go to Atlanta's archives to discover more about the family, including the trial of Leo Frank and the lynching. The narrator's great great grandparents, William Jackson Phagan and Angelina O'Shields Phagan, made their home in Akworth, Georgia, and their children included William Joshua Haney McMillan, Charles Joseph Ruben Egbert, john Marshall, george Nelson, lizzie Marietta, john Harvell, maddie Louise, billy Arthur and Dora Roth. The eldest son, William Joshua, loves the land and farmed with his father, and on December 20, 791, he married Fanny Benton.
The Reverend J. D. Fuller presided over the Holy Bands of Matrimony for William and Fanny Joshua in Cobb County, Georgia. William and Fanny became successful farmers and moved to Florence, Alabama in 1895. In February of 1899, William Joshua Phagan died of measles and Fanny was left with their four young children. On June 1, Mary Anne Phagan was born to Fanny in Florence, Alabama. Fanny moved her family back home to Georgia where she planned to live with her widowed mother, Mrs. Nanny Benton, and her brother, Rel Benton.
Fanny figured there would be more opportunities in a densely populated area. Southern society was changing rapidly and the younger generation did not know the high feelings of the War between the States and the Reconstruction. WJ Phagan moved his family back to Georgia after the death of his eldest son in 1907. He purchased a log home and land on Powder Springs Road in Marietta and provided Fanny with a home for her and her five children to live in. After 1910, Fannie and four of her five children moved to East Point, Atlanta, Georgia, where she started a boarding house and the children found jobs in the mill.
Charlie Joseph, the middle child, decided to continue farming and moved in with his Uncle Ruben on Powder Springs Road in Marietta. Mary found work at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta. The Phagan family remained close with relatives in Marietta, where they played games such as hide and seek, hopscotch, dolls and house. Mary's favorite game was house, where the girls would clear a clean spot in the shade, place rocks in it for chairs, and decorate the inside of the house using limbs from trees or other big branches already on the ground.
The most important aspect are the stories of Fanny and her children. Fanny married J. W. Coleman, a cabinet maker, and they moved to JW's house at 146 Lindsay Street in Atlanta, near Bellwood, a white working class neighborhood. After marrying, Fanny requested that Mary quit work at the pencil company and continue her education, but Mary liked her work at the factory and didn't want to quit.
