Mark Suroviec: So I am here today with Stacie Marshall of Mountain Mama Farms. Stacie, who are you, and what do you do?

Stacie Marshall: My name is Stacie Marshall and I am the wife of Jeremy Marshall and the mother of three sweet girls who are 13, 11, and eight years old. I run a 300-acre farm. I’m the fifth generation farmer of this property and farm alongside my father and brother and husband, and three children here in the hills of Northwest Georgia…

…I think the connection, of returning to farming really happened for me, in midlife. My mom, unfortunately, passed away very, very suddenly. And, I stepped into that role of helping my grandparents as well. And so. In that season of my life, it was, it was really providential in some ways. And, and really kind of felt like coming full circle because as my grandparents were passing away, I think they were, were really concerned with what they would leave to their children and their grandchildren.

Part of that legacy for them was this family tradition of farming, not just the land, but the practices and the belief that like farming is something that is the heart of our community…

… I moved into my grandparents’ house almost two years ago. That’s where Mark and I are sitting right now. We are sitting in the kitchen where my mom cooked biscuits every morning and sausage and gravy. And my grandfather sat right here and had his morning coffee before going out to the farm. I’ve moved back to the family farm and to the family home, and now continuing to make that journey my own.

Mark Suroviec: So you became a farmer and in your development as a farmer, you came across a startling revelation. So can you tell us that story? 

Stacie Marshall: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that the becoming of the farming journey for me was this returning home and in some ways helping my people to die. 

In that season where my grandparents were starting to tell a lot of stories that they wanted to pass down. And we just started having lots of conversations. One of the conversations that we had occurred actually when I just had my first daughter Addison and the conversation was surprising.

I was nursing Addison. She was just a couple of weeks old and, I was really struggling with that. My grandfather was observing this and he just said, 

“Did you know that our family owned slaves?”

And, I just remember. Just being shocked to hear that. I, think maybe I’d heard it before as a child, but I didn’t really understand, or it wasn’t talked about regularly.

For it to resurface as an adult, it felt like there was a different understanding that I had with what that meant in my own family history. 

So he said, 

“We weren’t a wealthy farm , but we had a slave woman that was purchased because your great- great grandmother had difficult time nursing.”

But for me, it was like one of those moments in your life where you just, you just feel like, the lights get shut off and like, everything gets super focused in. You realize this is a very important moment. He said her name. He said, 

“Her name was Hester.”

And this was such a significant story because, this woman lived and, and died before my grandfather was even born. So this story had been passed down from his grandfather to his father, and then to my grandfather. So I was recognizing like, wow, like this is a 150-year-old story that I’m hearing right now…

 …I think there was still, still so much mystery around her life. Fast forward to about 10 years later, when my grandparents had passed away and I moved back into their estate, I was able to locate the slave records.

The slave records were, it was very sobering because what I saw on the slave registry was, my great, great grandfather’s name and then seven numbers. And there were no names. there are just numbers and gender. And race and ages…

… I felt a lot of emotion obviously around it, and I felt conflicted on what to do with it. This family history and farming, so much of it has been part of my development as I’ve mentioned. I think I felt, it would be very easy for me just to put this in a drawer and not talk about it. I had a little bit of fear of if I did start kind of talking about it, what would people think like that I was trying to bring, glorify something that was horrific. I didn’t want to speak of it in a way that was just like this interesting family fact you know, I didn’t wanna be dismissive and, and, and I wanted to process the story well, and I think the reason why is because I come from a family of history keepers and history tellers, and I wanted to tell this story well, out of honoring my family, but also honoring Hester and her descendants. Then I began to think, this is a community story. Hester’s descendants might actually be in this community and maybe they would like to know more…

 …I grew up in this farming community where generations of people have lived together and there are several. of those families that have remained here for generations and there’s this connectedness. And so I actually went to some of my neighbors and, they are also spiritual mentors of mine and it was, Mr. Melvin Mosley and Betty Mosley. And Mr. Melvin grew up with my father. They had to attend separate schools. They played every single day on this farm together. As young children and as six-year-olds, they would come home from separate schools because Mr. Melvin is black and my dad is white. They would meet on their farm. They’ve been always so open about what it was like for their friendship growing up in a culture of segregation. I respect him and he’s had, such a connection to our family. I think I would just like to have this conversation with him. So I called him and he was like, I’m very interested. I wanna see the documents. 

He was very encouraging of me to find the descendants. And he said I’d like to help you because I know that her family would wanna know. So he actually prayed for me. He prayed that any generational curses in my family of racism would be lifted. And he prayed that with my line and with my children, I would use this farm for love and for good. And it was a significant moment for me because Mr. Melvin was not trying to absolve me of anything. He was calling me forward as a community member. 

I knew this is my time now. I’m part of telling the history of this place. And so how can I use this farm? How can I use this story for good? So we begin this journey. And have been on the journey for about three years and, it’s been a pretty significant journey in my life…

For more info on Stacie’s mission of reconciliation: 

A documentary by Ozarkadia Films

Mountain Mama Farms / About

Instagram: mountainmamafarms

Her Family Owned Slaves.- How Can She Make Amends? — by Kim Severson, NY Times.