My mother was born in 1929 shortly after the flooding of Elba, Alabama, for the first time. My grandmother and grandfather and my great grandparents lived and worked in Elba. My grandfather, Buddy Wallace, and his father, William Riley Wallace, ran a blacksmith shop in Elba.

When it flooded they lost their houses and their business.

My grandmother was pregnant with my mother at the time. The waters rose so high that she and the other members of the family stood on ceiling joists in the attic as the water continued to rise around their ankles and legs. The flooding was so bad that my other grandfather came from Montgomery to Brantley where he attempted to swim the flooded and swollen Conecuh River to go the 18 miles to Elba to rescue his daughter. He was unable to do so.

When my grandmother was finally rescued they started anew in Brantley. She didn’t make the 18 mile trip from Brantley to Elba again until 12 years later when a family emergency made it impossible for her not to go.

After the 1929 flood a levee was built in Elba. It held until 1990 when water over topped the levee and the whole downtown area flooded again. I still remember my grandmother saying in all seriousness about the levee, “I told them it wouldn’t work.”