Now that Jacob was dead, as was his wife, the spacious home was Liza’s domain, and she wanted to fill it with children. Typically, she and Pete went about this project with great enthusiasm, but the results were disappointing. She had one miscarriage at Fort Riley, then another when they moved to the farm. After a few months of dark mood swings and a lot of tears, she bounced back as vigorous as before, much to Pete’s delight. Liza had only one sibling, as did Pete, and they agreed that small families were boring. She dreamed of having five children, Pete wanted six, three of each, so they pursued their marital duties with a fierce determination.
When he wasn’t in bed with his wife, Pete was aggressively getting the farm into shape. He spent hours in the fields doing the manual work himself and setting the example for his workers. He cleared land, rebuilt a barn, repaired outbuildings, laid down fencing, bought new livestock, and usually worked from sunrise to dusk. He met with the bankers and told them bluntly that they would have to wait.
The weather cooperated in 1933, and with Pete driving his field hands into the ground the crop was abundant. The market cooperated as well, and the farm had its first breathing room in years. Pete kept the banks happy as he made payments, but he also buried some money in the backyard. The Banning land consisted of two sections, 640 acres each, and if more of it could be cleared, more cotton could be planted. For the first time in his life, Pete began to see the long-term potential of his inheritance.
He owned one section, Florry the other, and they struck a deal whereby he would cultivate her land for half the profits. In 1934, she built her pink cottage and moved from Memphis. Her arrival on the farm added some life to the place. She liked Liza and they were amiable, at first.
Not that life was dull; it was not. Liza enjoyed being a full-time mother as she tried in vain to add to her family. Pete taught her how to ride a horse, built a barn, and filled it with horses and ponies. Before long she had Joel and Stella in the saddle, and the three of them rode for hours around the farm and the neighboring countryside. Pete taught her how to shoot and they hunted birds together. He taught her how to fish and the little family spent hours on Sunday afternoons down by the river.
If Liza missed the big city, she rarely complained. At the age of thirty, she had a happy marriage with a husband she adored and was blessed with two beautiful children. She lived in a fine home surrounded by farmland that provided security. For a party girl, though, the social life was disappointing. There was no country club, no fancy hotel, no dance clubs or decent bars. Indeed, there were no bars at all because Ford County, like the entire state, was as dry as a bone. Alcohol sales were illegal in all eighty-two counties and every city. Those of a more sinful nature were forced to rely upon bootleggers, who were plentiful, or friends who hauled back booze from Memphis.
Social life was dictated by the church. In the case of the Bannings, of course, it was the Methodist church, the second largest in Clanton. Pete insisted that they attend faithfully, and Liza fell into the routine. She had been raised as a lukewarm Episcopalian, of which there were none — devout or otherwise — to be found in Clanton. At first, she was a bit turned off by the narrowness of Methodist teachings, but soon understood that things could be worse. The county was full of other, more strident strains of Christianity — Baptists, Pentecostals, and Churches of Christ — hard-core believers even more fundamental than the Methodists. Only the Presbyterians seemed slightly less dogged. If there was a solitary Catholic in town he kept it quiet. The nearest Jew was in Memphis.
People were classified, and often judged, by their denomination. And they were certainly condemned if they didn’t claim one. Liza joined the Methodist church and became an active member. What else was there to do in Clanton?
However, because she was an outsider, regardless of her husband’s pedigree, it would take a long time to fit in. The locals really didn’t trust you unless their ancestors had known your grandfather. She attended faithfully and grew to enjoy the worship services, especially the music. Eventually, she was asked to join a women’s Bible study group that met once a month. Then she was asked to assist in the planning of a wedding. She helped out with a couple of important funerals. A traveling evangelist came to town for the spring revival, and Pete offered their guest room for the week. As it turned out, he was quite handsome, and the ladies envied Liza’s closeness to the charismatic young preacher. Pete kept a close eye on the situation and was pleased when the revival was over.
But there was always another upcoming revival. The Methodists had two each year, the Baptists three, and the Pentecostals seemed to be in a constant state of frenzied renewal. At least twice a year some itinerant street preacher threw up a big top beside the feed store near the square and raged every night through his loudspeakers. It was not at all uncommon for one church to “visit” another church when a hotshot preacher was in town. Every denomination worshipped for at least two hours on Sunday morning. Others came back for more on Sunday evening. (These were the white churches; the black ones kept it going all day and into the night.) Wednesday night prayer meetings were common. Add in all the revivals, religious holiday services, vacation Bible schools in the summer, funerals, weddings, anniversaries, and baptisms, and at times Liza felt exhausted from her church work.
She insisted that they get out of town occasionally. If Florry agreed to keep the kids, they headed for the Peabody and a long weekend of partying. Occasionally, Florry went with them, along with Joel and Stella, and the whole family enjoyed the big city, especially the lights. On two occasions, and with Florry’s insistence, the entire family loaded onto a train and went to New Orleans for a week’s vacation.
In 1936, there was a stark contrast in electrical service in the South. Ninety percent of urban areas had power, while only 10 percent of the small towns and countryside had electricity. Downtown Clanton was wired in 1937, but the rest of the county was still dark. Shopping in Memphis and Tupelo, Liza and the other ladies from the farms were awed by the fancy electrical appliances and gadgets that were flooding the market — radios, phonographs, stoves, refrigerators, toasters, mixers, even vacuum cleaners — and they were untouchable. The country folks dreamed of electricity.
Liza wanted to spend as much time as possible in Memphis and Tupelo, but Pete resisted. He was a farmer now, and as such grew more tightfisted each year. So she settled into the quiet life and kept her complaints to herself.
Nineva and Amos came with the house and the farm. Their parents had been born into slavery and had worked the same land Pete now farmed. Nineva claimed to be “around sixty” but there was no clear record of her birth date. Amos didn’t care when he was born, but to irritate his wife he often said he was born after her. Their oldest son had a birth certificate proving that he was forty-eight. It was unlikely Nineva gave birth when she was twelve. Amos said she was at least twenty. The Bannings knew she was actually “around seventy,” though this subject was off-limits. She and Amos had three other children and a yard full of grandchildren, but by 1935 most had migrated north.