Majorie “Marjy” Littlejohn was the daughter of George and Emily Littlejohn, the maternal grandmother of Levi Hooper. Marjy not unlike her own mother married into a somewhat disreputable family, the Motts. However, also like her mother, the Motts she chose for a husband, Donald, was one of the better characters among the rest.
Mildred Motts Hooper was born in Tallulah, Louisiana in 1944, the half sister of Molly Motts Raney. Mildred married Leon Hooper and had one son, Levi Hooper, and passed away in 2014 at the age of 69 just before her 70th birthday.
Mildred liked to cook and crochet and was happy as a homemaker. One of her favorite dishes to prepare was baked cheese grits which she would serve with breaded pork chops and homemade rolls.
She and Leon were married in 1963 shortly before Leon was shipped off to Vietnam. When Leon returned from his tour of service they settled down in Jackson, Mississippi where Leon worked as a welder and they raised their only son, Levi, who was born in 1973.
However, Leon only lived another two years, dying in 1975, and Levi had no memories of his father. To help make ends meet Mildred began to sell items from her home, establishing a thrift store at her residence (see song, “Mildred’s House of Values“).
Mildred passed away in 2014 after suffering a stroke.
Leon Hooper made a good living as a welder and hardly spoke of his war years. However, he was quietly proud of his Marine service, first in the infantry in Korea later in a support unit in Vietnam, and kept in touch with his buddies from the war. Leon did not drink hard liquor as a rule, but on those occasions when he got together with his Marine buddies, mostly those who were with him in Korea, he would have a few shots of bourbon and turn a bright shade of red if the talk became bawdy.
Leon was born in Jackson, Mississippi and lived his entire life there with his wife, Mildred, and son, Levi. He did not see Levi grow up, however, because Leon died in 1975 just two years after Levi was born.
Leon would repair bicycles and give them to the neighborhood kids and he also created steam powered folk art which he would roll out and run on the Fourth of July each year.
LOCATION: Jackson ,Mississippi
PERIOD: 1944-2014
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Mildred Motts Hooper (1944-2014); Leon Hooper (1933-1975); Levi Hooper (1973)
Mildred Motts Hooper was born in Tallulah, Louisiana in 1944, the half sister of Molly Motts Raney. Mildred married Leon Hooper and had one son, Levi Hooper.
Mildred liked to cook and crochet and was happy as a homemaker. One of her favorite dishes to prepare was baked cheese grits which she would serve with breaded pork chops and homemade rolls.
She and Leon were married in 1963 shortly before Leon was shipped off to Vietnam. When Leon returned from his tour of service they settled down in Jackson, Mississippi where Leon worked as a welder and they raised their only son, Levi, who was born in 1973.
However, Leon only lived another two years, dying in 1975, and Levi had no memories of his father. To help make ends meet Mildred began to sell items from her home, establishing a thrift store at her residence (see song, “Mildred’s House of Values“).
Mildred passed away in 2014 after suffering a stroke.
MILDRED’S HOUSE OF VALUES
(F.D. Leone, Jr.)
Mildred’s “House of Values,” on a corner lot
A price tag hung from every table and chair
Things for sale like any other shop
But it was Mildred’s home and she still lived there
Her son Levi would come by and do odd jobs
Help his momma with what she needed done
Rustin’ on blocks, a ’68 Dodge
Levi never could get to run
A person does all they can do
Full time job just gettin’ through
Rise in the morning, close your eyes at night
In between, try to get it right
Mildred was widowed nineteen-seventy-five
Leon Hooper was a good man
Price tags went up, year after he died
Life don’ turn out nothin’ like we plan
The ’68 Dodge, last car Leon bought
Rest of his stuff, sittin’ in a shed
You can see in Levi, Leon’s walk
Are the ones we love ever really dead?
A person does all they can do
Full time job just gettin’ through
Rise in the morning, close your eyes at night
In between, try to get it right
Mildred’s “House of Values,” on a corner lot
From every stick of furniture a price tag hung
A ‘68 Dodge rustin’ on blocks
Levi never could get to run
© 2017 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Elijah “Lige” Langford was the patriarch of a strict Presbyterian family of Scots-Irish descent from Mississippi by way of North Carolina (see article “The Knox Family” and song “Nathaniel Knox was an Ulster Man”). His daughter Emily married into a less religious family, the Littlejohns, and eventually along came Levi Hooper.
Alma Prescott Langford was the daughter of a minister and the granddaughter of a Cherokee chief. Alma was a serious woman, but would display uncommon compassion given the right circumstances. Those circumstances arose concerning her daughter Emily Langford.
Her maternal grandfather was a Cherokee chief, Franklin Largo, who married a white woman, Hilary Cosgrove, and helped her operate the general store her father started. The Prescotts were a Calvinist Presbyterian family whose men were often called to preach.
People said she got the “Italian” look from the Indian side. It’s true she had her grandpa’a’s black eyes and prominent cheek bones but she got her mama’s fair skin and height.
When George Littlejohn came to court her daughter Emily, it was Alma who softened up Lige Langford enough to allow the match to proceed. She had a keen understanding about love cropping up in places that a straight-laced Calvinist community frowned upon (see song “The Langfords and the Littlejohns“).
Emily Lankford was the sweet daughter of Elijah Langford a strict religious man who raised her to certainly not fall in love and marry someone like George Littlejohn. At least he didn’t think he wanted George Littlejohn in his family. But as it turned out George was a good husband to Emily and became someone Lize liked and respected.
The Littlejohns were a family of hell-raisers and Lize Langford wanted nothing to do with them. However, George was not cut out of the same cloth, and Emily saw him for who he really was. George had a good singing voice and the story goes that when Lize Langford would not let him in his house to see Emily, George stayed outside on the porch and sang all night. He usually accompanying himself on a handmade dulcimer.
George and Emily left North Carolina and moved to Mississippi, their daughter Marjy Littlejohn was Levi Hooper’s maternal grandmother.
Anse Littlejohn was Levi Hooper’s great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side. Anse was the patriarch of a family of ner-do-wells. His son George, however, fell in love with Emily Langford, one of the children from a church going family. When George and Emily married these two families merged, softening the Littlejohns but also undercutting the piety of the Langfords.
George Littlejohn, the “lone white sheep in a family of black,” was the son of Anse Littlejohn. While his father, and brothers, were hard-nosed, severe and difficult to get along with North Carolinians, George was pretty much the opposite. However, he was a strong individual, a quality which allowed him to defy his father and marry Emily Langford, the daughter of a strict Presbyterian family.
George and Emily left North Carolina and ended up in Mississippi, they were the great grandparents of Levi Hooper.
In Levi’s mother’s mind he was named for her ancestor who died in the Civil War. However, the name Levi was also an old Hooper family name, and Leon Hooper, Levi’s father, chose to name his son after his grandfather who had died the year Levi was born.
Levi Hooper was a descendant of two old Southern families: the Hoopers came into North Carolina in the early 18th century and then migrated to Alabama in the mid-19th century. The Mott family was an old Louisianan family going back to the 1750s.
Jackson, Mississippi, was where Levi was raised and he never moved away. His daddy was a welder and made a good living but died just before Levi turned two. After that Levi’s mother turned the family home into a thrift shop (see song,”Mildred’s House of Values“) putting price tags on everything from lamps and vases to the furniture.
Levi eventually got his own place and met his neighbor from across the street, Lucy Cooper, and began a kind of courtship (see song, “Levi + Lucy“). Lucy Cooper was nothing like Levi, she was rebellious and wild whereas Levi was mild-mannered, a church -going man. But Lucy was strangely attracted to Levi’s wholesome quality and made a real effort at cleaning up her life and trying her best to change.
But as this kind of thing is never really easy, Lucy had trouble straightening out and one thing led to another and she was arrested and sent to the penitentiary to serve eighteen months on a drug charge.
Levi visited her often and told her was waiting for her, but Lucy could not take prison life and ended up overdosing shortly before being released. Lucy’s death, coupled with the passing of his mother the year before, was too much for Levi. He started down a dark path of drinking and driving all through the western Mississippi/eastern Louisiana area (see song, “Levi After Lucy“).
He would not break out of this self-destructive behavior until he learned from Lucy’s mother, Mae Cooper, that before she died Lucy had given birth to Levi’s son whom Mae was raising and had named McCoy (see song “Lucy’s Grandma“).
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