Mrs. Jessie Mae Smith, known in Indianapolis as Nana Smith, was tired. It had been a long day, but now the wait began. The old church pew she was seated on held no comfort as she anxiously waited for the visitation to begin . . . if it would. The girls sat quietly beside her, too quietly for nine-year-old twins. As her mind began to drift, she silently wondered if this was the pew she sat on at JPs funeral. Pleasant Hill United Church had remodeled since then, and the old pews were relegated to the Smith Memorial Fellowship Hall, named so for her beloved JP. Deacon John Paul Smith, who had been a lifelong member of Pleasant Hill, died ten years before. One year later the fellowship hall was renamed in his honor.
When people go missing in the sleepy town of Smith’s Hollow, the only clue to their fate comes when a teenager starts having terrifying visions, in a chilling horror novel from national bestselling author Christina Henry. When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in the town of Smiths Hollow, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won't find the killer. After all, the year before her father's body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids. So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging the remains of the girls through the woods, she knows she can't just do nothing. Not like the rest of her town. But as she draws closer to answers, she realizes that the foundation of her seemingly normal town might be rotten at the center. And that if nobody else stands for the missing, she will.
Jessie Mae Smith, known to her husband as Honey and to her children as Mommy, was in deep thought. Morning worship was almost over at Pleasant Hill United Church, but her mind was already on Sunday dinner. She had pulled up her mental checklist and found that a short stop at the A&P was going to be necessary. Elder Belvedere was reminding everyone to drive safely and to remember to be kind to one another. May the Lord watch, he concluded, between me and thee, while we are absent, one from another, and all the people sing . . . The congregation sang, Amen.
Faith holds up a photo of the boarded-up, vacant house: "It’s the first thing I see. And I just call it ‘the Homeless House’ ‘cause it’s the house that nobody fixes up." Faith is one of fourteen women living on Syracuse’s Southside, a predominantly African-American and low-income area, who took photographs of their environment and displayed their images to facilitate dialogues about how they viewed their community. A Place We Call Home chronicles this photography project and bears witness not only to the environmental injustice experienced by these women but also to the ways in which they maintain dignity and restore order in a community where they have traditionally had little control. To understand the present plight of these women, one must understand the historical and political context in which certain urban neighborhoods were formed: Black migration, urban renewal, white flight, capital expansion, and then bust. Ducre demonstrates how such political and economic forces created a landscape of abandoned housing within the Southside community. She spotlights the impact of this blight upon the female residents who survive in this crucible of neglect. A Place We Call Home is the first case study of the intersection of Black feminism and environmental justice, and it is also the first book-length presentation using Photovoice methodology, an innovative research and empowerment strategy that assesses community needs by utilizing photographic images taken by individuals. The individuals have historically lacked power and status in formal planning processes. Through a cogent combination of words and images, this book illuminates how these women manage their daily survival in degraded environments, the tools that they deploy to do so, and how they act as agents of change to transform their communities.
