Evelyn Dubose Bozeman remembers: The delights of growing up on a farm in Montevallo
Ed. note: Some of the richest untold stories nestle in the childhood memories of people who grew up in Montevallo and later moved away. This month we feature the recollections of Evelyn DuBose Bozeman, born in 1937 and now living in Palm Coast, Florida. Evelyn is the daughter of Regal (Reggie) DuBose and Johnnie Mae C. Dubose, local educators. In a recent telephone interview, Evelyn recalled life on the family-owned farm on Dogwood Road—today’s County Rd 17—during the 1940s and early 1950s.
Evelyn returned to Montevallo in October 2025. The trip stirred memories into life:
I’ve traveled to many faraway places to see the sights and to talk to the local people. Yet, those trips were not nearly as meaningful to me as the recent trip back home to Montevallo!
Mama Susie
What I wanted was to awaken the memories of how I used to run over the hill behind the home house, how I loved watching the cows come to lick the salt block in the pasture, picking a bucket of blackberries so Mama Susie (my grandmother) could make a blackberry pie for dinner, and reminisce about my interaction with the few farm animals that we had.
I wanted to remember how the chickens followed me, poking their heads in the bucket of corn I was bringing to feed them. Oh, how I remember the way the pigs squealed for Regal Jr. to make their dinner slop and how John and Erskine had to milk the cows so Mama Susie could make fresh butter for our breakfast biscuits! (“My Return to Montevallo”)
Evelyn posing in front of her mother’s Buick on graduation from Prentice HS in 1954. At 17, she was happy to know she would be leaving for the university at Tuskegee in August.
“Not sure why I expressed such an assertive pose in this photo. At seventeen, I was happy to know that I would be leaving for Tuskegee late August. I loved Montevallo, my parents, and softball. Yet I felt there was a more interesting world for me in another place. I found it at Tuskegee and beyond. I had an interest in music, history, and getting to know other interesting people.”
”To the right is a partial view of the first-grade classroom building at Almont Elementary. The two-room building was across the road from the main school building. I remember Mrs. Anna Mae Nunn and Mrs. O. D. Fluker were the first-grade teachers in those two adjoining rooms.”
One of her favorite animals was a turkey named Tom, a gift from her grandmother. Evelyn enjoyed the comedy of Tom’s antics on the dusty, unpaved Dogwood Road. “Tom made it his life's work to go down and stop the cars. He would get in the middle of the dusty road, spread his wings, and gobble at cars.”
Evelyn, age 16
“People would not run over Tom,” Evelyn remembered. “I’d have to go down there and chase him back into our yard so cars could come through.”
Other memories centered on the cows in their fenced-in pasture. Her younger sister, Marva, was frightened of them. One afternoon, returning from Almont Elementary School, Marva got hung up on the barbed-wire fence as curious cows drifted in her direction. She screamed “to the top of her voice,” terrified that one of the cows would bite her. “My brother John and I thought it was hilarious.”
She pauses to reflect: “These are just things that, for whatever reason, my brain and the recesses of my brain bring up. But it was a great life on that farm, and I really appreciated being there.”
Many of her memories center on her grandparents. Her grandfather, John Carlton Cooper from Union Springs-- Papa as he was known in the family—worked as a miner in Boothton. In 1946 he purchased the family’s 48-acre farm. He died the following year, leaving the property to his wife, Susie B. Cooper
Students of Madam C. J. Walker’s beauty school
Mama Susie became the heart of the farm and family. In addition to managing the farm and raising Evelyn and her four siblings, she also ran a hairdressing business out of the home, selling Black hair care and beauty products from the famous Poro line of luxury products that catered to the class-based aspirations of African American women.
She died in 1956, and is buried in the hill-top family cemetery on the original 48 acres. The Cooper family was members of Ward Chapel A.M.E. Church.
Papa took special pride in his shiny black 1939 Buick with running boards along the sides. Nine-year-old Evelyn got her first driving experience in that car, steering while her grandfather handled the pedals—“just keeping the car steady on the road. And I did that pretty good when I was just a little kid.”
Her favorite Buick story features a “beautiful brown goat with beautiful eyes” named Susie that provided milk for the family. After the grandchildren finished polishing the car to shiny perfection, Susie would see herself in the reflection and “go crazy,” butting the Buick door, thinking it a rival goat. “We thought it was funny, but Papa thought it was terrible.” He saw only the scratches on the polished door. ‘God damn it, you kids. I told you not to let that goat butt my car.’”
Evelyn’s vividly detailed memories give us glimpses of life on a Black-owned farm that has remained in the family hands for eighty years. It is a life fondly remembered, marked by humor, resourcefulness, delight, love, and strong sense of place.
Next month we will share Evelyn’s memories of a life in sports, including the recreation program organized around 1950 by her father, Regal (Reggie) DuBose, Sr. If you or someone in your family has memories to share, contact us at Montevallolegacy@gmail.com. Submitted by Kathy King and James Salter