“I grew up in the community of Grace, outside Rolling Fork, Mississippi. I feel like my family made up most of the community. Everybody was a farmer. School was 20 miles away. Greenville was the big city 30 miles north of us. We were in the middle of nowhere.

I lived down the road from my grandparents, Mamaw and Big Daddy. They lived on the family farm, and we lived a little further down. They grew cotton, soybeans, and milo–and anything else that would grow. My dad farmed with his brothers and took everything to the gin. A couple of times, he took me in his 18-wheeler. Riding along with him was one of the best times of my life.

There wasn’t much to do in Grace. Mostly, we climbed on farm equipment, crawled in and out of trailers, made wreaths out of clover flowers, and climbed trees. Rode bikes and skinned our knees. At my other grandparents’ farm in Indianola, we couldn’t play in the barn until the bull was in the other pasture. If we saw him, we’d run for our lives back to the house.

I didn’t think about what I wanted to do when I grew up. I was quiet Barbara Jean,  just doing whatever came along. As soon as I graduated from high school, I got married and had kids. Two daughters, three years apart. We moved to Louisiana, where I didn’t know anyone. When my marriage ended, my counselor said, ‘Your marriage is over. What are you going to be when you grow up?’ I wanted to help people, so I moved to Missouri to be close to my sister and became a nurse. 

I worked full-time at a hospital and put myself through nursing school. The Lord opened doors for me. By the time I left Missouri, I had two nursing degrees and sixteen years of experience. Barbara Jean, that quiet little girl from Grace, Mississippi who picked clover flowers, became a leader in a large hospital.

But life changed, and it was time to move again. I needed to be back down South near home. I moved to Fairhope in May of 2023, and my parents moved in with me. I’m still a nurse manager, now for the women’s and children’s unit at Thomas Hospital. I tell my staff that when they walk into a room, they have to become what that patient needs them to be. Some patients need bubbly and laughter. Others need calm and quiet. Nurses read their patients and adjust. That’s how I live—trying to see what people need and be that. I see in the hospital that life could always be worse; I choose to look at what’s good.

Part of that good was reconnecting with Perry, a friend since kindergarten in Rolling Fork. He’s the same nice guy he always was and would give you the shirt off his back. I stopped in at his restaurant in Vicksburg when I was driving to Fairhope to look at houses. Perry is an incredible cook and has won more trophies than he can count. I told him he’d do great on the Gulf Coast. Eventually, he shut his restaurant and moved here.

Perry didn’t want to own another restaurant, so our first plan was the Rolling Fork food trailer. But we couldn’t find a commissary required for operating a food truck. Then we saw this little restaurant available out on Highway 32. I told Perry I would own the restaurant, and he could just cook. We opened the Southern Bayou restaurant together at the end of June. Food and nursing are both ways into people’s hearts. Both are acts of service. 

The Delta is in our restaurant. Perry and my family are here. I’m home again. I’m still that little girl from Grace, Mississippi, but I know how far I’ve come.”

Barbara