Times have changed since my grandmother was going up. Joyce Ann Thigpen was born on February 17th, 1946 to Edward Franklin Rich and Dorthy Thigpen in her grandmother 's house on a little farm four miles from Trenton, North Carolina. Because her parents were not married when she was born, she was adopted by her grandmother, Mary Ann Thigpen. Joyce met a lineman who was working on power lines on my family’s land. On August 2, 1962, Joyce married the linemen, my granddaddy, Frank Linney Roark Sr., at the young age of sixteen. In the process of getting married, she obliged to have her birth certificate and she found out that her mother was actually her grandmother. After Joyce and Frank married, they then moved to Clinton, North Carolina. Joyce gave birth to my aunt, Mary Ann Roark, on May 10th 1964 when she was eighteen. A year later they then moved back to the little farm four miles from Trenton North Carolina. Two years later she then gave birth to my father, Frank Linney Roark Jr., on February 25, 1967, at age twenty-one.
Joyce went
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People do not respect one another anymore. You use to be able to walk anywhere without being scared. I asked what she did for fun when she was growing up; she said that she did not do much of anything she just went to school, came home, did chorus, and baby sat, and on the weekends they always had company over.
I think my grandmother was a strong independent women. I do not agree with her marrying a man who was thirty-four when she was just sixteen, but without that happening I would not be here so I do not care. I do not agree with her grand mother adopting her for the reason she did. People do not need to be married to raise a child. I do not agree with plenty of things my grandmother has done and will processed to do but she is stubborn and no one is going to tell her