“Well, Little Lady, I need to apologize to you. My uncle killed your grandfather.”
Juanita Green Hollinghead stood there shocked and dumbfounded by the words of the man she just hired to refinish her cabinet doors.
When Rufus Holley found out who Hollinghead was, and who she was related to, he apologized for the actions of his uncle.
Hollinghead’s grandfather, Jacob “Jake” Francis Green, was a U.S. Treasury agent in Greene County.
On April Fool’s Day in 1921, Green, along with Richton Town Marshal Lawrence Dunham, were shot and killed by moonshiners when the prohibition-era officers were attempting to shut down an illegal still.
Holley’s uncle, Mancy Kelley, was one of the men indicted in the murder of Hollinghead’s grandfather. Kelly committed suicide before he was set to be hanged.
“I could not believe he was apologizing for something he had no control over that happened so long ago,” Hollinghead wrote in her book, “Beyond the Green Widow: Consequences of the Piney Woods Creek Murders of 1921.” The book was written with Sherye S. Green.
Hollinghead, a retired Greene County history teacher, said she wrote the book after 40 years of “research and investigation.”
“As Jake Green’s youngest grandchild, I have always felt a heart-wrenching burden to investigate and research further the accounts leading up to and after his murder,” Hollinghead told Today in Mississippi.
Hollinghead said her father never discussed the murder with his own family.
Only in 1988, after her father’s death, did she begin an active, personal investigation into a crime that shaped her entire family’s history.
“My grandmother and her three children never discussed Jake’s death. When I was born 43 years later, my mother always told me and my three siblings to never ask my father about his daddy’s death. It was just too heartbreaking for the family. I honored her request until my father passed away,” Hollinghead said.
Hollinghead said she started sharing her grandfather’s story with her fourth-grade students at Leakesville Elementary School in the mid-1980s.
Her students encouraged her to write a book about the family tragedy.
“I started researching to find out whatever I could to know more. The courthouse from 1921 had burned, and the present courthouse in Greene County had its basement flooded. That’s where all the historical court documents were stored.”
After she retired in 2012, Hollinghead had more time and other ways to research her family’s story.
She used online sources, newspapers, court documents, and conducted personal interviews.
“My few newspaper clippings turned into binders of over a thousand newspaper articles related to the murders, and other documents acquired through the years,” she said.
Hollinghead designed a curriculum guide with the book to be shared with teachers based on the standard for teaching Mississippi History.
“It’s my passion to encourage young readers to place themselves into the book they are reading and feel the emotions of the characters. So far, I have visited all K-8 schools in Greene County. Those events were some of my favorites. It was like I was back in the classroom,” she said.
Hollinghead said she got emotional during a visit with students at the McClain Attendance Center.
“I shared the importance of recognizing fallen officers and that I was able to attend the National Law Enforcement Memorial Wall Ceremony in 2017. After the program, one young man came up to me and told me he was sorry for my loss. Then a young man shared that he was going with his family to Washington, D.C. the following week to attend a candlelight vigil for his family member who was killed in the line of duty in George County. You can see why I got emotional.”
During the research of the book, Hollinghead discovered other interesting facts about her family. She learned that her great-grandfather was a Greene County sheriff, and uncovered family deeds were connected to a land grant signed by John Quincy Adams in 1825.
When asked why she wrote her book, Hollinghead’s words were wise.
“I am a consequence of the Piney Woods Creek Murders of 1921. It’s my history. Would I like to go back and change it? No. It made me who I am today: Jake Green’s youngest offspring and keeper of the Jake Green family history. And that is priceless,” she said.
