Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 5, 2024
“So, Grandma Jubilee, are you really moving down here?”
This was eight-year-old Gracie Jubilee Trent, talking with her Trent grandmother, Gladys Jubilee Trent.
“Not today, baby, because I am going to take some cake back up in a little bit to your Jubilee-of-the-mountain relatives, but like your little friend Robert said, 'Next week, though!'”
“I think Rob is going to be happy because I know I am!”
Mrs. Trent smiled and let her granddaughter just be eight by not hinting at more serious reasons behind the move. Gracie's mother, Melissa Trent, was valiantly moving through mental health challenges and could use a bit more support, and so could Gracie's father, Sgt. Vincent Trent, because he was quietly doing so much to make sure his wife was good in addition to the family at large.
However, this worked out for reasons only the Trent mother and son fully understood … the other Trents were just getting to a point …
“I can't even look at them,” Mrs. Trent said. “But instead of moving home to the Jubilees right now and getting V.T.'s sillier relatives made into ugly swiss cheese on sight, I can hang out with y'all for a while.”
Mrs. Trent had known going in that V.T. Trent stood alone as the upright man in his moonshining-becoming-drug-dealing lot – essentially, the Jubilees-of-the-mountain had adopted him in some time before he met and fell in love with Gladys Jubilee. With her he had raised their children in “mountain rich humility.”
The Jubilees who had moved into the Appalachian Mountains were among the most powerful mountain families because of their forefather's reputation. Hubert Ross, who had renamed himself Jubilee when he obtained his freedom, was that one conductor on the Underground Railroad who could long-shoot … and so could all his kids, male and female … and all his grandkids … and all his great-grandkids … and so forth. With the advantage of high places and modern ballistic technology in the 20th and 21st century, the Jubilees-of-the-mountain were truly a fearsome bunch of individuals to mess with, and if they gave refuge to well-meaning people passing through or just trying to do better, it was best to leave them alone – so V.T. Trent had been able to raise his children protected from the influence of the rest of his family.
But children are humans, bound to grow up, subject to temptation, and bound to make their own decisions about their legacy. Three of V.T. and Gladys' five children decided to go the old Trent route, and had preceded their parents in death along with many others in the family as the United States began its “War on Drugs.”
Meanwhile, V.T. and Gladys had moved back to the Trent side of the hill because V.T.'s mother had a stroke … so they took care of her for a decade, and then V.T., exhausted after fighting for the right all his life, died in his sleep about six weeks later.
“But he needed to go home,” the Jubilee-of-the-mountain-born widow said. “He had seen Vincent and Victoria make good marriages away from here, and have good kids they were raising right, and he knew I was going to be fine because cain't nobody up here named Trent afford me not to be because my born name is Jubilee. He had done his work, and done it well. The Lord took him, and I couldn't even be mad even before the rest of the foolery really picked up.”
The rest of the foolery, really, was a whole bunch of Trent and Trent-adjacent widows with their kids moving back to the Trent general circle missing partners and older sons, destitute but still devoid of any sense of responsibility for their contribution to their situation.
“They were living good on the wages of sin until that death part showed up,” Mrs. Trent said, “and longing to go back and get some more like the children of Israel were wanting fish from when they were in slavery in Egypt. And then they thought they were going to wait until all of V.T.'s older relatives died off and just get their stuff. And then since the Lord is done marching people through deserts until their carcasses fall in the wilderness, all of them silly women and young'ins old enough to cause trouble ran up against me, born Jubilee.”
For love of V.T. Trent, his widow successfully and shrewdly took care of all his aunts and older female cousins, getting care for them to stay in their homes as long as that was feasible, and looking out for their property until they could pass it on to the heirs of their choice. So subtle and careful and “long way off” was Mrs. Trent that the younger relatives didn't realize that things were going wrong for their plans because she was making it happen.
“It's one thing if you get lost and wander into danger because you don't know no better,” she said. “It's another thing if you pushed your husbands and your sons to keep you fat on foolishness, then buried them, and then want to make merchandise and sell off the well-being of your elders to get back up out of a pit you walked into on purpose. The preacher is right when he says, 'Hell is too hot and eternity is too long' for people not to get it straight with Jesus. My whole thing is, “But prison is perfect!” But if you really want to find out how hot and long the other part is, stay in my eyesight and gunsight trying to mess with some old Trents that V.T. loved, or my surviving two kids, and their kids. I'm a saved, sanctified believer in active self-defense and defense of the vulnerable as well!”
[“I love me some Grandma Jubilee!” Gracie's eight-year-old best friend Edwina Ludlow said. “I don't play about mine and she don't play about hers and I love it! I just need to get taller than a long gun so I can actually pick it up, and I'm good!”]
Mrs. Gladys Jubilee Trent, for love of V.T., quietly outwitted 78 percent of his younger relatives, on behalf of the older relatives and the younger relatives that were for the right, but just did not have the knowledge necessary to do battle on her level.
“V.T. taught me a lot of stuff – he knew everything his family was into, and left it all written down because he knew when he left it was going to get crazy. I passed it on to my family and we just stayed busy. Prisons are full in Lofton County. Couple of graves got their new tenants. No regrets. Now that the last old Trent that loved V.T. is gone, and the younger ones who are about something are set and getting on with their lives, I need to look every day for a while at the Trent men that remind me of V.T. the most: our son Vincent, and our grandson, Melvin, and then I'll go visit with Victoria and then go home to my Jubilee-of-the-mountain family, further up the mountain, going toward Home.”
That was way, way, way too much for Gracie Jubilee Trent to know about, except like Edwina, she kinda already did know.
“Sometimes you just need to live with people with sense for a minute,” she said to other-best-friend seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow, “and just feel safe.”
Amanda sighed.
“It's just kinda hard,” she said, “living with people who love drugs and stupidity. Been there! I need to go give your grandma an extra hug of snugglecouragement, because I get it, and I'm glad she's going to be safe here like we are!”