Z 2040.000 Yazoo: Its Legends and Legacies Layout Sheets

Harriet Causey was born in Cleveland, Bolivar County, Mississippi. Her parents were Hugh and Corinne Howry Causey. She graduated from Southwestern College (now Rhodes College) in Memphis, Tennessee, and she received a masters degree from Mississippi College. Her first marriage was to attorney Herman Brister DeCell, with whom she had three children, Alice, Brister, and Causey. Herman DeCell served in the Mississippi Senate from 1960 to 1980. He was also a member of the board of trustees of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

From 1949 to 1979, Harriet DeCell taught humanities and mathematics at Yazoo City High School, along with coaching the debate team and sponsoring the literary magazine. She was president of the board of the Triangle Cultural Center and a trustee of Ricks Memorial Library in Yazoo City. In 1983, DeCell became director of South Delta Library Services, which serves Humphreys, Issaquena, Sharkey, and Yazoo counties. She has been a member of the board of directors of the Mississippi Historical Society and president of the Yazoo Historical Society. DeCell has been active in the United Methodist Church, the Mississippi Committee for the Humanities, and other civic and cultural groups. She has received numerous honors, including the Mississippi Economic Council Star Teacher award.

In 1986, Harriet DeCell helped to establish Bookfriends, a fund-raising and support group for the University Press of Mississippi. Her first husband, Herman DeCell, died on November 2, 1986. She married her second husband, John M. Kuykendall, Jr., in 1987. He died on January 18, 2000. Harriet DeCell Kuykendall currently resides in Jackson, where she is administrator of the Covenant Presbyterian Church School of the Arts. She is also an advisor for the renovation of the Yazoo Historical Museum in Yazoo City.

JoAnne Shirley was born in Quitman, Clarke County, Mississippi, on March 24, 1944. Her parents were J. C. and Eloise Norris Shirley, both natives of Quitman. The Shirleys later moved to Indianola, Sunflower County, Mississippi. JoAnne Shirley graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1966, with a bachelors degree in English. She later completed the course work for a masters degree in folk and intercultural studies at Western Kentucky University. Her first marriage was to Jo G. Prichard, with whom she had two sons, Gibson and Graham.

Prichard taught humanities at Yazoo City High School from 1966 to1983. During this time, she was a colleague of Harriet DeCell. In the early 1980s, she taught an interdisciplinary humanities course for gifted students in the junior-high-school classes. Prichard was a member of the boards of the Triangle Cultural Center, the Yazoo Arts Council, the Yazoo Historical Society, and the Mississippi Historical Society. She was also active in community theatre.

She began working for the University Press of Mississippi in Jackson in 1983, retiring as executive editor in 1997. Since then she has worked part-time for the University Press as special projects editor. In 1990, Prichard married writer Willie Morris, whom she assisted with several research and writing projects. After his death on August 2, 1999, she edited some of his unpublished works, including My Mississippi, a collaborative work of Morris and his only son, photographer David Rae Morris of New Orleans. She serves as president and publisher of J. Prichard Morris Books, and she also works as a free-lance editor for Crown Publishers in New York City.

The idea for Yazoo: Its Legends and Legacies began as a casual conversation among friends at a Christmas party in Yazoo City in 1972. A guest suggested that rather than assigning traditional research papers during the 1973 spring term, DeCell and Prichard should let their students write about Yazoo County, which would also observe its sesquicentennial in 1973. Interest in the project grew to the extent that DeCell and Prichard involved other members of the community, secured funding to expand the project, edited the contributions of students and community members, and compiled a historical and photographic record of the county. They asked Yazoo City native son Willie Morris to write the foreword, and the project was complete. The book won the Mississippi Historical Societys Best Book on Mississippi award in 1977, as well as the American Association for State and Local History award.

1. Layout Sheets. 1976. 2 boxes.