Kevin Hall
MOULTRIE — Yolanda Hall is surviving, 20 months after a double tragedy that reshaped her world.
Hall’s son, Jakira Strong, died from a gunshot wound on New Year’s Eve 2007. The man who took him to the hospital, Curtis Anthony Aldridge, was later charged with murder in his death, and five others were charged with tampering with evidence for trying to clean up the scene.
Strong’s death was too much for Hall’s mother, Eunice Hall, who’d been suffering from congestive heart failure. She had already lived two years under Hospice care.
“After that night she never said anything else,” Yolanda Hall remembered Wednesday. “She just went into a deep sleep, a coma.”
Strong, 21, was buried Saturday, Jan. 5, 2008; his 85-year-old grandmother exactly one week later.
Hall said the nurses offered her medication to help her through the agonizing time, but she declined. Instead she turned to prayer, and it helped her cope.
The deaths left Hall’s hands full. Not only did she have her own grief, she had to help her father through his. Charlie Hall, 87, had been married to Eunice for 60-some years.
Hall held things together, one day at a time, but the pressure mounted.
“Out of the blue sky I decided I needed to do something,” she said. “I registered at Brewton-Parker.”
Brewton-Parker College, a private college based in Mount Vernon, offers evening classes at the Georgia Baptist Conference Center in Norman Park. Hall, who holds a two-year degree in marketing management from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, is pursuing an early childhood education degree. She said she hopes to have her classes finished in another two years, and she’d like to begin student teaching next fall.
Hall’s solution to grief is to stay busy. In addition to caring for her father and attending classes, she mentors a second grader at Stringfellow Elementary School, and she has another son to raise. Quentin Hall, 14, is a ninth grader at C.A. Gray Junior High School. His mother proudly stated he’s been on academic honor roll “forever.” A Future Farmers of America member, he’s been at Sunbelt Expo this week, helping at the FFA booth.
Hall has set herself one more goal too: Keeping her mother’s memory alive through cooking.
Charlie and Eunice Hall’s house was full of family, Yolanda Hall said. She was one of eight siblings — two are now deceased — and all but two had children. All of the youngsters lived close to their grandparents, so family would come visit “every weekend, every holiday,” Hall said. And food, of course, was a centerpiece of the occasion.
With a white binder of Eunice Hall’s recipes, Yolanda Hall tries to cook just like her mother did. Her favorite is the sweet potato pie, she said with a laugh.
“I love making the brunswick stew,” she said. “There’s a lot of work in it, but it’s good!”
Hall preferred not to reveal the family recipe (at least not yet), but the brunswick stew is made the old-fashioned way: with hogs’ heads in an outdoor kettle. She is giving thought to publishing the recipes in a cookbook.
