Emma Jane Wiggins

When she was 15 years old, she wed Mr. Willie Lee Wiggins. This union created 11 children, but two were stillborn. They became sharecroppers on a farm where they lived for years. Mrs. Wiggins had a lot of family values that were instilled in her from her mother and father. One of those values was religion. Religion was the foundation in our house hold, it wasn’t a choice but a priority. On Sundays you knew it was church all day long, from Sunday school to Baptist training union (BTU). It was church from sun up to sun down on Sundays. Mother was the number one disciplinarian. Dad would get onto us, but mom’s word was law. Mother didn’t know how to drive.

Therefore, on the Sundays that dad would have to work, We would walk 4.8 miles to church which was Hwy 134 to Shiloh Baptist Church in Headland. Saturdays would be our treat day we would walk to the square in Headland where we would do some shopping. When we were finished shopping, we would get ice cream and sit on the park bench and eat it.

Once we were finished with our ice cream, we would walk the 4.8 miles back home. Mom was a maid at the Butlers house for years. She also worked in the cotton and peanut fields. Mom and Dad also raised their own meat and vegetables. Mom would use whatever she had to better her family. Her family was her Joy. She loved to surround herself with family.

Another 1970 new moved in town to 203 Bennett St. to be closer to family and the church. This is the first home they would own. The main reason for the move was for us to be closer to the church. She was a faithful servant. She served on the usher’s board, trustee board, she was a missionary. Ladies aid, and the president of the fellowship club. In the 80’s she became the cook at the church daycare that would later turn into Head Start.

After working at the Head Start for years, she would later retire because of her health. Emma Jane Wiggins was all about service to her community and church family. She also raised two of her grandsons from birth to adulthood. She would never turn any of the kids away in the family. She always wanted children and family around. She was also a mother to several people in the community, because she had the love of friends and community, She always had love and compassion for everyone.

When you came to her house you would always be welcome with love, a hot meal, and you would leave with a word of wisdom. She would always put the Lord first in everything that she did, because she had a good sense of God’s Grace and Mercy. She was really big on education.

She would tell us “ya’ll can’t do what I did for living and I can’t do what ya’ll do for a living, so ya’ll get ya’lls books so you all will be able to survive.” Mom worked and remained faithful to her church, family, and community until her death. She taught us and gave us all the tools we would need for life. It is up to us to use them. Emma Jane Wiggins was a wife, mother, sister, grandmother, great grandmother and a leader and a God-fearing woman. But most of all she was our MOTHER!!!  Now she is our Guardian Angel.