Lee Bloxom’s grandfather, Milton Killmon of Jenkins Bridge, grew potatoes on the bay side of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the same part of upper Accomack County where she spent her childhood.
Currently a Richmond resident and a Ph.D. candidate in the Media, Art and Text program at Virginia Commonwealth University, Bloxom knew that oral histories can both encourage members of a community to remember the past and provide a way to preserve those memories for others.
In March 2009, the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society received funding from a partnership between the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the PNC Foundation that enabled Bloxom to conduct interviews and transcribe the more than 50 hours of audio recordings she has gathered from residents of Accomack and Northampton counties. She interviewed 34 people – white, African American, and at least one with American Indian heritage – 28 of whom still owned the land earlier generations of their families farmed.
Many still live on those farms.