At 80 years old, Anne Winstead certainly remembers the place that helped shape her interesting life.
It’s home. It’s where her heart is. And it’s Satartia.
And she has found a way to give back to the place where she grew up.
Winstead was born in Yazoo City on February 27, 1937, the only child of Dorothy Middleton Brooks and Merritt H. Brooks.
Growing up, Winstead’s family was involved in Satartia Methodist Church. She attended Satartia Consolidated School, where her father was the superintendent. Not long after, her family moved to Jackson.
When Winstead finished Central High School, she went on to Millsaps College, where she eventually met her husband, Henry G. Winstead.
After they married in March of 1959 at the Capitol Street United Methodist Church in Jackson, the new Mr. and Mrs. Winstead moved to Atlanta so that Henry could finish graduate school at Emory University. Anne and Henry have two children, Dorothy Porter and Chris Winstead and three granddaughters.
Some of Winstead’s earliest memories of Satartia consist of running and playing freely all over the small town, visiting with friends and relatives and walking across the Yazoo River Bridge.
"We lived with my grandmother, Annie Lee Perry Middleton, and I had a playhouse in the yard and a swing in a big tree," said Winstead said. "My best friend and I spent hours in the yard and on the front porch. It was my favorite place to be.”
Winstead is a descendant of the original owners of the "Perry Place" in Satartia, and she spent many Sunday afternoons there listening to stories told by her great-uncle Frank Perry and two of her great-aunts, Selah Perry and Sally Perry.
It was from these stories that Winstead grew to love Perry Chapel C.M.E. Church.
"I heard a lot of stories about the church from some of my relatives and from some of the members of the church who worked at the Perry House," said Winstead.
Some of the history surrounding the church is that in 1859, a landowner named Mr. B. Frank Perry, granted the trustees of the church permission to worship on a one-acre site on Perry Creek Road in Satartia. In 1881, the members of the church purchased the land on the present site from the Perry family, and it continues to be a place of worship 158 years later.
Over the years, Winstead became more and more fond of the old church and its members. Every year at their Homecoming Celebration, she always sends her words of encouragement to the members. Most recently, she donated another acre of land across the road from the church to be used as a new cemetery.
"Because I had the opportunity to start life in Satartia and to visit the Perry Place so often, It is my desire to help the church to grow and remain strong,” Winstead said.
Winstead and her husband Henry currently live in Hattiesburg, where they stay busy visiting with friends and family and enjoy a little reading along the way.
Winstead prays that Perry Chapel Church will continue to be a beacon of hope and a symbol of God's love for many generations to come.
