This year is our official first ‘Sprinkle’ family reunion where the banner represents all branches, last year was our first gathering hosted by our Sprinkle-George branch. So here we are,Packed and on I-95 and in six hours we will be in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Charlene & Shauna Sprinkle are hosting this years Sprinkle Family reunion for their father Samuel Sprinkle the son of LC Sprinkle, great grandson of Malichi Sprinkle. South Carolina is the foundation of the Sprinkle family’s largest growth and settlement, and this makes this a historical event for us all, it is in the low country of South Carolina and along I-26 where we were separated and sent to other farms, and now we are coming together after now 211 years off I-26 to be restored once again.

In God’s infamous mercy and favor a granddaughter (Josephine Sprinkle Addison) of a man named James Sprinkle was born and grew up in Mississippi, remembers pieces of conversations and old faces of and about her people from South Carolina and a name NED. It has been fifteen years since Cousin Thelmarie Sprinkle Jones and I were together. She started looking for our family over thirty years ago and taught me about genealogy and passed the baton on to me, it was a colossal blessing to see her look out at her family, and to hear her say to Aunt Marie…Mom we picked the right one. For me it was waves of confirmation and emotions Aunt Josephine seeing her family that she only prayed and hoped someday she would meet, the prayer answered. Cousin Adrina taken me to Target Cemetary and showed me the gravesites of our family that she knew from her childhood, she is the great grand daughter of Ned (Edward Ned Sprinkle) and his wife Alice is buried along with several of his children and In-laws all together in a little walled off area. As a child Adrina remembers they not only made trips to Target for burials, but they also returned to wash the headstones, and clean the gravesites. To quote Adrina “to my family even though they were buried, they were not gone.” On Sunday cousin Charles Sprinkle took me to Holly Hill to meet our elders, just by chance, or GOD’s hand we were talking to a elderly friend of the family, and out of nowhere a car drives up, a man gets out cousin Charles breaks out in a big smile, and both men say ‘is that you Charles?’ Both of their names are Charles and we are kinfolks…not only that but the man in the car cousin Charles Green has been the Caretaker of the Target Cemetery for fifty years, and he knows the history and where everyone is buried.

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Meeting our Elders Norman Brown Sr. his wife, children, and sister Essie (lived in California and New York), his father Manny Brown was the Mayor of Holly Hill. In Holly Hill the Browns are known as the historians, and especially of their roots from the Brown, Sprinkle, Bunch, Hunt, Sweat, Green, Robinson, Richardson, Owens, and few more names. They shared the family history starting from a little boy named Utesey (one male in every generation is named Utesey) he landed from Africa in Newport, Va to St. James, South Carolina, he was 'sold one time and whipped one time'…our elders who are known as the families historians told a trail of events of marriages, deaths, separation (families broken and placed on other farms) and that we were strong hard working and that is why we were always picked to be sent to other farms. In meeting our elders in Holly Hill they were estactic and proud to provide our family history and moved that our history is valued, and no nonsense. When I shared with them how overjoyed I was to meet them, Norman Jr. (lives in Maryland) said listen here cuz…we are too!!! And followed up with ' Does death ask Questions?
Essie and her brother Norman knew of or about all the people on the census records, and of the ones I just found in the Orangeburg County Probate Court Records. She shared with me that many of us only had initials for first names, and everyone went by nicknames, “folks would be big or grown before u knew their given names.” This is true in our culture, my first day in Kindergarten I was sent home over a heated argument with the teacher about my name, and I remember it because it was a story told over and over. The teacher called my name Willene Sprinkle (roll call) and I did not answer, she told me that my name was Willene Sprinkle. I do remember telling her repeatedly that… my name is Stink Dirty Poppy Sprinkle, and she called my home, and my great grandmother came and got me and explain that my name was Willene my father Will Sprinkle namesake, I do remember I was furious with that teacher about my name.

Essie shared another memory of many that day about a game they used to play called…”Massa & Bossman”…she could barely tell it for laughing about how they would argue with who was going to be the ‘Massa.’ It is through the spirit of Ned who is Malichi Sprinkle baby son that we are here reading this. He looked for family to the point that even though he was born in the 1800’s there were still memories of him from New York, South Carolina and Mississippi in the 21st Century. Memories that provided me the pathway to follow, and we may become scattered and separated again by many events out of our control, and these moments, these events of coming together is what will maintain that pathway for our family to find one another again, and again, and again. We are mightily favored and blessed and to God be the Glory! It will take a while to write and record their memories, we have been living twelve hours and less from each other for 211 years, and now cherishing every moment of it. Family continue to be blessed, and a blessing, and a blessing, and a blessing!