The Jean Tresch Story                                         

My father told me once “that poor folks have poor ways.” What I came to understand as his meaning was that poor people learned to “make do,” to somehow “get by” on what the world has left them, usually the leavings of what more “well to do” people either overlooked or discarded.

He said, “Son, always remember that not all the world is as lucky as you are. These folks do the best they can with what they have. For some of them, about all they have is their pride. Never take that away from them. Never. As long as they have their pride, they’ll get by.”

I was thinking of my father’s words as I stood in her yard and listened to her story. Her name is Jean Tresch. She lives with her husband, a disabled Korean War veteran, on a small piece of property on Grant Mountain. They are poor but they are proud and so far they have maintained their independence. They live what would be to most people a terrifying existence. They have no savings, they have no money in the bank; all they have in the world is their little piece of land and a small yellow house. Now, even that is threatened.

Jean’s home was originally a house-trailer but Jean and her husband have added additional rooms, all of which were built from lumber and other materials left beside the road. Practically every thing they have was constructed from the “trash” other people had thrown away. Through hard work and creativity they turned that trash into a home. That home and pride is all they have.

  

We did an interview with Jean about what has happened to her as a result of the “Limited Home Rule Bill,” which was passed in Marshall County. Her words state her case far more eloquently than my own could ever do, because they come straight from her heart. Below is part of her interview.

“You see that room there, all built out of wood off the side of the road,” Jean said. And that door that you knocked on when you came up, found it on the side of the road too, and that window and that window there and that pretty little half round window up there, all off the side of the road. I find ‘em in different places and I bring them home. To some people they was junk but to me, it makes my house look better so I love ‘em. So sometimes this stuff has to sit in my yard a month or two until I can get somebody to help me put it in. It still gets used. So it ain’t junk. ”

“What about the paint?” Paul asked. “You said you found it too- not the color you would have chosen, you said.”

Jean giggled merrily, her eyes sparkling. “Naw, not the color I would have picked, that yellar. But that’s what God gave to me. God said, ‘Jean you need paint. Well here it is- there you go!’ I wouldn’t have picked those colors but that’s what I found, so that’s what I used.”

“This is my home and we’re doin’ the best we can. If I had ten thousand dollars a month to live on, I’d live in a mansion too. But we only get a little over eight hundred dollars a month. That ain’t hardly enough to pay utilities, let alone buy groceries. So I find things people throw out and I fix them up and sell them in my yard sales for bread money, to live off of. But they tell me my yard sale tables is a “nuisance. I’m a nuisance. They don’t want me to be able to sell my stuff.”

“And now they’re trying to take my home. They want my land.” Her eyes filled with tears. “They say, ‘She ain’t got no money. It’s an easy take.’ They’re like Nazis,” she sobbed, “my eyes ain’t blue enough!”

Jean started to weep softly, she was having trouble talking. She covered her face with her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said, embarrassed by the tears. “I’m sorry.”

“They’re trying to fine me a hundred and fifty dollars a day- to drive the fines up so high that I can’t pay. And then there is court costs and all that on top of it. And then they want to give me ten days in jail- just for what they call junk in my yard. They know I can’t pay that. They want to take my land and my home.” She covered her face with both hands. “It’s just like my Grandpaw when I was young.”

She turned her back toward us to hide the tears. After a few moments she turned back around, anger in her voice now. “They wanted Grandpaw’s land in Huntsville for some big development and slam, they brought the hammer down. ‘You ain’t got no money for a lawyer,’ they said. ‘You’re an easy take.’ And slam they took his house and we had to go. I was just a little girl but I remember standing in the yard the day they brought the wrecking ball. My Grandpaw said, ‘You’ll have to destroy me before you get my house.’ But they took it. I remember him standing in the yard, an old, old man, with the tears running down his face as they tore it down and now-now they’re coming after my home too.”

“That’s another thing,” she said angrily. “I read where they gave Governor Riley some kind of award for helping to get the homeless people out from under the bridges. If they take my humble home- they put me there. I got no other place to go but under a bridge if they take this from me.”

“I was here first. But they built that big fancy home next to me and now they want me gone. They knew I was right here, but they built it anyway.”

“It ain’t right. This is an unjust law. I can’t see why people stand for this.”

She paused for a moment, catching her breath.

“My friend and I read that ordinance, and even if I satisfy them this time, it ain’t over. They can come back and if they get one more complaint against me within a year- slam- they can take my house and there is no legal recourse.”

“Why don’t they just leave me alone?” she asked. “I’m under so much stress. If you look at my face in my driver’s license, I’ve aged ten years in just one. You can look at me and just see it in my face- how this has aged me.”

“‘You’ve lost weight,’ they said to me at the Commission meeting. You reckon? Well you’re a worrin’ me to death. Why don’t they just leave me alone?”

“I’ll fight ‘em for as long as I can,” she said. “I’ll fight ‘em”

Jean glanced around her yard, as if searching for comfort there, her eyes finally settling on a small sign in front of her house.

“If they find my “Jesus Save Me” signs offensive- I’m just so sorry,” she said defiantly, the tears welling up in her eyes again, “ But he’s the only one I know to call on.”