Sweet Southern Soul: An Annotation of Her Own Place

Her Own Place: A Novel by Dori Sanders
Algonquin Books, 1993
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
ISBN: 1-56512-027-2
243 pages
Genre, Gentle Read



You are a young teenage girl in love. You marry the handsome boy. He heads to off to war. What do you do next? If you are Mae Lee Barnes you get to work. Told in four parts, Her Own Place is the story of Mae Lee Barnes as she reflects on her life as a daughter, mother, farmer/business woman, and friend. The reader witnesses her triumphs and travails.

The story takes place in Tally County, South Carolina. The author, Dori Sanders, is from South Carolina. Sander’s uses South Carolina as the backdrop for the story. Mae Lee is a senior in high school. She is smitten with Jeff Barnes, who “held her hand for a long time” during a summer picnic. The feeling was mutual as Jeff would like permission to marry her. Mae Lee was able to persuade her mother that this was the right thing to do; her mother’s comment “It’s good to get married.” Now she had to get her father’s approval. This would take some work. Jeff visited her home one Sunday afternoon so that Jeff could see her father. The young couple was married at the courthouse and spent their wedding night in his mother’s company bedroom. The next day Mae Lee watched him board a Greyhound bus heading to war. Mae Lee returns home. Aww….

This is where the story takes a change. Mae Lee goes off to work, saves the money she earns and buys some land (her mother had purchased the farm she and her parents lived on). She is preparing a place for her and her new husband. “Jeff Barnes returned from the war [World War II] without a scratch” and “nine months and four days after” the couple welcomed their first child. Jeff tried to be a farmer but it just did not work out so he went to the city. You never really know what he is doing in the city. He would come home and she would get pregnant. In all they had five children: Dallace, Taylor (the only boy), Annie Ruth, Nellie Grace, and Amberlee. After the last child, she did not become pregnant during his visits.

He offered to take her with him on several occasions. One day she agreed that yes, she should go with him and set out to prepare for her departure. This journey was not meant to be; her husband left her while she was getting herself and their youngest baby prepared to leave.

Mae Lee gave herself six months to get over her husband. Six months to grieve inwardly and be sad. After that it was finished.

And yes, she was finished. (Yeah for setting a time limited and sticking to it.) She figured out a way to take care of her five children, send them to college and manage a successful farm. She is the epitome of a strong woman. Mae Lee represents women at various stages in their lives.

This seems like a not so nice story and not a gentle read but it is a story of accomplishment. The novel is relaxing; your emotions are not put to extremes while reading. There are witty phrases and humor…“you must be looking at your body in your high school mirror” expressed when discussing the need to eat less.

The story is paced like a good road trip; slow (but not to slow) trip with interesting sights. We read about Mae Lee asking her parents to get married, her working at the munitions plant to save for a piece of land for she and her husband, the death of her parents, and the birth and marriages of her children. The story is substantive with interesting characters.

Mae Lee shared strong relationships with her parents, children, cousin Warren (who became a second father), her friend Ellabelle, her hospital volunteer friends and Fletcher Owens (boarder).


This is an excellent choice for readers who prefer portrayals of strong women in developed stories without sex and violence.