Paths-The Journey begins in Arkansas
Proverbs 3:7 "In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths."
Dr, Milton A LItes
6/18/2026
Where the Journey Started: The Homestead Years
My life began in the shadow of the Little Red River near Garland, Arkansas, on April 3, 1937. But this date marks only the moment of my birth; my story truly began with my father's vision.
My father had moved our family to homestead land, a project born of hope and determination: the promise that if you would settle the land and improve it, it could become yours. He and his brother joined forces in that venture, moving my mother and my three older siblings, Gerry, Dee, and Charles, onto raw property and beginning the work of transforming it into home.
What strikes me now, looking back, is how little they had and how much faith it took. An artesian spring flowed constantly, so water wasn't a concern. My father built a springhouse to keep milk and perishables cool. My siblings worked the gardens he had cleared, learning early what it meant to labor for provision. The house had two bedrooms for a family of six, plus a friend who came to help with the work. Space was tight. Comfort was sparse. But there was purpose.
The property sat far from the main road, too far for children to walk to school. So my mother became teacher, educating the older children at home until my father made the journey to town and secured bus service. But getting to that bus stop meant riding mules through black mud when the rains came, a journey that was as much adventure as obstacle. There's a family story, half-remembered and half-legendary, of someone sliding off into the mud, the others laughing while they rode on ahead. That person had to walk home to change clothes, a small humiliation, a small triumph of resilience.
This is where I come from: a place of limited resources and unlimited faith. A place where my parents chose trust over comfort, work over ease. A place where God's provision, spring water, cleared land, a tight-knit family, felt less like luck and more like blessing.
My grandfather passed away not long after my birth, and my mother gathered us and moved back to Louisiana. Those years on the homestead were brief, but they left an imprint. They shaped who my parents were, and in turn, who I became.
My sister Gerry captured these memories with grace and detail in her book, The Palmetto House. If you want to know this season more deeply, the daily struggles, the quiet victories, the faith that held us together, her words will take you there.
