In our family no one ever separated and God forbid they even think of divorcing. Granny Love always said, “Course they’s some orta-had nevah got hitched in the first place.” My Aunt Bertha Mae was scared to divorce. “God may strike me dead ifen I divorce. I jest wants to be rid of ‘im,” she would say. This is her story. Bertha Mae was the oldest daughter in her family of three children. They lived in the family’s hundred-year-old, bulky two-story house on the edge of a township called McCleary Station, 20 miles outside the city of Talladega, Alabama. Her father was the only doctor within 30 miles. Times were hard in the 1950s and often patients could not pay their bills in cash, so they brought dried beans, peas, and home-canned vegetables, lard and freshly ground cornmeal. The family cellar was always full. Homer Ghee was from the township of Wetumpka. His father, a District Attorney, had ambitions to become a state representative. Those ambitions included plans for his son to build a career …