Museum To Host Book Signing And Brunswick Stew Tasting

SMITHFIELD, N.C. — The Johnston County Museum will host a book-signing by Smithfield native Annie Cheatham during the Ham and Yam Festival on Saturday, May 2, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Cheatham, who now lives in Massachusetts, will be on hand to sign copies of her new memoir, entitled “The Baby’s Gotta Have Somethin’: Glimpses of a Southern Childhood.” It is a collection of coming-of-age stories from the 1940s into the early ’60s when Smithfield was primarily a tobacco market town. “My town had a vibrant main street,” she recalls. “Prosperity was in the air, and the town had an attitude about itself, a boosterism that we children duplicated in our games and activities.”

One of Cheatham’s favorite memories centers around a big Brunswick stew fundraiser for the Smithfield Garden Club in 1954, her godfather Norman Smithwick, and an elderly Black man named Zeke, who lived with and worked for the Smithwick family. The stew, as she points out in the chapter title, included “a little of this, and a little of that”—including possum.

In celebration of that chapter in the book, the Johnston County Museum will have samples of Brunswick stew (sans possum) from various local restaurants for tasting. Tasters will be encouraged to vote for their favorite.

The Johnston County Museum is located at 329 E. Market St. in downtown Smithfield. Museum hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The event is open to the public. For more information, call the Johnston County Heritage Center at 919-934-2836 or the Johnston County Museum at 919-938-5912, or visit the center’s website at johnstonnc.gov/heritage.