Both professional people, they had worked until the last minute, and then left their jobs in Atlanta for the long, hot drive that September Saturday afternoon. Mrs. Betty Highsmith remembered the disquiet at being unable to personally prepare any food. The family, the neighborhood, and the community would all be gathered at Old Empire Primitive Baptist Church in southeastern Berrien County, Georgia, for the yearly Homecoming. There would be singing, dinner-on-the-grounds, preaching, and the chance to visit the graves of friends and relatives just across the new road from the church. Decades of parked wagons had finally worn a path that separated the church from the cemetery. Recent county improvements had brought paving to the path and put a bridge over the little stream, thereby eliminating the bothersome shoes-off trek through the creek.

As they drove south through the heat of the day, Mrs. Highsmith recalled Homecoming meetings at Old Empire that she had attended as a little girl.