Barefoot Girl

Barefoot Girl

by  Hilda Silance Corey


Stories about growing up in Jacksonville, North Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s when people cared about their neighbors and children could play outside without fear. Its about visits to family, riding in the country, swimming in the branch behind their house and those wonderful school activities in the town that is home to Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base.


About The Author:


Hilda Silance Corey has done it again.  Barefoot Girl is the perfect accompaniment to Whoopin and Hollerin in Onslow County.  Both books are about growing up in Jacksonville NC in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Barefoot Girl concentrates on Corey’s personal memoirs, which she relates with warmth and perfect recall of detail.


The fictional television town of Mayberry may not have been modeled from Jacksonville, but that is the image in one’s mind as we read of a store proprietor taking all the time in the world to help two small girls select an ice cream cone.  The image is reinforced as we read of neighbors looking out for one another or just visiting over a fence.  We can easily substitute Opie Taylor for Hilda and her friends as they wade in the creek or sit on the porch swing watching it rain.  These are just a few of the hundred’s of recollections narrated by Corey.


Readers who grew up in the 1950’s or 1960’s will be delighted with this book because it will evoke memories in one’s own past.  Everyone else will enjoy reliving a time when life was not so fast paced.

- Judy Jacobs