Despite barbs about inbreeding and backwardness, residents of this close-knit community in Effingham County are quick to greet visitors to their annual holiday light display.


By Jennifer Rose Marino
Savannah Morning News

It is a warm mid-December day in this rural Georgia community, where the air is sticky and sand gnats swarm like they did in the summer.

While they wait for sunset, seven people seat themselves in creaky lawn chairs around an empty, 55-gallon metal drum, normally filled with fire on cool winter evenings. Instead of feeding flames, they swat at hungry insects that buzz around their heads.

But the group isn't thinking much about bugs or weird weather. With childlike excitement, they wait for night to fall.

Darkness here is special this time of year, when tens of thousands of lights will burn, brightening the country sky with glowing angels, mangers, snowmen and Santas.

The decorations welcome visitors to a place long-ostracized by the outside world: Tiger Ridge, a small pocket of land tucked in rural north Effingham County.

More than once, lifetime resident Alvin Edwards has flipped on the radio only to hear snide comments ridiculing Tiger Ridge. Sometimes the jokes are about kissin' cousins, other times about three-headed babies.

"I've heard people say that half-animals, half-humans live up here," says Alvin, pulling on his baseball cap and smiling.

In Savannah, Alvin has heard people advise others not to go to Tiger Ridge because residents would shoot to kill.

"I said 'You're from Savannah and you're worried about coming to Tiger Ridge?"' he laughs.

But there is one time of year when the community can forget about the jokes, when they open up their homes to the very world that ridicules them. Christmastime.

Not your average Christmas lights

You won't see any fancy, mechanized holiday decorations at Tiger Ridge -- no talking reindeer, waving Santas or singing snowmen. What you will see is a dazzling display of hard work, much of it homemade.

To visit the Tiger Ridge Christmas display:
The lights are on from 6 p.m. to about 10 p.m. on weekdays and until 11 p.m. on weekends. The lights will remain up through New Years' Day.
To get there, take Old Dixie Highway out of Springfield off old Ga. 21. After several miles, turn right onto Sisters Ferry Road, then continue straight until Sisters Ferry Road becomes Friendship Road. To reach the display, turn left on Lura Road. Donations are accepted.


An old swing set has been turned into a Christmas tree. Hundreds of illuminated plastic cups have been made into holiday lights. Bells have been carved out of wood. Hand-painted signs read, "Lights for Christ" and "Happy Birthday Jesus." Wreaths have been fashioned from barrel hoops. Even old tomato cages are decorated.

"It wouldn't be any fun if we did all this work and nobody came by," says Alvin's brother, lifetime resident Earnest Edwards. "We wouldn't bother to put 'em up if nobody came through. This is our Christmas present to the community."

For the past several years, the present has been received successfully. Each Christmas season, thousands of vehicles -- cars, trucks, buses, vans and even an occasional limousine -- wind down dusty Lura Road to the hub of the small community, a conglomeration of trailers and ranch houses.

"It's worth it when you see all the looks the little kids have," says Earnest and Alvin's sister, Betty Bolton, who has lived there most of her life.

Some of the lights are more than 40 years old, says Alvin. He started the tradition about 10 years ago, and gradually, everyone else caught on.

"I like doing it, but I don't like the light bill. It makes it go up about $100," says Alvin, a disabled truck driver.

There are more lights this year than any other, he says proudly, but he doesn't know an exact figure.

"I counted up to 19,000 and quit," he says, chuckling. "They come down faster than they go up."

As the number of lights grow, so do the visitors. The group keeps a tally in their guest book, which they ask people to sign. Last year, nearly 5,000 vehicles from the Coastal Empire, the Carolinas, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas and other places visited Tiger Ridge at Christmastime.

"The exhibit, with all of its lights and joy, has brought people from all over," said State Rep. Ann R. Purcell, D-Rincon, who has visited the display.

"It is the true meaning of Christmas -- of sharing."

And while the community seems to be a place filled with love and warmth and everything Christmas should be, things aren't always as merry during the rest of the year.

A history of misunderstandings

Legend has it that Tiger Ridge got its name because residents fought like tigers decades ago. But it's the rumors of inbreeding that seem to be the source of most Tiger Ridge ridicule, the group agrees.

Part of it is because most of the residents are related, says Earnest, much like how old-fashioned neighborhoods used to be. "Everyone that lives here is kin," he says.

Carol is Earnest's wife. The two met several years ago in a nightclub when he was in the Army.

"If they got something to say about our community, before saying it, why don't they come here and check the people out? All they know is just hearsay," she says.

Many times, Carol overhears people whispering cruel remarks about their community at the store where she works. Once, she confronted two young girls as they mockingly conferred.

"I just sat there and listened. Then I told them, 'I'm from Tiger Ridge,' and they shut right up," she says indignantly.

None of the Tiger Ridge residents interviewed seemed to know how the rumors, which began decades ago, started.

"It's way back before our time," says Earnest. "All the old folks that really know are gone."

Kissin' cousins?

Today, there is some truth in relatives marrying relatives in Tiger Ridge, says Alvin unabashedly.

Some.

Alvin is married to Sigma, his second cousin.

"That has happened, but not with brothers and sisters and fathers and daughters. That just ain't true," he says.

Alvin and Sigma, who grew up together, have three grown children who no longer live in Tiger Ridge. Their marriage is legal in Georgia, where it is not against the law for cousins to wed.

"To me, it's no big deal," says Sigma. It happens all over in all kinds of communities."

Far away from Tiger Ridge in an office in Savannah, Memorial Health genetic counselor Andy Faucett often offers advice to relatives who want to have children together.

"I do have a number of people who come to me concerned about the issue," said Faucett.

He explained that everyone has about eight recessive -- or not working -- genes.

"If someone decides to produce children with their relative, (the children) are more likely to carry similar, recessive genes," said Faucett.

The recessive genes increase the chances of serious birth defects such as mental retardation, he explained. Second and third cousins have less of a chance of carrying the recessive genes than first cousins since they are not as closely related, he said.

Faucett has heard the jokes about Tiger Ridge and figured they were folklore. He said that perceptions of residents in isolated, rural communities like Tiger Ridge are often off-base.

"People may be uneducated. It doesn't mean they're mentally retarded," he said.

Jokes and rumors, although cruel, are human nature, he said. "One of the ways human beings deal with making themselves superior is to put somebody else down."

Pastor Anna Juran-Kelly of Silver Hill United Methodist Church in Springfield knows several Tiger Ridge residents well, including Earnest, who is the church's Sunday school superintendent.

When she hears the jokes and rumors, she gets angry.

"It shows a lack of knowledge and understanding, really," she said.

Juran-Kelly, who used to work on Wilmington Island, was appointed to the Effingham area by a Methodist bishop. She cherishes her time in the rural community and says she has learned a lot from the people who live there, particularly those from Tiger Ridge.

"Once you get to know them, it will change your attitude," she said. "They have this innocence that's very endearing."

Back at the drum, Alvin blames negative perceptions of his home on inherited biases.

"It's prejudice," he says. "It's how people raise their kids to think. It's come down through the generations."

Earnest thinks attitudes have improved in recent years.

"It's not as bad as it used to be," he says.

"I don't care about what other people think. The only one I'm concerned about is the good Lord up above."

He feels sorry for the people hesitant to visit the community.

"Everyone is welcome here," he says.

"They need to search their hearts and souls and find out what the word love means. When they can love their own selves, then they can love other people."

Sigma agrees.

"I live right in the heart of Tiger Ridge," she says. "And it's a big one."

Turn on the lights

At dusk, a hush falls over the talkative group. The lights come alive, throwing splashes and bursts of luminescent color everywhere.

Slowly, the group gets up to stretch their legs and admire the blinking, winking lights that cover everything in the small community. Some point out decorations they made, others fix bulbs that have blown out.

Then their attention shifts from Christmas lights to distant car headlights. As the group waits for the approaching visitors to make their way down Lura Road, two figures who had been lingering in the shadows walk into the color- filled air.

One of them is a young man who appears to be in his early 30s. The other one is an older woman. Both are disfigured and have difficulty communicating verbally.

"You see?" whispers Alvin, gesturing at the two. "That's where a lot of the rumors come from. People come here and see them and think we're all like that."

Alvin's whispers are not cruel or condescending, but compassionate. The two people, he explains, are John William Edwards and John William's mother, Evalina Edwards. They are his relatives.

Alvin doesn't know who John William's father is. He can't identify Evalina's deceased parents, either, but he knows they were related. He suspects they might have been first cousins, but he can't say for sure.

Evalina, seeing visitors, approaches. All she wants is a hug.

The car, which is carrying a father, mother and three children, has made its way into the community. As it slowly passes by the display, the children's faces become as bright as the Christmas lights.

"We heard about it by word of mouth, from around the community," says the driver, Keith Ambrose, as he signs the guest book. "The little ones really like it."

Word of mouth is how everyone hears about the display, explains Earnest. Besides a few flyers, they don't advertise.

After the family drives off, Earnest stares at the lights and kicks at the dirt with his foot.

"Momma always counted up the burned out lights," he laments, referring to Lura, his recently deceased mother, who was also Alvin and Betty's mom.

This is the first Christmas they are spending without their mother, whom Lura Road is named for. There is no green and white street sign marking the road because someone keeps stealing it, says Earnest. Instead, family members taped the name of the road to the back of a stop sign.

It is getting late. Betty runs a weathered hand through her curly gray hair, then adjusts her glasses that magnify tired eyes. Tonight, she says, she will go in her house where her five Christmas trees are and count the number of visitors who signed the guest book.

Some of the group returns to the drum. Others continue milling around. Two remaining visitors who admired the lights and talked with residents climb in their car to leave. As they drive away, Alvin hollers out in a self-mocking, high-pitched voice, mimicking the "Beverly Hillbillies."

"Y'all come back now, hear?"

Municipality reporter Jennifer Rose Marino can be reached at 652-0307.

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