The small agricultural town of Magnolia Falls has always been distinguished by the McCrorys and their overdeveloped vocal cords; by Lena Andersson.
By the time the McCrory sisters died, a strange and alien silence had descended upon the town of Magnolia Falls, Mississippi. God had blessed the McCrory family with an extra vocal cord. What we would normally call hollering or bellowing the McCrorys called normal pitch. So it wasn't all that surprising that, when we laid to rest the last of the McCrorys, Edna Mae and Clorice, alongside their illustrious ancestors whose mouths had long been silenced by the damp, dark earth, we did not know what to make of the quiet that hung in the air.
As long as anyone could recall, the McCrorys had always spoken loud. Delbert, the first McCrory to settle near Magnolia Falls, had been a plantation owner. Since he was out in the country and rarely ventured into town, no one found his speaking insufferable. But the Civil War changed everything.
Delbert had long since died when the war broke out, and his son Frank now ran the plantation. But Frank lost everything - first to Union troops, then to carpetbaggers. Despite Reconstruction, however, Magnolia Falls was booming. Frank found a job in the lumber mill and settled his family here.