Transcription

Oral History Transcript and Personal Digital Archive
Transcript of Janice Berry and Her Readings

Janice T. Berry (MB)
Jackson R. Ryan (JR)
April 26th, 2026
Bedroom of Janice Berry
Length of recording: 28 minutes and 17 seconds

JR: It is recording. All right.

MB: Okay. Now then, if there's anything in there, you can-?

JR: I can cut and edit this as much as possible, but I will try to keep as much in there as need be.

MB: That's fine.

JR: So, um give us an introduction of yourself.

MB: My name and so forth.

JR: Your name and…

MB: Okay. My name is Janice Barry. I'm Jackson's grandmother and I love to read and uh love to cook.

JR: You have a lot of lot of written material out there with cooking?

MB: Cookbooks. Yes, I do. And I had I've given a lot of cookbooks away. I had many more than that, but I've given a lot of them away because I have another grandson that likes to cook also. So, I gave him a lot of them.

JR: Michael. Yes.

MB: And but I enjoy reading and that's what I do most of the time. And I don’t enjoy watching television much. I’d rather read than watch television.

JR: So would you say that you enjoy reading more than you do writing because again your written material that you've done is on cookbooks?

MB: Uh well I find recipes on Facebook and magazines or anything like that and I'll copy those down and try them and if they're good then I write them down in my cookbooks. And for Christmas, I went through my cookbooks and made my favorite recipes into a small little book for my three children for uh for Andrea, Leanne, and Alan. And of course, gave it to Alan's wife rather than him because she cooks more than he does. But I made a little book, small book of my favorite recipes and recipes of food they grew up eating and that they enjoy and hope they enjoy these recipes in years to come.

JR: So you said you like reading more than you like watching television, right? What type of books would you say you enjoy?

MB: I enjoy Karen Kingsbury I believe her name is. But they're a little they're just real good books that are not, they have a little bit of a religious theme into them and they have the characters in just about all of her books be the same characters just a different story. And also Fern Michael books, just about all of her books have the same characters in them and they just tell different stories, different situations and things have a little bit of a little bit of suspense to them. But they're not any thrillers. I don't like those that get very deep. I don't like those. I like a book that I can read and if I want to put it down, I can put it down and wait a day and pick it back up and I'll remember what's going on because it's that type of book that you can remember what goes on from time.

JR: Not ones that like pulls you deep and keeps you there until it's over?

MB: Oh, yes. I read several of those books until sometime two or three o'clock in the morning and I find myself, you know, finishing a book. But I'll get involved in a book and I can sleep in the mornings if I want to. So, I can stay up as late as I want to at night and read and then sleep in the mornings. But I just enjoy the books. I enjoy playing games on my Facebook on my Kindle, and I also read some on Kindle but not as much. I like the library books, I like to hold a book in my hand but I do read some on my Kindle.

JR: Yeah, because physically having a book is just a bit better because you get to connect a little bit more with the book itself than rather a digital device.

MB: Yeah.

JR: Like the one that you have to the right of you.

MB: Yeah, that's mine. As matter of fact I have two Kindles. One of them doesn't work as well as the other one. The cord, it says it is not the right cord. So I have to I have to use one cord for both Kindles and so it doesn't work too good. I let it run down every once in a while. But I do enjoy, like I said, playing games on my Kindle and when Curtis when my husband was alive, he enjoyed his Kindle. He had one also, but he enjoyed watching movies on it and he would watch movies on it late at night. So that's when I got started playing games on them. When he would be watching a movie, I would play games or read on the Kindle at night when he was while he was still up. We enjoyed our Kindles, and they were a gift from our daughter.

JR: You mentioned library books, correct?

MB: Yes.

JR: How often do you go to the library to get a book?

MB: Probably about every week or a week and a half I'll go get them. Because I read maybe depending on the length of the book, sometimes I read a book a day but sometimes it's two or three. And also it depends on if I just sit down and just read rather than getting up and doing other things. I usually check out oh six or eight books at a time so I don't have to go very often.

JR: That's a handful of books

MB: I enjoy it.

JR: Is that one over there to the left?

MB: Yes, those are five books over there and I've got one over there. So, I've just got six this time at the library and those are some of the ones that I got. I have my favorite authors and but those are some of the ones that I enjoy.

JR: I don't remember if this is the right angle I had before, but oh well.

MB: Okay.

JR: So, the current book that you're reading from the library, what's it about?

MB: I just finished reading one that was a little bit different from the author. This one that I just finished reading was a Fern Michael book and it wasn't her usual characters. It was a completely different story about a lady from her early high school up and until she had a daughter of her own that was in high school. But it was a little bit different from the books that I usually read by Fern Michael. Fern Michael has what she calls “The Sisterhood” that she writes about in her books and it's a group of ladies that try to put something right that has been done if someone has done something too bad or if they have been wronged in some way in their life. And the police really wasn't enough to bring charges against someone, but yet it's something that was bad. The Sisterhood takes over, and they find a way to settle the score more or less with the people that do something bad and they're not charged with anything criminally. And they find a way to bring justice about.

JR: Like private detectives?

MB: No, not really. I think two of them are lawyers and some of them are retired, and two of the ladies are multi-millionaires so they have access to planes and they can go to places.

JR: I meant not like as them being private detectives. I meant like they're hired like private detectives, like they're a private agency.

MB: Right, and they do have some detectives that work with them. It’s just enjoyable reading you know. Find out what they're going to do next and you get mad at these people that do something. And the police can't touch them because it's not a crime what they did really, but it's something that's not right that they did to someone. And I can't give you an example, I can't think of one right now. Maybe? A lady, maybe her husband is bad to her and mean to her, but he doesn't do anything that's bad enough that the police can do anything to him. But they can kind of come in and they can maybe do something that can get the wife out of the situation and so forth. And it's just enjoyable reading to me, I enjoy it.

JR: What would you say would be your favorite series of books? You've mentioned this series in quite lengthy detail, but what would you say is your overall?

MB: Probably the best series would be the Karen Kingsberry. Her books don't go into real deep religious things, but they have a little religious theme all the way through of good things happening to good people or good things happening to people that deserve some happiness. I enjoy her books, they're some of the better books. There's another author and I can't remember her name, but hers are very like that too. They just have a little religious theme to them all the way through and I enjoy that.

JR: So when you read books, because you've lived a very religious life you've been very into the church even Daddy Berry, your husband, was a very religious person as well, would you say you try to find that theme in books?

MB: I like that, I like that theme in books. I like for good things to happen to them. I like a good ending.

JR: Yes.

MB: I don't like an ending that is just left without something good happening to the people. I like a good ending.

JR: Yes.

MB: Like we'd like for our life to be, something good always happening in it. So, I started I started reading really several years ago, books in our church library is where I got started reading them.

JR: That's what I was going to ask you next. Like when did you really start reading?

MB: That's where I started reading. I really never read much in school I didn't enjoy reading then, but it was later in life that I started reading and enjoying having good experiences in books, good things happening to people. We see so much bad stuff on television and in everyday life to people until I can get in a book and I can get happy in my book because good things are happening in the book, not bad things.

JR: I can agree. I read books sometimes, but a lot of times I watch TV, it's a mix of both. But I do really enjoy happy endings like you do. I don't like suspense endings and kind of like climax kind of like, “Wait until the next part until you see the ending of it.” I'm just kind of like, just give me a story that has a A to B. But also if it's just like another part at least continue on and have an ending there. Just don't continue it for years and years.

MB: Well, of course I started and read most of Grisham's earlier books, and I haven't read many of his later books, but the first books he started reading when he was in Oxford or when he was more in Oxford than he was somewhere else I got to reading his books. And so I read quite a few of his and enjoy his books.

JR: Who is Grisham?

MB: Grisham, can't think of his first name. But anyway, he was a he lived in Oxford at one time and that's when I started reading his books when he lived in Oxford. But I haven't read many of his later books. He was a lawyer and he wrote a lot about laws and things that happened with lawyers and with their clients.

JR: Like true stories?

MB: Yeah.

JR: Okay.

MB: Some of them I mean. They were probably based on true cases I'm sure, but he embellished them a little bit.

JR: Yeah. A little exaggeration for the viewers.

MB: Right. Yeah.

JR: Now, you've mentioned your favorite books, what would be your least favorite book that you've read?

MB: My what?

JR: Your least favorite book.

MB: Oh me I don't know what I'll do. Especially on my on my Kindle when I used to read so much, I'd read several paragraphs and if it wasn't anything that caught my attention real quick I just delete it and go to another book. And, of course, when you do library books they're not as easy to delete as that but if a book doesn't catch me in the first few pages, I put it down, you know. I go to another book, doesn't bother me to put one down and not know what happens with it. I just if it's not something that I don't like in the first few pages, I just don't I don't have to read it, so I won't read it.

JR: Yeah. And just don't let it hold over you of “Oh, this book's bad” or whatnot. You just you just put it away, because I never I've never seen you as a negative person. You're never a negative person and you’re a very positive person who does not look at the negative.

MB: I don't like negative and I don't like real bad crime scenes. I don't like those books that get into uh really deep suspense, I don't like that. I like a little, you know, just a little light suspense to it, that's okay. But nothing that goes real real deep. I don't care for that. So, I just, I guess I just like for good things to happen, not bad things to happen.

JR: So like it's both religious themes that you like looking at and also like good things happening to people who deserve it and I'm guessing in the same sense bad things happening to people who do deserve it?

MB: Of course when you’re reading the Bible, you have such bad things that happen, you know, all the time in the Bible but still. We know that there's wars, there's going to always be wars. And you read about them in the Bible and you know that in life there is wars, but uh we also know that God's in control. He tells us there's always going to be wars and rumors of wars, but he's still in control of the world. And we have to think along those lines and enjoy his miracles and listen to what he has to tell us.

JR: And enjoy the world that he has so given to us.

MB: Yeah, that's right.

JR: And to not worry about people conflicts and kind of just enjoy our lives.

MB: Exactly. Exactly.

JR: And that's the perfect way of doing it is through books, like giving us experiences that we probably would have never had before and to give us stories that would brighten our day and brighten our minds further.

MB: Right. Right. Yeah. We like to have happy endings. We have through our life always have tragedies and we have bad things that happen, but we also have many good things that happen to us, too. And so, we just have to look at those good things and remember the happy times, you know.

JR: Sometimes it's hard to accept that good things will happen when bad times happen. But we just have to accept that it'll pass.

MB: Yeah. That's right. And we have to, you know. I think so often that when people do things that hurt us and we think about in the Bible and when Jesus tells us. They ask him how many times that we should forgive someone that that wrongs us and they say “Should we forgive them seven times?”, and he tells us “No, to forgive them seven times seven times seven.” just endlessly. In other words, forgive them. Because as much as we sin Jesus forgives us, so we're expected to forgive our neighbors and the people that do bad things to us. He expects us to forgive them, just like he forgives us. And we have to remember that always. I guess that's why I like these books, they have happy endings. I like for people to be happy and have good lives, you know, but we all have tragedy in lives, you know, that's life. We're all human and that God made each of us different and we all. No one thinks alike and maybe it's good if we don't all think alike.

JR: Yeah. God, God forbid we all think alike, right? That we all would be the same problem, the same solution. Nothing would be, you know, different. It would just be pastel the entire way through. And that's again like what what books provide. They're all different, like different shades of gray and different shades of a color or whatever. But different stories, but all still have the same meaning of good happens and good triumphs.

MB: Yeah. Right. They have different, like you said. In the books, they have the same characters but they have different stories to tell and I enjoy that. You feel like it's an old friend when you pick up that book and you see that name again and the same name in every book, you know, and that I know her and I know what she's going to do. She's going to going to write a wrong that has been done to somebody and it's interesting to find out how they do that and I enjoy that. I just enjoy reading.

JR: I am very glad you enjoy reading. I try reading sometimes like, I can pick up a book. I read books like The Lord of the Rings and other kind of like non-fiction stuff as well and sometimes fiction, but I guess it's hard for me to read sometimes, which is why I like more movies and kind of media like that.

MB: Well, I've just never gotten into reading. Most of the things I read are non-fiction, I mean are fiction, and I've just never gotten into reading the history and non-fiction books. I just never have gotten into those. I guess because I like happy endings and history and non-fiction sometime don't have happy endings.

JR: Yean, I am I'm starting to dwindle away from non-fiction stuff. It's all too realistic and It's just kind of like, sometimes you dip your toe in too deep and then you realize, “Oh, I'm up in my torso with this kind of stuff” and it's just like, I want out. So, yeah, it's hard to wade in that water.

MB: Well, of course, Curtis enjoyed history, you know, and looking back at old things and saved all these articles and, you know, he enjoy it and I enjoy it, too. But when I want to read, I want to lose myself in a book and just enjoy what's going on and a good happy story. I just enjoy that.

JR: I think that should be about it. Do you have any other things you'd like to say about books and how you read and the library?

MB: No. No. Oxford has a very good library and they're very good. Some of the books will end, but they also will kind of have a little beginning of a different story and will be in the next book. And Oxford is real good about if I ask for any particular book, they're real good about getting it from a different library.

JR: First Regional Library District. They have connections across Northern Mississippi.

MB: I think so. And so they're real good about getting any book that I've asked for, they'll get it for me. So I enjoy that but it's a very nice library here.

JR: Would you recommend any of the books that you've mentioned in this talk to people?

MB: Any of them of course. There's another one that's i kind of get sometime. I'm not real fond of her books because she gets a little bit of too much sexual stuff, and it was Dale Danielle Steel but I enjoy her books too. And Fern Michael, and Karen Kingsbury, and Norah Roberts writes good books too. They're usually the ones, I don't try different authors until I'm going to run out of stories, I mean books, by the ones I like then I'll have to go into different ones. But I have asked the librarians here to suggest and they have suggested different authors to read and I have read some of them. They're real good to help you if you tell them what kind of book you want there, they try to recommend different authors for you to read. That's mainly my reading and cooking is what I do now.

JR: And hopefully you will continue to keep reading and writing receipt, not receipts, I'm sorry, recipes. Sorry. Hopefully, you will continue writing recipes and reading.

MB: I'll keep on looking for them. And a matter of fact, I found one the other day that I'm on to try. My daughter, Andrea, is real good about letting me try recipes on her group that she works for. So, I try different recipes out on them. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they aren't. But she's real sweet and they're real nice to tell me they always enjoy it. But I know some of the things they don't enjoy as much as they do the others. But I I'll keep cooking just as long as they keep eating.