Some of the oldest and tallest magnolia trees in Clarksdale got a trimming last week.
Jackie Massey has lived at the stately home at 154 W. Second St. for the past 44 years, the majority of them with her husband, Rudolph, who passed away in April 2017 at 88 years of age.
“I married into the Mississippi mud and didn’t leave,” Massey said.
She estimates her home to be close to 75 years of age and the two magnolia trees that dominate her back yard are much older than that. Massey said she has loved having the trees.
“I have so enjoyed them. They are beautiful.”
However, a recent storm and its straight-line winds toppled a tree on an adjacent property and it fell, knocking down a portion of the fence that runs along Massey’s property.
That got Massey to looking at the trees on her own property and she called Quinn’s Tree Service to come cut down the two magnolias in her back yard.
However, after viewing the trees, Charlton Quinn, the owners of the tree service, determined the best thing to do was to clean up the undergrowth and the smaller magnolias that had sprouted beneath the two big trees.
Thursday morning, they were busy dodging a nest of copperheads as they trimmed the branches and cut down the smaller trees.
