Purple bows are showing up on mailboxes along Sherry Ingold’s rural postal route, as well as at the hospital where she remains in critical condition, in Lexington where she lives, and in many other communities around the state.
The ribbons — made in Ingold’s favorite color, purple — are intended to remind people to pray for her and her family as the rural postal worker struggles to recover from being shot in the head last Thursday while delivering mail along her route in the Hesterville community.
Pearlean Cummins heard the blast of a gunshot near her home last Thursday afternoon. She looked out into the side yard of her home along Highway 35, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. She then walked out front to her driveway.
“She’s been our mail carrier for years. She’d always have the biggest smile on her face. A lot of times, she’d bring our mail right to the house. She has always been so sweet to us,” Cummins said of Ingold, who Cummins found lying in her driveway.
“I still didn’t associate the gunshot with her laying there, and then I saw and went to tend to her,” said the retired emergency room and clinic nurse. “If I had been in the emergency room, I would have done this, and this and this, but on the side of my driveway, I couldn’t do this and this and this because I didn’t have the equipment.”
After evaluating Ingold’s condition, Cummins said she knew there was really only one thing she could do for the woman.
“I didn’t feel I could help and I was afraid I could make matters worse. That’s the reason I just prayed. I knew that was the best thing for me to do,” she said.
“So I took her hand and said, ‘Sherry, this is Miss Pearlean. I’m here with you until help comes. Now you hang in there and I’m going to pray. You know God does miracles every day and that’s what I’ll pray for,’” she said she told Ingold.
“I prayed until the ambulance got there and then I fell to pieces,” she said Saturday as she tied purple ribbons to be placed on mailboxes to remind people to pray for Ingold and her family.
Cummins’ daughters, Margie Killian and Melynda Noble, came up with the idea to show the Ingold and her family thier support.
More than two dozen people gathered at Bethel Lodge in Hesterville Saturday morning to put together 200 bows, which were rapidly claimed. They had no idea that their effort would take hold and people would create and place purple bows on mailboxes in many communities around the state, not just those associated with Ingold.
Later on Saturday, more than 100 people — including six pastors from area churches — filled the rotonda of the Attala County Courthouse for a prayer vigil for both Ingold and Andrea Goss, the victim of a kidnap attempt at the Sunflower grocery store prior to Ingold being shot. Both incidents are attributed to the same suspect, Roland Mitchell Dampeer.
Members of Ingold’s family lit two candles flanking a cross on a table set at the center of the rotonda and pastor Matt Steed, the Attala County Sheriff’s deputy who was the initial first responder to arrive at Cummins home following the shooting, led initial prayers.
All six pastors then took smaller groups aside to lead additional prayer and allow participants to contribute their own prayers for Ingold and Goss. Family and friends of the victims cried as they listened to the prayers of others and attempted to say their own aloud.
