When he was only ten years of age, his father died, leaving a widow and ten children. It was necessary for him to go to work to help support the young family. At the age of 18 he rode his horse fifty miles to the Mississippi Delta, where he found work with a relative who had a store on Silver Creek, between where the towns of Louise and Midnight are located. This energetic young man was soon hired to manage Hillsdale Plantation. During his lifetime, he was affiliated with practically every plantation along the Creek from Holly Bluff to Midnight. He also operated several stores during this time. A real outdoorsman, he loved to fish and hunt, and loving young people, he spent many hours teaching boys to hunt the woods and fish the streams. Since his only son died in infancy, Sam lavished his attention and love on his nephew, Earl Pepper, with whom he fished and hunted, and served as confidante. He was a real hero during the flood of the Mississippi Delta in 1927. For days he guided the boats and barges through the flooded area as they picked up the stranded and carried them to the Refugee Camp near Yazoo City, where they lived for the duration of the flood. Sam enjoyed playing good practical jokes on his friends and relatives. Once when his cousin Hugh Pepper came to the Delta to fish, Sam asked his friend, P.A. Bennett, to go fishing with Hugh, but to speak loudly all day as Cousin Hugh was deaf. Then he told Hugh that Mr. Bennett was deaf. The two men spent the whole day screaming at each other and at the end of the day they found out that they had been victims of a Sam Pepper joke. With a vivid imagination and being a big talker, Sam was at home in any crowd as he entertained them with his tall tales of fishing and hunting. He and Dr. J.N. Mecklin hunted turkey from Scooba, Mississippi to the island in the Mississippi River. Once they were caught by a game warden, while hunting with Mississippi licenses on an island, that happened to be located in Arkansas, and were carried before a judge in an Arkansas town. When the judge asked if they had an attorney, Dr. Mecklin told him that Sam Pepper would represent them. This was an opportunity for Sam to tell the judge a tale. He said, "Your Honor, I have turkey blood flowing in my veins, and can't keep from searching for turkeys. When I was a boy, I cut my foot so badly while chopping wood, that I practically bled to death. Living far from a doctor, my mother caught a turkey and after chopping off its head, she caught the blood in a pan. Then, with a medicine dropper, she put the turkey blood into my cut blood vessel. Since that time I can't resist looking for turkeys." The judge smiled and said to the game warden, "Take these men back to the island. Pepper is a good lawyer, and lies better than any I know." Sam Pepper never ran out of such tales to tell. In his younger days, he loved to dance, and had the reputation of being one of the best dancers of the waltz in the area. He will long be remembered by his many friends and the younger Peppers whom he loved and entertained.