Grandparents Day 2012: Remembering My Grandmother

Willie Ealy Collier

(1904 – 1990)

Youngest daughter of Paul Ealy & Adeline Kennedy Ealy

Over two decades ago, God called you into His kingdom. I was devastated because I was losing the best grandmother a boy could have ever wished for. But after the river of tears, I realized that I wasn't losing you at all. You are always with me. How do I know? Because you are often in my dreams, and every time I wake up after seeing you in my dream, the day is already starting off great.

It brings me so much joy to remember....

...when you, me, and Granddaddy would go fishing on Mr. Swayze's pond in Yazoo County. That would be the only time when I couldn't wait to wake up at 5 AM in the morning. How I loved our fishing trips!

...the many talks you shared with me about your family and its history. I credit my love for genealogy to your stories about your parents and grandparents. And I still remember how you said that you being the youngest child of your parents' nine children, you were a spoiled brat.

...when we would go to Carthage, and as we were walking around the town's square, one of your former students would come up to you and greet you. You'd laugh and talk with them as if you were truly glad to see them after all of those years. Then, once they walk away, you'd look at me and say, "Baby, I don't remember her/him to save my life!" I am laughing now just remembering how you'd say it.

...when I was 12 years old and had just learned how to drive, you let me drive you and Granddaddy to the Ealy Family Reunion picnic 50 miles away in Scott County.  No learner's permit, no driver's license, nothing but Faith.  You had me to sit on a pillow so I would be high enough in front of the steering wheel, and you placed your life and your new Chevrolet Impala in my hands.  I don't know if you ever realized how grown I felt that day!

...your elegant strut as you walked in church because you knew you were sharp. And you were!

...when I was 13 and getting off the Amtrak train from spending two weeks in Chicago, you were right there at the station to make sure that I arrived back home safely. The train stopped but started to move again to a better spot so people could get off safely, and you thought the train was leaving. I heard your voice from inside the train, "Stop that train!! My grandbaby is on there!!" Oh yes, I remember how happy I was to hear your voice!

...how you'd buy me whatever I wanted. You made a 15-year-old teenager so happy when, without hesitation, you agreed to buy me that red Honda Elite motor scooter I desperately wanted. My friends teased me that you were the one who spoiled me. I guess they were right.

...how you and Granddaddy would encourage me, give me guidance, and always would let me know when I was doing wrong.

...how when Mom or Dad would cook something I didn't like, I'd jump on my bike or scooter, head to your house, and begged you to buy me a Big Mac from McDonald's. Every time I eat a Big Mac now, I remember those times.

...how much you loved and respected my Mom, your daughter-in-law; you'd think that she was your child rather than Dad.

...the many times when I went with you to your hometown church in Lena, Mississippi.  On one of those times, after church, while everyone was gathering outside, you saw this young girl and tried to hook me up with her.  Then minutes later, you learned that she was your first cousin's granddaughter!  LOL

...how you loved Tube Rose snuff, and I am still laughing about how you'd say that you'd die if I didn't run to the store to get you some snuff.

...how you showered us with so much love. So much so, that twenty-two years later, it seems that you haven't been gone from this earthly setting for over two decades.

When I need an uplift, all I need to do is sit back and remember the best grandmother in the world! I thank God for the memories.

I love you, Grandma. Somehow, I know you're reading this.

Your "Buster" (and you were the only person who could call me that without me getting mad. LOL)

Some Semblance of “Home”

      

     Unfortunately, many African Americans continue to debate over the use of the term “African American” or Black.  I’ve heard some folk say thoughtlessly, “I’ve never been to Africa, so I’m not African American”, as if all people in America who proudly claim to be Asian have been to Asia (or Russian to Russia, European to Europe, etc.).  We, descendants of enslaved Africans who were disembarked on American shores, are culturally European for the most part because of how America was shaped.  The continuity of African social and cultural patterns was greatly discouraged, demeaned, and outlawed.  However, in-depth genealogy research brought to light for me that our enslaved ancestors did not fully allow western society to annihilate all aspects of their rich African heritages.  I am very proud of this fact, hence my personal embracement of the term “African American”.

     Remnants of Africa are very evident in our music, the expressive way we worship in church, in our dances, in our arts, in our foods, etc.  In the last chapter of Mississippi to Africa: A Journey of Discovery, which I entitled “Bridging the Gap Between America and West Africa”, I detailed how my own ancestors retained aspects of their African culture.  Many things were not lucid at first glance, but a deeper analysis revealed Africanisms in my family that had been inconspicuous for many years. You will have to read the book to see how these remarkable cultural features were uncovered through genealogy research.

     Nevertheless, for this blog post, I want to briefly show four examples of how names and naming patterns exposed undeniable links to West Africa in my family. Many folk who trace African-American families will undoubtedly encounter some or all of the same instances. 

EXAMPLE 1: 

Some family members were named after a notable profession, a high position, or a famous person.  Lawyer, President, Prince, George Washington, Doctor Rogers, Judge, Queen, Colonel, King, etc. were all first names that I encountered in my family trees.  One of my maternal grandmother’s brothers was named Frederick Douglas Davis.

African Cultural Element:  Many African children, especially in Ghanaian cultures, were often named for prominent individuals.  More specifically, a belief of the Akan people of Ghana is that to be named after a distinguished person invests the child with the responsibility to emulate the character of the individual whose name he/she bears. 

EXAMPLE 2: 

Some family members were named after days of the week or even a holiday.  I’m not kidding!  I have family members who bore the first names Easter, Tuesday, and Thursday.  Even in Zora Neale Hurston’s The Sanctified Church, she introduces readers to the extraordinary character, Uncle Monday. 

African Cultural Element:  In many West African cultures, many children were given names that reflected the day, month or season, and even the holiday for when they were born.  Even in the Akan culture of Ghana, many children were given “day names.”  The day of the week on which a child was born determined what name the child was given.  For example, Kwasi is a day name given to a male child who was born on a Sunday.  If I had been born in Ghana, this probably would have been my first name since I was born on Sunday, August 6, just a few years ago.  Abena is the name given to a female child born on a Tuesday.  Each day of the week has a specific female and male name.

EXAMPLE 3: 

In my research, I’ve encountered many households in which my ancestors had not named their infant children, even though the children’s ages were noted in the census records as 2 months, 4 months, or even 11 months. Terms like “not named” or “unnamed” were recorded. 

African Cultural Element:  Delayed naming was very common in a number of African cultures.  A child is not considered a person until he/she has been named, and a name is not given to a child until the parents are confident that the child will survive.  Our African ancestors resided in communities in West Africa where high infant mortality rates were common.  Consequently, their delayed naming beliefs were transplanted into communities in America where high infant mortality rates also prevailed during and after slavery.  Several slave narratives verify this cultural transmission.

EXAMPLE 4: 

In six generations of my mother’s maternal grandmother’s family, many females were given the name Annie.  The frequency was so high that my head would often spin trying to figure out which Annie belonged to whom.  Imagine my surprise when, after over a decade, I traced that family branch back to a great-great-great-great-great-grandmother who was named Anika (born c. 1760). The name was recorded as “Anakah” in Captain John Turner’s 1807 will (Fairfield County, S.C.) and is pronounced “Annie – Kah”. It can be traced back to Africa, which represented another cultural link to West Africa.  Annie was undoubtedly the Americanized version of the name Anika.  Additionally, the names of Anika’s children were also passed down in the family for several generations.  I was quite amazed at how my ancestors had ingeniously recorded their family history by the names that they gave to their children. 

African Cultural Element:  In his book The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925, historian Herbert Gutman asserted that naming children for blood kin hinted that enslaved people incorporated elements of the traditional lineal orientation of their West African forebears into their new belief systems in America (pp. 197-198).  Many African cultures, like the Igbo people of Nigeria and the Fulani people of West Africa, carry a tradition of naming children after deceased relatives.  Many African Americans are direct descendants of the Igbo and Fulani peoples, as well as many other ethnic groups. 

Conclusion:

     Although inconspicuous, names and naming patterns can clearly show that enslaved Africans in America inculcated in their children some aspects of their West African cultures which prevailed down through the generations.  American culture did not entirely annihilate West African customs.  Unquestionably, our ancestors desired to retain some semblance of “home”, which is why I have no problem whatsoever referring to myself as an “African-American”. (Side note: this blog post is not meant to start another debate over the usage of African American vs. Black. Comments regarding your position on this debate will be subject to deletion. This post was meant to expound on African retentions and genealogy.)

During the Penn Center Heritage Day Festival Parade, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, flags of the West African nations where many of the ancestors of the Gullah people hailed from were displayed.  The Gullah and Geechee people of coastal South Carolina and Georgia descend primarily from African captives taken from the rice-growing region of West Africa, as well as the Angola-Congo region of West-Central Africa.  African retentions among the Gullah/Geechee people were the strongest than anywhere else in America. Africans were able to preserve their culture because of the sea islands' isolation from the mainland.

Those Small Brick Churches Deep in the Country

     Whenever I give genealogy presentations and workshops, or whenever I personally advise someone on tracing their family history, I always recommend that people visit the churches where their ancestors were members.  In many cases, these churches are rural ones with adjacent cemeteries.  One may find in those cemeteries a wealth of information and clues – names, dates, etc. from the tombstones of known and unknown ancestors.  Additionally, I often recommend that they take time to attend church service there one Sunday and talk to the people.  Chances are, some of them are relatives and may have a wealth of information to share about certain ancestors. 

     This research tip reminds me of those Sundays my parents and my paternal grandparents would make their annual trips to their hometown churches.  My mother’s home church was Beulah Baptist Church, located deep in the country, eight miles east of Como, Mississippi (Panola County).  My paternal grandparents’ home church was Harmony Baptist Church in Lena, Mississippi (Leake County).  Harmony was just a 45-minute drive from my hometown of Canton, but Beulah was a longer trip – a 2-hour drive from Canton.  My mother was born and raised in Tate County (Senatobia), and the Tate/Panola County line was the southern boundary of her father and grandfather’s land.  Although Beulah (pronounced ‘Bu-low’ by family members) was in another county, their church was just a stone’s throw away from their house. 

Beulah Baptist Church, Como, Mississippi

     Our annual trips to Beulah were always on the third Sunday in May, and our annual trips to Harmony were always on the third Sunday in August.  Both Sundays were called “Homecoming Day”, an event that my grandparents rarely missed while they were still in good health.  Because we didn’t have family in my hometown, and I didn’t have the privilege of growing up with lots of kin around, I always looked forward to those trips – which meant the world to me.  I had possessed a natural curiosity about my family history since the ninth grade, so I don’t think my family realized until much later just how much those annual trips positively affected my life.  In essence, those trips established where my family roots sprouted, and there was no doubt that my roots ran very deep.

     At Beulah, a small brick church that probably held a maximum of 100 people, presumably 90% of the people who attended Homecoming Day from far and near were related to Mom. Many were even related to her on her mother’s side and her father’s side – double kin.  And it was very obvious!  Looking at their faces was like looking at my mother and her siblings.  Also, I enjoyed my mother’s display of great happiness when she returned “home”.  Home never left her heart.  As long as I remain in my right mind, I will always carry very fond memories of those family elders (all of them are now deceased) who I only saw once a year. 

Harmony Baptist Church, Lena, Mississippi

(Picture courtesy of Richard Mack. Additions have been made since my grandparents’ death in 1990.)

     Memories of going to Harmony annually with my paternal grandparents included several times when my loving yet ostentatious grandmother would force me to get up and sing a solo, while my sister LaVonda played the piano. Grandma never forewarned us of her intentions.  Like Beulah, many of the people there at Harmony were our relatives – even the snow cone man, Cousin James Ferrell, who made the most scrumptious snow cones from the back of his truck.  It was a treat after spending hours in church listening to two or three sermons.  Correction: Maybe the word “hearing” is more accurate than “listening to”.  There’s a difference, and I was young (LOL). Those Homecoming Day services were quite lengthy.  If someone wasn’t Grandma’s niece or nephew, he/she was her cousin.  However, that didn’t stop my match-making Grandma who seemed to forget that fact.  Another favorite memory included the following incident:

     As I exited the church with Grandma, she spotted a young girl standing outside and who appeared to be around my age. I was around 15 at the time.

     Pointing at the girl, Grandma instructed, “Baby, come here. What is your name, baby?  You are such a pretty girl.”

     With a smile, the girl shared her name.

     Grandma commented, “Well, baby, I want you to meet my grandson here. His name is Jimell (my middle name).  You and him may be around the same age. How old are you, baby?”

     The girl’s mother suddenly approached.  Excited, she interrupted, “Hey Cut’n Willie! How you doing? I'm so glad to see you!  This here is my daughter.”  Note: “Cut’n” is the southern slang for “cousin”.

     Grandma remarked coolly, “Oh, is that so?”

     Imagine the stoic look on Grandma’s face when she discovered that she just tried to match-make me with a cousin! 

     I will never forget that experience and many more at those small brick churches deep in the country – a significant part of our history and once major pillars of our communities.

Beulah Baptist Church Cemetery, Como, MS
Most of the people buried here are Mom’s family members, including her parents and her paternal and maternal grandparents.

The William “Bill” Reed & Sarah Partee Reed Monument in Beulah Cemetery

My mother’s paternal grandparents

In 2004, the Reed Family raised $4,700 to purchase this 7-feet tall monument for their grave-site.

You Have A Story, Too!

     On June 26, 2012, I attended Rachel Swarns’ book presentation and signing at the National Archives – Atlanta branch.  She wrote the new book, American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama.  The title of the book is pretty much self explanatory.  Beginning in the 1800's, the book narrates the story of the First Lady Michelle Obama’s ancestors and their five-generation journey from slavery to the one of the most prominent positions in this country.  Her great-great-great grandmother, Melvinia Shields, was enslaved on the Shields farm in what is now Clayton County, Georgia, where she ultimately birthed several “mulatto” children, including the First Lady’s great-great-grandfather, Dolphus Shields.

     In an June 14, 2012 article in the New York Times, author Edward Ball noted, “Rachel L. Swarns, a reporter for the New York Times, has uncovered the story of an ordinary black American family, typical in so many details: generations of forced work on Southern farms; sexual exploitation; children born half white; attempts to flee slavery; emancipation at the end of a rifle barrel; terrorization by the Klan during Reconstruction; futility stirred in with pleasure and church in the 1900s; a stepladder into the working class — and finally, the opportunity that allowed for Michelle Obama’s superior education and unlocked 150 years of bolted doors.” (See source.)

     Although Rachel Swarns’ book is a story that should be told, I desire for African Americans to realize that we all have family stories that should be unearthed and told.  Many are great ones. Others will be not-so-great, but they all are noteworthy.  Sure, we might be a little fascinated and curious about the ancestral stories of the First Lady that ultimately made her what she is today – an elegant, brilliant woman and the first African-American First Lady.  However, the stories of Melvinia Shields and the rest of the First Lady’s ancestors are not any more special or unique than your family story simply because she’s the First Lady.  That type of thinking is absurd, in my opinion.  Her family stories mirror a lot of the histories of African-American families – the descendants of slaves. 

      Like me, many of us can relay accounts about:

·           That ancestress who was used as a concubine and bore “mixed” children; mine was my great-great-grandmother, Lucy Kennedy Cherry of Leake County, Mississippi, whose children could have passed for white if they desired. My great-grandfather, Albert Kennedy, did so when he traveled by train to Louisiana to visit his sisters so that he could sit at the front.

·            Those ancestors who were sold away or taken away from their family like Melvinia was taken away from her family in Spartanburg, South Carolina; mine were named Bill Reed, Pleasant Barr, Polly Partee, Bob Ealy, Caroline Morris, Jack Bass, Edward Danner, and many more.

·           Those ancestors who persevered and accumulated some form of wealth like Dolphus Shields; mine were Bill Reed, Paul Ealy, and others.

·         That ancestress who looked “Indian-ish” and who had “hair so long that she sat on it”; mine was my great-great-grandmother, Louisa Bobo Danner of Como, Mississippi.

·           Many of us even have stories of ancestors fighting over hard-earned land; mine was my great-grandmother’s conniving oldest brother, Jim Danner, a root doctor who was sued in 1924 by the rest of his siblings for selling off land without their consent (a future blog post).

·            AND, if we are really lucky, a few of us may even have oral history about an ancestor from Africa who was captured, endured the Middle Passage, and was disembarked in Charleston, South Carolina, Virginia, New Orleans, Savannah, Mobile, or in Maryland.

     The point is: The First Lady's family stories are our stories, and our stories are the First Lady's stories.  This sentiment was echoed by a Facebook friend and National Archives’ Education Specialist, Kahlil Gabrin Chism, who wrote the following in his Facebook comment after reading an NPR.org article entitled The Complex Tapestry of Michelle Obama’s Ancestry: “Umm….couldn’t this article just as easily be titled ‘The Complex Tapestry of INSERT RANDOM AFRICAN-AMERICAN HERE’s Ancestry’? Duh.” 

     Let me briefly demonstrate how any random African American’s family story can involve a fascinating and complex tapestry.  During Black History Month in 2007, while I was a full-time graduate student at Clark Atlanta Univ., my grad school buddy and possible cousin, Travis Lacy, and I had a discussion about tracing his family history.  He had never done it and was curious about his ancestry.  We both were consumed with graduate classes, reading assignments, papers to write, presentations to give, and thesis preparations.  However, Travis found the time to do something that many should do to start uncovering their family history – talk to the elders.  He called his aunt in Phoenix, Arizona and got some background information about his maternal grandmother’s family, who had migrated to Arizona from Okmulgee County, Oklahoma.  His great-grandmother was Irene Erath McCuin Sanders, who was born around 1908 in Oklahoma.  She and her family were known to have been rather fair-skinned.   

     Easily accessible via ancestry.com, census records were researched to see what I could quickly find.  Travis’ great-grandmother Irene was found in the 1910 Okmulgee County, Oklahoma census.  She was in the household of her parents, John Wesley & Phennie Erath; everyone in the household was noted as “mulatto”, which corroborated the oral history about the skin tone of Irene and her family.  Interestingly, John Wesley Erath’s birthplace was reported as Texas, around 1880.  Travis did not know that there was a Texas link on this side of his family.  Here’s an image of that 1910 census:

John Wesley & Phennie Erath, 1910 Okmulgee County, Oklahoma census, Boley Township 

(Note: Irene was erroneously spelled “Arene”.)

     I was then able to locate Travis’ family in Texas in 1900.  They had migrated to Oklahoma from McLennan County, Texas sometime before 1908. The city of Waco, Texas is in this county.  John Wesley Erath was in the household of his father and stepmother, John & Annie Erath.  Here’s that census image:

John & Annie Erath, 1900 McLennan County, Texas census, Justice Precinct 1

     Further investigation of the earlier census records revealed that Travis’ great-great-great-grandfather John Erath was the son of John Wesley & Nancy Erath, who were born into slavery around the late 1830’s.  I soon discovered that the Erath name in Travis’ family came from the last slave-owner, George Bernard Erath, who had migrated to America from Vienna, Austria in the early 1800’s. George B. Erath, his wife, and children were the only white Eraths in McLennan County. In 1860, he owned 11 slaves, as per the 1860 McLennan County slave schedule. (Note: slave schedules only report the names of slave-owners and the age, sex, and color of their slaves.) Here’s that 1860 census image:

1860 McLennan County, Texas slave schedule, George Bernard Erath
The 25-year-old black male was most likely Travis’ 4th-great-grandfather, John Wesley, and the 25-year-old mulatto female might have been John Wesley’s wife, Nancy

George Bernard Erath (1813 – 1891)

(Source: Memoirs of Major George Bernard Erath by Lucy Erath)

     However, I soon learned that George B. Erath was not only a slave-owner, but he was a surveyor and a Texas Ranger who laid out the plans for the city of Waco, Texas, which was founded in 1849, as well as the plans for the town of Stephenville, Texas.  Travis’ fourth-great-grandfather John Wesley was a teenage boy at the time, but one can plausibly assert that John Wesley may have assisted George as he surveyed the land that was to become Waco, Texas.  This research of a random African-American named Travis from Los Angeles led to me discovering that his history is directly connected to the establishment of Waco, Texas.  More in-depth research in Texas just may uncover a “complex Tapestry” between the white Eraths and the African-American Eraths that were Travis’ ancestors.  We all have that “complex Tapestry” in our history. It just needs to be dug up and told.  Collectively, all of our family stories provide a microscope into American and African-American history.

Statue of George Bernard Erath in Waco, Texas

(Source: Wendi Lundquist)

 Aerial View of Downtown Waco, Texas. In 2010, the city had a population of 124,805.

George Bernard Erath, the enslaver of Travis' 4th-great-grandfather John Wesley Erath, was noted as the surveyor who surveyed the area and laid out the plans for Waco, which was established in 1849. The 1850 slave schedule reported George Erath with one male slave, a teenage boy who was likely John Wesley. One can plausibly assert that John Wesley may have assisted George Erath with the survey and plans for Waco, Texas.

Travis Lacy, his wife, Lerniece, and their daughter, Asia, reside in Los Angeles, California.  He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in African-American Studies at the University of Nevada at Reno and is currently working on his dissertation.  An aspiring professor and ethnomusicologist and a music enthusiast, writer, and historian, his blog is Just SOul You Know and can be read at http://justsoulyouknow.wordpress.com/.