Delta Jewels

by Alysia Burton Steele

  She had moved her grandmother from the Delta to live next door to her in Memphis. I was living three hours away, more than 200 miles, from Gram when she died. She has a book of her grandmother’s photos and framed photos of her grandmother from her twenties sitting on a bedroom dresser. I have been taking pictures since my youth, yet I don’t have any of that. She knows stories about her grandmother’s childhood. I don’t know anything about my grandmother’s. As happy as I am that she is sharing, I grow mad at myself for never talking to Gram about Gram all those wasted years I lived with her. I spent most of them being rebellious and fighting curfews. I didn’t stop to learn how she came to be the kind and thoughtful woman I knew. I wished I could go back in time and not be that narcissistic teenager.

  Mama [Mrs. Virdure’s grandmother] went to a boarding school. Her parents wanted her to have a good education, so at 4 years old she went to boarding school in Moorhead, Mississippi. She said that it was a good experience. There were other little girls there the same age as she was. They each had their own little cot or bed that they slept on, with their little trunk at the foot of their bed with all their clothes in it. They came home for holidays and sometimes in between. They had to travel by wagon to get back and forth to school. They would warm bricks and put the bricks at the bottom of the wagon to put their feet on to keep their little feet warm. Her mother fell ill after my grandmother was delivered by cesarean section in 1908. She passed away when my grandmother was 12, but she fell ill after my grandmother was born. Mama was the last child born to her mother. Her older sister was born in 1890; there were 18 years between her and her sister and 8 years between her and her brother. And that was the other reason she had to go to boarding school: her mother physically was not able to take care of Mama after that.

  Mama used to say she grew up knowing “God don’t like ugly,” and that she married her husband of forty years because he was a sweet man, well read, and loved classical music.

  When Mama passed away, it was a beautiful moment. She called my mother to her chair [they live next door to Mrs. Virdure] and told her she was ready to go to bed. It was only 8 o’clock and my mother said, “You want to go to bed this early?” She said, “I want to go to my room. I want to go to my bed—to my room.” She had gotten very feeble, so my mother called me to help put her to bed, like I did every night. When I went over, it was hard to get her situated because her arthritis had gotten so bad. I’d lay her down and ask, “Mama, are you comfortable yet?” And she’d say, “No, move this shoulder.” So we moved that shoulder. I went to her back to pull her shoulders back some more and she sat up real quick and said, “Ooh.” “Mama are you okay?” I asked, and she said, “I just can’t breathe.” I sat her up and all of a sudden her little head just drooped to the side, right on my shoulder. “Mama, can you hear me?” I asked. She didn’t answer. It was a beautiful moment for me because I felt like she was where she wanted to be and where I wanted her to be. I had always told her when I moved her up here next door—which took some convincing, but I finally convinced her that they needed to be closer to me because her children were getting older and it was harder for them to take care of her or to take care of themselves—“Mama, this is your place. This is where you’re going to be and I promise you that there will be no nursing home, there will be no assisted living, this is where you will take your last breath. I’m going to see to that, no matter what I have to do.” That night, she just went to sleep on my shoulder. I sat and held her for a while, then I laid her back down on her bed and called hospice.

  MRS. FLORIDA B. SMITH, 88

  CHARLESTON

  BORN JANUARY 1927

  MARRIED 8 YEARS, FIRST HUSBAND

  REMARRIED 16 YEARS WHEN WIDOWED

  10 CHILDREN

  29 GRANDCHILDREN

  9 GREAT-GRANDS

  4 GREAT-GREAT-GRANDS

  “If there’s anyone who can help you, it’s Rev. Hawkins. He knows everyone. I’ve already talked to him about you. He’s expecting your call,” Rev. Self said, referring me to another pastor, Andrew Hawkins, who pastors Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Mound Bayou. He answers my call with a jovial voice, and his reception of me isn’t as hesitant as Rev. Self’s was, perhaps because I’ve passed Rev. Self’s test. He sounds older, and instinct tells me we will hit it off. Mound Bayou is an all-black town of about 1,500 people, just over two hours from my house. On my drive there, I pass one field after another. I’m a city girl; I have no idea what I’m looking at. Turns out it’s soybeans, corn, or cotton. Those are the staple crops. Sometimes I make phone calls as I drive, but most of the time I just drive, with no music. I enjoy the quiet. I have to pay attention to the little signs, for tiny towns like Alligator and Duncan. I’m aware of my surroundings.

  I gave myself more than enough time to drive to Mound Bayou. (I’m an eager beaver. I like to arrive early.) I’m not sure what I expected, but there’s no Dollar General, no grocery store, only a hamburger joint and a gas station that sells fried chicken and other snacks. An abandoned hospital across the street from Mound Olive appears under renovation. I pull into the church parking lot and wait for Rev. Hawkins.

  Shortly after we meet, he tells me, “Mound Bayou is called the Jewel of the Delta. It was started by a few free Blacks in the 1800s. This is a significant town in Mississippi.”

  “I knew it was all-black but I didn’t know it was the Jewel.”

  We talk about my upbringing, and I repeat the story I told Rev. Self about my grandmother, that I’m doing the book to honor my grandmother’s memory. I never got her story from her, and so to honor her, I decide to interview other people’s grandmothers.

  He nods his head with understanding and decides to share some of his story with me. “I didn’t initially want to be a pastor. I wanted to leave Mississippi and I did; I moved to Chicago. I went to college there. I could play the piano, and a pastor up there, a family friend, paid me a few dollars to play for the choir at his church in 1966. He was pushing for me to play on a regular basis. I resisted, but he kept after me. I went to play at rehearsal one night and saw this little bit of a woman walking down the sanctuary. And, well, I decided to play for them. I married that woman. We stayed in Chicago for several years and I moved back to Mississippi to be near my parents, who were getting up in age. We’ve been here ever since.” Rev. Hawkins agrees to talk to some church mothers he knows, and a few days later, I receive Mrs. Florida Smith’s name.

  I get lost driving to her house in Charleston. It takes me almost three hours to get there. I am frustrated, and my phone service keeps dropping. I have two other interviews scheduled for that day. I call Rev. Hawkins and he talks me through it.

  Mrs. Smith has a fair complexion with deep wrinkles. She has strong eyes and a raspy voice. She’s no-nonsense. I know people didn’t mess with her. I’m nervous interviewing her.

  One of the first things she tells me is that she was married twice and both husbands are dead. “I didn’t kill them,” she says.

  I laugh. “Mrs. Smith, I didn’t ask you if you killed them. Is there something you want to talk about?”

  She laughs and says, “No, I just wanted you to know that I was married twice.”

  “Fine. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  I stayed married until he died and I didn’t kill him. [She chuckles.] He died in my lap. I had took him to the doctor. He used to smoke a lot. Doctor told him to stop smoking, but the harm was already done. So we came back home and he was sittin’ right over there in the chair. He died in my lap.

  He was lovely and kind, and he loved my children. So many good memories. I knew I was gonna be his baby ’cause he was 22 years older than I was. Got me an old man, old as black pepper. When he had to work, I knew he was comin’ where I was. He wasn’t goin’ out there lookin’ for nobody else. He made me feel good about myself. My life was sweet. He always told me he wanted to leave me where I wouldn’t have to be with anybody for nothin’: “You ain’t gotta throw yourself away to get
nothin’.”

  From what people call “in love,” I ain’t never been in love. The way I see it, if you love me, you don’t hit me. I don’t let nobody do me like that. I had them understand, “If my momma didn’t raise me, you can’t. Now, I know we not gonna agree on everything but let’s talk this thing over. Please don’t hit me.” I gotta lot of whoopins when I was comin’ up. I was a little devil. I get into stuff and my momma would tear me up. But neither one of my husbands hit me. Neither one.

  I would say to young women—think. Think before you jump and check things out. You don’t know what you jumpin’ into. Just because a person or a job looks good, ain’t mean it’s good. It might to be good to you but it’s not good for ya. So think and then pray and ask for wisdom. And if you get something good, know how to treat it after you get it because a lot of people get something good, they don’t know how to treat it until they have lost it. You can stay with a person for years and that don’t say you know them. Things change. Good-lookin’, tell you how beautiful you are, he’s got his hair do’ed up and maybe driving one of them big cars. He the one! Well, he might not be the one. The one might come knocked-knees and slew-footed. He might be the very one that’s gonna set you up top. That knocked-kneed guy. You want somebody not love you for what you got, but love you for who you are.

  She’s wearing a dress when I get there, but when the interview draws to a close, she doesn’t want to be photographed in it. “I want to change for my portrait,” she says. “I love me some clothes. My girls buy me so many clothes. They spoil me. I love shoes, too.”

  “Put on whatever you want. This is your photograph. I want you to be comfortable.” I wait on the sofa while she goes into her bedroom and changes. She comes back out wearing an all-white skirt suit with a bejeweled white hat. She looks majestic. I think to myself, “I do believe I have my first diva in the book.” She lets me take hundreds of photos of her. I have her sit on the corner of her bed, where soft light is coming through the curtains. She is a dream to photograph. Deep, heavy, intense eyes, but warm in nature. The way Mrs. Smith gently lays her hands on her lap reminds me of Gram. There’s stillness in the moment she intently looks back at me. The pain of missing Gram hits me. I can see Gram’s big eyes staring into my soul. I’m snapped back to reality when Mrs. Smith asks me, “Are you almost finished?” Those eyes must know a lot. I ask her if she was afraid when Emmett Till was killed. “Yes,” she said, “everyone knew that the white people killed him.” When I ask if she was afraid for her safety, she said she tried to stay away from Whites during that time. Then she shared something that shocked me.

  “Mrs. Smith, did you say Whore’s Lake? W-H-O-R-E?”

  “Yes, I said Whore’s Lake. W-H-O-R-E.”

  “What is that?!” My eyes are popped.

  “The white mens [yes, she said that] would rape and kill black women. They would tie bricks around their bodies and dump them.”

  “What?” I ask, disgusted by this information. “Did you know anyone who died like this?”

  “I didn’t know anyone, but my second husband knew some of the women who were killed. He knew them.”

  “Where is this lake?”

  She gives me directions. I’m not sure I understand where to go, as she doesn’t give me route numbers or names. I don’t write down her instructions. I’m not sure I want to know. It’s another ugly reminder of harsh Mississippi history. Later I look up Whore’s Lake and find some written history, which no one talks about; at least, that’s my impression. I call Rev. Hawkins: “Rev. Hawkins, Mrs. Smith just told me about Whore’s Lake…” My voice trails off.

  “Oh.” He sighs. “Yes.”

  MRS. KATIE M. RICHARDSON, 88

  TUNICA

  BORN AUGUST 1926

  MARRIED 49 YEARS WHEN WIDOWED

  12 CHILDREN

  30 GRANDCHILDREN

  42 GREAT-GRANDS

  2 GREAT-GREAT-GRANDS

  Mrs. Richardson is a woman of long-enduring relationships. She started as a private cook for a family in 1947, and continues to cook for them. She and her husband, Nathaniel Richardson II, founded the Friendly Gospel Singer group with her children, which performed from 1965 to 1994. “If I had to marry again, I’d choose him,” she says of her deceased husband, to whom she was married 49 years.

  When I pull up to the driveway of Mrs. Richardson’s home, she is wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and baseball cap. No smile from her as I get out of the car to introduce myself.

  She greets me with a nod and a simple hello. Her daughter Larry Etta is with her. They walk to the front door. “C’mon in,” says Mrs. Richardson.

  I follow them in and sit on the floor while Mrs. Richardson sits on the sofa. There are blankets and extra pillows behind her. As Larry Etta gets ready to leave, I say, “Please stay. Don’t you want to hear what we talk about?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “Oh no, please stay. I like it when the children and grandchildren stay. Sometimes they remind the mothers of stories they’ve forgotten. I like it when family are around.”

  Sure enough, Mrs. Richardson talks about picking cotton and how hard the work was, but she neglects to mention one horrific detail. “Mama, did you tell her about the dead animals they’d put in your drinking water?”

  I’m so shocked by this, my mouth hangs open.

  “Oh yes, girl, they did that to them,” Larry Etta says, shaking her head. I hear her suck her teeth as her mother shares a memory from the days of picking cotton:

  The [white] agent’s two sons didn’t work, but they would pump water and bring it to the field for us [Blacks] to drink. They were water boys; they brought barrels of water, everybody picking cotton drank out the same barrel. My daddy caught them boys in the barrel taking a bath—in the barrel!—getting cool ’cause it was hot. They were cooling off in our drinking water. We had to drink that water. That’s all we had. I was getting 15 cents a day. They used to drop possums down in the well. We had to drink that water. I would get a little bucket and carry some water out with me.

  This is so painful to hear. By the time she finishes this story, I am crying. I am ashamed that I am half white. I don’t have the guts to ask her how she feels toward white people; I’m not prepared to hear the answer, so I let it go. Tears fall down my cheeks. I oftentimes wonder if the women see me as a black or biracial woman. I wonder if they are comfortable with me. Then as I sit in her hushed living room, she describes the tornado that killed three of her children on February 5, 1955:

  The day before the storm, I had seven living children. Three children was at school and the rest were at home with me. All of them was outdoors playin’. The day before the storm, my son Nathaniel Junior, he was 7, was crying. He used to always see things. We got used to him seeing things. He come in the house, and I said, “Every time somethin’ always happen, you see somethin’. What you see now? What you see now?”

  I said, “Go back outdoors and play.”

  He said, “I don’t wanna go back outdoors and play, Madea, let me go back in the other room.”

  I said, “For what?”

  He said, “A tornado comin’, a storm comin’ and gonna kill all of us.”

  “I told him, ‘Oh no, you don’t know what you talkin’ about. Go back outdoors.’ ”

  He went to cryin’ so, I told him to go on back in the room and just hush.

  The next morning about 11 o’clock, tornado came. My husband went back to work at the Leathermans’ [the family they worked for] before the storm come. They live in a big, great house on the mound, the hill. Junior was in the back room. I grabbed him. I grabbed Dorothy. I had the baby, Katie Joyce, on the table in a box. Dorothy said, “Get the baby, Madea, don’t leave her on the table. Don’t leave the baby.”

  I said, “I can’t carry all y’all.” I put Dorothy between my legs. I was tryin’ to get in the back room. We all scattered in different directions. Dorothy said, “Hold me, Madea.”

  I said, “I ca
n’t.” At that time my arm went down and broke. I had gashes. Junior blew out of the house. A stick went through him.

  I was runnin’ around tryin’ to find my childrens after the storm, when the Leathermans come down. I went to their house and they bathed me and put some clothes on me in the bathroom. When I came out their house, I could look down and see people at my house. I runned and someone said, “Don’t look, Katie Mae. Larry down there with half his head cut off.” Told me I had to get away. The ambulance and things comin’ from Hernando, everywhere. Back in those days the ambulance was the hearse. Me and my husband were in the ambulance with Essie Mae on the floor. Essie Mae screamin, cryin’ for her daddy, cryin’, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, ohh Daddy.” She died hollerin’ for her daddy. They got me to the hospital. My momma got Junior, the one with the sick in him. She wrapped him up with a bedspread. The bedding on my bed now, what Momma wrapped him up in. The doctor come in and give him some medication and broke the stick and pulled it out both ways. Junior lived for a couple days. The storm took an effect on Katie Joyce. She was the baby and they said breathe stayed away from her for too long. She was about 3 years old before she walked or did anything, she didn’t talk. I had three childrens killed in the tornado. Essie Mae, Larry, and Junior.