Delta Jewels

by Alysia Burton Steele

  My grandparents in an undated 1960s photo on the porch of their home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This was the first house they bought several years after Pop-Pop’s service in the Korean War. They raised three children in that home: Walter (my dad), Marie, and Patricia.

  When I asked Pop, during that difficult interview, why she caught his eye, he said, “Because she was quiet. She didn’t flirt. She wasn’t interested in me. I knew she would be the one to get.”

  And get her he did. After a couple of years of seeing each other during the summer months, he proposed to her, and she said yes. After she graduated from high school, she moved to Pennsylvania to be his wife. They were married for 47 years when she died of colon cancer. Together they had three children and seven grandchildren.

  I wish I could interview her now as I’ve done with more than 50 grandmothers. Gram was born in 1930, about the same time as most of the grandmothers I’ve interviewed. But did she have to walk miles to school? Did she grow up in a sharecropper’s home? Did she ever see the KKK? Did anyone white ever call her a racist name or push her? What childhood memories did she have? From the Jewels, I have a sense of her time, racial challenges, and social dynamics, but I won’t know these answers in her voice. I wish I hadn’t been so self-absorbed when I was younger.

  Twenty years after her death, I sit, pained. I want Gram to see how I’ve turned out, thanks to her guidance and boundaries. I want her to see that I appreciate her influence in my life. I want her to see that our family hasn’t been the same since her death because she isn’t here to keep us together. We don’t make time during the holidays like we used to. Everything feels disjointed. I feel like an orphan again.

  I miss you, Gram. I miss you calling me on Sundays, asking, “What are you cooking for dinner? Are you warm enough? Are you wearing your hat and coat?”

  I miss you standing in the doorway, watching me pull the car up to the curb. I see you now: manicured nails, a sweater with a blouse underneath, dress slacks ironed with creases. I smell your trademark Givenchy Ysatis perfume.

  Oh, Gram. I miss you! I’m sorry I was so self-absorbed. I’m sorry I didn’t ask you more questions about your life. I’m sorry I didn’t just sit down next to you and find out more about you. I’d do anything to read these Jewel stories to you and ask, “Can you relate to them?”

  MRS. MILDRED W. LEE, 78

  MARKS

  BORN SEPTEMBER 1936

  STILL MARRIED, 54 YEARS, TO JAMES LEE

  2 CHILDREN

  4 GRANDCHILDREN

  1 GREAT-GRAND

  My father had a job at Alcorn [State University] and he carried the family with him because we could get a better education there. That’s where we stayed and went to school and that’s where I went to college. We lived in a faculty home. I think we were the largest family on campus, there were four of us [children]. We went to school on campus because they had a practice school for practice teachers.

  Well, it [the campus] was just bein’ at home. We skated and rode our bikes on the sidewalks around the college campus; students got out of the way and let us pass. I guess when you’re young, you think you have the right of way.

  You know when you go to high school on a college campus, the boys give you the eye. My daddy was kind of strict, not real strict, but kind of strict. We could go to college functions, like movies and if a boy walked you home. He [Daddy] could always tell when the function was over because the boys’ dormitory was across the street from our house and you could hear everybody comin’ home. So our feet had to hit that step right after he could hear the noise. A lot of boys would get friendly with you because they could come over to the house and eat. And Daddy always made them welcome. So the boys would always get friendly, even if they wasn’t romantic, so they could come over to your house and get a meal at night.

  The bayou I pass every time I drive to Mound Bayou. I’d been waiting for the right light for months when I took this image at sunset in March 2013.

  My dad always wanted us to be independent. He never wanted, especially his girls, to have to stay in a marriage because they had to depend on the husband. He would lecture us, “Stay focused on what you’re supposed to do. Don’t let these little boys swell your head.” That lecture came often. We got those real good lectures about that in the 1950s. I never did fall, fall, fall in love. You like a boy, and if something went wrong, you just let him go. There was always somebody else who wanted to come over and eat.

  He [my husband] went to Coahoma Junior College and then went to Jackson State. There were two friends of his, a man and a woman, that went to Coahoma. The man went to Alcorn, where I was, and the woman went to Jackson, where my husband was. I became friends with the couple, and the girl said, “Oh, she needs to meet Lee.” The three of them got together and brought me up here to meet this “quiet man,” they say. They picked him up and we went to Memphis to visit some relatives of his. On our way back we kissed all the way back. I said, “This is not a quiet man.” We dated and got married the next year. I fell in love and he was the one. We had the same dreams and the same ambitions and all that is important. We liked to do the same things and he just look like he was the husband kind, the kind that would be around a long time and would stick by you. I just got that feeling. I told my sister, not a whole long after we met, I said that he was going to be my husband—and sure enough, he did.

  “SAY GOOD NIGHT, LISA.”

  As Mrs. Lee talks about how her father expected their feet to hit the steps after a date on the Alcorn campus, I remember my dad. His name is Walter, but everyone knows him as Rocky. Although I wasn’t being raised by my dad—his parents were raising me—he was active in my life, always active and crazy about me. No boys wanted to date me because Dad was fiercely protective. Boys were lucky it was Gram they were dealing with and not my father, although it didn’t feel that way because my grandmother was very strict, probably because I was boy crazy. I’d seen too many romantic movies, but because I was not allowed to officially date didn’t mean I didn’t sneak out with girlfriends to flirt. As a result, there was a boy I wanted. Gram let me date him three months before my eighteenth birthday because she knew “his people” and was okay with his background. He was over six feet tall and had a brown complexion. He wore glasses and braces. I liked his small eyes. We didn’t travel in the same circles, but we knew about each other. We never even talked to each other, not even a hello, until we were at the same house party one fall night when I shared half a peach cooler with my best friend Shantih and got drunk. I pursued him at the party. He was shocked I paid attention to him. I found him very handsome. He had a great sense of humor, was well liked among the intellectual crowd—smart, college-driven, good grades. He wouldn’t kiss me that night. He said he wanted me to remember when he kissed me. I’m sure his boys made fun of me since I wasn’t the hot cheerleader type. We decide to date, and when he’d drop me off at the porch, Gram would turn on the porch light. It felt like the brightest light you could have on a porch. He’d get ready to kiss me, the porch light would come on, and she’d open the front door, standing in the doorway wearing her bathrobe with a headscarf. “Say good night, Lisa.” And to my date, “Tell your mother hello. You’ll see Lisa at school tomorrow.”

  My senior year of high school, the year Gram allowed me to date. She wanted me to do the Alpha Kappa Alpha Cotillion in December 1987 because, although Gram was not an AKA, many members of our church were. This is the night of the cotillion with my grandparents dressed up presenting me to the public.

  “Really?” I’d mumble as I trudged inside and she closed the door.

  This happens almost every time he tries to kiss me. So we decide to kiss in his car. He parks right in front of our house. (We aren’t smart enough to think of going somewhere else to park.) We are kissing in the car when the bright porch light comes on. Gram is walking down the steps and heading to the car, a bathrobed general with a headscarf helmet. She knocks on the passenger-side window. “Say good night,
Lisa,” she commands. And to my date, “Tell your mother hello. You’ll see Lisa at school tomorrow.” She walks toward the front door and stands there waiting for me.

  “Good night. See you tomorrow.” I sigh and walk back to the house, fuming, thinking, She ruins everything. I turn 18 and date another boy. Whenever I have a date in the house, Gram sits in a chair behind the sofa to make sure nothing happens. She does it every time.

  Whenever I have a date in the house, Gram sits in a chair behind the sofa to make sure nothing happens. She does it every time.

  MRS. REBECCA “MA BECK” HAWKINS, 100

  INDIANOLA

  BORN OCTOBER 1914

  MARRIED 40 YEARS WHEN WIDOWED

  4 CHILDREN

  9 GRANDCHILDREN

  4 GREAT-GRANDS

  1 GREAT-GREAT-GRAND

  Mrs. Hawkins, who was almost 100 years old when I interviewed and photographed her, is the one Jewel who had something positive to say about Whites. None of the church mothers said anything full of hate, but Mrs. Hawkins, who unofficially inherited Mrs. Josephine Turner’s catering business after the white woman’s death in 1984, actually said, “I don’t have anything negative to say about white people. A white woman taught me how to save money so I could buy my house.”

  She still lives in that house. It’s tiny, and she keeps it cozy with photos on the walls. We sat in the living room, where the sofa fronts a big window backed by a quilt.

  I noticed an old desktop computer on a desk in the room. “Do you use your computer?”

  “No, but my children wanted me to have it.” She chuckled.

  Pictures of her when she was younger adorned the walls. When I asked if I could photograph them, she replied, “Of course,” then began to tell me about how a white woman taught her how to save her money.

  My husband went to service in World War Two. Everybody whose husband was in service, the government was sending them a check to take care of the wife and children. A woman I worked for as a cook trained me. She told me to put my money in the bank and continue to work. Said, “You got a nice place to stay, you’re comfortable, and you don’t have to pay no rent.” She furnished my uniforms, and her daughter, every spring, would give me gobs of clothes for my daughter. I’ll tell you another thing. She told me exactly how to do. She said, “Always try to put your children in a home. Let them know what it was like to be raised in a home.”

  I wasn’t makin’ but $10 a week and $2 of that was going into a Christmas savings. That left $8. [I had] four children. I saved my money.

  In the evening, they would take me and we would ride all over town and look at lots. She would say [at some lots], “No, Becky, you don’t want to stay here, that’s not a good place to raise your children.”

  The prefab houses—her husband knew how much you could buy them, for a two-bedroom. He told me to buy my lot and we would buy one of those prefab houses and get someone to assemble it. That’s how I got my house. And she knew all about carpentry. She put my curtain brackets up. I’m over in her house fixin’ her dinner and she down here nailin’ my curtains up.

  Near the end of our conversation I say, “Mrs. Hawkins, you are 99 years old. What’s it like aging?” I’m expecting her to talk about how hard life is, but instead she says something that surprises me, something so sweet.

  I used to hear my mother pray about letting my old days be my best days. I have heard people say, you know, they have pains, aches, and no money, they’re not comfortable, you know? Would you know, honest to goodness, I think my oldest days are my best days. I’m not just telling you this. I can think of so many things I’m thankful for. I can’t come out with nothin’ I regret.

  MRS. ORA D. JACKSON, 85

  MERIGOLD

  BORN FEBRUARY 1930

  MARRIED 17 YEARS WHEN WIDOWED

  5 CHILDREN

  17 GRANDCHILDREN

  32 GREAT-GRANDS

  4 GREAT-GREAT-GRANDS

  Mrs. Jackson had a stroke years ago and is paralyzed on her left side. She is not feeling her best, and I’m thankful she’s made time for me. She has a small chicken coop in the front yard. A neighbor’s friendly puppy, which looks like a Lab mix, greets me as I climb out of my car. I pet him, and his tail wags as I walk up a ramp to the door.

  I find Mrs. Jackson sitting in a chair. A quiet, pleasant woman, she doesn’t say a lot; she’s just not talkative. I’m not sure if it’s because of the stroke or if that’s her nature. She doesn’t provide much detail, and I work to get some stories. When I ask about her childhood, she smiles and tells me her grandmother gave her the nickname “Coote” [rhymes with “toot”]. She doesn’t know how she got it, but it’s stuck with her over the years.

  There’s a quiet sadness about Mrs. Jackson when she talks about education. “What did you like learning in school?”

  “In high school I liked doing algebra. Once I learned how to do it, it was easy.” She says she loved learning math, which isn’t a subject I enjoyed.

  I struggle to find a subject to make Mrs. Jackson more talkative. Then she tells me that before her stroke she loved gardening and cooking—canning and making preserves. “I made the best peach jelly. And I was known for my caramel cake and pound cakes. I liked to do all that before my stroke.” She then tells me she retired from driving a school bus for 17 years, and when I ask her what she wanted to be, she’s quiet before she opens up about helping birth babies in her family.

  I tell them I saw them before their momma did. I had one niece, she was born and wasn’t nobody there but me. The cord was wrapped around her neck. I knowed how to take it loose. Turn her bottom over and thump her on her feet and she hollered. You know, just… someone had to do it.

  The first baby I helped was [born to] one of my sisters. That was in 1959. I was 29 years old then. This was the first time. She was at our mother’s house, she went into labor, and I had to be strong. That was the first time I ever been around it. I smoked a whole pack of cigarettes, a pack of Salem, while she was in labor. Was hopin’ she would go ahead and have the baby. She had a midwife. I didn’t like the way she [the midwife] had her bearing down. My sister got so weak and the baby’s head got stuck. It just stayed there. She got weak and I got aggravated wit’ the midwife and I told her, I said, “You do what I say.” I set her legs up. I got behind her back and shoulders. I said, “When the pain hits, you bear.” She pushed the baby on out, but the baby was dead. I think she choked to death. They carried the baby and buried her. The doctor had to come do stitches on her.

  A vintage furniture set in a yard near Greenwood.

  The second time, it didn’t bother me. No fears. I just didn’t fear. I put faith in God. That one came out okay. After the baby was born, I just got everything cleaned up and brought them home.

  Then I had to do Christmas cookin’. I had to cook for my sister. This was Christmas Eve. I went home and cooked her dinner at my house. It was kinda tiresome. I just did it. I stayed up all night and just did it.

  I stay in the room with Mrs. Jackson, a room I think is her bedroom—bed, dresser, a few chairs, and TV. Next to her room is the kitchen; I can see the stove.

  She doesn’t invite me to look around the house, and I don’t ask, but I’m curious about the rest of the house. When I ask, “What do your grandchildren joke with you about?” she smiles and lets me know it’s not only me who cannot venture into specific rooms. I chuckle. It reminds me of my Gram and Pop-Pop, who kept the plastic wrap on their furniture.

  They say, “G.G. [Great-Grandma], why you got a room can’t nobody go in?” Why? Because I didn’t want nobody in there messing it up and making it dirty. I think I have nice furniture in there. The dining room, the living room, and my bedroom—I have other rooms they can go in, but they can’t go in there if they gonna play. We eat in the dining room for holidays. My great-granddaughter said, “I be glad when I can go in there and eat.”

  MRS. VIOLA J. SISSON, 85

  GREENWOOD

  BORN DECEMBER 1929
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  MARRIED FOR 51 YEARS WHEN WIDOWED

  NO CHILDREN

  Mrs. Sisson is the sister of Mississippi Senator David Jordan. Several attempts have been made on his life because of his involvement with the Civil Rights Movement. His house was shot at as recently as 2011. His car was egged and his home has been broken into on numerous occasions. “Has Mississippi really changed for the better?” I ask myself. “Will it ever truly change?” I wanted to hear about this history from Mrs. Sisson, but I didn’t want her to think that was the only reason I asked to interview her. I’m curious to know more about this tall and slender woman who walks outside to greet me in her driveway. She’s cheerful and happy to see me.

  She lives in a big house with multilevels. Inside is like going back in time. She has a formal seating area with a fireplace and adjoining dining room. The house is filled with furniture and decorations unchanged from the 1970s. When I say, “What a lovely home,” she tells me she and her husband built it together in 1968. I then ask if they met in school, and she says no, her husband, Roosevelt Sisson, was seven years older. She had wanted to leave Mississippi to go to college and he asked her parents if he could pay for her college education and then marry her. He sent her to Southern University of Louisiana, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in history and minored in elementary education. She takes pride that she married an educated man. “He graduated with a PhD from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio,” she says. “Have you heard of it?”