All the Days Past, All the Days to Come

by Mildred D. Taylor

  Moe sighed and looked out the window. I was sitting between Stacey and Moe. I looked first at my brother, his eyes straight ahead, then at Moe. I knew how much Moe’s weekend trips to Toledo meant to him. When he came on Fridays, he stayed until Sunday evening. He slept on the sofa bed in the living room. He ate all that good food Dee cooked, and for him it was almost like being back home. We were his family now. He went to church with us, played baseball down at the vacant corner lot near the school, listened to the radio in the evenings, enjoyed everything we enjoyed together. It was an escape from the loneliness of his own life living in a rooming house up in Detroit. It was an escape from being Moe McKlellan. With us, he could again be Moe Turner.

  When Moe had first arrived in Detroit, he had gone to our people living there, extended family who had come up to Detroit from Canton, Mississippi, and who had never lived down around Great Faith. Moe told them nothing about what had caused him to come so suddenly, just that he was looking for work to help out his family, but he knew he could not stay long with them. There were many in the family and he was just one more body to take care of in their small space, so as soon as he got some work, Moe moved out and took a room in a boarding house. He took the room under the name of Moe McKlellan, just as he had taken his job under that name. When Stacey and Dee bought the house on Dorr Street, they asked Moe about coming to stay with us, but Moe had said no. He already had a good job working at the Ford factory and, besides that, he didn’t want to bring any trouble to them in case Mississippi tracked him down. Despite all that, I knew what Moe was feeling now, and I knew also he did not want to stop coming to Toledo. Once we were at the house and Stacey had gone back to the kitchen to greet Dee, Moe sat next to me on the living room sofa and said, “I don’t know if I can stay away. I know I oughta, but the truth is . . . I want to see you, Cassie.”

  “Ah, Moe . . .”

  “I know. I know how you want things to be. You want us being friends—”

  “That’s important—”

  “Sure, it is . . . but you know I want more, Cassie.”

  “Well, I’m not going there, Moe. We’ve been friends too long for us to go there.”

  Moe smiled. “You never know,” he said.

  “Well, I do. You best stay in Detroit and keep yourself safe. And don’t worry. I’ll be coming to see you along with Stacey. You’ll always be my friend.”

  Moe smiled again. “Yeah . . . that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  That next week Attorney Tate called. The detective who had approached him about Moe wanted to talk to us. Stacey and I met the detective at Lawyer Tate’s office. He questioned us briefly about the incident in Strawberry and asked us about Moe. We told him we didn’t know where Moe was.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  During the war years there had been no new cars. All the car factories had turned full attention to manufacturing for the war. In 1946, for the first time in five years, new cars began to roll off the assembly lines in Detroit, and Stacey was among the first to buy one. His purchase was even published in the newspaper. It was a 1946 Mercury, burgundy in color, with white-walled tires. It was a beauty. As soon as he had driven the Mercury from the showroom floor and brought it back to Dorr Street, people began to gather and marvel at the new car. Everyone, it seemed, wanted a ride in the Mercury, even if it was just around the block and—after a first ride with Dee, the girls, and me—Stacey obliged. He even let some of his most trusted friends drive it.

  Stacey loved cars, always had. Part of his love for cars had come from Uncle Hammer, who always drove fine cars, even a Packard. Uncle Hammer had even driven the Packard down into Mississippi. But it was Stacey who had bought our family’s first car in Mississippi, a Ford that had belonged to Mrs. Wade Jamison, and like his new Mercury it too had been burgundy. Stacey had driven that car north and had kept it throughout the war years. Now, with the enticement of the new models, he had traded in the Ford for the Mercury. He had a good income at the factory, the union was strong, and even though there was some concern that there could be layoffs, Stacey bought the car.

  Later, he began to regret that decision.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Finally, Christopher-John and Clayton Chester came home.

  Despite the fact that Man had gone first into the Army, it was Christopher-John who came home first. He arrived in August and went directly to Mississippi. Stacey, Dee, the girls, and I went down to greet him, but he didn’t come back with us. He stayed on awhile helping on the land, and came to Toledo in November. Man didn’t arrive in the States until December. He too went directly to Mississippi. He was there for Christmas, but after the new year he too came to Toledo. Both Christopher-John and Man had decided they could no longer live in Mississippi. Actually, they had already made up their minds while still in service. Neither saw a future in Mississippi. Having endured the bloody battles of Europe, having been tested daily, they no longer had the stomach to live under the harsh rules of segregation.

  With so many soldiers returning, the rumors of layoffs at Willys Overland were now rampant. Soldiers who had once worked at the factory wanted their old jobs back, the jobs that had been promised to them. In addition to so many returning soldiers, the Army would no longer need the production of jeeps as it had during the war. The plant returned to its prewar production schedule with no more of the overtime that had provided high wages to all its workers. There was no longer hiring. Christopher-John was fortunate to get a job with a car dealership, though it was part-time. Trained as a mechanic by the Army, Christopher-John had a skill that did not require work in a factory. Clayton Chester was not as fortunate. Unable to get work at any of the plants in the area, he decided to go back to school under the G.I. Bill, which would pay his tuition as well as allow him a living allowance. It was too late for him to enroll at the University of Toledo for the semester, so he enrolled in special classes offered to veterans at the local vocational high school. His plan was to enroll at the university in the fall. In the meantime, he was taking the vocational classes and any odd jobs he could get—painting, plastering, light electrical work, minor plumbing. Man was good at anything he set his mind to, and even if he did not know how to do a particular thing, it was of no worry to him. He simply went to the library, got a book on the subject, and when it came time to do the job he could do it.

  With Christopher-John and Clayton Chester now in the house, Dee found places for them to sleep, one on the living room sofa bed, the other on the Sunday room sofa. At first, it seemed a bit crowded having five grown people staying downstairs, but soon it didn’t matter. We had lived in smaller spaces together growing up at home and on Everett Street in Jackson. What mattered was that the boys had returned safely from the war and we were all together again. Now, here in Toledo, even with the threat of the layoffs, we could look forward to a future.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  During the Christmas holidays, before Man came to Toledo, Moe had stayed with us while the Ford plant was shut down for the week. It had been months since the meeting with Attorney Tate and Stacey’s warning that Moe should not come to Toledo. Despite that warning, Moe said he just wanted to be with folks from home. “You know, Cassie,” he said, “how much I miss my daddy, all my family. These past months not being able to come down here every week, see all of you, I’ve been missing them even more. When Stacey brought me that last letter from my daddy, Daddy said baby brother Morris was about to finish up eighth grade at Great Faith School come spring and then he’ll be going up to Jackson or over to Vicksburg to finish school. He said he’d rather send Morris up here to me so he could go to school in Detroit.”

  “Really?” I was surprised. “Thought he’d want to keep Morris there. He’s always doted on Morris.”

  “Well, we all have since Mama died giving birth to him. We all took a hand in raising Morris. Always smart as a whip. Co
urse you know I ain’t seen him since he was seven. He’ll be turning thirteen before year’s end.” Moe seemed reflective on the coming year. “Got the feeling my daddy is looking out for both of us, for Morris and for me. His youngest son and his oldest son. He wants Morris to have a good education. Education, that’s important to Daddy, but I figure the real reason he wants Morris up here is for me to have family with me, and who better than Morris?” Moe smiled. “Daddy says I half raised him. Might as well finish the job.”

  “So, what are you going to tell your daddy?”

  “Figure to do what he wants and send for Morris, have somebody bring him up to Detroit before school starts next year.”

  “They lay you off, are you still going to send for Morris?”

  Moe nodded. “My daddy hasn’t asked one thing of me in all these years I been gone from home, but he’s asking this of me now and I’m not about to say no to him. Whatever happens, I’ll make it somehow. Besides, it’ll be good to have one of my family here. I won’t feel so alone.”

  I understood.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The layoffs began after the first of the new year in 1947. Those workers who had filled the factory’s high demand for labor during the war years were now being let go.

  Stacey was one of those workers.

  No one knew if hiring would begin again or if there would be a callback. Uncertainty hung over the house on Dorr Street and over the city. All the renters had jobs at the plant and all of them, like Stacey, were laid off. Christopher-John had his part-time job and Man, his temporary jobs. I still had my job working a few hours each week at Roman’s, but that only brought in enough to help with the groceries as well as my own personal expenses. None of us earned enough to pay the mortgage, and it was the mortgage on the house that worried us all. The renters paid what they could and some could pay nothing at all, but Stacey and Dee were not about to put them out. Like us, they were all hardworking people and were doing what they could to find work to support their families. Still, we all knew that there had to be money coming in soon from somewhere. Stacey and Dee fell back on their savings, but if the layoff continued and there was no full-time work, that money would soon run out.

  “I have a good mind to go to California if things don’t pick up here,” Stacey said as we sat around the kitchen table late one evening. A sleepy Rie sat on his lap. “I figure maybe Uncle Hammer can find something for me.”

  “So, what do we do then?” interjected Dee. She repositioned ’lois, already sleeping, in her arms before demanding an answer from Stacey with a pointed look. “Move all the way out there like we moved all the way up here?”

  Stacey smiled at her. “You want to move back down south to live? All you’ve got to do is say so,” he teased.

  “I wasn’t saying that,” Dee demurred.

  Stacey laughed. We all did, for we knew how Dee now felt about going back south. “I’m telling you the truth,” Stacey said. “I could not get the woman to come with me north and now she’s the one who doesn’t want to go back. For two years I begged Dee for us to move north and she fought me tooth and nail about the thing—”

  “Well, I finally came, didn’t I?” retorted Dee.

  “Yeah, you came all right! You came after I had to get the hell out of that state, and on the day I left, as I recall—now, you tell me different if you recall something else—but on the day I left, as I packed my suitcase, you were busy unpacking it and you told me in no uncertain terms that I was not going anywhere. You told me I was not about to leave you and our babies and our folks to go off to some northern city we didn’t know a thing about. Now, am I wrong?”

  Dee allowed a contrite smile. “Well . . . that was different.”

  Again, all around the table laughed. Then I asked Stacey, “Have you written Uncle Hammer about coming out there?”

  “No, figured maybe to ask you to write him for me since Dee already told me she won’t do it.”

  Dee gave him a look. “You need to write your own letter if you want to go out there so bad.”

  “Well, you write so much better than I do.” He smiled at that, but we all knew Stacey never wrote letters. He had never felt comfortable about his writing. Having gone to work full-time after tenth grade, he was the only one of us who had not graduated high school. “I guess if you or Cassie won’t write the letter for me, I’ll just call Uncle Hammer.” Dee gave Stacey a stern look that said they couldn’t afford a telephone call all the way to California. Stacey ignored the look. “Uncle Hammer said there could be more opportunities out there for colored folks than here.”

  “But what kind of work could you get?” questioned Christopher-John. “We all know Uncle Hammer’s not hardly doing factory work.”

  “Never has,” inserted Little Man.

  “Well, we all know that’s a fact,” Stacey agreed. “He’s always been independent, his own man, but he’s always had his hand in something. He told me he bought some houses out in Oakland like he did in Jackson, but I don’t know what all else he’s doing. I just know he’s in business for himself and he knows lots of people.”

  “It could be worth the try,” said Man, “what with things like they are here and in Detroit. You go out there, Stacey, most likely I’ll go with you.”

  Stacey nodded. “Love to have you join me. That’s a long drive.”

  “Maybe I’ll go,” I said. “I’d like to see California. What about you, Christopher-John?”

  “Well, y’all going, guess I’ll be going too, least for a while.”

  “Well, before you all start packing your bags,” interjected Dee, “I suggest you give more thought to finding work around here because I for one do not plan to move to any California. I like it fine right here.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Stacey, and he laughed again. “That last part, just what you said when we were down in Mississippi.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  He might have laughed, but Stacey took Dee’s words to heart. He scoured the city looking for work and finally found a job bussing tables during the day and sweeping and mopping the floor at night at a downtown restaurant. The pay was minimal, but it was honest work, and it was better than nothing. Dee wanted to go back to work as she had done during the war. She even suggested taking work as a domestic, cleaning white people’s houses, but Stacey wouldn’t hear of it. None of our people had worked as a domestic since slavery and neither had Dee’s. “You want to housekeep,” said Stacey within my hearing, “you just keep cleaning this one. I won’t have you cleaning white people’s houses.”

  And Dee said, “Plenty of good honest colored folks clean white folks’ houses and take care of their babies. I’m not too proud to do it, if it means money coming in.”

  Stacey was adamant. “You’ve never done it and I won’t have you doing it!”

  “Well, look what you’re doing! Cleaning tables and mopping floors!”

  “Maybe I have to do it,” said Stacey, “but you won’t. You just stay here and take care of this house and our own babies.”

  I don’t know how much more discussion about the matter they had in private, but in the end Dee stayed at home, taking care of Rie and ’lois and the house. That in itself was a huge job. It was Dee who washed and ironed most of the clothes and cooked the meals and cleaned the house and kept everything in order. At dinnertime each day she had a hot meal on the table for all of us. Although Dee herself did not bring in any money, there was no way the rest of us could have managed without her. Financially, things remained tight, but somehow we came up with enough for Stacey and Dee to pay the mortgage each month. Then things got harder for all of us.

  In late March, Papa called. I answered the phone. “Go ahead,” drawled the long-distance operator. “Your party’s on the line.”

  “Cassie,” said Papa, having heard my voice when I answered the phone
, “I’ve got some bad news for you.”

  I felt my stomach twist. “Sir?”

  “It’s your mama. She’s in the hospital. I’m calling from there now. Doctors say she’s had a stroke.” It seemed to me, at that moment, I stopped breathing. “We need for y’all to come home.”

  “Papa,” I muttered, hearing myself sounding like a little girl of years ago, “is it that bad? How could this happen?”

  “It’s that bad. Now, sugar, put Stacey on the phone. I need to talk to him.”

  Stacey talked to Papa, and when he hung up, he talked to all of us. “Mama was just sitting at her desk working on her speech she’s supposed to give to the Colored Women’s League in June and she just slumped over.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Christopher-John groaned, sounding like I had only moments before. “Oh, Lord.”

  Stacey cleared his throat. “We’ve got to go home. First thing, come morning.”

  Practical Little Man looked at Stacey. “On what? We don’t have the money.”

  We all looked at each other and knew he was right. We didn’t have the money to go south, to make this unexpected trip. We didn’t have the money to go see about Mama.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  It was late Friday night when we got the call. The mortgage note had been paid on that same day. So had the electricity bill and the coal bill and the water bill—the telephone bill too. It was the end of the month. We were all paid weekly, so now that the monthly bills were paid, we all had breathed easier, a sigh of relief for one more month. Dee had done the grocery shopping too that day. With all the bills paid and food stocked for the week, there was little money left in our pockets, but we had figured that was okay. We had just enough to see us through the week until next payday.

  “So, what do we do?” I asked as we sat at the kitchen table drinking the hot coffee Dee had just perked. It was after midnight.