What Mama Did

Growing up, I noticed quite a few customs and practices that Mama incorporated into her daily life to aid in the well-being and survival of her family and her neighbors. As far back as I can remember, she was a Mother – a Single Mother, raising her 7 children with the help of family, friends and the neighborhood community that she lived in.

Professionally, Mama was “unskilled”, the adopted description for people who work outside of the professional arena. But what I witnessed with my young eyes and through the eyes of a young adult, certainly took a lot of skill, as well as intelligence and patience. From designing and sewing all of the beautiful dresses my sisters and I wore - to planting, growing and harvesting most of the food that fed her family and her neighbors, knitting warm blankets, making beautiful, handmade patchwork quilts, making curtains, hand-crocheted scarves and tablecloths...and so much more. From my earliest years, I can't remember wearing any clothing that was not handmade by Mama – our dresses and even our slips and underwear...and they were all so pretty. I especially remember the pretty little dresses with sashes that tied into bows in the back. And she even used the fabric from the sacks that flour was stored in that were designed with beautiful floral prints. When the sacks were empty, she'd wash them and save them and collected many pieces of the beautiful floral printed fabric that she used to create the most beautiful clothing items for us...skirts, dresses and blouses. She even used them to create kitchen curtains and aprons for herself and also quilts and blankets.

My Brother, Bobby, and Mama's Blanket

She had a “Green Thumb”, and she was the first recycler and composter that I ever knew. She used scraps of food, such as eggshells, coffee grounds, and fish heads and fins as fertilizer for her field garden, where she grew everything from peanuts to potatoes, greens, okra, tomatoes, onions, beans, peas, beets, radishes, watermelons, cucumbers, peppers and carrots. And she always had enough to share with others. She taught me how to hoe a row and drop seeds into the earth. And I loved following in her steps as she planted, showing me how.

The very first example of bartering that I ever witnessed was at a very early age when I watched her exchange her vegetables for eggs with her backdoor neighbor, Mrs. Ola. They would “strike their deal” as they washed clothes in tubs on their back porches, talking to each other through the banana trees that separated the houses along the edge of the ditch between them... “How you doing, Ms. Martha?” “Oh, fairly mettling, Ms. Ola, fairly mettling.” “Send little Vera over with some greens, and I'll send you back some eggs.” - That was the deal. And soon after, I would cross the bridge over the ditch, carrying a bunch of collard greens wrapped in a brown paper bag over to Ms. Ola, and she would fill the skirt of my little dress with eggs that I would carefully transport back across the bridge to Mama.

Mama was always a Domestic Worker, and my most vivid memory of that work was when she cleaned a beachfront motel located on A1A in Melbourne, Florida back in the early and mid 50's. And whenever we went to work with her during the summer months, I don't ever remember seeing anyone else helping her to clean that business except us. Can you picture one woman doing all of the cleaning of a beachside resort business – with 10(+) individual studio units (that were only accessible by walking from one to the other through hot beach sand dotted with prickly sand spurs), a gala ballroom that had an expansive black, shiny marble dance floor, a large galley kitchen, and the owner's quarters? She did that - every day...all day. And if you ask me, she was really the one who kept that business afloat, much like the modern-day maids who keep this nation's hotels and motels afloat today. Think about it...Would you stay at a hotel that didn't have good housekeeping services? She was gone from us from the early morning until long after we got home from school. We were “latch-key kids' long before that term was attached to children who had to come home to an empty house and let themselves in. But Mama laid down the law with her rules for us to follow (to the letter) while we were home alone. We all had specific chores that had to be completed with the same due diligence as was required for our homework. She taught us all how to keep our home clean and sanitary, and she expected us to do just that, while she was away from us all day keeping the living spaces of white people clean and sanitary. And when she finally arrived home from work, exhausted, we looked to her eyes for her approval...or disapproval. We dreaded the latter, because we loved her and wanted to please and help her.

I remember listening to Mama talk about her early years. Born in 1905, it is a certainty that she witnessed and experienced much of the cruelty that was inflicted upon people of color in that time in our history. She told us she never made it to 8th grade. And, remembering her life and the way she lived it, I'm still astonished by that fact. She was my very first teacher, teaching me to read and write and count and sing and recite poems at a very early age. I can still see myself standing in front of her mimicking a song, word for word and note for every perfect note that she sang or hummed to me. That is surely where my love for music and song and my ability to hear and copy a sound was born...standing in front of my mother, listening to her. I entered school at the age of 5, and was such an articulate speaker and reader, I was placed in the class with 2nd grade students. Thanks to Mama's early teachings and continuous counsel, I excelled in school, and was always in the top 10 percent of the classroom scholars. I can still see her sitting in the audience of proud parents, who were always present to support and to see their children receive honor for good scholastic performance and behavior in school. I remember how she and my sister, Rena, put so much effort and love into sewing my costume when I played the role of the leading green fairy in one of our school plays, and how she turned my ordinary red plaid raincoat into the most beautiful cloak for my role as Little Red Riding Hood...just a couple of the many ways she used creativity to make our lives so much better and happier.

There was a chair in our house that Mama always sat in, and it was my favorite chair, too. It was a used chair that was given to us by the family my sister worked for. And as a child, I could never figure out how she always kept it looking like a new chair. It was not in the greatest shape when she first received it, but after she worked her creative upholstery magic on it, a transformation occurred...to 'The Chair'.

'The Chair'

By the standards of society, I suppose our family would have been categorized as extremely poor – "Lower Class". But we didn't feel poor or lower than anyone in the sense that is the accepted norm, because we always had beautiful, handmade clothes (some handed down), wonderful, creative meals (feast from famine), a clean, sanitary home space, and even found ways to help others. Mama was a Master at creating something wonderful from what seemed like nothing – hence, the title of my book, 'Something from Practically Nothing'. Mama never could afford fancy clothes or hats, and most of her clothes were handmade or second hand. And when I look at historic photographs of women (of any race) dressed in fine attire, with coiffed hair and makeup that perfected their appearance, my mind's eye is always drawn back to my favorite photograph of Mama – the one that sits in a special place on my mantlepiece and depicts her with her head wrapped with a rag...a head rag, like the ones worn by slave women. And I remember what she did while she was wearing those head rags...she worked so very hard for her family, for me. Much like the slave woman, Mama wore head rags to hide the fact that she could not afford to have a coiffed head, and it was also possible that she might not even have had time to wash or comb her hair before being picked up by her employer early each morning. But to me, she was A Queen...A Queen Who Wore Crowns of Rags.

Mama

A short note about a painting that reminds me of Mama...It is a beautiful portrait of a woman wearing a head scarf tied around her head. I purchased it from the great artist, Keith Doles (www.keithdoles.com), because I had stared at it from across the room where we both were participants in an art exhibit ('Through Our Eyes', 2005) at the LaVilla Museum in Jacksonville, Florida. After the exhibit ended, and the painting had not sold, I rushed over to him and told him that I had to have it, because I saw my mother in it each time I looked at it. It hangs in my living room today and is one of my most treasured art items. Look at her...

Keith Doles Painting