• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Ancestry BEFORE WE GET TO WHAT HAPPENED NEXT, I THINK IT IS important to share with you some background information to help you understand my dad and how he and others impacted me. My life jour- ney began before I was ever born. I like to think of it like that because I believe that everything I do and everything that was done before I got here somehow leaves a mark. And so my journey began even centuries before I arrived on this planet, and all that came before is imprinted on me somehow, and that I will make my imprint on it in some way. This life that I live is not totally mine. It is part of the lives of my ancestors and the lives of my descendants. I am as much a part of the past as I am the future. It is my responsibility then, to not run from, but rather to cherish the past and shape the future. I didn’t always know that. My mother was born deaf from no known cause on January 4, 1928, near Cheswold, Delaware (this is how the location is actually listed on her birth certifcate). She was a beautiful, slight, African American woman with some Native blood. Everyone else in her family could hear. Her family was from Marydel, a small town on the border of Maryland and Delaware, close to Dover. Her father, Benjamin Preston Simmons, Sr., was a big and tall gentleman with caramel skin. He had a deep, resonant voice that on frst impression could scare the living daylights out of you, but he was as cuddly and gentle as a teddy bear. His parents were Mary Elizabeth Denby Simmons, who had Irish blood, and William Oscar Simmons, who was part Native American, although we don’t know the specifc tribe. Her mother, Agnes Sudler Simmons, was a thin woman with a deep chocolate complexion. Her demeanor and voice was as soft as her husband’s was thunderous. agnes’s parents were Gertrude Sudler and Thomas Henry Sudler. Thomas had a mix of African American and Native 7 8 Clara Jean Mosley Hall American ancestry. According to family lore, his mother—my great-great grandmother—was lenni-lenape. My mother’s sister, Alice, who had more of the body frame and complexion of her father and a personality to match, remembers that Thomas had an out-of-the-ordinary middle name—Catch- Me-Not.* He also had beautiful straight hair that he wore in braids. Alice and my mother remembers watching him brush his teeth using ashes (a strange enough custom, but his teeth were brilliantly white and strong). Agnes and Benjamin had four children: my mother, who was their frstborn; Alice Elizabeth; Benjamin Preston, Jr. (Benny), who was tall and thin with the chocolate complexion of his mother; and William Oscar, whom we called Ricky. Ricky was thin, shorter than Benny, and had the caramel complexion of his father. As a young man, Ricky enlisted in the armed forces and was killed in Italy at the very young age of twenty-one in a car accident. He and three of his friends were on their way to get pizza when the car slid off a rain-slick road at night. He had been thrown from the backseat of a passenger car. Everyone else in the car survived. The family of course was devastated! I was about seventeen or eighteen years old then and close to Ricky in age, so his death was particularly painful for me. early in my mother’s life, my maternal grandparents moved away from Dover to Clairton, PA, near Pittsburgh, so that she could attend the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf. At that time, it was their only option for educating their daughter. During the summers, after my mother grew up and was on her own, my grandparents would bring my half-brother Tad, my mother’s oldest son who was born when I was about three years old, to Dover. He had been left in their care. Aunt Alice and her husband Herbert Thomas, who also lived in Clairton, would bring their fve girls too. Not having any siblings of my own to grow up with, I always wondered what it would be like to have a sister or brother and how it was for them to have each other for company. Birthdays meant instant parties. Anyone else invited was just icing on the cake. everyone seemed to get along and enjoyed each other’s company. The older girls would help their parents look after the younger ones. Together, * Within the cultures of people of color, complexion can range from very pale to very dark. It is common to include descriptions of skin color when characterizing someone. It was important to whites during the establishment of Jim Crow laws in 1887 through the 1950s to classify individuals of color for the purpose of racial segregation. Paris in america 9 we used to hang out and pick cherries from my Great Aunt Emma and Uncle Melvin Wilson’s huge backyard cherry tree. Ricky would say, “Here’s a bunch over here.” “I want to get the ones way up top,” I would reply. “you’ll need a ladder for those so let’s just get the ones we can reach,” he said. Being a few years older than me, he had better judgment. Aunt Emma was a short, round, brown-skinned woman who was my grandmother agnes’s sister. She was a great cook, but she especially loved to bake pies and cakes. Her cherry pies and orange cakes were my favorite. Aunt Emma and Uncle Melvin never had any children, so their home was not what we would call child proof. There were many knickknacks on shelves and crocheted doilies on the backs and arms of furniture. They also had a huge, old fashioned upright piano that no one played. I would always enjoy tinkering with the keys on that old piano and dreamed I would be able to play it one day. I never did learn how. There was no extra money for lessons. My grandmother and aunt emma’s other sister, Evelyn Winchester, lived on the opposite side of the same street as Aunt Emma (Queen Street), but a few houses down and across a major street (Division Street). She was slighter of build and was just a bit lighter shade of brown than Aunt Emma. Aunt Evelyn had one son that was already a grown man when I was a child. He never came around that often as I recall and I never met her husband, Mr. Winchester. Perhaps he died at a young age. Perhaps they just didn’t get along. Perhaps he wasn’t her husband. What Aunt Evelyn was famous for was her white potato pies. Many people have heard of sweet potato pie, but you haven’t tasted anything until you have tried a well-made white potato pie. Everyone said aunt evelyn’s were the best! When I was a very young child, Aunt Evelyn was my babysitter while my parents worked: Daddy in his shoe repair shop and my mother press- ing dry cleaning at Capital Cleaners Laundry. Instead of daycare centers like we have today, parents relied on family members in the neighbor- hood. Aunt Evelyn not only took care of me, but also several other neigh- borhood children as well. There was one girl in particular I remember: Diane Driggus. She lived a few houses down from Aunt Evelyn; she and I would play together and formed a close bond. We remained friends through grade school. She has since passed away, but will always be re- membered as one of my frst friends. 10 Clara Jean Mosley Hall We would all be dropped off at aunt evelyn’s home in the mornings and then picked up after our parent got off work in the evenings. While at her home, we would watch TV shows like Romper Room and Captain Kangaroo. I don’t remember too much else happening there besides watching TV and eating lunch. I can’t even remember what types of food we ate. I just remember eating. aunt emma’s husband died while I was very young, leaving her alone to now bake for family and friends. Later, when I was in my early twen- ties, my grandmother would suffer the same fate. My grandfather, Benjamin, was at home in Clairton working on his car, located on a steep incline beside his house. (If you’ve ever been to the Pittsburgh area, you know how steep the hills can be. I have been in a car going down one of those hills and have had to ask the driver to let me out so that I could walk because I was afraid of the car toppling over. That is pretty steep!) Behind the house there was a vertical drop. My grandfather was under the hood with his back to the vertical drop with the car slanting away from him. Suddenly, something went terribly wrong! The car lunged for- ward and rolled down the embankment with my grandfather pinned un- der it. By the time the ambulance arrived, it was too late. My grandfather passed away on June 11, 1977. The frst time I had been to my grandparents’ home that I can recall, was to attend my grandfather’s funeral. Aunt Evelyn and Aunt Emma had never learned to drive, so their brother, who lived in Wilmington, drove the entire trip. I did not know him very well as he lived in a different city and was not around that often.

Load more

  15

Copy Link