Beaulah: A Brief Story Of My Grandfathers

Those who knew Mrs. Lottie Mae, Henry Louis Wallace’s’ mother, thought she was a great person, but the secrets kept in the household would soon come out. “Wallace, his older sister (by three years), his mother and his great-grandmother shared a small, battered home that had no plumbing or electricity. There was a lot of tension inside Wallace home. Lottie Mae was a strict disciplinarian who had little patience for her young son. She also did not get along with her mother and the two argued constantly. There was very little money in the home, despite the fact that Lottie worked long hours at her full-time job. As Wallace grew out of whatever clothes he had, he would be given his sister's handy-me-downs to wear (Montaldo, C., January 03, 2016).”

William Ball's grandparents had been slaves. They had taken on their owner's last name of Lewis but as Robert Lewis sold his 152 acre plantation, “Annfield”, to Sarah C Ball for nearly $30,000 in 1853, they decided, as many a previous slave did, to give their last slave owner's family name to their children.

Madam C. J. Walker was born on December 23rd, 1867 as Sarah Breedlove, to Owen and Minerva Breedlove, who were former slaves enslaved to Robert W. Burney’s Madison Parish. She was the first of child born into freedom among her five siblings, after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Her siblings included one older sister, Louvenia and four brethren: James, Solomon, Owen Jr. and Alexander. At six years of age, her mother passed away probably

Sarah E. Goode was born into slavery by her mom and dad. Her father ,Oliver Jacobs, was a carpenter. Her mother was

In Mary Norcott Bryan’s A Grandmothers Recollection of Dixie, the author included a quote which demonstrated the progressive nature of her family in terms of racial relations. The quote was a will from her grandfather which staggered out the release of his slaves. “I will that Owen and Lillie be made free the first court after January…the year 1847; then I most earnestly wish that all shall be free.”1 In this fashion Bryan attempts to distinguish herself and family above other whites. This reflects Bryan’s Antebellum upbringing which held more pronounced ideas of what it meant to be a white southerner from a

Born to poor cultivating folks in 1933, Joycelyn Elders experienced childhood in a rustic, isolated, neediness stricken pocket of Arkansas. She was the eldest of eight youngsters, and she and her kin needed to join work in the cotton fields from age 5 with their ordinant dictation at an isolated school thirteen miles from home. They conventionally missed school amid harvest time, September to December.

Nanny herself lived through slavery and had a child, Janie’s mother, by her white master. To

Janie Porter Barrett (1865-1948) was born the daughter of a former slave, Julia Porter. Her father’s identity is unknown, however some believe he was Caucasian due to her light skin tone. Barrett was raised in the home of the Skinner family in Macon, GA, for whom her mother worked as a live-in housekeeper. The Skinners educated Barrett alongside their own children, an unusual occurrence at that time. Barrett’s mother eventually married and moved away from the Skinner home, but Barrett remained.

Robert and Bessie Brown, who are the paternal grandparents of the author’s wife, made their home in Bradley, South Dakota, a farming community and rail hub on the eastern Dakota prairie. Bessie grew up on a farm near Bradley, whereas Robert, subsequent to service in the Great War, arrived in Bradley as a young adult seeking a livelihood by acquiring the community’s Ford dealership. After becoming husband and wife, they remained in the small town where the civic-minded couple took on leadership roles in their church and numerous service organizations. Foremost in Robert and Bessie’s lives were their four children: Mary, Robert, Eldred, and Verna. They nurtured their children through the challenging times of the Great Depression and, as they matured into adulthood, guided them through the turbulent years of World War II.

Madame C.J. Walker was born on December 23, 1867 in Delta, Louisiana and was named Sarah Bredlove. Her parents were Owen and Mernirva Bredlove. She was the youngest of six kids and was the first one born into freedom, after the Emancipation Proclamation. Her parents and siblings were all slaves owned by Robert W. Burney at the Madison Parish plantation. Her mother died in 1878 of cholera which is bacterial disease. Her father re-married and left Sarah to be an orphan at the age of seven and had to live with her older sister. At the age of fourteen she married a man named Moses McWilliams. When she turned twenty her husband died, but they had a daughter named Leila McWilliams.

Sarah Breedlove was born on December 23, 1967, in Delta, Louisiana, to her parents Owens and Minerva Breedlove, Sarah was one of six children. Her parents and elders were slaves on Madison Parish plantation. She was the first child in her family born to freedom, after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Sarah’s mother died 1972, and her father remarried and died shortly thereafter. Sarah moved in with her sister and brother in-law, Willie Powell, at age 14 years old, she married Moses McWilliams, to escape Powell’s mistreatment, and three years later her daughter was born, Leila McWilliams. When Sarah turned 20 years old her husband died. She later moved to St. Louis where three of her brothers lived. They were all barbers at a local

On April 15, 1894 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a baby girl named Elizabeth Smith was born. Her house was full, as she was one of seven children and a daughter to a Baptist minister. At age nine, Elizabeth lost her mother and one of her brothers. To make ends meet, she and her brother, Andrew, began to perform on the streets: She sang and danced and he played the guitar. As she grew older, Elizabeth went by the nickname ‘Bessie.’

From the early 1740s to 1829, an African-American woman lived and unexpectedly became an important woman in history. Even though most people never heard of her, what she did change how people look at other African-Americans. She was born in the early 1740s to African parents, and she grew up as a slave with her sister Lizzie in Claverack, New York, which is about twenty miles south of Albany. Their owner was Pieter Hogeboom, who was the head of a wealthy Dutch-American family. In 1735, Hogeboom’s daughter Hannah married John Ashley, who was the son of one of the original proprietors permitted by the General Court of Massachusetts to organize settlements along the Housatonic River. When Hogeboom died in 1758, Lizzie and her were taken

In 1860 William James Powell, age twenty-one is living with his father Barzilla Powell in Chariton Township, Macon, Missouri. Included in the family of Barzilla Powell is his wife Willie Ann along with eight additional children besides William. Using the places of birth as a guide it is appears that Barzilla Powell and his family moved from North Carolina to Missouri in about 1853. William has two older brothers Sydney age

My grandmother, 62 today, has lived an eventful life very unknown to her 22 grandchildren. Most of us know she was married to our grandfather, Ray Pittsley, at the young age of 16, however, before and after that is mysterious. They settled in Dubois, Wyoming and raised a family of three girls and two boys. During their children’s teens and twenties, my grandparents worked for the Louisiana Pacific Sawmill in Dubois, Wyoming. This company logged in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana and created the job industry in these places. At the sawmill, my grandmother worked the post peeler. “I would generally work eight hours a day. It wasn’t hard hard work, but it was work.” Cindy would go to work no matter the weather and no one would ever hear a grumble. While