The Year of 59(6)

I haven't written on this blog in a few weeks because I really didn't have too much to say. Actually, I did I just didn't know how to say it. I just had this awesome experience with my friend, Laura. She's writing a book about her husband's grandfather and so she doing lots of research on his family. She's enjoying ever minute of it. " a puzzle" she says that all the time. I admire how hard she's working on the book. I know its going to be just great when she finishes with it. She's a great artist as well.

She decided to go on Ancestry and do a quick search for me. I know my father's side of our family I actually got a chance to see my grandfather. He was old and fragile when I was a child. My last memory of him is he sitting with this bag on him. That was very puzzling for me at the time and I didn't want to go to hug him. That's all I remember of him. I know his name and my grandmother's name on my father's side but not much about my mother's mother.

My mother's mother died at a very young age. I believe she was in her thirty's. I'm not sure how she died. I thought it was from Ovarian Cancer that's what my sister had told me. My mother always talked about her actually she would cry. "My mother left me when I was 12 years old." she would say when she was very upset about things letting us know that she didn't have a mother to care for her and do Motherly things with. " I had to fend for myself." She would often say. As the year progress I would learn little things about my mom having to go from family to family members because her dad wasn't able to care for her. I could feel her bitterness and angry around being an only child and having to have to live like that. That mean I didn't know her mom's name or anything about her.

My oldest brother was pretty convicted about information regarding our mother as well. When talking to him he'll give me one name of our grandmother then he would change it to another name because our mother would say it was one or the other. In my mind I'm thinking why is this so difficult I wasn't taking into account that my mom came up in a time when things happen and you just move on. She was just a child and as the years passed her mom was probably not even mentioned anymore. What memory she had of her probably just faded away with time. I can understand the confusion around who I mother was and even her name.

Back to Laura and her search. The two of I searched at first. That was so amazing as we looked up my mother's father's name first. I had forgotten that his name was John Henry. That's interesting because my dad's name is Henry. I also noticed that it was listed in the censors at times that he was mulatto and a couple of people that were living in the house whole were too. I always thought that he was too because of his light complexion as well as his sister complexion. When we looked at other censors years they were listed colored. That's interesting how they were called colored what color. Maybe that's were the Irish in our blood comes from which I'd  learned from doing the DNA, 7% actually.  Momma would say that she had a grandfather that was white. Although I've learned from the search that Laura did he wasn't.

She was able to find information regarding my mother's mother and her parents as well. That's so exciting from just a name I wasn't sure of to knowing my great grandparents names as well. Laura was able to find his death certificate which gave some vital information. I'm overjoyed with this new information. The search must continue I have to learn more about her side of the family for sure.

As an African American I've never really thought much about my heritage I didn't really have that sense of pride about my people not even my family. I just looked at myself as just a person on the planet it didn't really matter my family didn't really matter. Ever one matters it doesn't matter our skin color we all matter it's just that I didn't know how to place me in this world. At 59 I"m beginning to realize that how we are to each other in the world is what really matters. I know I'm going off the path here but I think about my great grandparents and their everyday life and how they may have interacted with each other. I know now that my mother did have a family probably a family she didn't know. Her mother's family, Mr. Richard Pearson, grandfather John Herbert and grandmother (I couldn't really get her first name spelling), Wilson.


 The search must continue there's so much more to learn about my family. People that were here on this earth that's part of my genetic makeup. We all matter.