In her wonderful family free verse collection, my friend Sharon Gerald recently posted a Facebook entry about daughters who had daughters in her heritage. I’m borrowing (or stealing) the idea with a bit of twist and only going back as far as memory takes me.
The twist occurs at the beginning with my great-great grandmother issue. My great-great-grandmother, birth mother to my great-grandmother, was Catherine Griffin. She was the first wife of Non Quincy Adams, circuit riding Baptist preacher, farmer, and veteran of the Civil War who had lost one arm in the conflict. (Here is a picture of his one-armed baptizing in a rural pond.) Widowed and remarried twice, we come to the third wife who I remember as Grandma Adams. Mary Delilah Dobbs, also a widow, brought her own two children into an Adams family that had ten children from the first two marriages and then added three more Adamses! So, the mother of my great-grandmother was one woman by birth and a different one by nurture. I know little about their early lives but am sure neither of them strayed more than a day’s journey from Oktibbeha County, Mississippi.
My memory of Grandma Adams came from her belovedness. From family stories, all fifteen children loved her dearly – and so did I. I questioned my mother once about an early memory of getting a spanking for going to see two old ladies that I loved who had always been glad to see me before but now seemed alarmed. I remember being confused that they were not overjoyed by my presence and by Mama’s spanking. Mama remembered the incident but was surprised that I did since I was not quite two years old. I had slipped away from her when she was occupied with the new baby and crossed the street (cause for the elders’ alarm and the spanking) to go see Grandma Adams and her daughter.
Virginia Catherine Adams (Berry)
The great-great-grandmothers’ daughter, great-grandmother Virginia Catherine Adams, would marry a local farmer after she finished eighth grade – probably about sixteen years old. She would have five children and live to be 89 years old, dying when I was fifteen. She also never traveled far from her home outside Sturgis, Mississippi.
Ada Dovie Estella Berry (Hannah) with her two youngest children
My grandmother, Ada Dovie Estella Berry, was Virginia Catherine’s second daughter. Her marriage took her to live on a neighboring hill to her mother after she had finished high school. She had seven children and never traveled farther than an adjoining county. She died when she was 40 years old, the year before I was born so I never knew her.
Virginia Leatrice Hannah (McGee) with her two middle daughters - Gwyn and Beth
My mother, Virginia Leatrice Hannah, was the oldest of Ada’s seven children. She had one year of college when she married and eventually added two more years, never quite completing a degree. She lived in central and north Mississippi and traveled to half a dozen states and Germany.
My thanks go to Sharon for taking me on this journey that fills me with wonder at the difference in opportunities for education and travel that exist in these days for me, my daughter, and her daughter.