They Read Time Differently

I have so much to say on this. I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about how the ancestors "told" time before they became ancestors. I will share my thoughts elsewhere. Here, I simply want to record this comment that comes from Jerry Eubanks of Mississippi*:

What God says has got to come comes. This is written in the Bible. [White people might regard Emancipation as the work of man] but colored people looks cross years at everything. God did it all.

Eubanks suggests that their [the slaves'] eyes were watching God, as writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston also put it. One might contrast, however, Eubanks' faith with that of other slaves as suggested in the following comment by Charlie Aarons**:

According to what was issued out in the Bible, there was a time for slavery, people had to be punished for their sin, and there was a time for it not to be.

Finally, we learn from Henry Murray***:

...a lot of people thought the world was coming to the end, and they run in the river and drowned their selves.

We see here that not all African American slaves had the same sense of time or the same faith.

*Quoted in The Slaves' War by Andrew Ward, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2008, 8.

**Ibid, 8.

***Ibid, 46.

Dreaming of the Deceased

Week before last, I dreamed several times about my father, who died ten years ago. I seldom dream of my father, and these recent dreams were of his death; they weren't vivid dreams, yet I awakened feeling a bit melancholy, and I wondered why after all these years I would start dreaming about him now. A couple of days after these dreams started, I learned that my father's brother, the only son of my grandparents still living, was in the hospital. He was rushed there after his sugar level went low enough to place him in a near comatose state. Two weeks later, he has not recovered and is waiting to make his transition. In the meantime, I awakened a few days ago with one of my father's favorite songs on my mind, Lou Rawls' "You'll Never Find."

Question is, why am I dreaming of my father now. Am I planting thoughts of him in my head because of his brother's condition? Did I sense that my uncle was in or headed to the hospital? Am I hypersensitive at this time, causing my heart, spirit, and head to work in concert? Or, rather, is my hypersensitivity allowing messages to get through to me?

Well, I have to say, I have not exactly felt any more sensitive than usual. My life is as busy as everyone else's living in the twenty-first century. Between motherly duties, wifely duties, and work, I hardly have a spare moment to think much less focus my heart. I haven't even been able to spare the time to travel the four hours to see my dying uncle. But my gut tells me that our family, so small now on earth, (they were not a very prolific group and our generations are about 27 years apart), is sort of rejoicing that another member, the last son, is making his transition. I feel like they're anxiously awaiting his return and are in a flurry of activity preparing a grand celebration. This would explain why my father, whom I seldom feel lighting upon my doorstep, seems to be doing so almost daily now.

Of course, this sounds completely off the wall to people not yet sold on the idea that we interact with the spirit world on a regular basis. I am a convert neither to John Edward nor to Sylvia Browne; instead, I have come around to this sort of thinking as a result of observing synchronicity. When I experience it, I refuse to ignore or deny it.

Like the day I learned that the oldest sibling of the family had passed. This was a year before my father's passing, and I had come in late that night, walked through my house and opened the front door. A cat ran in, straight across my feet like it had been waiting to get into his home. I shooed the cat back out the door and went about my business. Imagine how surprised I was the next day when speaking with my brother, who informed me that he too had had a cat experience the day before. These cannot be mere coincidences. Actually, they are coincidences, and the question for all of us is what we are to make of them.

I myself am intrigued by the very word: co-incidence. I can visualize time and space coming together auspiciously, and when they do, something electric or magical happens, something strange or out of the ordinary,even death. Isn't death magical? A soul leaves one time/space and enters the infinite, crossing a threshold in the process. What happens the moment a spirit crosses that threshold?

I'm not sure of the answer to this question; nor do I know what my uncle must be experiencing as he teeters between this world and the next. I had to write about this situation, however, because in the two weeks since he took ill I have been feeling a little out of sorts, which is not to say bad, but, well, sort of light footed as I awaken from these ongoing dreams. I feel a little pulled by the universe to spend time elsewhere even if only during the night.

Those of you who have been reading my blogs know that I spend a lot of time thinking about my paternal family. I am intrigued by them for many reasons including the fact that they have always seemed a little otherworldly, and not in the way that one may think, that is, religiously. No. Most of them were not religious in any traditional sense. In their otherworldliness, they seemed to accept that they were just visiting here for a short time. They lived fairly well, were well adjusted for the most part, but I always thought that they were measuring their earthly experience by a belief that the hereafter was going to be a better place. It was almost like they remembered being somewhere else, and most, if not all of them, were not anxious about returning.

So, they had various practices that sent the message to their offspring that this life was fleeting, and as enjoyable as it could be, earthly existence was really just one dimension. When I was very little, my father used to talk about all of the relatives who had passed away, his own aunts and uncles whom he missed. But he said that he had visions of seeing them again. Those talks with my father were long ago, and when he would anticipate his return to them, I could not imagine how quickly that time would actually come. Back then, his own imminent death seemed a long way off. Now, here it is 2009, ten years since he rejoined his loved ones.

As I struggle to describe the character of this family, I try to recall the various ways that they had, again, of suggesting an awareness of the multidimensionality of the universe. One obvious practice was my father's number-playing. I'm certain that probably a week before he died, he played the lottery for the last time. Was my father addicted to lottery playing? Well, addicted is probably too strong a term. I don't think that I or anyone else could have talked him into giving it up, however. He played at least every other day, and I suspect that over the course of forty or more years he probably played the same numbers. When I was a girl living at home, I was somewhat familiar with some of the numbers or at least their themes. Two most often-played numbers had to do with "dreaming of the dead" or "speaking to the dead." As I write those phrases I recall just how familiar they were in our home. Funny. My father never really spoke them himself though he certainly understood what they meant. No, he had a friend, his best friend actually, whom he'd known all of his life. His friend was at least ten years older. His friend was an even more avid number player than he; if I'm not mistaken his friend used to take numbers at one point. Anyway, this friend would call our house at least once a day, and whoever picked up the phone he would ask about their dreams. This was the oddest thing, especially since when I was a child I hardly ever remembered my dreams. So, I'd simply hand the phone to my father and let him answer the question. I might stand for a while eavesdropping, and always, the friend's inquiries were intended to arrive at a number to play.

Yet, my father's friend's interest in our dreams was not solely for the purpose of figuring what number to play. The inquiry was, in my opinion, a divining method, an alternative way to tell time, so to speak. There we were living in the twentieth-century in Detroit, Michigan. And, as was appropriate, my siblings and I had no sense at the time that there was much beyond this. Our feet were, you might say, firmly planted in that time and space, but, again, our elders--the very people who were raising us--thought differently. As I've suggested, they knew that twentieth-century Detroit was just one dimension, so what they were after, my father somewhat passively and his friend more actively, was how that other time and, let's say, Detroit time were aligning themselves. Moreover, they wanted to know how one was informing the other. Infinite time, in their perspective, provided a powerful signal, powerful messages.

So, in short, I am suggesting that they divined through number playing, yet I cannot say what they learned other than that the dreams, especially when they dreamed of the dead, allowed them to mark time. Every time they sensed that another relative was on his or her way out, they knew that their time too was drawing to a close. And they were not, as I've pointed out, unhappy or anxious about this basic truth.

What am I to make of this legacy? Well, I do not play the numbers nor consciously employ other divining methods, yet I accept the coming death of my uncle as a way of marking time for my own life. His last birthday he turned 80, and I am just a little more than half his age. As I watch him go, I know that my own generation is eldest now, and our time will be winding down. Something tells me that in the next forty years, I will be dreaming more (or at least remembering my dreams more), which is to say that I will be uniting more with a cloud of witnesses, who are awaiting my return. Until then, I am encouraged to slow down more so that I can tell when they ever so lightly penetrate this dimension. I suspect that from here on out, they will be guiding me more not just to hold my hand when my time comes but to point me in the right directions while still here.

Getting Outside

It's summer, and I've finally started walking daily again, a love and a habit made possible by my decision to downshift. (More on that at some point on another blog). In the last couple of weeks I have been feeling so inspired by nature and by architecture, basically by being outside in my urban neighborhood. I've been taking my camera with me to capture beautiful and interesting images (see them at http:righttoside.blogspot.com though I'll warn you that I'm raving there about vinyl siding).

I've been feeling so reinvigorated after a long Midwest winter that I affirmed today the fact that the out-of-doors feeds my soul. When I state that this basic personal truth was an affirmation for me I cannot overstate the point. I am the only person in my immediate family (of marriage) who likes to spend time outside not necessarily doing anything, maybe just sitting.

When I made this affirmation today, I thought of my grandfather (pictured above, second photo). In my preschool years, I stayed with him and my grandmother during the work week. This was a temporary arrangement that I of course value greatly today since it was during those early days that my intimate relationship with both my grandparents developed.

Like so many families whose homesteads have a front porch, we spent lots of time together in this semi-private, semi-public space. Pictured above are my Aunt Bobria (the youngest of my father's sisters), my paternal grandfather, my sister, brother, and yours truly (covering eyes with hands). On this particular occasion, probably around '73 (that'd make me eight years old), Aunt B was visiting from out of town, which is why we were taking pictures. Other days, sitting on the porch is just what we did; there was nothing out of the ordinary about it for us. I'm stressing this point because today, in some communities, I think you just about have to apologize for sitting on the porch, and, as I've already stated, I cannot get my children or husband to come outside unless there is an express purpose for their crossing the threshold between hearth and porch.

All of these preparatory comments lead me to the following.

Sometimes, in those days when I was with my grandparents, my grandfather, I'll go ahead and call him Big Daddy, would go missing for maybe an hour. Eventually, I discovered that he would sometimes just go sit in his car, which he tended to park on the northeast corner of the two intersecting streets where his and Big Ma's home was located. (Their front door was not on the street where he parked, but the fire hydrant in front of their actual street may be the reason he chose to park on the house's side street.) Anyway, the point is that my Big Daddy would spend an hour each day sitting in his dark blue Ford Galaxie on the northeast corner of his house.

Years after he had passed away (which was in 1980, November), I asked my father's oldest sister (top photo; she's pictured with my oldest sister) if she had ever observed this practice, and, indeed, she said she had. Of course, I asked her why he had done this thing, and she replied: "He used to say, 'You have to get outside'. When you inside, you see things, and you don't see things'."

Huh? See what things? What can be seen outside (besides nature) that cannot be seen inside?

Since my aunt told me this, I have thought back on it many times as I've tried to understand my ancestors. What did Big Daddy mean? Well, I wouldn't be worth anything as a researcher had I not asked his oldest daughter this follow-up question. Her answer was that in order for Big Daddy to continue in his work he needed to have some alone time each day. "You see," she said, "Your grandfather was a businessman. He'd be thinking of new ideas, what to do next."

I have to say, this answer is priceless though I was not satisfied that it was the whole answer. One reason that it is priceless is that it comes from the perspective of the oldest child, who was only twenty years younger than her father. Her time with him began Down South, in Mississippi. She knew him when he was the big landowner, the man every body went to for money, advice, and other types of assistance. This daughter knew the weight that had been on her father's shoulders before 1945, the year he packed up the family farm and moved north.

Then, there is also my view so many years later, twenty five or more years. Was Big Daddy still carrying the weight then? I would have to answer yes because his legacy was great. In 1923, when his father died, he and his siblings inherited about 800 acres of land. By the early '40s, that land (actually half of it; the government "condemned" the rest) was in the sole hands of Big Daddy. What must this responsibility have felt like? His father had purchased the land (two separate purchases) in the 1880s. There is a long story that goes along with this basic information, but I will make it short. Though Big Daddy was the youngest child of his parents, the baton was passed to him. Now, it was a mighty baton (mighty heavy and mighty powerful) because our Big Daddy was blessed with more than land back in 1923. His was a spiritual inheritance.

Now, I could get into how most of his male relatives, elders, were men of the cloth, and even talk about our famous practitioner of Hoodoo, but that's a little beside the point. In fact, Big Daddy wanted no parts of church, and he was at war with the Hoodoo-er. Big Daddy's life story really is about using his own energies to discover how he could best answer his calling in his own way and be at peace with that. So, I could talk about his dealings in the big city or the hundreds of bulls he raised on his farm in Mississippi, his store, or his undertaking business, but what I'm really trying to get to is the possibility that Big Daddy was directed by his ancestors. I am saying that the reason why he spent that time outside in that car on the northeast corner just sitting is because there he could enter a space where he could quiet himself and hear.

Readers, be assured that I have not gone loco, but I have to tell you that one summer day my father parked our car in Big Daddy's spot! Well, we spent a nice long day at our grandparents, and, being the kid I was, when my parents started winding down our visit I ran to the car and got in. (I was the youngest and had to try to beat my brother and sisters at everything.) I remember this day like it was yesterday. I had been in that car just a few minutes, and as I recall I had inverted my body, i.e. my head was pressed into the car's back seat and my legs were dangling at the back window. I'm sure blood was rushing to my head, and this may be the reason why suddenly I heard a voice, "Everything happens for a reason, and everything happens in its own time." Yikes (an appropriate '70s term)! I tumbled down, looked around, and without a second thought dashed out of the car, embarrassed and scared out of my eight-year-old wits. I hurried back to the porch where my parents were still talking. Oddly, no one asked me why I had returned. Thank goodness!

What happened to me in that car? Did I really approach or, better yet, transcend a portal and, not only that, but one that Big Daddy had already accessed? I know it sounds crazy people, and if I didn't think you all were fairly open to this kind of experience I certainly would not tell this story to you.

I guess the last thing that I'll say is I'm pretty much convinced of a few things: (1) there is only the slightest separation between earth and the beyond, (2) the ancestors choose you at an early age (maybe even before you're born) and have various ways of communicating with you, (3) they encourage you to answer your calling and assist your work, (4) not all children will answer said calling since it scares the bejeezus out of you, (5) many people so run from this sort of thing that they are given to drink and drug, which is funny because these substances probably only give the ancestors more access! On second thought, maybe that's the point. Okay, I've said enough, but let me bring my comments full circle by saying that all of our ancestors spent much more time outside than we do. Hint Hint. Think about that the next time you're sitting on a porch, in a gazebo, on a park bench, etc. You get the picture.

The Powers that Move Us

Those of you who have read my blog Daniel Walker Williams perhaps recall that this ancestor, my second great grandfather, left the Marshall County, Mississippi plantation where he was a slave and traveled with his "wife" and children to Memphis, Tennessee to a contraband camp.

Despite this intense and awesome transition from slavery to freedom, I would have to say that Grandfather Daniel and his family were in the right place at the right time. Leaving Mississippi would allow him to become beneficiary of the goals of several Union leaders--Ulysses S. Grant, John Eaton, Lorenzo Thomas, and Samuel Thomas--both to raise black troops and to develop a class of black landowners.

This post is not about Grandfather Daniel's experiences in Memphis per se. I can only outline broadly his activities. Rather, this post questions what he must have known in order to make the various decisions that resulted in success for his family. Questions include how he and his wife Nancy made the decision to leave Mississippi, what might have been the specifics of their condition and their general mindset, why and how did they manage to take their children with them, what were the early days in the camp like, how proactive were they, what was the nature of Grandfather Daniel's enlistment in the USCT, what were his activities or duties, and why did he choose to stay in Memphis after the war ended?

Sound like a book outline? Certainly. I don't try to answer all of these questions in this one post. Again, what I'm after is how Grandfather and Grandmother Nancy made certain decisions. I want to know, if I possibly can, the degree to which they were acting on faith, on impulse, or from their own critical thoughts. Of course, these questions may seem impossible to answer, but I intend to try to get at them basically by looking at all of the evidence at my disposal. I cannot do this in one post, but I can perhaps do it in several.

So let me begin by saying that my own instinct tells me that the universe brought together two movements, that of the Union Army and that of the slave who aimed to be free. The coming together of these two forces was like a marriage more evenly yoked than anyone may have realized. I'm suggesting that even though slaves who sought Union lines have been described as destitute there were just as many slaves who were able and ready to be free, who in very many ways entered into this "union" with much to offer.

If you've read another recent blog, Register of Freedmen, then you know that I have found these ancestors on a register, probably compiled at President's Island (in Memphis). You know as well that Grandmother Nancy is listed there with four of her children and that Grandfather Daniel is not listed. Grandmother, who provides the surname Williams, reports that the owner of her family is William Hull. Asked her occupation during slavery, she reports "farm."

What I want people to see and what I want to be able to see myself (this is so important as a descendant of Daniel and Nancy) is the slave's agency, first, in going to Memphis and, second, in the answers provided here. For instance, Grandmother, perhaps for the first time in her life, is asked her name! Her whole name, which is to be recorded. Owned by Mr. Hull, she could have taken that as her surname, but she obviously chose not to. To both herself and her children she gives the Williams surname. What does this tell us? Quite a lot, I think.

The choice of this surname tells us that she has chosen for whatever reason to identify with an earlier owner rather than with Mr. Hull. Because we know Grandfather Daniel also to have taken Williams as his last name, we can surmise that he and Grandmother considered themselves to be married. And the fact that they traveled to Memphis together as a family is an indication of their view of marriage and family within the context of slavery. A second fact, that this family seems to be more or less intact, may suggest that in relative terms certainly they are emotionally healthy, able, again, to move into Memphis and take advantage of what may be offered there.*

Through the ages of the children, information also provided on the register, I have dated the year of the record as 1862. It was also in that year that Grant's troops battled over northwest Mississippi, coming right through Marshall County. Arriving in Memphis in this year, this family would have been some of the earliest inhabitants of the camp, which is to say that they would have had a definite hand in building it themselves. I have therefore reasoned that while Grandfather Daniel would not be mustered into the USCT until the following year, his absence from the register indicates that he is already being used by the Department of Freedmen, which would be his assignment on record.

The right place at the right time? Later, I plan to argue that coming to Memphis in November of 1862 probably means that Grandfather Daniel was one of the black men with whom John Eaton wrote that he had to bargain to harvest cotton left in the fields.** And according to Eaton, this early work put more than a little money in the pockets of a select group of freedmen.

At the same time, I do not overlook the fact that in the coming cold the freedmen were yet homeless. Who can imagine what housing was provided a wife and four children and dozens, if not hundreds, of others in the same condition? The sad truth is that Grandmother Nancy did not make it out of the camp. She died there, in what year I am not sure, but she lived long enough to free her children. Afterwards, the children were likely taken care of by other freedmen and women, one of whom, eighteen-year-old Ellen Woods, also appears on the register. After the war, she would become Grandfather Daniel's new wife.

One of the reasons that I'm so interested in describing powers that informed my ancestors' decisions and also powers that brought about the window of opportunity that existed in joining the Union lines is that I feel connected one hundred and fifty years later to what I take to be the same energy that motivated and sustained them. In "Register of Freedmen," I mention for instance that I did not go to the National Archives recently to search for my family's owner or for their inclusion on the register. I wasn't even sure that such a record existed. Yet, time, place, and body came together so easily to bring about my knowlege of its existence. The next thing I knew their names just appeared on a screen before me. When this sort of thing happens--and it happens again and again in genealogical work--one cannot help but be convinced that there is energy in the universe in support of these projects. Well, I am convinced that this same sort of energy spoke to Grandfather and Grandmother, and, who knows, maybe to their children as well, saying, "Get up. Pick up your mat and walk!"

*One child, who would have been about three years old in the presumed year of this register (1862), is missing. His presence at this time remains a mystery.
**John Eaton, Jr. Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen, Reminiscences of the Civil War, New York: Longman Green, and Co., 1907.