Way down yonder in the meadow1/17/05
Lies my poor little baby
Bees and butterflies a-pecking on his eyes
Poor little thing is cryin' 'Mammy!'
........-- All the Pretty Little Horses
Someone in the family probably still has that wooden box full of peeling tin types with their delicate tissue separators, including the one of my grandmother's maternal grandfather as a baby in his long white gown, taken around 1830 in Georgia. Removing the brittle oval mat to peek underneath, I was shocked to discover Baby James, still too young to sit unsupported on his own, held by a tall, uniformed, dark skinned woman whose history and humanity had been obliterated by the oval mat as well as a multigenerational muteness on her very existence. It had never occurred to me until I lifted the mat that our family might have owned slaves. Stunned by my discovery, I couldn't help but wonder what other horrors they committed.
I wonder about that woman. The picture was taken after slave trading had occurred on a large scale in America for more than 200 years and about 80 years after slavery had been legalized in Georgia. What was her name? Where did her family originate? What were their stories? How and when did she come to live with my family? When and where did she take her leave? Did she have children of her own? Who took care of them while she held my great-great grandfather for his baby picture? Where are her ancestors now? How are we linked? How visible are they in today's society?
Here is a diagram showing where baby James sits in the family tree. I've only given names on the diagram to people previously mentioned. The double slash on the line between my great-grandmother Marie and her husband (his name was Harold) indicates that they were divorced, which was unusual for the time. More later on that.
I wonder about that woman. The picture was taken after slave trading had occurred on a large scale in America for more than 200 years and about 80 years after slavery had been legalized in Georgia. What was her name? Where did her family originate? What were their stories? How and when did she come to live with my family? When and where did she take her leave? Did she have children of her own? Who took care of them while she held my great-great grandfather for his baby picture? Where are her ancestors now? How are we linked? How visible are they in today's society?
Here is a diagram showing where baby James sits in the family tree. I've only given names on the diagram to people previously mentioned. The double slash on the line between my great-grandmother Marie and her husband (his name was Harold) indicates that they were divorced, which was unusual for the time. More later on that.
Each of us carries in our chest a song that is singing and crying at once. - Francisco X. Alarcon, poet
