1923 - Jessie

During the reception following my wedding Uncle Willie related most of the following story. Grandma told me about her first trip to Chicago from Alabama but I didn’t have many of these details or understand why the trip was so special until I realized Uncle Willie’s story and her train-trip story were one and the same. She told me about her best friend although I had to supply a name. She also told me about the movie she saw the evening before her trip from the farm and onto Chicago and how her brothers cured her stubbed toe. Ebbie was a real person but I made up the name. Many of the quotes are actual words.

1923 – Jessie (Grandma’s Story)

“Jessie,” said Willie, “come-own ta the picture-show with us.” Jessie wondered why her brothers, usually so mean, were suddenly so nice. “Come-own, I got a extra nickel for ya.” She was suspicious.

She recalled when she was a little girl and had stubbed her toe so hard! Willie and Hosey, her younger brothers, told her the best thing for a stubbed toe was a warm cow-patty and lead her to a fresh one. Her foot hurt so much but she didn’t want to put her foot in it. “Come-own, Jessie, come-own.” She plunged her foot in. She’d never forget how they laughed at her…and the smell! She never forgot that smell. The warm patty did feel good but the sensation was not worth the cost. But today they really had her attention with the offer of a picture-show! She had only seen a very few of them in her 21 years on the farm so a trip to town and the offer of a picture-show was too much to resist. When they were younger Willie was the little brother that she cared for the most. A bit sickly as a baby, he needed a lot of attention but as he grew older and stronger those roles seemed to reverse. Now, even though he was 18 and she was newly 22 Willie was her protector. Of all of her brothers Willie was the one who watched out for her. He was 4 years younger and, even though he was usually as mean as the rest of her siblings, when she needed a protector he had always been there. As they grew older, and after Willie came back from his “adventures traveling,” Willie seemed less mean, but life on the family farm was always full of jibs and jabs and Willie was as active as anyone when it came to jokes and foolishness. Willie had left at 16 to find his fortune but arrived back on the farm 11-months later full of stories of his adventures, some of which took enough out of him to send him back home for a rest.

The tanned face and arms revealed that Jessie had spent most of her life in the fields growing up with the pickaninnys one of whom, Ebbie, was her best friend. Ebbie grew into a fine woman and married 4-years ago and now lived 2-farms over with her husband and 2-little girls. For this reason she rarely saw Ebbie anymore but whenever possible they would steal some time alone if one had excuse to visit. Once when she asked about Ebbie’s husband daddy joked “Ebbie found herseff a good ‘un. He's a fine nigra-man.” Then, as usual, he added, “Jessie is so dang homely we gonna have to buy a man fer her.” This always hurt her feelings but, as her brothers all repeated the same thing she was often glad she spent most of her time in the fields. She was afraid this was true. Jessie had never had a date with a boy and had never been kissed or even held a boy's hand – no one in this town seemed interested in her and she didn’t never go nowhere else. She had very little interest in kitchen work anyway and loved being outdoors.

She agreed to go to the picture-show with her brothers who were nice to her all evening, even buying her a small folded paper of liquorice-twists, her favorite candy. Willie let her ride in the front seat of the wagon all the way home. They, of course, took the horse and wagon to town as the truck was reserved for longer trips to the city. She saw 2-pictures. The pi-ano player was energetic and seemed to be able to anticipate every scene. One picture was about the Great War which was very interesting but also very scary. The second picture was about a young girl who lived in the big-city and her date with a boy her age. They sat at dinner polite and proper. She had very little on her plate and cut each pea in half before spearing it and chewing it. She smiled at the boy and they twittered back and forth about this and that. When she excused herself to the kitchen to check on the next part of the meal, Jessie laughed aloud when she grabbed a big spoon and began shoveling mounds of beans and chicken into her mouth! Then the boy saw her! Oh what fun! Jessie was just so tickled! This was probably just how life in the city was.

They didn’t even get home until the rest of the house was asleep. It was already past 9:30 when they got back to the farm. She fell asleep that night with a smile on her face dreaming of silly boyfriends and the city and cars with big tires, a city with no cows and no cotton fields. Maybe, just maybe, someday she might meet a young man who could love her, too.

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“Wake-up, Jessie.” We have a train to catch!”

She rubbed her eyes and sat up. “What about the train?” she sleepily asked yawning big after sleeping so hard after her late night out.

“Ah say-id we have a train to catch! Tom to git up and throw some of yer things in a wrap you kin carry along. Here. Mamma gave me daddys ole bag for ya. It’s yers naow.” Jessie sat up, blinking hard. Had she heard right? Were we taking a train trip? Why hadn’t anyone mentioned this to her?

“Were’r we going?” She asked.

“Were not goin’ ene-were, Jessie. It’s your trip to take alone all the way to Chicaga. Take everthang ya need. Ya won’t be back for awhile”

Jessie stopped dressing for a moment, “Why am Ah going all alone…and why Chicaga? That’s way up north.” Jessie had ridden a train only once before to visit the city with daddy when he went all the way to Montgomery for feed-supplies. She often rode the old horse-wagon to pick up supplies from town but only saw the big city once with it’s crowds of people, horses and latest automobiles.

“Jes get yur thangs together,” Willie paused as though he had something to say but, instead turned and said as he left her to dress, “I’ll till you waa on the why.”

She finished packing, throwing enough clothes for almost a week into the carpet-bag Willie had brought. She was thrilled to be riding the train but a bit apprehensive in taking this trip all alone. Jessie was 22-years old and would soon be 23 but, having spent most of her time on the farm and in the fields she didn’t have many reasons to take a trip and had no experience taking a trip like this on her own.

In a few minutes she had packed everything she could fit into the oversized bag and walked to the truck with Willie and Hosey, both of her younger brothers. Willie turned the crank as she held the button that advanced the spark – or that’s what Willie said she was doing. The truck started up with a big cloud of smoke and began the cacophony of noise that told everyone anywhere around that the truck was running…and running good. She had told everyone in the family goodbye, expecting to be back as soon as the errand, she still didn’t understand, was completed. Mamma cried and daddy looked down at his boots, none of her brothers said anything except goodbye. No one seemed to want to look her in the eye. She bit her lip wanting to ask what the trip was about but until the old truck was well underway it would rattle and shake most of the way to town so any thought of conversation was lost to the wind. As they got closer to town the road was better maintained and smoothed out to the point she and Willie could talk. She asked why she was going to Chicago. Her brother replied, “Well, Jessie, ya know a few weeks ago me and yer brothers was a-talkin’ with daddy and ya know you never had no boyfriend. We figgered as shy as you are and as homely as a dawg you probably wasn’t gonna fin’ a husban’ so we got one fer ya.” Willie turned to her and grinned, “We foun’ a husban’ fer ya, Jessie.” She didn’t smile back. Willie tried to keep a good face but his big smile soon gave away to a frown as he noticed Jessie had not reacted as well as he had hoped…she had reacted more as he had expected. Jessie began to cry quietly. She thought of her dreams last night, and then she thought of Ebbie.

“I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to Ebbie.” Ebalene had been her best friend since they were girls together. Ebbie was a dark as the day was long but when she was born in one of the breezy old shacks out back Jessie had seen the birth herself. She was only 4-years old but when momma was called to help with what had become a difficult birth. Jessie had gone along. Mamma said she would have to know these things one day and “There weren’t no time lik the pres-i-dent.” Ebbie was a difficult birth and often Jessie couldn’t get the terrifying memories out of her mind, but as she got older Jessie started to help with watching Ebbie when Ebbie’s mamma was working in the fields like all of the other nigras. They just got to be closer and closer until Jessie couldn’t do anything without wondering if Ebbie would like it, too. Sometimes, as little girls they would play all day until Ebbie turned 7 and started to work with her Aunt Patsy in the house. Jessie went to school by then as she was already 11 years old, but she already worked most of her summer as well as planting and harvest right alongside Ebbie’s mamma. She left school half-way through her 6th year to spend more time in the fields where she really loved to be anyway. She missed her classmates but no girls went to school much past 10 so she wasn’t surprised when it was announced she would no longer be schooled as “There was plen’y of work rot here.”

Her daddy sometimes talked about how different it was today compared to when all of the nigras were his granddaddy’s property. When he inherited the farm from his daddy the field hands stayed, each owning their own little plot of land for a garden out-back of one of the shacks in which many of the older hands had lived when they were very little. Ole John even remembered when slavery still existed. Because of this the farm wasn’t as large as it had been when her daddy was a-growing up but as daddy said “That’s juss haow laf is. It ain’t always what yew wish it was.”

Jessie didn’t really understand exactly what slavery was but she knew Ebbie thought not being a slave was important so Jessie thought it was, too. Jessie would never see Ebbie again and would continue to think of her often throughout her life. She thought of Ebbie and mamma and daddy. “Why would daddy do this to me?” She choked back the words as she asked, “Don’t he love me no more?” She sobbed to herself, putting her head down and covering her face with her hands. “Why?”

“Well ya know, Jessie, you caan’t live on the farm fer-ever. You spend all yer time in the fields working and you don’t even like the kitchen work…how’er ya ever gonna find a main? Don’t cry, Jessie. We foun’ you a good main. He has a passel of childrens that just lost their mamma and he needs a good wife to help raise ‘em. His name is Herman and he’s a profess’nl carpenter and a good God-Fearing man.” Jessie sat crying in silence until they arrived at the train station.

Willie bought the one-way ticket to Chicago with the money daddy had given him for this and sat down on a bench next to Jessie. Jessie sat staring at her shoes, crying gently. Willie put his arms around her. “Jess, you know we all love you. You’ll be my big sister forev’r, but sometimes laaf just has to change. Ahm gonna miss you most of all but I promise when I can I’ll come to visit. Bertie-Ann and me is thinking of getting married and we been thinkin’ of moving somewhere away from here anyway.” Willie had met Bertie-Ann while he was on the road and after a visit to Florida had drawn him to stay in that state for a few months where he met his wife-to-be. A letter from daddy had drawn him back to Alabama and the farm but he wrote Bertie almost every day and he knew he wasn’t destined to live the farm life. “Maybe we’ll jus move to Ill-i-noise someday.” She didn’t know it now but one day Willie would keep his promise and move just a few miles away from her new home in Northen Illinois.

Jessie put her forehead against the cool window waving a long goodbye to Willie until after he was out of sight. She sat alone on the bench-seat in a car with very few other passengers. After a while she softly began to cry which continued until she cried herself to sleep.

Jessie arrived in Chicago. Her new husband waited with 2 of his eldest children, Charles and Aaron were there to greet her at platform of the huge train station. The buildings and the crowds were like nothing she had experienced or even imagined before. This city was much bigger than Montgomery. Herman looked a foot taller than her but, then, she was a slight woman and he didn’t seem any bigger than anyone else except in her mind where she watched him, wondering what her life was to become. He was a burley built man with wide shoulders and crystal clear eyes that seemed to see beyond the horizon. He was self-confident and well dressed but was almost as old as daddy and more than twice her age. They departed in a relatively new automobile and drove the 3-hours to their new home in Zion. They married in just a couple of days and she moved her few things into Herman's house. Although he was putting the finishing touches on a lovely little house it was sometime before they settled into their life together in the home she would live in for much of the rest of her life and where her only daughter was born. Eventually, at the age of 67 Herman added a second story, the income from upstairs boarders helped pay the bills as Herman aged more and worked less.

As mentioned, they were married within a couple of days by one of the ministers, and officers of the church, in which Herman was a deacon and a well respected professional. Although she was surrounded by friends and acquaintances of her new husband she was slightly uncomfortable being surrounded by this many people, many of them important people in this small town and none of whom she knew. Jessie withdrew for awhile until she made friends with some of her neighbors and managed to find a church in which she felt the closeness to God that she required. Having been raised in the Southern Baptist tradition it was awhile before she found a church that felt right to her and, although it wasn’t quite Southern Baptist the Pentecostal energy she felt when she attended these services brought her closer to God and offered her the comfort of familiarity.

She found Zion to be a small town of small businesses with a couple of them showing the potential of becoming big operations. Although she didn’t begin working until after the children were grown, eventually she would work as a seamstress at one of those businesses: the curtain factory, retiring only a few years before it burned to the ground along with much of Zion’s business district. She learned her husband had been instrumental in building one of the largest buildings she had ever seen: The Zion Hotel. Slowly Jessie began to make friends and acquaintances through both Herman’s friends and with those sympathetic souls at church.

Some time after she moved into Herman’s and her home she received a letter from Willie saying he would soon be joining her soon with Bertie-Ann. Willie and Herman became as close as brothers. Willie and his new wife moved to Zion but soon moved to a small community, Kenosha, which was several miles away, in Wisconsin, but close enough to comfort her as she still saw her big-brother almost weekly at church and grew quickly to know and love Bertie. Although she only visited daddy and momma twice in the coming years the closeness of Willie and Bertie was great comfort for the rest of her life.

Eventually Jessie gave birth to Darlene, her only child. Darlene was, for awhile, a young wife but in 1949 she began her life as a young mother when she gave birth to the 1st of 5 boys, of which, I am the eldest.

The grandson of a mail-order bride.