(1/6) “I grew up in Helena, Arkansas. My parents had 18 kids, but only 10 of us survived. Mom had us all at home with midwives. They only had the doctor come to the house if something was seriously wrong because it cost $50. That was a lot for our family. It seemed like we were always in the hole. By age five, we kids would be out in the cotton field. The smallest had little buckets and would dump them in a bigger kid’s sack when they were filled. We hardly ever went to school and everything we ate my mother made from scratch. We’d grow our vegetables on the farm and can them for winter. We had horses, mules, goats, and chickens, too. Next to the house was a cistern with gutters to collect rainwater. If it ran dry, we had to walk a mile to get water for the gardens and animals.

As my siblings and I grew up, we all wanted something better. So, one by one, each of us moved away to Michigan, Massachusetts, or Missouri. One of my sisters lived in St. Louis, so when I arrived on the Greyhound in 1959, I moved in with her. The first thing I remember about St. Louis was the lights. Living in the country, we mostly had kerosene lamps. They had wicks and we bought little cans of oil to fill them. We had lanterns right outside our house, too, but the light didn’t travel far in the countryside. In the evening it’d be so dark, you couldn’t see your own feet. One morning I remember my mother got up around 4 a.m. to fix breakfast and we didn't have salt for biscuits. She had me run up the hill to get some from my cousin’s house. I was feeling my way when something slithered across my feet. I knew it was a snake. I was already moving fast, but I started running even harder. It wasn’t until the late 50s that we got lights on the telephone posts in the street. So, when I came to St. Louis, I wasn’t used to all the light. I still remember standing in my sister’s kitchen, looking out the window, and crying. You could see every which way you turned.”

(2/6) “I’ve always loved people. At eight years old, I was assigned the task of caring for my aunt. She had two sons, but they didn’t see after her, so my mother had to take her in. Her bed was in our living room and I sat with her while everyone else went to work. I couldn’t do much at eight but give her food and water. We didn’t have phones, so there was nobody at the house except me. One time, I needed to change her but couldn’t do it alone. The hill we lived on was tall and your voice would carry, so I went outside and cried. Our neighbor, Miss Carey, heard me and came over to see what was wrong. After she passed, my dad got sick from what we called the dropsies and I took care of him, too, until he died.

I had a lot of different jobs after I came to St. Louis. Most of them involved taking care of people. I started babysitting in the County for a lady who worked and had children. I stayed with her little kids, cooked for them, and gave them baths. After a little while of being there, the woman never paid me, so I quit. Then, I got a different job helping run a little daycare out of another woman’s home. By the 80s, I was working three jobs trying to support my kids. I’d do a janitorial shift at Lutheran Alton High from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. After I got off in the morning, I’d go straight to a shift at a daycare. And on my day off, I’d do private domestic work. I was so tired that one day I was driving home from work and found myself in someone else’s lane. I told the Lord, ‘If you allow me to make it home safely and not hit anyone, I’ll quit one of my jobs.’ I made it home and soon after quit my shift at the daycare. When I told them I was leaving, a few folks were like, ‘Can we bring our kids to your house instead?’ I said no, but I would have made some good money.” 

Comment:

“Along with caring for other kids, I had my own children six to tend to. The first time I was pregnant, I was so much in love. His name was John Jerry. We knew each other in Arkansas, and he followed me when I moved to St. Louis. But he was a fighter. He’d hit me and I wasn’t strong enough to whoop him back. When I finally decided I couldn’t take it anymore, I was pregnant with our second child and left for Boston for a bit. My mother found out what he was doing to me and told my brother. They came to St. Louis to fight him. Eventually, he left the state and I came back. Years later, he looked me up. Our oldest daughter was 12 and our son was 15. I was living in East St. Louis, and he went through the Social Security office to find me. They called me up and asked if it was okay to give him my number. I said, ‘Yeah.’ He was in his second marriage and had two sets of children. He wanted to take our son to California to live with him. It ended up being a bad situation for my son, so after a bit, I sent for him to come back and live with me. Once my daughter got old enough, she went to visit her father, too. She still calls him sometimes, but he doesn’t respond. He’s never taken care of them. I don’t understand how he never had to pay child support. He had a business in California and was easy to find, but he was never forced to pay.”

(3/6) “There was a time I didn’t think I’d live to see my children grown. I was on welfare and told them that if something happened to me, I wanted them to stay together. So much was going on. We were living at 3932 Evans. I was in a common-law marriage with this guy and he decided he wanted to leave. So, I moved to an apartment on Cass with my brother. I was doing janitorial work in Lemay at Notre Dame High School at night. I went to work one evening, and when I came back, there was somebody in our apartment fixing breakfast. I came in the front door and they ran out the back. My sister told me to get myself a dog, but I still didn’t feel safe. So I moved into the projects at Pruitt-Igoe. I thought we were moving up, but it was chaos. A lot of times we couldn’t stand up straight in our own apartment because of gunfire. We had to get down on the floor. One day I left my kids to do some grocery shopping. When I came back, someone had come through another apartment through the bathroom medicine cabinet and snatched out the pipes. I moved out that same night.” 

(4/6) “When I was a kid, my mother and father had us go to church. I never really wanted to go because it wasn’t what I thought it should have been. Still, there was a yearning in me like, ‘There’s got to be something more to life.’ Well, when I was much older, I was at the clinic with my son, Paul, and heard this lady talking to another woman. She was a sanctified lady and was talking about being saved. I didn’t know anything about giving your life to the Lord. But when I heard her talk I thought, ‘That’s it. That’s what I want.’ So, I asked her for her number. Her church had a van that would pick people up for service. So every Sunday they’d take us to Wellston. That’s when I started having peace of mind. We were living in East St. Louis after moving out of Pruitt-Igoe, and I was going with this man who was married. When the Lord brought me back to my faith, I knew I had to get rid of him. I used to smoke and drink, so I got rid of my cigarettes and stopped drinking, too. I threw all my cards out. I wanted a clean life. 

It was about that time that I got a job doing private duty nursing for a lady named Miss Apple. One of her nurses called me because she needed somebody to help who she could trust. I was on welfare, and if you make too much money when you’re on welfare they cut you off. But the nurse said to me, ‘If you come right now, the job is yours.’ I decided to take it and let the welfare go. I’d spend 40 hours at this woman’s house each shift taking care of her. I worked that job for over three years. She was a mess in the beginning. The first time I took her to the bathroom to get her cleaned up, I told her to hold on to me for support. She was like, ‘What do you want me to hold onto, your hair?’ She was really prejudiced. But I learned to love her and she came around. Before she died, a priest came to visit her. I overheard her tell him, ‘I used to be prejudiced, but now I’m not.’ Eventually when I was there over a meal she had me sit and made me welcome to whatever was on the table.”



(5/6) “I dealt with prejudice when I was working at a nursing home as well. Sometimes it came from the families of the residents. But I found a way to love them and ignore whatever hurtful things they said. I’d hold them and call them sweet names. Who else was there to take care of them? There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to do that job for white people. I experienced a lot of prejudice growing up. We would go to a local store owned by a white family, the Snyders. They had a little girl about five years old who my mother would call ‘Miss.’ I hated it when my mother did that because the little girl would call my mother by her first name. Sometimes one of my brothers and I would play at this gravel pit across the highway with the Synders’ son. We all got along fine until he turned 13. He came the next day and my brother said, ‘Hello, Melvin.’ He responded, ‘Call me, Mr. Melvin.’ Right then I fixed it in my mind that I’d never say anything to him, his mom, or his grandmother again. I wasn’t going to call them ma’am or mister. How am I supposed to give you respect if you aren’t going to give me respect? 

We experienced prejudice from other kids, too. In the winter, there were times we’d be walking to school with snow on the ground. We’d try to walk on the sidewalk and once we got near the white school, the kids would lock hands and block us from passing. We had to walk in the street and would get sludge splashed on us from cars driving by. Sometimes there were police officers nearby just watching. They never said a word or told the kids it was wrong. So I had a real hate for white people. But then, after I was saved, it had to change. I worked to love them the way I would love anybody else. Like, at the nursing home on my lunch breaks, if there were people in the dining room who hadn’t been fed, I’d take that time and feed them.”

(6/6) “Now that I’m older I have people looking out for me instead. Fluffy takes care of me. She’s my baby. I’ve had episodes at the house a few times and she pays attention. Like, I used my inhaler once and held it too long. My daughter was here, sitting across from me on the couch, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor. She was holding my hand saying, ‘Jesus, Jesus’ praying that I’d wake up. This other time, my legs started cramping. It was so severe that when I tried to stand up I fell back on the couch. Fluffy jumped up and straddled me. My daughter was coming to help, but Fluffy dared her to touch me. Sometimes when I’m in bed in the morning, she puts her head to my nose to see if I’m breathing. If I’m there too long, she’ll try and make me get up.

I like to think that you reap what you sow. I have about 29 grandchildren, great-grandkids, and even great-great-grandkids. I consider myself blessed to still be here in the land of the living. My granddaughter’s children are over here often and they watch out for me. They’re running around playing and if they hear me cough, they pat me on the back or run and get me some water. They get me my trash can or whatever I need. I think about my aunt and my dad when they do those things. That’s my blessing.”