AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN BEFORE HER TIME!

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Maya Angelou

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Jesus

It is the years right after World War One and women receiving the right to vote my story begins. My grandmother was married at the age of 14 in 1914 to my maternal grandfather, who shall remain nameless here. She was taken from Weldon to Trinity Texas to another sharecropping farm worked by his family. Within the space of three years, she had two children: Clois Eloise G. and James Basil G. The life on this farm was a living hell. First, besides doing “women’s work” in the house, she had to pick cotton with her babies in tow. She made a “sled out of feed sacks and placed my mother on the sled tying the sled around her waist. She made a cross body sling out of yet another sack, and put her son in the sling…Baby Bjorn for poor people. She spoke of picking a 100 lbs. on good days in the Texas heat with two children attached to her. My grandmother was 5 ft. 1 tall and weighed by herself about 100 lbs. She was carrying double her weight in children and picking cotton. In 1919 she had her third child, Valera G. Her husband, who was ten years older than she, was, for the most part, probably typical for men of that period. Uneducated, domineering, and he believed that women must obey or pay the price. Miss Dolly told me that the verbal abuse began almost immediately upon their marriage. Without too much detail, what passed for intimate relations would be called “rape” today. This information was later confirmed by her sisters, and my great grandmother. With her religious upbringing and the life that many women had to endure, poor women in particular, this was her lot in life. Divorce/separation was unthinkable. While pregnant with the third child, her husband who was 6ft 6in and weighed about 225 would grab her by her hair if she did not have his meals ready on time. He would hold her hand over the wood stove threatening to burn it. She said that if he had been drinking, he would hit her so hard that she would leave her feet and land on her back…while pregnant. These were the days of once one left home, there really was no communication with family and 10 miles was crossing the great divide. One of her older sisters left her home to come be with my grandmother to assist with this birth. She witnessed first-hand the abuse and beatings, but at that moment said nothing. She might have been killed by him or he would beat Miss Dolly even more. Once she returned to her family in Weldon, Texas she told her brothers, non- married and younger than Miss Dolly, what was going on. Two were doughboys from WW I and tough young men. The three brothers got on horseback, loaded with shot guns, and great grandpa Harrington took the wagon and mules to get Dolly.

It took them nearly two days to get there. When they arrived, they found her husband in the field, surrounded him with loaded guns, righteous anger, and told to stay put. They were coming to take their sister and her children home. He tried to put up a fight, but according to the legend, he heard three shotguns being pumped…they loaded up their sister, their nieces and nephew and what little was hers, went back “home.” Oh, it gets better.

Several months later, in the middle of the night, her husband, with his siblings, came in the house with their guns and took the son, James Basil. He wanted his boy, but did not even approach the little girls. He had the young boy for a couple of months until the brothers went to the Sheriff in Crockett. He had served with one of the brothers in the war and together in a Model T drove to the G family place. The Sheriff basically told the G family that if they tried to take the boy back again, he would not responsible for what the Harrington men might do. I think that is called “frontier justice.” It was at that point that the Sheriff drove Miss Dolly to Crockett where he gave her the money to hire a lawyer. This lawyer did something remarkable for this time in history…he got Miss Dolly a divorce and custody of all her children. 

She said that while she was relieved to not be beaten and afraid 24 seven, she was a divorcee with three children…she felt like a real burden and failure to her parents as they still had three kids at home. In her early twenties, she had to make a choice. She had to survive and raise her kids without depending on her family to take care of her. The Sheriff once again came through. He knew of a job in Colmesneil, Texas running and managing the railroad depot. This was a man’s job, well just because it was . It also involved running a work crew of 10 black men to do repairs, load and unload freight, etc. Picture in your mind:

1920’s South

A petite white woman, a divorcee, doing a man’s job.

Under her management were African-American men.

A recipe for disaster maybe? People were still lynching black men. 

The KKK had a huge membership in the twenties with the fear of immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and everyone else. Not politics…history.

This did not scare her; she had survived beatings and much worse. She got the job (thanks to the Sheriff.) Her brothers moved her in a wagon to the house provided by the railroad company. She worked that depot job for almost 8 years. She kept the depot running smoothly. She would take the push car on the tracks to work sights to check on the men’s work while taking them water and food. She helped deliver a couple of African American babies as the white doctor would not do it. During these years, she could not escape tragedy. There was a national typhoid epidemic sweeping the country. Her baby daughter, Valera, age 7 took ill with typhoid and died in a span of three days. Having to be buried very quickly due to the epidemic, she had a funeral and buried her child alone in the Colmesneil Community Cemetery where Valera, Eloise, and Miss Dolly are now buried. Guess who dug the grave, built the coffin and stood with Miss Dolly? The black men and their families.

When Miss Dolly died in 1986, the people at Edwards Funeral Home marveled and complained a little about the number of “coloreds” who came to pay their respects. Some were old signing the book with their “mark.” There was at least two full pages of "X's" and the signature of old tired people. They came back for the visitation to see Miss Dolly's little girl…there was some consternation on some faces…just sayin.’ Change moves slow in many places in America even today. But I was determined to be Miss Dolly’s child and welcome them to come sit with me. You must understand that whites and blacks had separate funeral homes and separate cemeteries even in the eighties. Some were the very young boys who worked the line under her; some were the children of these men who talked about her being the only white lady that treated them with respect. I cried like a baby…not for her death, but for the excellent life and example she left for the world. The picture you are seeing is when she was 40 years old. She hated every picture made before that. I can understand why.