I found a handwritten autobiography of my beloved Mama D from 1999 and I wanted to share it through my dad’s blog.
Sunday, February 14, 1999
It was suggested at our last Summit Meeting, perhaps the readers of the family newsletter would enjoy reading of some of our life’s experiences. I really enjoyed Billie’s down memory lane. It inspired me to try and remember some of the many things that happened in my past years.
My first recollection would have had to have been before I was four years old. Being to the fact, I am four years older than Gertie and it happened before she was old enough to sleep with me. I always said and truly believe it was my guardian angel who gently tapped me on the forehead three times. I was not afraid. I saw no one, just the gentle taps on the forehead.
On January 1, 1913 when I walked into the kitchen for breakfast, imagine my surprise, Aunt Lucy was sitting in front of our big wood range washing this tiny baby as I remember she (the baby) was a mess. Aunt Lucy said she’d found her down by the creek. By the way, Aunt Lucy ,whom we all loved dearly, was our old slavery cleared woman. She was like a second mother to us.
My brother Buddy (Joseph Leroy) who was my idol and first love. I was like his shadow, four years my senior. Melissa, who worked for mom, had a son I guess Buddy’s age, she would bring him over to play with us. This day we decided to go play at the creek. Mom and she both warned us not to get in the boats. Well, of course that was the first thing we did and rowed down the creek where we found a sunken barge. The tide was low and it was out of the water – high and dry. Low tide it was covered with water. The boys decided to get out of the boat onto this barge and catch minnows (little baby fish). Of course I followed – the barge was very slick when wet. Buster slipped off the barge into the water, which was deep there, he could not swim. Buddy saw he was in trouble, so he jumped in to save him, but failed. Buster drowned. Outside of and other than that tragedy, my growing up was a very free spirited life. Mom put very few restrictions on we kids – give her a good book to read, and we were on our own.
My first schooling was in what was once a little church house. Mrs. Pflug taught first through eighth grade. The first year – the second year, the number of children increased. Miss Holden (our neighbor who lived down the creek from us), taught first through fourth in a small building next to where Mrs. Pflug taught. I was not old enough to go to school, but the teacher permitted me to go provided I was quiet and gave no trouble. As I said before, wherever Buddy was I had to be. Guess I should tell my bad experience I didn’t know where the bathroom (out house) was. The next thing there was a stream of water running down toward the teacher’s desk. I think that ended my schooling there. The next year, mom entered us in Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Jacksonville. It took us there by boat crossing the St. Johns River into Jacksonville. The Murray Brothers (colored men) ran a passenger boat by our dock to Jax, docking at the foot of Ocean Street – just a short walk to our school. Going back a bit before Arlington School, when mom moved to Florida, there were three of us children – Buddy, me, and Vincent. She and papa (Charlie Baxter) were married when Gertie was 2 years old or thereabouts. I have two half brothers – Louis Anthony and John Nole Baxter. If my memory serves me right, we only went to Immaculate Conception Catholic School a couple of terms when Arlington School was built and I finished through the eighth grade there. My school years were very happy ones – I had many friends, who often spent the night with me. Mom was an avid reader. We kids joined the library and mom read to us before bedtime, the many books we got. These were some of the happy times I look back on. We kids carried wood up to mom’s bedroom where she had a beautiful fireplace, where we all sat around the blazing fire while mom read to us before bedtime.
Mom made homemade bread a couple times a week. Mom vowed that our friends knew just the day she baked. Invariably, some of them were with us when she made delicious bread and to spend the night with us from school. Sunday morning, we got into our best finery and caught the train into South Jacksonville to Assumption Church – each with our twenty cents fare (ten cents each way). Most of the time we were embarrassed when the basket was passed, so dropped our fare to get home into the basket and waked the file miles home. This we thought nothing of at the time. It was our only means of transportation.