April 13th, 2010
More Aunt Wisdom
Twins Samella and Rosella moved to Chicago in 1959 and 1961. Trained as nurses, Chicago offered better employment opportunities.
Aunt “Sam” is an angel, the definition of unconditional love. She offered lots of hugs during the times when I needed them the most. Most of them came after run ins with Aunt Ida over a dispute about a homework assignment she claimed I missed.
Aunt Sam had three sons, Wayne, Demetrius and Timothy. Her sons felt like brothers instead of cousins. Such was the bond we had as a family. Aunt Sam had her own apartment and was always gainfully employed.
Nursing fit Aunt Sam perfectly. She’d tell me of stories about her patients bonding with her and feeling sad to leave the hospital even though they were going home to their own families. She was our family’s Mother Teresa. Sam was the first to unconditionally help a family member or relative. She told me many stories of how at age 2 and 3 years of age I’d follow her and the rest of my aunts on the farm. It was difficult for me to pronounce her first name. She said I called her “Yam”.
Tagging along behind them my 3 year old legs fell behind. Afraid, I’d call out to her, “Don’t leave me ‘Yam.’” She’d stop whatever she was doing, come back and pick me up in her arms and carry me back to our house.
Every time she tells me that story, it literally bring tears to my eyes. I feel fortunate to have someone love me that much.
As an adolescent growing up in Chicago I always looked forward to spending weekends at her apartment. It seems like I knew when I needed to be with her. She always obliged.
It was not what she said to me during these years, it was how she made me feel as a person. With her I always felt the world was a safe place.
I wish everyone could have an Aunt “Yam”.
Aunt Rosella (“Ro”) arrived in Chicago in 1959. She to lived with a relatives; she too was trained as a nurse. Aunt Ro was very independent. She eventually had several kids of her own, Tony, Kenny, Sandra, Stephanie and Nicolis.
I did not spend as much time with Aunt Ro. She lived on the South Side of Chicago, busy working and taking care of her family.
There was many times when my grandfather and I took trips to her house on the South Side to make sure she was ok. I remember grandfather taking me along to help Ro move into increasingly better housing. The last move she purchased her home on the South Side of Chicago. She still lives in that same house.
One morning Ro called us to say that someone threw paint all over the front side of her house. This neighborhood was beginning to integrate. Apparently some of the “locals” did not want a young african american family living among them. Within a few years, more black families moved in seeking the American dream. The locals fled.
In my household we did not preach hate. So baffling to my young self that people felt and acted upon such hatred and cruelty! I was naïve (young). Chicago had a way of waking you up to the real world.
Aunt Ro worked hard and sent all of her kids to private catholic schools in Chicago. All my aunts lived our parent’s values: Education, reading, independence and self reliance.
I strive to live those values too.
April 20th Grandmother “Minnie C. Roddy”
