Safe In The Arms

Mama always sent me to bed early. But that doesn't mean I went right to sleep. For what seemed like hours, I would lie on the floor of the room I shared with my older sister, Ruth, and peer down into the living room, often filled with guests. The glow of the lighted room came up around the scrolls of the decorated cast-iron register and made eerie shadows on the walls of my darkened room, but I hardly noticed them as I strained to hear the stories my parents shared with evening visitors, often neighbors or church friends but sometimes missionaries who had tales of their own to tell.

   From my secret perch above the adults' heads, I detected a sadness in my father's voice. As if the pain of a memory slackened when an old story was repeated, he recalled the sound of drunken mobs and baying hounds as they closed in on yet another of his childhood neighbors. When he told those stories, I was always tempted to run downstairs and burrow into Mama's lap for protection. But I never did. Instead I reminded myself that Papa was talking about things that had happened years ago and far away, in "The South." Here in Oberlin, Ohio, I told myself, we're safe. Our tree-lined neighborhood was racially mixed, a black family — or "colored" as we said back in the twenties — on one side and a white family on the other.

   Sometimes those nighttime stories told around the living

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room stove were of my Italian grandfather, frustrated that his children couldn't take part in my social activities — just because their mother was black. Often though, especially when my father's older sisters would visit, I'd hear happy stories — how their father had given his nine daughters and (at last) one son a respect for their own talents and a love for music. Those same aunts loved to tease my father, the baby brother they'd all helped to raise. Even after I had crawled beneath the warm quilts my mother had made for my brass bed, I'd hear his returning laughter. As the security of my family wrapped itself around me, I'd push aside the stories of the barking hound dogs and fall asleep.

   I was born in 1923. As the youngest of their nine children, I felt especially close to Papa and Mama, James and Florie Young. My mother was plump and had vast patience with my after-school questions; some were prompted by my nighttime eavesdropping; as I grew older more of my questions were centered in my own frustrations at racial inequality. She'd always shake her head and answer, "Now, Wanda, you just remember God made you special, too. You're always going to meet people who won't like you because of the color of your skin. God made you the way you are just as He made different colors of people all over the world. It just so happens that here in America there are more white people than colored, but that doesn't mean that white is better. In God's sight, we're all the same."

   I'd nod, knowing in my head that she was right. Yet I still wondered, If we are all the same, why do the white kids get more privileges than the black ones? I never heard them being warned to be a "credit to their race," as some of our teachers had warned us. And I couldn't imagine them learning to be leery of a new friend's parents. One afternoon a girl in my fourth-grade class invited me home to see her new doll. But just as we stepped in through the doorway, she gasped.

   "Oh, Wanda, I didn't think my mother would be home now! Quick! Hide in here." Suddenly I was whooshed into the hall closet. While waiting in the darkness, the obvious came to light: her mother wouldn't approve of my color. Several

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minutes later, the girl opened the door and motioned for me to come out, but I'd lost all interest in seeing her new doll.

   Not all of my friends' parents were like that. Another white girl and I played together often, either at my house or hers. One beautiful summer afternoon, she took my hand and said she had something special to show me. For an instant her words reminded me of those dark minutes I spent in the other girl's closet, but I quickly dismissed the bad memory.

   I knew I could trust this friend because her mother often smiled at me when I knocked at the door and politely asked whether her daughter could play. Together the two of us went up the stairs and into the nursery. There, asleep in the crib, was a newborn baby. The tiny fingers and delicate skin fascinated me, and I wondered why some people had lots of babies while others didn't have any. I'd have to remember to ask Mama about that . . .

*       *      *

   My father, a rather large and handsome man with a thin mustache, had soft and curly hair, which I like to comb as he read the paper after work, still in his white cook's uniform — his starched, high hat on the table beside him.

   For the most part, Papa was a kind man. On Sundays he and my mother sang in our church's quartet, often traveling to give programs in other towns. But he also had a temper that was most apt to show itself when he was faced with injustice. One of my father's restaurant bosses, Mr. Zion, was the kind who took his frustrations out on the help. Often, when Mama would send me over to the restaurant with a message, I'd stand at the cash register and try to pretend I didn't hear the latest string of name calling. One day, just after I had come in from school, my father stomped into the house. My mother took one look at him and demanded an explanation.

   "James! What are you doing home at this time?"

He didn't answer right away, but continued pacing across the living room, ruffling up his hair, and puffing out his cheeks.

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He was flaming with fury. Finally he dropped into a chair and glanced up at my mother.

   "Florie, Mr. Zion finally went too far today. Too far. I've had it." Then, as if it were time for confession, he said, "I put him into the cooler!"

   My mother's hands fluttered to her cheeks. "James!" she gasped, "Is he still there?"

   With a satisfied grin, Father nodded.

   Mother never hesitated. "Well, get up and go get that man out of there! They'll put you in jail. Don't you know you have a family to take care of?"

   Thoughts of his stories about baying hounds came back to me then and I wondered if they'd chase Papa through the woods too. Papa soon left the house and as the afternoon passed and the police didn't knock on the door, I decided everything must be all right.

   Later that evening, I heard the rest of the story from my usual upstairs hideout. Papa had hurried back to the restaurant. Sure enough, Mr. Zion was still in the ice room, unharmed but "cooled down" a bit. As soon as Papa opened the door, Mr. Zion rushed out, yelling, "You're fired!"

  But Papa had already made decisions of his own. "You don't have to fire me because I'm not going to work for you anymore. I quit!" Papa handed him the white chef's jacket and strode to the door.

   Suddenly Mr. Zion remembered Papa's skills at seasoning meat. He knew the dinner crowd would soon be arriving. The image of Mr. Zion running after my Papa to offer him back his job delighted me. Papa did go back, and no more problems occurred.

   While Papa had been fairly gentle with Mr. Zion, he could become violent if something threatened his family. Another time, through the register, I heard the story about Mama and the dentist near the restaurant. When Mama went to get a tooth pulled, the dentist gruffly jerked her head around. But worse, he rudely addressed her and ignored her pleas when he hurt her. By the time the tooth was out, Mama as sobbing. He shoved

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cotton gauze into her gum — and continued his insulting remarks.

   Still crying and holding her jaw, Mama finally left. She clutched the stair railing and, in a daze, walked out of the building and into the sunshine. Without thinking about the consequences, she went to the back of Mr. Zion's restaurant to see Papa, tell him her story, and hear his comforting words.

   Papa looked up from the chopping block just as she stepped through the door. "Florie! What's the trouble? Why're you crying?"

   Through swollen lips and between sobs the words tumbled out.

   Her tale caused something to snap inside of Papa, and before she was finished with it he had thrown off his apron and was running out the door.

   In horror, Mama cried, "Oh, James!" and hurried to catch him, but he was gone — around the corner and up the stairs two at a time.

   "What have you done to my wife?" Papa's baritone voice offered no compromise to the dentist standing behind his desk.

   By then, Mama had caught up to Papa, but her soft "James!" had no power as he grabbed the dentist coat.

   "This is my wife. You'd better apologize to her right now." Papa was pulling the man out into the hallway. "Because if you don't, I'm going to throw you down those stairs. Now, you got something to say?"

   Of course, the dentist apologized in the most polite manner a person would ever want to hear, but who wouldn't with his face dangling over a long stairwell?

   The account soon spread, always ending on the admonishment: "Nobody — colored or white — better mess with Jim Young!" The story settled over me in that same protecting way Mama's quilts did, and images of baying hounds chasing Papa no longer troubled me.

   Some years later, Papa became head cook at one of the dorms at Oberlin Theological Seminary and was a great encourager to the many black young men there. Often the Bible discussions begun in the cafeteria were finished around that old

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stove in my parents' living room where the students enjoyed not only fellowship but the company of our family. Several went on to international fame, including Gardner C. Taylor and Wendell C. Somerville. Dr. Taylor today is an internationally recognized minister at the Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. Rev. Somerville was the executive secretary of the Lott Carey Baptist Mission in Liberia. But we knew none of that during our Oberlin years; they were just dedicated, nice young men who expressed sincere thanks as Mama offered trays of her cookies and slices of her marvelous chocolate cakes.

   My favorite time of day was right after school when I could help Mama in the kitchen. My sister, Ruth, who was ten years older than I, was always practicing her piano lessons, and the boys who were still at home were involved in their sports or jobs, so I had Mama all to myself for a few hours.

   We had always been close, especially since I arrived after so many boys. Ruth had been the first girl, but a second daughter had died when less than a year old. Then, when I was not yet three, my eighteen-year-old brother, James, drowned in a freak accident — just before entering Oberlin College on a scholarship. My first memory is of my normally jovial mother crying over her loss.

   Sometimes after school I'd ask her about my brother and sister who had died, but more often I'd ask about her childhood. When she had been my age, her father had been a preacher in a little South Carolina church.

   "You know, Wanda, Honey, I still remember the day I understood everything my daddy was saying about our need for Jesus. From that point on, I was a changed person because I had Someone who died for my sins and who understood the hurts of growing up. I could talk to Jesus all day long."

   As we'd talk, she'd give me an occasional hug, and I'd feel special all over again. But if she wasn't talking about the reality of Jesus or answering my questions about her childhood, she was reminding me of the importance of an education. Actually, that was her favorite subject.

   "You just remember that you have a brain that God has given you, and you better use it. Go to school with no

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foolishness and no horsing around. You do your very best and God will make a way for you. You're a child of God and you don't have to listen when anybody calls you anything other than that!"

   Sometimes her talk was more wistful: "Wanda, Honey, there's one thing I always wanted to do, and that's go to Bible school. It never happened, but I'm praying that some of my children will go. The boys are all off with jobs, so it looks as though it's up to you and Ruth. That's what I want for you — a good education at a good Bible school!"

   I'd nod my head, determined to do anything to make Mama happy.

   I felt even more attached to Mama after I had the measles and pneumonia when I was nine. This was before penicillin, so my condition, which became weaker and weaker, was grave. One night the doctor, who had done all he could, said there was no hope if I continued to refuse to eat. I remember Mama coming into my room, sitting on the edge of my bed, and cupping her cool, soothing hands around my face. "Wanda, Honey, one thing that you've got to do for me is eat — whether you feel like it or not. You've got to do that for me."

   I couldn't stand to see her so miserable, so I forced down two or three spoonfuls of chicken broth and thin potato soup. As I rested from the exhausting exertion of swallowing, I looked out the bedroom window. "Mama, look at the stars," I whispered. "They're so bright." I'd never seen such a full sky.

   Immediately, Mama and Ruth looked out the window, back at me, and then at each other. Ruth put her hands over her face and ran from the room, but Mama put her cool fingers on my forehead and started to pray.

   That night our minister and several members of our church gathered around my bed and prayed; other women stayed in the kitchen making mustard and onion plasters to cover my chest throughout the night. A feeling of love and peace surrounded me — as if Jesus was standing next to me.

   The doctor stopped by early the next morning. He left smiling, patting my shoulder in that warm, friendly fashion of a

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caring father. "You must keep eating," he said, as if that is what had saved my life.

   Gradually I began to regain my strength. Only then did I begin to wonder why the only white face in my bedroom had been the doctor's. The pray-ers had all been black. The women in the kitchen making plasters and cooling meals had all been black. New — but old — questions arose: How come Mama helps out our white neighbors whenever they are sick — sometimes even keeping the small children at our house for several days — but none of those white neighbors come to us when we have a need?

   One afternoon, when I was allowed to sit by the window for a while, I asked Mama that very question.

   She was thoughtful before she answered. "Wanda, Honey, we can't go through life wondering why other people don't do what they should. We just have to make sure we are doing what Jesus wants us to do."

   Her answer seemed incomplete and I snapped, "Well, you aren't going to help them anymore, are you?"

   My gentle mother nodded. "Wanda, I can't let other people's disobedience to God's law cause me to become disobedient too. I don't help them out because of who they are. I help them because of who Jesus is. Remember when He was talking about helping one another? He said, 'As much as you have done it to the least of one of these, you have done it unto me.' That's what I'm doing, Honey, serving Jesus by helping those who need me."

   I still wasn't convinced, but her kiss on my forehead relaxed the frown lines. Mama could always make things right.

   The years between my bout with measles and my entering the sixth grade were the happiest of my childhood. Mama and I spent every possible moment together. She talked to me. She encouraged me with my piano lessons and taught me hymns and spirituals she had learned as a little girl. Her singing and example of hard work would remain with me. Maybe a deep part of us knew we wouldn't have much time together.

   Shortly after my twelfth birthday, Mama caught a cold. It hit her hard; if I'd been the mother and she the child, I wouldn't have let her out of the house. But she was determined to attend

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a recital given by a black student at the Oberlin Conservatory. Oberlin was unique, being one of the first colleges to admit blacks. We colored — as we called ourselves back then — didn't have that many educational opportunities, so we were very proud when one of our own young people attended the college. As a result, the entire black community would turn out for the recital of one of our own graduating seniors. By our attendance, we were saying, "Look. This is one of ours. Some of our children can't attend here, but this one made it!"

   Normally I went everywhere with Mama, but, having tests the next day, I stayed home to study. When Mama walked in the door after the concert she looked — and felt — terrible. She went right to bed, assuring us she'd see the doctor the first thing the next morning — which she did.

   He took some blood tests, which baffled him, but specialists in Cleveland gave her ailment a name, which was always said in hushed tones: spinal meningitis. There were neither sulfa drugs nor penicillin to fight it in 1935, so she laid in bed waiting for doctors to locate a supply of serum that was sometimes effective.

   I remember how frail she looked lying there, especially one evening when I timidly approached the big bed. She shook her head, "Wanda, Honey, I don't think you ought to be in here with me. I don't want you sick too."

   I didn't even try to hold back my tears. "Oh, Mama, don't send me away. I just want to lie down next to you."

   I did and there soaked up all the comfort I could draw from her weak but warm presence. The next morning, Ruth insisted I had to go to school. I dragged out the door and sat through the long classes. But when we were released for lunch I raced home and thundered up the steps, into Mama's room.

   It was empty. I stared at the freshly made bed and then screamed for Ruth.

   "Mama's just gone to the hospital," she said, as if she were trying to reassure me. But immediately I knew. Mama was lost to me forever.

*       *      *

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   The next time I saw Mama, the warmth had drained from her body. Her lifeless frame was surrounded by funeral flowers. She was safe in the arms of Jesus, but I was no longer safe in hers.

   My brothers came home from their jobs around the country. The house was filled with relatives from the South, including many I'd never seen, but without Mama the house might as well have been empty. I hardly noticed all the commotion. I heard only an angry voice inside me shouting at God. "Why did you do this to me? Why? What did she ever do to You? She tried to serve You. She love You. And You took her!"

   The angry voice threatened to spill out as I watched the casket slowly lowered into the ground. My brother Alden pulled me close to him. "Settle down, Wanda. Settle down."

   I walked away from Mama's grave knowing my life never would be the same.

   My grief consumed all my life. All through the elementary grades, I'd been on the honor roll. But now that there was no Mama to please, my grades plummeted.

   During the day, I moved through the fog of school activities. But I could hardly force myself to go home and walk into the empty house. Alden, who had been living in Chicago, moved back home when Mama died. But even so, he and Ruth and Papa were all at work when I got out of school. I'd open that front door on silence. Instead of running to the kitchen to see what Mama was cooking, I'd run straight up the stairs and shut myself in my room.

   Even a bus trip to Chicago with Papa to visit his sister didn't help. In fact, an ugly encounter with the bus driver added to my sadness. We boarded the crowded bus in Cleveland and settled in to enjoy the get-away ride across Ohio. Everything was fine until we crossed the Indiana line, where we took on two more passengers.

   Sitting in the middle of the bus, Papa and I weren't immediately aware of the commotion. But soon the arguing reached us, and I leaned into the aisle to see what was happening.

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The driver had told the two boarding passengers that the only empty seats were in the rear of the bus.

   The two men had looked over the situation and forcefully proposed an alternate solution. "No," the tall man said, "move them instead." He then pointed to Papa and me.

   Finally, the driver shrugged and walked back to us. "Well, folks, I'm gonna have to ask you to move back a bit and let these men have your seats."

   Papa sat taller and spoke up. "Why? There aren't any reserved seats."

   The driver's voice was low. "Come on. We don't want any trouble now."

   Papa's jaw was set in a hard line. As the rows full of curious, waiting, white faces turned toward us, I thought of Papa — locking Mr. Zion into the restaurant freezer. I grabbed his arm. "Papa, it's okay. Let's go back there."

   He shook my hand free and started to stand.

   "Papa! Please."

   At my pleading, Papa slowly nodded and we walked past the gawking passengers, toward the empty seats in the back. I felt humiliated, and neither of us said a word during the rest of the trip.

   When we arrived in Chicago, my father talked out his anger with my aunt and uncle. But I saw something new. He didn't pace or blow out his cheeks. He sat — like a tired old man. I played with my cousins, trying not to think about what had happened, trying to ignore the hurt in my stomach.

   After that trip, I knew I had lost not only my mother, but my father as well. The sparkle went out of him. Within two years, he moved back to South Carolina — where he had first met my mother.

   Alden took over the household and in many ways became my father. Life settled into a routine that lacked luster.

   In junior high I was close to a few girlfriends and cousins, but Alden didn't encourage me to participate in many outside activities. He took the responsibility of my care most seriously, always checking to make sure I did my homework, to make

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sure I was in the house at a reasonable time. He also made sure I was in church for every service, whether or not I wanted to go.

   I was still angry at God, although I didn't try to explain that to Alden. Maybe I didn't give him a hard time about church simply because it was a place to go. It got me out of the silent house, away from the emptiness left by Mama's death.

  After being without a pastor for several months, the church hired a strong but gentle woman named Elsie Gatherer. She was in her early forties, of medium build and with her hair pulled back into a soft bun. While her looks may have been ordinary, her personality sparkled. Not only did she trust a strong Jesus, but wanted others to know Him too. She was especially interested in the young people of the church. To the church board it seemed no one else was available, but God knew what He was doing. Her name perfectly suited Miss Gatherer because her vivacious preaching and loving attitude truly gathered the people in. Because our services were always in the afternoon, young people from other churches would attend our Sunday school just to hear her version of those wonderful Bible stories. Ruth joined the church when Miss Gatherer became our preacher, but I refused to. Even though I couldn't verbalize the anger inside me, I was still holding a grudge against God, but it no longer consumed me.

   In my middle teens, I was interested in many things, especially reading historical novels and listening to music with my cousin Natalie and girlfriend Helen. I had also begun to date a little. But with Alden scrutinizing every nervous would-be suitor, I didn't have to worry about being asked out too often. Even so, I'd sometimes think about the man I wanted to marry. Though I could never completely picture the face of my "dream man," I knew exactly what kind of person he'd have to be. He'd have to be kind and interested in the same things I was. He'd have to have a good sense of humor and like music so much that he played an instrument like those in the Big Bands that were popular. But most of all he'd have to be someone who'd make a contribution to the world by helping others. Maybe he'd even be a doctor.

   Alden's restrictions aside, I didn't bother to date much

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because none of the boys I knew at school fit that list of criteria. Oh, there were several nice young men in my classes. But eventually my scrutiny became tougher than Alden's. There was one fellow in my junior homeroom whose grandparents had been friends of my parents years ago. His name was Howard Jones. Although Howard was cheerful, always neatly dressed, and a member of our high school band, I'd never heard him play a solo. Thus I didn't give him much thought. Imagine my surprise when I attended a gospel sing at one of the local churches and saw Howard and his brother Clarence sitting in the front pew, waiting for their turn to play.

   Boy, did I listen. Howard played the clarinet and alto saxophone, and his brother Clarence was a fine trumpeter. They played with a gentle enthusiasm I had never heard in such young musicians. I was deeply impressed. Suddenly a little luster entered my life.

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