Gone people have power. . .
While reading a review written by Suzanne Van Atten of a newly published novel, Monster in the Middle, by Tiphanie Yanique, I was struck by the intensity of family connections. Van Atten says that Yanique asserts that “…whom we love is determined by those who came before us and whom they loved.” One of the novel’s characters declares that “Gone people have power”. I am definitely adding this book to my reading list.
I’ve just returned from a trip to the Texas hill country to locate gravesites of my great great grandmother and great great grandfather, and to get a sense of the country where my great grandmother died. I have long considered writing my next novel about the women who are my maternal ancestors.
Addie, Hattie, Tommie, Mary, and me. The names may sound old fashioned, but for me, these women hold a fascination. These “gone people” do indeed have power. Addie, my great great-grandmother, was raised in wealth in antebellum Georgia. She would be my only maternal forebear to lead a privileged life. Her oldest daughter, Hattie, my great -grandmother, was born soon after the end of the Civil War. Addie and her husband Clark’s families did not do well after the war, having lost land and livelihood. The couple eventually moved to Texas in hopes of a better life for their growing family. There was just one complication. At the urging of Clark’s parents they left Hattie behind in Georgia, believing the grandparents could provide a better education and life than the pioneer frontier of Texas.
Hattie did fare relatively well in her early years. She was formally educated and married into a well-respected family. Her husband was a superior court clerk whose father had been the first mayor of Gainesville, Georgia. Yet that did not guarantee her an easy life. Children arrived in swift succession, and the growing family was expensive to educate and maintain. My grandmother, born in 1899, was the eighth of ten children. When her father died suddenly in 1910, Tommie was still a young girl. The family was left in financial distress and Tommie did not have the economic privileges of her older siblings. Without her civic prestige and financial status, Hattie struggled to provide for the younger children still at home. When the youngest were barely of age, she too left Georgia to follow her mother and siblings to Texas. Trying to scrape by with a second husband in Texas, Hattie, despite the lineage of wealthy cotton plantation parents, would ironically die of a stroke while picking cotton.
Hattie Howell as a young child with her grandparents, Hampton and Cynthia Howell 
Hattie Howell Smith as a young woman with her three oldest children 
Hattie Howell Smith in later life
Back in Commerce, Georgia, Tommie married at eighteen and soon had three daughters. The youngest, Mary, was my mother. Tommie never had the advantages of her grandmother or the early privileged life of her own mother. Her husband suffered a hand injury in a mill accident and was rarely able to work. The little family got by as he tenant-farmed while Tommie worked in textile or sewing factories. In time, they ended up moving to the Atlanta area in hopes of better job prospects. The three daughters married young and started families of their own.
Tommie Smith around age one 
Tommie Smith as a young woman 
Tommie Smith Lord with husband Clarence
Mary, my mother, married even younger at the age of fifteen. Her first child was born when she was only sixteen. The marriage was dissolved when she moved with her mama and daddy to Atlanta. Soon after, she met and married my father, a man eleven years older who seemed to have a decent job as a truck driver and mechanic. Unfortunately, World War II separated the couple, and Mary was dependent on her mama and daddy. After the war, my daddy had a rocky work history for a few years until settling in to steady employment. The family grew to include five children, and I am the second youngest. My mother determined she wanted a better life for her children. Although it was the 1950s and the model family did not include a mother who worked outside of the home, she went to work in a hot, hard, shifting hours factory job. Thus began her own descent into a lifetime of hard work.
Mary Lord with her mother Tommie 
Mary Lord Hogan as a young woman 
Mary Lord Hogan
Now there is me. Although I’ve had my ups and downs, I can’t begin to fathom the hardships these women endured. I have never been hungry, without shelter, or not had someone to turn to in times of trouble. I’ve never had to perform manual labor to feed my family. I’ve never had to work a night shift while raising five children. Whom did they love? What were they thinking? Did they ever want to give up? How did they survive the losses of children and husbands? What gave them the strength to keep going? Did they become hardened and bitter? Did they resent the constant pregnancies and resulting children? Did they wish for different lives of wealth and leisure? Did they regret their choices?
I cannot know the definitive answers to any of these questions. But I do believe, as Yanique’s character said, “Gone people have power.” I will write the story of these long-gone strong women, be it fact or fiction, and I will channel that power. After all, that is what GeorgiaJanet is about: Empowering strong women through the written word. Who are the strong women in your life? Do you believe they empower you? Share your thoughts in a comment below.
Books about strong women:
I will be at Hometown Novel Nights along with three other authors on November 18th at the Carnegie Library in Newnan Georgia. Come on out to hear about some great books and get a little Christmas shopping done too!
November is Picture Book Month. What is a picture book? As a professor of children’s literature for teacher education students, I loved teaching prospective teachers about picture books. A picture book is a book usually published for children. In a picture book the illustrations are just as important as, or more important than, the text. There are illustrations on every page or on one page of every pair of facing pages. Picture books are recognized by the American Library Association with an annual award known as the Randolph Caldecott Medal. It is awarded each year to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. The award was initiated in 1938, going to Dorothy P. Lathrop for the richly detailed black and white drawings in Animals of the Bible. I collect these books and now have a complete set from 1938-2020.