Mz. Hattie
Written by Mollie ©
I often wonder why I can recall events from my childhood and have problems remembering things that happened yesterday. Today, out of the blue, a funny feeling came over me. I could remember, hear, and feel the emotion from years gone by. At center stage was an event that took place in a little town of about 500 to 600 people some 60 years ago. I must have been around ten years old.
The little town was a very racially segregated place, and although no one was physically injured, there was a little girl and her mother who were injured emotionally, suffering pain like I cannot imagine.

The town was bordered by farms and it had two stores and a barber shop. The story I'm going to tell you is a sad tale about two people abused because of the color of their skin. Today, I cannot imagine such a thing happening to me, and I wonder how I would have felt. My heart aches to think of such behavior today.
This little town of rural farm families was nestled along the state line that separates Georgia from Florida. There were no doctors, no phones and life was simple. People were happy or at least most seemed to be.

Just across the Florida line, sat a little town called Jasper. There was a doctor there who often delivered babies and treated the sick for miles and miles around. He drove a horse-drawn buggy from where he lived to neighboring communities. Most adults considered him quiet rich. Everyone looked up to old Doc Ashley. He knew just how to treat the elderly and when their arthritis and rheumatism flared up someone always knew where to find him. He always carried a big black satchel that was filled with lots of tonic water and herbal concoctions.
One such lady, who happened to be black, lived right on the main street of the little town. Ms. Hattie had helped birth many a white child in that farming community. A very nice family that kept their yard swept so clean footprints were easy to see. Ms. Hattie was one of old Doc Ashley's patients, and in her late eighties, I’m sure. She suffered from rheumatism something fierce. Her daughter Edna Mae lived with her and took the very best of care of her mother. Edna Mae was slim and beautiful. A quiet lady who tended to her business and to her mother, she always wore a white, stiffly-starched and ironed apron.

Why, all the folks in the town saw to it that Ms. Hattie and her daughter had plenty of fresh vegetables from their gardens and meat as soon as it had finished the curing process from their smoke houses. This family was never looked upon as nothing more than a part of the community. After all Ms. Hattie had helped birth many of the community’s children.
It seemed, however, that Doc Ashley paid more and more visits to the home of Ms. Hattie. Gossip started flying. Was poor Ms. Hattie getting ready to leave this world? Folks visited and checked on her regularly. She was getting very feeble.
Well, back in those days, stuff happened when folks weren’t paying attention. I guess that white apron must have hid Edna Mae’s swollen belly for a whole nine months. Sure enough, though, Edna Mae had a beautiful little girl, one you didn’t have to look twice at to notice she was half white. She had beautiful hair and her skin was even more beautiful. Her mother named her Joy.

In that tiny town, most white people didn’t have much to say about Joy. Everyone knew she belonged to old Doc Ashley but no one talked about it unless it was very private. The good doctor’s visits became less and less frequent. Joy grew fast and a teacher, Miss Pauline, agreed to teach her at night. Edna Mae would clean the teacher’s house in lieu of payment for her services. You see, no black children went to the one public school in the little farming town, where everything moved at a very slow pace. Ms. Hattie was so very fond of her young granddaughter and Joy’s favorite thing to do was sit on her grandmother’s bed and read to her. She idolized her grandmother.
One cold, winter day the town’s church bell began to ring at early dawn. Ms. Hattie had died in her sleep. No newspaper was needed for the news to spread throughout the town and countryside. Folks from all around began to bring in food to the now mourning Edna Mae and Joy.
The men of the town called a meeting to talk about where to bury Ms Hattie since there was no private or public black cemetery. There was no question in anyone’s mind that Ms. Hattie would be laid to rest in the biggest cemetery in town, the white folk’s cemetery.

“It ain’t nothing but right,” it was stated as the menfolk nodded their heads in approval.

The day the funeral was held will forever be a dark and sad day for me, one I shall never forget. As the funeral procession was en route to the cemetery, it had to pass right by Ms. Hattie’s house on the main street. The crowd followed very quietly behind the body of Ms. Hattie being carried by a horse-drawn wagon.

I don’t think anyone was prepared for what happened next. There on the porch sat her daughter and granddaughter, weeping and crying.“Why can’t we go to bid her farewell?” they cried. “Oh God, why can’t we go?”

The stoic crowd just marched on as no one heeded their sorrowful pleas. I felt shame and hate that day, along with every emotion a little girl of twelve years could possibly feel. But most of all, that day taught me the meaning of real love. It does not concern itself with the color of a person’s skin. Love is kind, love does not hate, love is color blind and love is the only language God really understands!