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AMY CHAPMAN'S FUNERAL
(Alabama)
Tom's note:
I was especially attracted to this article on a couple fronts - first, it
reflects a tenderness and gives a feeling of almost maternal attitude on
the part of the writer to the subject. Second, it gives a small
glimpse of part of the cycle of life that has been lost in much of
American culture - namely personal physical involvement in the preparation
and interment of loved ones.
On Tuesday morning of last week, Aunt Amy Chapman, one of the oldest
citizens of Sumter County died. Although she had reached the age of
ninety-five, Aunt Amy still possessed a vigor of both body and mind far
beyond her years.
Only a few days before her death she had met me in Livingston and asked me
to drive her home. "I'm tired en my feet hurt," she had said. "I want you
to take me home." "Why Aunt Amy," I asked, "what have you been doing
lately?" I bin picking cotton," she replied and as I did not think she was
farming this year I expressed surprise. "Oh," she answered, "Tain't my
cotton, hit's other folks' cotton. Didn't have nothing else to do, so I
thought I might ez well help in de fiel's."
And it was in the cotton field that she suffered the stroke which proved
fatal. She never rallied, and four days later "at first light" she passed
away peacefully as if in sleep.
Perhaps it was fortunate that death came so swiftly, as a lingering
illness with its consequent helplessness and dependence on others would
have been unendurable to Aunt Amy. Nothing could have been more abhorrent
to her staunchly individualistic old soul than the thought of being
constantly under obligations to anyone. She never asked a favor of me, to
drive her over to Livingston on Saturday when she went to buy her weekly
provisions or to take her home when she was tired, that she did not
immediately force upon me some sort of payment in kind, a bucket of figs,
eggs, or vegetables from her garden. When I heard that she was ill and
went to her house to see if I could do anything for her, her son Hewey
showed me a box of sweet potatoes washed clean of dirt which she had dug
for me. And I remembered the last time I had seen her. When I had taken
her home in my car she had insisted against all my protests that she would
bring me some potatoes soon for my kindness to her. Even in her illness
she had thought to tell Hewey to be sure to give them to me.
Aunt Amy's earlier life is like something out of the worst pages of
Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was born a slave on Governor Chapman's place
about five miles north of Livingston. She learned to be a seamstress, did
sewing and weaving for her "Ole Miss." According to her own account,
Governor Chapman was good to her, but he owned around three hundred slaves
and had several plantations; and he spent most of his time with his family
at Huntsville. One overseer he dismissed on learning that he treated the
slaves with cruelty. But it was a white overseer, a Mr. Hewey Leman, who
was the father of Aunt Amy's children. "I didn't want dat man, but he wuz
de overseer an he beat me till I had ter have him - twarn't nuthin' else
ter do," she told me once.
Mr. Leman was married and a curious
relationship seems to have developed between his wife and Aunt Amy after
Mrs. Leman became used to the situation. The couple took two of the
children into their own home to live with them, Mr. Leman averring that
since the scandal was out anyhow, he might as well own them! Before his
death, he provided liberally for them, giving each a house and a piece of
land. And when Mrs. Leman became seriously ill, it was Aunt Amy who nursed
her till her death. One wonders about the Lemans - what curious
compulsions, what distorted forces of the human psyche motivated Hewey
Leman? What fates compelled Mrs. Leman to accept a situation so hopelessly
impossible?
Aunt Amy's children have also made a place for themselves and are well
respected in Livingston. Hewey, who was named for his father, teaches at
the local colored school and upholds his position with professional
dignity. Another son, Mack, who is now in Texas is a property owner and
has his own small business. Aunt Amy, at her death, had a sizable bank
account for one of her race and owned land in her own name.
The indomitable character of Aunt Amy's spirit can perhaps most truly be
exemplified by an incident which occured last spring. She appeared at my
door one morning and asked me to drive her over to town to buy some wire
fencing. "And what are you going to do with your fence?" I asked
conversationally. "I'm gonna put it roun' my peach orchard?" she answered.
"Why, I didn't know you had a peach orchard, Aunt Amy," I said in
surprise. "I ain't," she answered, "but I'm gonna set out some cuttings
this fall!"
In life, Aunt Amy had no use for her colored neighbors, and would not
allow any of them to come near her house. Privately I often thought she
was afraid of being conjured; but whatever her reason, her aloneness in
her old-age worried me. She was too jealous of her independence to go and
live with one of her married sons, and I was often anxious about her,
wondering how she would manage if taken suddenly ill. But when illness
came, her neighbors forgot her former aloofness of attitude and were kind.
Several of them stayed with her to the end, taking turns sitting up with
her at night and seeing to it that she was kept as comfortable as her
condition would permit. And on Wednesday afternoon, on a lowering,
threatening day, fifty or sixty of them accompanied her to her last
resting place in the old Chapman burying-ground, a most out-of-the way and
almost inaccessible place.
According to her wish, Aunt Amy was buried on the plantation where she was
born. There, on top of a limestone hill commanding a splendid view in all
directions of once-proud acres, her sister was buried, and they dug her
grave beside Aunt Mary's. A few stops down the hillside were other graves
unmarked, members of her family who had gone before.
The burying was set for two o'clock. (Among the colored people of Sumter
County the actual interment is referred to as the "burying." The funeral
is preached later on a Sunday to be appointed by the family, sometimes
after a year or more has elapsed. In this case. Hewey told us that he had
set the funeral for sometime soon "before cold weather set in," and that
it would be held at the Jones Creek Baptist Church, of which Aunt Amy had
been a member for over eighty years.) But as I had taken the wrong turning
and lost my way twice, I was late in arriving. Probably I would never have
found the burying ground had not Hewey sighted me from the hill and sent a
man to guide me. Even then, I had to abandon the car and cover the last
part of the way on foot.
Several wagons and a Ford or two were drawn up on the hill at a respectful
distance, screened by the cedars. The closer relatives were seated
together on an automobile cushion placed on the ground to one side. Hewey
came up to speak to me, then returned to take charge of the digging of the
grave. This was the responsibility of the friends of the family and fellow
church-members and they gave their time and labor to the sad duty. As only
a few inches of topsoil covered the solid limestone, it was an arduous
process. A strong Negro man hewed at the rock with his pick, working his
way the length of the grave, then back again. Then, as he jumped out
panting with exertion and covered with sweat, two young Negroes took his
place with shovels, throwing the chips out in two mounds, one on each side
of the grave. Some of the men worked with cigarettes drooping from their
lips, but there was no disrespect in this, for they meant no disrespect.
The men assembled, alternated; when one became tired he handed his shovel
to another who was rested and the digging went steadily on. A smaller boy
disappeared down the hillside in the direction of the spring, and after a
time came back with a bucket of water and a dipper, which were passed
gratefully from hand to hand.
I had time to look about me and recognize the beauty of the scene. On all
sides the land sloped away from the hill, disclosing pleasant valleys and
peaceful hay-fields touched with the first colors of autumn. At a farther
distance rose other limestone hills crowned with the cedars so indigenous
to this county, and against the horizon where black rain clouds lay,
lightening flickered and the distant rumble of thunder could be heard. A
damp breeze, unexpectedly cool, stirred my hair, and with its coming it
was as though one could lay one's finger on a single moment out of time
and say, "Now, suddenly, Fall has come, and it is no longer Summer."
I heard one of the men standing near the grave announce in a low voice
that they had come to the "last tier," and moved over to speak to Hewey's
wife who was leaning on her crutches, her broken ankle propped comfortably
before her. She told me that two weeks before Aunt Amy had made the long
trip to town to see them. "She said the spirits tole her to come see us,
en I wuz afraid then that sumpin was gonna happen," she said.
Now the grave was finished, dug to the appointed depth of four feet and
its bottom leveled to hold the casket steady. In lieu of a trestle, a
sapling was cut from the nearby thicket and laid across the grave
lengthwise. Steadied on this, first the outer pine covering, then the
coffin of light purple were lowered in, and silently the men threw in
shovelfulls of dirt until it was covered and the grave a quarter filled.
Then began the simple burial service, in most respects equivalent to that
read in white churches today. At its conclusion, the preacher lifted his
voice in prayers which soon became a high-pitched, but melodious, chant,
the congregation joining in with "Amens." It was a very brief, but sincere
and dignified service, and one which I am sure Aunt Amy would have wanted.
The lavender casket, too, would have pleased her, as would the robe to
match, which Hewey had selected.
Soon the men were again at work with their shovels filling in the grave,
while all the Negroes sang together in the wonderful harmony, which is so
natural to them, the hymn which had been Aunt Amy's favorites:
Dark wuz the night
Cold wuz de groun'
On which my Saviour lay
Blood in draps en sweat run down
In agony he pray.
Lord move dis bitter cup
Ef sech Dy sacred will
Ef not, content I'll drink hit up
Whose pleasure I'll fulfill.
When the grave had been filled, the mound shaped above it, and saplings
placed in the soft earth at its head and foot to mark it, a curious ritual
took place. Each worker rested his spade against the mound's side, iron
point in the soft earth and handles pointing toward the sky. The effect
was strangely impressive, but when I asked about it later I was told only,
"It is customary in our race." The ritual apparently had been followed for
so many years that its significance had been lost with usage. To me it
seemed symbolical, perhaps, of the toiler who has laid away his tools at
last and come to rest.
The preacher asked if there were flowers to be placed on the grave, and I
was pressed to come forward first with my bowl of zinnias which I placed
at the head of the grave, levelling a place first with my hand so that the
vase would stand upright without tilting. Then the others stepped forward
one at a time with their drooping clusters of flowers mixed with short
sprays of cedar. And whether following my lead, or in accordance with a
custom of their own I do not know, these they did not lay on the rounded
sides of the mound as one would have expected. Instead they made small
hollows in the earth in which they placed their bouquets, so that they
stood upright also.
We stood a moment with heads bowed while the preacher pronounced the
benediction, then made our way back down the hill and across the peaceful
hay fields of Aunt Amy's "home-place." She had been returned to the soil
from which she had sprung and was one with the land which she had loved so
intensely.
Washington Copy
10/13/38
L.H.
Alabama
Ruby Pickens Tartt
Livingston, Alabama
Sept. 28, 1938
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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