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THE STORY OF KATY BRUMBY
(Alabama)
Scruggs Alley, in Birmingham, runs east
and west from 24th to 26th St. South. Like most other alleys in the city
it is lined with small, gray, unpainted houses; like them it is dusty and
dirty in dry weather, muddy in wet. Yet different from them, because it is
more like a country lane. At the bend in the alley there are trees, and
nearly every house in the Spring and Summer has its flowers growing in
front and its vegetables in back. In Winter, however, it seems
poverty-stricken and deserted with its trees bare, its flowers gone, and
with only a few thin streams of smoke coming from chimneys here and there.
The Negroes who live there are generally from the country, most of them
from around Montgomery, Selma, or smaller towns in south Alabama.
Katy Brumby is one of these. She lives in a house just where the alley
bends from 26th toward 24th St., and there has her flowers and vegetables.
Katy refuses to tell her age, but a guess would place her in the fifties.
She is short and fat with expressive hands, and streaks of gray in her
hair. Her face is smooth, but with deep lines between her eyes and lines
running from the corner of her nose to her mouth - lines of laughter as
well as sorrow, for Katy has a magnificent sense of the ridiculous: while
I was getting her story she would, from time to time, break into laughter
at the memory of some long past comic scene. She dresses neatly always and
in quiet colors. She has been working for my family for nearly seventeen
years.
Katy grew up in Mount Meigs, a small town 12 miles east of Montgomery.
There were eight or nine children in the family, and Katy was the oldest.
Several remain in Montgomery or Mount Meigs, but there is a sister in
Florida and a brother in Indiana. When Katy was small the family rented on
Miss Emma's farm, but Katy hardly remembers it, except that her father
told her Miss Emma was a good landlord. Then her family moved to Dr. N--'s
place. "He's a plantation doctor; he sho wuz a good man." she says. "He
saved my sister's life - dat's Lucy, in Florida - from de typhoid. He had
some trees, peaches, you know. On'y way he'd make Lucy take medicine wuz
to promise her some of his peaches. He's a good man, but he died with
cancer of de nose."
The farm was a good way from Mount Meigs. Katy is very proud of Mount
Meigs. "It's a real, small village. We's got an undertaker now, not the
horse-pulling kind. Used to have to go to Mon'gomery. Mount Meigs is a
nice place, not out in de sticks like Greensboro where Victoria come
from." Victoria is a neighbor in Scruggs Alley).
Her father, too, was a good man, a "good provider" for his family. "He
never uz sick, till he died. He's a good farmer. We raised everything to
eat but grain. Great big onions, and greens, and rutabagas and all. My
Daddy banked turnip roots and rutabagas jus' like potatoes. Don' you know
what 'banking' is? You see, he take pine straw - pine trees what grow down
there, you know - and he'd shape it up round de turnip roots and
rutabagas" - she demonstrated with her short, brown hands "and then he'd
shovel dirt around 'em until dey's jus' a little hole at de top so's we
could reach 'em out. Sometimes those turnips be sprouted jus' like dey wuz
growing." I asked about meat. "We had cows - beef, you know, and pigs, and
all kinds of fowl. Chickens, guineas, turkeys, two kinds of duck,
ev'rything but geese; we couldn't raise dem." The money crop was cotton,
and they raised lots of it, but at the same time raised all their food
except "grain" which they could buy in town. Katy's family was not in the
plight of so many tenant farmers. There was little sickness in the family,
and there was plenty of food, even turnips "banked" against the coming
winter.
Katy can read and write; but that was not all she learned at school. She
had the inestimable advantage of being under a woman like Georgia
Washington. For also in Mount Meigs was Miss Georgia's school, which
continued under her direction until just a few years ago. As Katy
remembers, the tuition was $10 for the term. She was unable, however, to
pay all of that, so she cleaned Miss Georgia's room for the remainder, and
thus had a personal relationship with her which was closer than that of
teacher and pupil. Her talk now is larded with Mess Georgia's expressions,
all simple and all wise. For instance, when she passes the vegetables for
a second time, Katy will say, "Miss Georgia say you already got plenty
when you want jus' a little bit more." Katy was taught other things
besides book learning. Absolute cleanliness for one: the small girl was
not allowed to wear pig-tails as the other children did for Miss Georgia
said they weren't cleanly. Today Katy keeps not only a clean kitchen, but
her own home and person are scrupulously clean.
Katy was in the eighth grade at school
when she stopped. Her father died about that time. He had never before
been ill. He was taken with what Katy calls "flying rheumatism" which
affected his heart. "My Mother uz living, but she couldn't even go to de
funeral. She's in bed. She had three strokes, but she's finally took with
de eight-day penumenia, you know she's sick eight days befo' she died. It
uz a year after my Daddy died dat I's married to Joe Brumby and come to
Birmin'ham." Joe is from Mount Meigs, too. "He wuz a land scape," she
said. "He don' like to work indoors. He buttled once but he don' like it.
A man down in Mount Meigs - a white man, you know - taught him landscape.
He's a good one, too.
"We come to Birmin'ham de first year dey sent soldiers across,
nineteen-sixteen, seventeen, I don' remember. I worked for de Levy's, de
first people I worked for, five-six years; then I worked for de Moores and
de Jenkins. Then I come to work for y'all, near 'bout seventeen years
back." So Katy has left the country for good; she looks back on the life
with, I think, some longing; she says though that she wouldn't like it now
after living in the city so long.
She and Joe had no children, and somewhere along the line they separated.
"I found out I's not getting any place with him." Joe is still devoted to
Katy. For many years he tried to persuade her to come back to him, but she
was sure the single life was the better. Even now he often comes for her
after work or performs other services.
Katy has worked for us continually except for a short period during the
depression. The first years she was here, she went to night school at the
Industrial High School. "Louise (a cook who works across the street) still
goes. I'd go, but it's too far 'cross town. Dey didn't teach me nothing
new, jus' refreshed what I had befo'. I got promoted to de eighth grade,
and dat's where I wuz at Miss Georgia's befo' I married Joe Brumby."
During the depression we and Katy separated; she went on relief. She
applied to the DPW at the same time. "Dey wuz a nice young white boy
there. He sho wuz nice. He tol' me he'd try an' get me a job. I wuz
dressed in my good white uniform, an' I guess I looked real nice. I tol'
him I's a cook, an' he said did I nurse. I tol' him, 'Well, I jus' tell
you, I don' like to nurse one bit. I don', not one bit."
(Se would have preferred a job cooking, because she both likes it and is
proud of her proficiency at it. It is the only part of domestic service
that she really does like. Her great talent is in cooking plain food
deliciously. People have asked her for recipes, but it is impossible to
give them, for she cooks by instinct as much as by recipe.)
She didn't get a job as a cook, however. She went on relief. Evidently her
intelligence made an immediate impression, for she was put in charge of a
sewing room. "I can't do nothing but plain sewing, and all I had to do uz
watch de other folks. Dey made dolls and toys and things. Then dey
transferred me where dey's doing fancy sewing, embroidery you know. I sho
wuz scared 'cause I wouldn't know if dey did it wrong." Eventually they
let her off, telling her, she says, that we had a little work for her.
"Now I know y'all didn't have no work for me, so I jus' didn't come by."
This was true; we had said nothing to the authorities.
Just before Thanksgiving 1936, Katy came by to bring us some flowers and
to borrow some money. By then both we and Katy realized our mistake in
parting, and Katy left with her money and her job.
Her friend, Susy, to whom she is most helpful with food, money if needed,
and other service, says, "Katy's good to dem she likes." This is true.
Among her neighbors she has her likes and dislikes, and acts accordingly.
Yet even those she dislikes, she will defend. "Aw, don' mind him, he don'
mean no harm," she said of a particularly grumpy old man across the alley.
She is certainly good to her family, especially to those in the country
who need it most. She sends clothes to them when possible and does all she
can. "I'm de oldest, and dey needs it bad, Miss Mary. Dey got children, I
haven't."
Of course, what she can do is not too much. Katy's pay is $6.00 a week.
(This is pretty good pay for a cook in Birmingham and speaks its own
message of conditions among this section of the population, which may, for
some, be alleviated by what is called "Southern paternalism"). Out of this
she must buy fuel in the Winter, pay for her insurance, clothe herself
(except for uniforms), and pay rent of $4.00 a month. A further small
expense is due to the fact that Katy works and is single. Without members
of the family to do it for her, she must pay neighbors to do much of her
washing and house-cleaning. "It sho does take de money out of yo' pocket.
I pay dem 50¢ to clean and dat's too much for jus' two little old rooms."
Essentials, which she cannot afford, such as bifocal glasses, are taken
care of. She is seldom ill, unless with a cold, or, as recently, with a
sprained ankle; so that almost none of her income goes for doctor's bills.
She eats at her place of work, so that her diet is as well - or
ill-balanced as our own.
In Scruggs Alley she lives in one-half of a house. She has sown her
two-by-four (almost literally) front yard with Winter grass, which
struggles up through the hard-packed black earth in patches. Steps bisect
the front porch, and two doors lead off the porch, the one on the right to
Katy's two rooms where she lives alone except for the occasional visit of
a niece from Montgomery or Mount Meigs. A bed, a stove, an old victrola,
and a radio that doesn't work are the main furnishings. In the back yard
she grows a few vegetables and flowers, greens and dahlias, onions and
zinnias. (Katy has "green fingers"; around the house she can make things
grow as none of us can. She has made potatoes, sweet and Irish, sprout in
water where we have never been able to.) She says folks in the alley take
her flowers and her vegetables, especially the tender Spring onions,
because she's away all day. "I'm gonna stop working an' take care of my
things someday," she says. "Y'all be sorry then." Everything at her home
is kept in strict order and is very clean. She does not have a bathroom;
there is only an outdoor privy shared by several families. "Dat's bad,"
she said, "Dat ain't right." She said, too, that the landlord doesn't make
the improvements he ought and doesn't keep up his property as he should.
Katy is well-informed on world events through the morning and evening
newspapers which she reads every day. If she doesn't have time on the
place she takes them home with her at night. Except for an occasional word
with which she is unfamiliar, she has no trouble, and she can be heard
after breakfast - before the dishes are washed - reading aloud to herself
in a mumbling tone as she drinks her coffee. During the Czechoslovakian
crisis in the Fall she listened to everything we could get on the radio,
even to Hitler's speeches. Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany has somewhat
upset her, perhaps because of her fondness for the Jewish family for whom
she first worked. She told us one day of a rumor which was circulating
among the Negroes. "Dey say dey is going to send all us colored folks back
to Africa." I said that perhaps it got started due to the Jewish
persecution and the talk of sending the refugees to Africa. Katy
misunderstood. "Now, Miss Mary, don' talk thataway about dem poor people
dey has such a hard time." I explained, "Dat's all right, den," she said.
About national events her opinions are not so sure. She thinks there are
too many people on relief that don't need it. "I knows lots of folks on
dere who don' need it," she says. She thinks highly of the people with
whom she came into contact when she was on relief, the people to whom she
applied. "Dey wuz all nice to me." She likes to listen to the President
over the radio. "Law," she said, giggling, "I'd rather hear him dan read
it. I gets sleepy." Her opinions are often quite conservative, or at least
out of line with what one would expect, "I don' like this Conference dey
had here. Dey gets folks all upset like."
Katy does not have the vote; there are laws in the South which pretty
effectively disenfranchise the Negro. "We wuz disfranchised way back; my
Daddy tol' me all about it. Sometimes I don' see why dey treat colored
folks de way dey do." Disenfranchisement isn't all. "Dey used to let us go
to de Alabama (a motion picture theater) but not now. We can't go to none
of dem places." We were listening, one day, to Marian Anderson, the Negro
contralto singing over the radio. After the rich voice had stopped, I said
I'd heard she was coming to Birmingham for a concert in the Spring.
"I don' guess dey'll let us hear it."
"Surely---." we murmured, but were not so sure.
Katy has all day Thursday off, except for cooking breakfast; the same on
Sunday, except that breakfast is much later; and most legal holidays,
including Christmas and New Year's. Her time off she spends in going to
town, or even more usually in cleaning her house, washing her hair, or
washing clothes. She goes to very few movies. Occasionally she hears one
of the Negro swing orchestras that play at the Negro Masonic Temple one
night, at the City's Auditorium the next. When the circus is in town, she
attends that. More often her recreation is with her friends. For Christmas
she bought a gallon of wine to entertain them with. Although Katy is
religious, she doesn't disapprove of drinking or smoking, and herself both
drinks and smokes. She does disapprove of work on Sunday. It is, for her,
the Sabbath, the day of rest, indeed.
Katy's and our relationship is a happy one. But she had complaints. She
actively dislikes for us to have company for meals, and her constant
threat is, "Y'all be sorry when I goes to Mon'gomery. My sister wants me
to live with dem. Y'all be sorry." All this hardly above a mutter as she
takes a pan from the oven, -the sight and the smell of which make your
mouth water, -sets something to soak in the sink, and orders you out of
the kitchen. Her chief complaint is that she has too much work to do.
"Y'all just got one somebody to do all de work. Need two somebodies." Katy
is getting older and cannot do what she did when younger; her weight, too,
is a handicap.
She tells us, when the atmosphere is better, of the superstitions of her
people. She says, "Don' step over working tools (in this case, the vacuum
cleaner) bad luck come yo' way." It's bad lack to be swept by a broom. The
remedy is, to kiss the broom. Opening an umbrella indoors is bad luck.
"Old folks," Katy says, "believed in all dem things. I don' carry with dem
much." The believers are always the old folks, but Katy obeys the ritual.
After stepping over a "working tool," she will step backward over it; she
kisses the broom; she throws salt over her shoulder. The old folks told
her, "'de first twelve days of de first month, dey represent de months of
de year, and de kind of weather for dem times.' Of co'se, sometimes dey
borrows one for de other," Katy said. "Now yestiddy, de third, wuz a good
April day, and all this wind today, it's a good March day. So dey borrows
it."
Katy is loyal above all persons I know, and absolutely an individual. She
is not only a friend, but a member of the family, which, despite the
accusation of "paternalism," is the only way to describe a relationship at
once so intricate and so simple.
Katy as a person, I have said, has a magnificent sense of the ridiculous.
But what seems to remain is the undertone of the sorrow of the race. It
is, 'dat ain't right;" it is, "Why do dey treat colored folks dat way?":
it is the haunting tone of sorrow that remains in the spirituals after the
often comic surface has been forgotten.
Washington Copy
1/11/39
L.H.
Alabama
Mary Chappell
Editorial Dept.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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