|
Contents
Alabama
Florida
Georgia
Indiana
Louisiana
Missouri
South Carolina
Utah
Washington
Check for
local history books about your town
or search Amazon.com
from here
|
HENRIETTA ELIZABETH
SELLERS
(Florida)
"Wait ontil I turns my stove down so's
my dinner don't burn, and I'll be glad to talk to you," said Henrietta, as
she shuffled her 200-lbs with more or less deliberation towards the
kitchen.
Directly she was back, standing calmly at attention, her attitude
unconsciously taking on a part of the peaceful quietness of the
surroundings where she seems so much at home.
"I was born in Georgia," she said, in answer to a question, "and I got an
Indian grandfather somewhere back among my people - I don't know how far
back. I've worked for lots of people in my time - I'm 60 so J.W. says
(he's my son) and he's 40. He keeps track of things like that - got it all
written down in the back of a Bible, I jus' never did bother. Age don't
make no difference, jus' so's you keep goin'.
"Most of the time I worked in Atlanta, the last one there was a Jewish
lady, Mrs. Creeks. Then Mrs. Gorse she hired me and brought me to Florida
about fifteen years ago - before that one was born" - pointing to Mrs.
Gorse's young daughter, sheltering three six-day-old Scottie puppies under
the protection of a big rock on the riverfront levee.
"I can't remember when I learned to cook - seem lak I always knowed - but
I did have to learn how to cook seafood, fish, shrimp, crabs and such,
after I came to Florida.
"I likes to fish, too, and every week when I gets my Thursday afternoon
off, I goes fishin' out here on the wharf. Sometimes I catches one,
sometimes a lot, and then again I don't catch none - just sets there all
evenin' hopin' to get a bite.
"Wouldn't I like to do something else in my spare time? Well, I don't take
much truck with these folks that works in the neighborhood by the day, and
I 'spects I'se better off - at least I knows I'se in good company - by
myself.
"One thing I likes to go to church - I'se always gone to church, and my
onliest son, J.W., is a preacher - Methodist. He's pastor of a church over
in town on West Ashley Street, running down from the colored High School.
"That song you jus' heard me singin' was a 'jumped-up' song I heard last
Sunday over at the Yukon Methodist Church for colored folks. A 'jumped-up'
song," she patiently explained, "is when you feel the Spirit of the Lord
acting on your soul, and you jus' gets up and sings whatever comes to
mind.
"That song runs:
'If you look for me down here, and
can't find me,
If you come up to Heaven,
You'll find me there.'
"Another one goes:
'Lie down, lie down, thy weary one,
Your head upon my breast.'
"And here's another:
"Servant of God, well done,
Rest from thy worldly toil,
The battle is fought,
The victory won,
Enter thy Master's joy.'
"A 'jumped-up' song is sincere, it comes right from a person's heart, and
there's more to them than you'd think. If the world is ever saved, it's
going' to be by just such songs, because the younger generation don't
study like the old church people, and they don't get the Spirit like they
should. And so far as the tune is concerned, they sound just as good to me
as any I hears over the radio.
"Yes, they have song books at the church, but I don't need no song book -
once I hears a thing, I can always remember it, so I don't need a book to
get it out of.
"Scuse me, I'll have to look after my cookin'." Off she trudged to the
kitchen, and when she returned seated herself just inside the dining room
door, where she could better attend the cooking of the evening meal.
"Do I like Florida? Well, I likes it better for some incidents, and some I
likes better in Georgia. You mos' generally likes it better where you was
raised at." she said apologetically, as if not wishing to minimize
Florida's advantages. "Since I got my son, J.W., here now, I don't expect
I'll ever live any more in Georgia."
It developed by close questioning, that J.W., in spite of his forty years,
and his ability as a preacher, always manages to locate somewhere in
Henrietta's immediate vicinity.
"I took a lota pains with J.W. to raise him right, and one day about
eighteen years ago he came to me and said - 'Mama, I'se cotin' Tommie, and
we'se goin' to get married.' I looked over my big boy, up and down, and I
says - "No, you ain't, J.W., you ain't goin' to do no such thing. If my
boy gets married, I'd like to seem him get a good wife, and Tommie is that
triflin' she won't make any kind of a wife for nobody, much less you.
She's selfish and no 'count. Now, you just let you old mammy pick you a
wife. There's Anna Hill,' I says.
"Anna Hill was my friend, a few years older than J.W., but good and kind,
industrious and faithful.
"J.W. had never thought of her as a wife, but he dropped Tommie, and
started goin' with Anna, and in a short time they were married. She has
proved herself to be as good as I said. She has made J.W. a fine wife, and
they have a nice son, fourteen years old.
"Tommie? Well, she turned out like I said. She married someone else right
away, but couldn't get along with her husband, and she's been married and
divorced twice since. She just can't get along with nobody. Yes, sir, I
sure saved J.W. a lot of married misery.
"You see I knew the beginnin's of Anna
- I knew her father and mother - they was good old people, and Anna and I
was friends from girls on up, so I knew she could not help but be all
right.
"My grandson goes to school in Yukon. No, I don't think he'll be a
preacher like his father. Preachers has a pretty hard time. He wants to be
a mechanic, and is always tinkerin' around the garage, learnin' things
about machinery.
"I say to my son, the other day, 'J.W., some of dese days I'm goin' clear
away from around you,' and he says: 'Well, I guess my money will take me
jus' as far as your's will carry you, and I'll find you wherever you go.'
"I used to go to all the Sunday School conferences, and yearly meetings,
but it's too much trouble now. The last conference I went to was at
Palatka - J.W. had a small church there. It was a big meeting, preachers
and church members of Methodists from all over the State. I just went down
on the train for one day, and there was such a crowd I could not get into
the hall, but stood out on the porch. After I went and bought my lunch, I
went back and stood around some more - you see the conference was goin' to
change the preachers around, and I wanted to know where J.W. was to be
sent. Finally, I heard his name called over the loud speaker -
'Jacksonville,' - and I didn't wait to hear no more. Sure enought, they
give him the little church here on Broad and Ashley, and he's been here
ever since.
"Before Mrs. Gorse came to Jacksonville the last time, we lived several
years in the country near Green Cove Springs, and J.W. got himself
transferred to a little church there," she said guilelessly. "Mostly, he
tries to be near where I is.
"There was a colored cemetery not far away, and one day I went down there
to a man's funeral - he had been a good sanctified member, but had gone
over to the Baptists. The Baptist minister was holding the funeral, but
the sanctified preacher showed up, too. He was standing off to one side,
and just before the funeral started, I hear him sing out:
'Brother, I wonder if the Lord is
satisfied with you,
In the life that you live,
And the service that you give -
I wonder if the Lord is satisfied with you.'
"Yes, them 'jumped-up' songs, sung on the spur of the moment, fits in
better than anything you can think up most of the time."
Asked if she was superstitious, Henrietta said, "Me, I ain't exactly
superstitious, but there's lots of old sayings I believe. One is about May
rain - if you get good and wet in a May rain, you won't have no cold the
balance of the year. And that is sure enough true. I always gets myself
wet through in May, and I never, never has a cold.
"Ghosts? No, I don't have no truck with them. I pray the Lord every night
keep them things as far from me as he can."
May 19, 1939.
Henrietta Elizabeth
Sellers, 60
(Colored Cook for
Mrs. H.W. Gorse)
3733 Ortega Blvd.,
Jacksonville, Florida.
Rose Shepherd, Writer.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
|