Nana Biography

He, when my mother married him, and she was an Easterner and came from down there to live, he gave her a little talk about how to handle the blacks. You know, they really don’t have any intelligence much above a 12 year-old child, so he treat them as children. You’re nice to them, you’re kind to them, you keep them in their place. I can remember this. And you tell them what you want done, and if they don’t do it, you see that they do, and so on. But it’s just like raising a child. 

And he was kind to his people that worked for him, and one way, and horrible in another. When a new couple was trying out at our house, I’ll never forget. He was sitting at dinner, we always sat for dinner, and the Butler passed the food, and the Butler came to him, And it was the first night that they had done this. He was passing some peas to my father, and the guys hands shook as he was passing the peas, holding out the dish, as was sort of shaking, and my father looked up and said, “Robert, or whatever his name was, can you hold your hand still? And Robert was very polite. “No sir “he said, “I guess I’m a little nervous “. My father said, well, you’ll have to get over that Robert, we can’t have that. Hold your hand still now. “And he reached up and took hold of the dish and dumped the peas out.  Well, I was so embarrassed, it just absolutely killed me. 

My mother didn’t like it either, But she went along with it because she was trying to cope. She never learned how to get along with the Black people, according to him, because she just didn’t know. 

Now I learned at a very young age, not to question his authority. When they went out in the evening, I was crazy about one of the cooks that we had, Rachael, and she liked to play checkers, and I would go out and we would have a cheer game and so on, and afterwards she was supposed to stay in the house with me until they came home.

-71-