The Courage of Faith

Moment of Strength: share a story where a female ancestor showed courage or strength in a difficult situation.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my mother died when I was younger. She had been sick most, really all, of her life. I remember her telling me once that when she was born the doctors told her mother that she wouldn't make it to 5. I don't have children but I can't imagine what that would be like to hold her new daughter and have some give you time limit on how long you had to keep her.

Still my mother made it 5 and then 6 and her teens and though college. She got married and when she was pregnant they told her that she would never live to see me but she just shrugged and carried on. She lived to see me; lived to raise me and when I asked her about it once she just said it was all about faith.

She had faith that God was going to heal her or at least let her see me grow up. She held on to that faith through every doctor's visit and hospital stay. When her marriage ended and her heal got worse. She tried her best to make sure that her heal didn't hold me back from doing anything that I wanted and she was there for every school play, choir performance, band recital, talent show and pageant that I was in.

She got up every morning and went to work for as long as she could and when she couldn't anymore she got up and went to church. She helped her friend start and build his church, she contributed to the prison ministry, she taught others how to play piano so that they could also give back. She encouraged others through visits and prayerful phone calls. Each day she tried to do something that honored her faith.

When she died I was angry for the longest time. Her faith had been so strong that she had made all of us believe. She had been sick since forever and yet everyone took her death as a surprise. We all stood in that faith with her. It took a long time for me to see that her faith had been rewarded.

She had made it further than any doctor had ever thought she would and she had seen me grow up. Maybe not as grown up as she or I would have wanted but still far more than what was predicted. She had had a chance to teach me and share with me and help me to become the woman that I am still working toward becoming.

There are still days that I wish more than anything that she was still here to guide me or give me her opinion but when I'm not sure what to do I don't have to wonder what my mother would say or would have done. I just have to pray and have faith and I know that whatever courage I need will be there. Thanks mom.

Working 9 to 5

Working girl: Did your mother or grandmother work outside the home? What did she do? Describe her occupation.

Most of my working life I have spend in fashion retail. I have worked with clothing, sports and even greeting cards. I use to think that I just happened upon something that I liked and was good at but a photograph that I had forgotten changed my mind.

Every year my maternal grandmother would go out with her coworkers and march in the May Day Parade. They would wear this same pattern and they would strut their stuff and they had every right too. They where all seamstresses and darn good too. Matter fact I don't think that I wore anything that my grandmother didn't make until I was like in six grade. Believe me when I say that woman could sew. But she wasn't the only influence to my retail history.

My paternal grandmother also was involved in fashion. She worked for a women's clothing store located downtown and in my mind had to be one of the oldest in St. Louis. She had even worked there back in the sixties when it might have been difficult for a black woman to work in a predominately white frequented store. Still she was such a valued employee that when I was born they gave my parents a crib their shower.

Both my grandmothers worked hard and diligently. I can remember going with my father's mother to her store and all the ladies fussing over me and going on and on about how wonderful my grandmother was. And although I couldn't find the picture, I also remember my older cousin and I marching with my mother's mom in at least one of those parades and it was the same experience. Almost like having a room full of grandma's at any given time.

Sure my mother worked, my aunts and almost everyone woman I can think of in my family but those two I would say really influenced me. I'm not in fashion retail anymore but every time I go shopping I think of them.

Honor and Praise

What role did religion play in your family? How did your female ancestors practice their faith? If they did not, why didn’t they? Did you have any female ancestors who served their churches in some capacity?

There are seven days in a week. Five that we spend working or going to school, one that we spend doing whatever we can think of and another that if religion is a part of your life you spend in church. However, in my family that wasn't always the case.

The question was did religion play a part in your family. The answer was, is and will always be a resounding yes.

Religion was a huge part of my childhood and my mother and grandmothers before me. We all grew up in the baptist faith. Most of my family at one point has been in the choir, my paternal grandmother served the usher board most if not all of her live, and I am not sure there was a piano in the Missouri area that my mother didn't play on or a choir she didn't play for. Yet when my cousins and I came along both my mother and my aunt decided that we also needed another foundations for our faith and they enrolled us in a private Christian elementary school.

We started each day in chapel and each class in prayer. Then after school, depending on the day was bible study or choir rehearsal or Wednesday service. There was really only one day were we weren't in a church. Most would find that suffocating but we got exactly what our parents wanted for us. A foundation of faith, belief, and love.

Another great thing my mother gave me without actual thought was diversity. Because even though I grew up baptist and went to a baptist church most of my life that wasn't the only religion I was able to experience. Through her piano playing we went to almost every type of religious service at one time or another. Some she was just visiting because she knew someone there. I have a deep understanding and respect for all religions but I also have a deeper understanding about the fact that it isn't just about a religion.

My family gave me faith and the ability to learn that at the heart of all religions we are the same. To me that has and will always be the greatest gift they could have shared.

Mooning Over Bachelors....Day 4 Challenge

Do you have marriage records for your grandparents or great-grandparents? Write a post about where they were married and when. Any family stories about the wedding day? Post a photo too if you have one.

This is a picture of my parents wedding. If you notice all the guys look like they are laughing. The way the story goes is that none of the guys would smile as the photographer was trying to take the picture. They were doing everything they could but no smiles. Like all guys they wanted to look hard.

Anyway, one of the bridesmaids started making jokes and nothing. Finally she turned around to give up and her dress flipped up to show her underwear. Everyone started laughing as the photographer started snapping away.

I don't know if this is the true story but I have always liked the idea especially being a photographer myself. I have done some crazy things in the studio as well as chapels trying to get people to smile. Things like barking, standing on chairs and telling the start of one joke that seems to always get men to laugh but I have never been reduced to showing my butt. Still it's nice to know that if I need to I can pull that out. The story not my butt :)

Sounds My Mother Taught Me

In keeping with the fearless female theme of the month I am departing from those blog prompts to do a different prompt for today. I will be doing my other addition for the 31 day challenge but I saw this on another genealogy blog and I just had participate. 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History do an amazing job of coming up with great things for you to add to your blog and this one really struck a chord.

Week 9: Sounds. Describe any sounds that take you back to your childhood. These could be familiar songs, jingles, children playing, or something entirely different.

When I think of my childhood and a sound that resonates through out the whole of it is music. Singing, records, choir practices, dancing around the room, but most importantly piano music. I don't think there was a day that went by that no one in my house played the piano and if there was then it was because we were at a piano lesson or my cousins and she was playing.

The legend goes that my grandmother always wanted to learn how to play but never found either the time or the money to take lessons. Like a lot of parents she then passed that desire on to her her children insisting that they all take piano lessons and like most children forced to do something they had no desire to do they balked. They cried, they refused to practice, they did everything short of throwing the piano down the stairs; all but my mother.

My mother found a joy in playing that I don't believe her siblings ever shared and as they quite one by one (there were only three of them so it was more like one after they other) she continued to play. She walked to lessons and studied multiple hours until she had honed her craft. I would love to tell you that she became a world renowned pianist but she kept it a little closer to home and to her heart and soul.

While she never made it to Carnage Hall she did make it to the piano stand at the church that she had grown up in and then to some of the other churches in the greater St. Louis area and finally to the Gospel Core Union of St. Louis which traveled around to multiple churches not just in Missouri but other states as well. I don't think I remember her traveling with them as a child but I do remember the name being used quite frequently throughout my childhood.

As I grew up my grandmothers dream was passed on to my generation through myself and my cousins. We all took lessons at the same piano school that my mother, aunt and uncle first attended and I believe we had the same teacher (at least he was old enough to have been the same). Both my aunt's and our house had pianos in it, ours being the same one my mother had used growing up, and there was music played regularly.

To this day I still have a piano and so does my cousin.

Mine isn't the one that my mother learned on but it is the one that she eventually had to buy when hers gave out and I still play whenever I want to fell close to her. I have never been as good as she was which I'm sure still bugs her after the seven years she spent pulling her hair and mine out to make me go to my lessons and learn at least one to songs. My aunt loves to make fun of me and my cousins saying that it's so sad the amount of time that they spent taking us to lessons and we can all only play one song which isn't completely true. It's more that we all have one signature song that we don't have to look up the music to play.

Music has always been part of my life and it always will be thanks to my mother. I might not have learned to play the piano to her level but I can still play. I can also play the clarinet, the drums and one song on the sax. I have taken ballet lessons, tap lessons, and jazz dance lessons. I have been in countless musicals and theatrical productions as well as stage managed a couple. I have joined numbers of choirs in almost every city I have lived in and even when I drive around town I am normally singing at the top of my lungs to whatever is playing.

The best part of this upbringing is that while most of my friends are set in one genre of music that they constantly listen to I have a broader range. I am not just a fan of the music of my generation but of the generations before me and singers and composers that most my age might not even know.

I was blessed to have such a powerful sound present in my life by such an amazingly talented woman. And although she never reached world wide fame that she possibly could have there aren't many places or churches I can go into in St. Louis where someone doesn't stop me and ask, "Are you Vee's daughter?" and I am proud to say, "Yes, I am."