INTRODUCTION
As a child, I remember my dad standing by the bathroom sink swirling his shaving brush around the soap dish, and then applying the soap foam to his cheeks and chin. This was our time when we would talk, and sometimes as we talked he would put soap on my cheeks, too. Using an old, dull butter knife, and imitating him, I would shave my face, too. I was probably seven or eight years old at the time. It was during one of these times that he first told me about his grandfather. My grandfather was white, you know. I dont think I reacted. Shaving my face was more important than commenting on someones skin color.
Thomas Littleton Lewis was a tall, handsome man, more than six feet tall, with high cheek bones and an underlying red tone to his brown skin. My mother told the story in my adult years that, as a child, when friends or family members remarked how I looked like my mother, I would frown and have no comment. If someone should chance to say, Oh, you look just like your father, I would smile and, with a happy voice, say, Thank you. One day she asked me, Why do you frown when people say you look like me and smile when people say that you look like your father? According to my mother, I replied, Because my Daddy is better looking.
My mother loved, nurtured, and protected her four children. Any childhood gems that we spoke would be repeated many times over at family gatherings long after all four of us had passed into advanced adulthood. Our Dad was the same. He was proud of his children. When he passed away at age 98, I cleaned out an old steamer trunk that had been stored in their hall closet. The memorabilia it contained went back to my parents marriage in 1916. Their marriage license, childrens report cards, graduation diplomas, college degrees, pictures, letters were all there. A cornucopia of Lewis family history. There were three letters, written to him by three of his children. Each one thanked him for the gift of money that he had given to them at some point of need in their lives.
It was in my adolescent years that I began to challenge my father when he would say, My grandfather was white and my grandmother was an African. I never knew what precipitated this proclamation, but I do remember that I was not impressed and thought it was a truth that needed to be either denied or forgotten. The idea that the slave master (in this case my great-grandfather) would wander down to the slave cabins to rape a vulnerable and defenseless young African girl (my great-grandmother) was repugnant, and certainly not to be discussed with his children. No, no, my Dad would protest. You dont understand; it was not like that. My grandparents, Lloyd Alexander and Ellen Davis, were husband and wife, and lived together in the home that granddaddy built on the farm. I learned later that when granddaddy died in 1913, the farm consisted of 792 acres of prime farming and timber land in Ridgeway, South Carolina.
There must be some dormant genes in us that rally forth in our middle years, hell-bent on the need to know who we are and what we are and who came before us. Although Plutarch seemingly refuted this perception when he wrote, it is indeed a desirable thing to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
My dad and his siblings lived with his parents, Mary Jane Davis and Isom Littleton Lewis, in Winnsboro, SC, 10 miles from Ridgeway. His father, Isom, was a brick mason. He built the family home and worked with others on the public buildings in Winnsboro. Learning about my dads history, and hearing him speak with fondness about the summers he spent on his grandparents farm in his youth, I was impelled to begin my exploratory journey into the past.
One December day in the mid-1980s I decided to visit the U.S. Census Bureau located in Bayonne, New Jersey, a short drive from my home in Newark. I arrived in the early afternoon, armed with sharpened pencils and steno pads. Having no prior experience in retrieving census information, I carefully listened to the staff members instructions. I learned that the town of Ridgeway is located in Fairfield County. I located the file drawers containing the microfilms for the 1870 census report for Fairfield County, South Carolina. That was the easy part. Loading the film onto the machines film spool was not. However, my determination and ego (I wanted to appear as adept as everyone else in the room) overcame my ignorance and I was soon turning the wheel and eagerly watching each name scroll by on the screen.
I was well into the third microfilm roll when, with the turn of the wheel, I saw the name Lloyd Davis. Eureka!!! I wanted to jump off my chair and do a celebration dance, but accepted that it would not be appropriate. So I sat there for many minutes staring at the name and feeling a warm glow suffuse my body. I think that I even whispered hello to my great-grandfather. Directly under his name, in the same household, was the name Ellen, my great-grandmother.
Lloyds age was listed as 44, color white, occupation Farmer, value of Real Estate $1,500, value of Personal Estate $500. Ellens age was given as 32, color black, occupation Domestic servant. After Ellens name, five childrens names were listed with their ages and genders. The color for all the children was listed as mulatto. My grandmothers name, Mary Jane, was not included, as she was not born until 1871. Her name does appear in the 1880 census.
It was at that moment in time that I became intrigued with learning, exploring, and sharing the adventure of my familys ancestral history. The lives of Lloyd Alexander Davis of Welsh descent, and Ellen Davis of African descent are intertwined into the fabric of the American experience unique, brave, dangerous, and ultimately triumphant.
Irma Lewis Jenkins
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