St. Mary's Cemetery

St. Mary's Baptist Church Cemetery is located a few yards across the road in front of the church. It is not a structured cemetery, just a clearing in the woods with graves. I found Taylors, Morgans, Sterlings and Johnsons buried here.

St. Mary's Church Cemetery, Wakefield, Louisiana

My grandmother is buried in an unmarked grave in St. Mary's Cemetery.  The graves from left to right are: Sullivan Johnson, son of Carrie Taylor Bayonne and Mack Johnson; Carrie Taylor Bayonne, my grandmother; Ida Taylor Walker, Carrie's sister. 

Sullivan's grave has a marker which states that he was born Feb.2, 1908 and died Jan.26, 1983.

Carrie's grave is unmarked.  She was born on November 29, 1890 and died on Sunday, October 11, 1959.  I was home for the weekend from Southern University in Baton Rouge when we received the call that she had passed. Grandmother Carrie was living with her sister, Ida at 2631 Conti Street in New Orleans. I attended the funeral in Wakefield at St. Mary's Church on October 14, 1959.

Funeral were inexpensive in those days. The casket, complete funeral services and the use of three sedans to Wakefield were $752.80! That may have seemed like a lot of money at the time, but it is nothing compared to today's funeral expenses.

Ida Taylor Walker is buried next to Carrie.  Her grave is unmarked, too. I was living in California when she died and I don't remember the date of her death and I have not been able to locate a death certificate for her.

Mississippi Ratifies 13th Amendment

I was watching the evening news on Monday, February 18, 2013, when I heard the most astonishing news: "Mississippi finally ratified the 13th Amendment banning slavery 148 years late!" I could not believe what I was seeing and hearing.

Dr. Ranjan Batra, a Mississippi resident and neurobiologist professor, saw the Academy Awards-nominated film Lincoln and decided to learn more about the Amendment and its history after seeing the political fight to pass it. The Amendment was ratified with the backing of three-fourths of the states in December 1865; four states eventually ratified it—except Mississippi.

Dr. Batra did some research. He noticed an asterisk: "Mississippi ratified the amendment in 1995, but because the state never officially notified the U.S. Archivist, the ratification is not official." He contacted his friend, Ken Sullivan, who contacted Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hoseman about the oversight. Sullivan set out to correct the mistake by filing papers with the Office of the Federal Register 18 years later.

On February 7, 2013, it became official—Mississippi ratified the 13th Amendment! Better late than never, though.

USS Constellation, Flagship of the African Squadron

On Sunday, February 6, I checked out the schedule of the History Channel to see if they had any Black History programs on On Demand.  I found a very interesting one and I learned something that I did not know happened during the slave trade.

USS Constellation: Battling for Freedom was the title of the documentary and it will be available until February 28, 2013. It was a story about the USS Constellation, a sloop-of war and the second United States Navy ship to carry the name. Built in 1854, it was the fastest warship with 22 guns and 225 men on board.

The USS Constellation was the flagship of the African Squadron from 1859 - 1861.  Her mission was to disrupt the slave trade off of the western coast of Africa by interdicting ships smuggling slaves and released the imprisoned Africans. The slave trade was made illegal in 1808 U.S. and England and the U.S. considered it piracy and punishable by death. 

The word "interdict" was new to me. Before consulting a dictionary, I thought that it was misspelled. The definition of interdict according to Webster is : to forbid in a formal or authoritative manner; to destroy, cut or damage (as an enemy line of supply) by firepower to stop or hamper an enemy. Interdict is what they did.

The Constellation did not always catch the slave ships.  Many of the slavers out ran her and some lightened their loads by tossing their slaves, also known as Black Ivory, overboard. What an inhumane, despicable, unconscionable act! 

The Constellation interdicted 3 ships as the flagship:

• the Delicia which had no papers to show nationality. It also did not have slaves but was fitted for slaves.
• the Cora with 705 slaves, who were set free in Liberia; no effort to return the Africans to their villages was made due to the fear that they would be kidnapped again.
• the Trition which held no slaves but was fitted for them.

According to the documentary, the Cora was taken to New York by some of the men of the Constellation. Most of the men were not U.S. citzens so they were released; however, four men were charged. The Capitan and another man escaped jail, which was believed to be an inside job; two men were sentenced to ten months. Nobody was put to death. 

The U.S.S. Constellation was move to Baltimore in 1955 for restoration and preservation. Due to the lack of funds, it took almost a decade to restore the ship for public use. There are separate programs for children and adults. To learn more and to view a video about the USS Constellation, go to:
http://www.historicships.org/constellation.html.

16 February 2013

Blessed Katharine Drexel

My mother, Augusta, and her sister, Onita, attended the canonization of Mother Katherine Drexel in Rome in 2000. It was a banner year for my mother: she had her first plane ride, went to a foreign country for the first time, and had her first birthday party at the age of 80. The trip to Rome was an early birthday gift from Onita.

Augusta was chosen to read her composition to Mother Katherine in 1934 at St. Monica Catholic Elementary School. The assigned subject was "Building for Eternity."  Augusta wrote about doing chores for an elderly neighbor. She was in the eighth grade. Who knew that Mother Katherine would become a saint?

Katherine Drexel was a Philadelphia heiress who founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and started schools such as St. Monica to educate poor African Americans and American Indians. She was the daughter of Francis Drexel, whose firm became the investment giant Drexel Burnham Lambert. Mother Drexel used her trust fund to fight poverty and racism through education. She died in 1955.

"When you look back on it, that is great to know somebody who has become a saint," Mom said. "I feel blessed."

15 February 2013

St. Monica Catholic Church

St. Monica was built in 1924 at the corner of South Galvez and First Streets in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was built and opened with hopes of  erecting a school for four hundred poor Colored Catholic children who had no opportunity of a Catholic education. The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (SBS) taught Sunday School to about one hundred fifty children in the church but they were on their own for the rest of the week.

In less than 6 months, St. Monica Catholic church had a school. The school was dedicated on October 1924 and was run by two SBS sisters who commuted from Xavier University. All of the Hicks siblings and their children attended St. Monica Catholic School. Nace Hicks, Sr., my grandfather, was a founding member of St. Monica and he built built an altar to the Blessed Mother with a place to kneel in the corner of each room,

My mother, Augusta, was in the first graduatiing class.  At that time, St. Monica Church and School was grey. In Mom's day, it was a four-room school that housed eight grades. When I attended, St. Monica had at least eight rooms, a room for each grade level.

 I can remember my days at St. Monica.  We wore uniforms, blue skirts and white blouses. Mom made our uniforms. The blouses were starched heavily, so much so, the collar would scratch our necks when we turned our heads.  We lived in Dixie Court at the time and right around the corner from cousins, Brenda and Linda. Each morning we would get dressed, pick up our cousins and continue walking to school with our lunch and book bags.

On October 3, 1987, First Annual Alumni Gathering was held and the Hicks family presented a card catalog and a dictonary stand in honor and memory of Nace Hicks.

The above photograph was taken in 2003 or 2004 before Katrina struck the city.  The Hicks/Estes family had a reunion in 2004 and we attended mass in the church on Sunday. After Katrina, St. Monica was shuttered and never reopened. It was merged with two other church parishes and is now a part of Blessed Trinity Catholic Church on Broad Street.

Although, some of has moved out of Louisiana and some have moved to other church parishes, we still consider St. Monica as our home.

Walking With Ancestors II

Patricia Bayonne Johnson & Bennett Headstone

 

 

Benjamin Bennett was my "ancestor" to research and present at Walking with Ancestors II at Fairmount Memorial Cemetery in 2011.

 

13 February 2013   to be continued