Mama Shug: the Bridge Whom We Loved so Dearly: Down from Cane River, of Natchitoches, Louisiana

By Bonita Grace Moses

Growing up in a very small city of Natchitoches, Louisiana, the oldest one in the Louisiana Purchase, author, Bonita Grace Moses, was not only the youngest sibling but also the only girl, along with four brothers, born to Elena Moses. She was reared by her mother and her grandmother, Georgiana Moses, in a small three-room house.
In Mama Shug: the Bridge Whom We Loved So Dearly, Moses shares her life story and how it was particularly influenced by her God-fearing grandmother, affectionately known as Mama Shug, who lived to the age of ninety-eight. This memoir narrates how Mama Shug quit school at age seven to care for her siblings, but she instilled the importance of a good education in her grandchildren. Full of wisdom, Moses grandmother also preached how faith in the Lord was central to life. She was a woman who lived what she practiced.
A testament to the strength, tenacity, spirituality, and love of Mama Shug, this memoir describes the life of one woman who paved the way and provided an important foundation helping her grandchildren achieve success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491769065

Bonita Grace Moses

Bonita Grace Moses is a native of Natchitoches, Louisiana. She earned degrees from Grambling State University and Northwestern State University. A licensed and ordained minister, she is a teacher of over 18 years and employed by Save The Children. Moses is also an author, a teacher, and a mother of three.

Book preview

MAMA SHUG: THE BRIDGE WHOM WE LOVED SO DEARLY DOWN FROM CANE RIVER, OF NATCHITOCHES, LOUISIANA

Copyright © 2015 Minister Bonita Grace Moses.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Other scriptures are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®,

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-6907-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6906-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909474

iUniverse rev. date: 10/07/2015

Contents

CHAPTER 1     Mama Shug: The Bridge Whom We Loved So Dearly

CHAPTER 2     This Flower

CHAPTER 3     Train up A Child

CHAPTER 4     Thanks For Never Giving Up On Me

CHAPTER 5     Getting a Good Education

CHAPTER 6     Life Is What You Make It

CHAPTER 7     She Was Always There

CHAPTER 8     She Is Alive Within My Spirit

CHAPTER 9     The Real Surprise

CHAPTER 10     My One Lying Lesson Experience

CHAPTER 11     I Pray For You, Grandmother

CHAPTER 12     A Light Is Shining At Home

CHAPTER 13     When the Sun Went Down on Mama Shug

CHAPTER 14     Reflections

Dedication

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED IN MEMORY OF MY GRANDMOTHER, MRS. Georgiana Moses, Mama Shug; my beloved mother, the late Elena Moses; my aunt, the late Emma Moses; my brother, the late Terry M. Moses, Sr., and his children, the late Kevin Javier Moses, and the late Angelica Celina Moses; my nephew, Leonard J. Moses, Jr.; and my sister in- law, the late Seymone Renee Courtney-Moses.

I would like to acknowledge my Lord, Jesus Christ; my children, Jade, Tony, and Braden; my brothers, Leonard, Marvin, and Patrick Moses, and their children and grandchildren; my sisters, Doris Comick-Madden, and Patricia Comick-Osborne; my first cousin, Georgiana Williams; my first editor, Joy Creasong and my second editor, Ms. Karolyn Jackson; my confidantes and friends my spiritual mother, Dr. Christa Rodriguez, Ms. JoAnn Monroe, Dr. Carolyn LaCour, Ms. Regina Britton, Mrs. Mildred K. Hill, Mrs. Faye Carol Jones-Smith, Ms. Valisia, and Mae Mansfield. Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge, Pastor Randall and Dorothy Gipson, Pastor Terrell and Debra Jones, Mrs. Idell Snowden, Prophetess Audrey Celestine, and Prophetess Bonnie Allen and Pastor Sadie Sawyer and Bro. Earnest Sawyer.

Preface

MAMA SHUG, THE BRIDGE THAT WE LOVED SO DEARLY WAS WRITTEN from my heart for me, Minister Bonita G. Moses, as a way of introducing Mama Shug to the world so that others might get to glimpse, taste, feel, hear, and experience the world from the viewpoint of a 98-year-old woman of wisdom and spiritual confidence and guided by the hand of God, as I have done. Through the years, as I was writing this book, I was moved from the very depths of my heart and soul of Mama Shug’s life’s journey. I felt that her ninety-eight-years journey through this world was a story worth documenting.

I am very grateful for the time that the Bridge invested in my life—time spent teaching me about the Lord starting at a very young age. She taught me how to trust in Him and to depend on Him, even when I was still depending on her and my mother because my relationship with the Lord had not yet developed. I thank her for her many days and nights of prayers, of faith, of living by example, of her daily mentoring, and of sharing stories of her childhood, her early adulthood, and her late, old-age stories about her life, hoping that they would inspire us to learn from them so that we might become better than what she was.

A personal relationship and walk with the Lord is what she impressed upon us daily. She was also a champion for education, and she stressed the importance of getting a good education. She taught us how to treat other people, the need to walk through life in love, the importance of forgiveness, and the benefit of a life lived with integrity. Mama Shug’s mantra for teaching us the Ten Commandments, starting at an early age, was that A liar will also steal, cheat, and kill. As she taught us about the things that offend God, she was strategic in her explanation in what it is that God likes and what He doesn’t like, but I never heard her say that He doesn’t like people. What she was careful to explain to us was that God doesn’t like sin, but when we do sin, we should be quick to pray and repent because God was a forgiving God, and he was willing to forgive us.

Mama Shug spent most of her early childhood and adult life down Cane River where she was born. For her livelihood, she picked cotton. Later on in life, once she became a mother, she provided for her children by cooking for other people. I recall her telling me how she helped out her parents as they went to work to make a living for her brothers and sisters. Mama Shug she hated that she didn’t finish school and although she didn’t get a formal education, she was one of the wisest, most spiritual women I have, to date, encountered.

Even though she insisted that we get an education, she also told us that To be balanced, get your education, but you must have common sense as well. Mama Shug often told us how common sense will take you a long way in life. She taught us manners and told us to take them with us everywhere we go. She told us that if we lacked understanding, to pray and ask God for wisdom, and He will give it to us. She told us to pray and always study. Every day when we got home from school, she would tell us to do our homework. Mama Shug didn’t believe in us missing school. She would stand on the porch and watch us get on the bus. She would even walk us around the corner to catch the bus when the bus took a different route. When we made plans that involved missing school the next day, she would say, Whatever bothering you now, it sure won’t be bothering you in the morning, so you will be getting on that bus and going to school. I didn’t mind going to school, I just didn’t want to be away from her all day long. She still encouraged us to go and she would say, Go and learn all you can so you won’t be like me. With all of that said, I still thought the Bridge had some special attributes in her life. She was the Bridge that we all loved so dearly because she spent quality time with us. She closed the gap between generations by overseeing that which was necessary to make the next generation better than the one before.

She taught us the 23rd Psalm very early. She also taught us about The Lord’s Prayer, and she would not let us get in the bed, no matter how tired or sick we were, without giving thanks. We knew our nightly routine was always in the order of: eat, take a bath, and say our prayers every night. I feel that the Bridge had something to leave and something to teach each of us in her longevity. She left a legacy of ninety-eight years as a Christian walk and relationship with the Lord, and her Savior, Jesus Christ. Through her experiences in life, her willpower, her tenacity of never giving up, her prayer life and walk, her motivation to change generations for the best, and her need to tell others about Jesus is enough to be shared. We often have our faith shaken by our emotions, by what someone else is doing, or by how things are sometimes not going as we planned which causes us to give up. The Bridge never gave up on us, herself, her children, her husband, and her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. She was a very strong African-American female who overcame and lived through great hardship and adversity brought about by the era in which she lived both as an African-American and as a woman.

She was married to the late Louis Moses, also known as Man Moses. Even when he deserted her and fathered children with other women, she remained faithful. After he lost his sight and had to return home to her, she stayed true to her vows and, in sickness, she nursed and cared for him until death did they part. From their union, she and her husband were the parents to six daughters, although two were stillborn, two were miscarried, and two lived to adulthood—one, Emma Moses-Wheeler, died on March 14, 1982, and the other, my dear mother, Elena Moses, died two years later on May 15, 1984. Mama Suggs life was fraught with overwhelming losses, tremendous gains, common trials,