My Zoe

By Valerie James

This is a compelling adventure about a black woman born in Michigan in the mid 1950s and as a child surviving accidents after accidents that could have been tragedy to her life, but by her strong will and deep rooted faith she managed to triumph though it all. It tells about her struggle to raise her children as a single parent, her bad relationships with her men friends and childrens fathers, divorce, Church involvement and the love for Jesus that kept her from falling apart and held it all together. Dealing with not being accepted as a person or measuring up to her full potentials but still managed to accomplish her goals and kept a positive attitude, compassion, and the belief that you can be what and who you set your mind out to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499007299

Valerie James

I am a fifty-nine year old retired nursing assistant and childcare provider, single parented mother who raised three grown children, grandmother, and great grandmother of ten. I’m a devoted born again Christian graduated from and received my Bachelor and MBA degree at age fifty-five. I decided to move away from my hometown when I graduated and I moved to a small town about 70 miles away so that I could have some personal space from my family (they were all adults anyways). I needed to think about my future so, while I was there in that small town I found an apartment in a senior citizen complex and I had privacy and lots of time to think. I had always said to myself that I wanted to write a book about my life and I just decided to do just that, and this is when I started to write this memoir about myself. It took me about two years and I finally finished it. I’ve always held these two scriptures in my heart: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthen me.” (Philippians 4:13) “And my God shall supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)

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MY ZOE

_____________

VALARIE JAMES

Copyright © 2015 by Valarie James.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 09/21/2015

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Beginning of my Life

Chapter 2 Martin Luther King Jr. Riot

Chapter 3 The Draft

Chapter 4 Moving

Chapter 5 Those Old Memories

Chapter 6 When I started to date Gatura

Chapter 7 When I got Married

Chapter 8 Flying to NYC

Chapter 9 Losing weight

Chapter 10 Meeting Alaba Walker and dating him

Chapter 11 Moving out of Grand Rapids, MI to Lansing, MI

Chapter 12 Graduating from Lincoln College

Chapter 13 My Mother passes away

Chapter 14 Getting back with Daniel

Chapter 15 Moving back to Grand Rapids, MI

Chapter 16 My dad passes away

Chapter 17 Going to the Bahamas

Chapter 18 Adanna and I fly to NYC to Bishop E. Franklin’s Birthday Party

Chapter 19 Moving Back to Grand Rapids Again

Chapter 20 Conclusion

Valarie’s Personal Thoughts about Issues:

I would like to dedicate this book to all of my children, grandchildren and great grandsons.

I also would like to give special dedication to my parents and grandparents that have been

a great big influence in my life, but have passed on to be with the Lord.

Chapter 1

The Beginning of my Life

Hi, my name is Valarie James, and I was born in Grand Rapids, MI. I am the fifth child of seven. I had five brothers and a sister. Three brothers and a sister that were older than I was and two brothers that was younger than I am. We lived on Jefferson Ave. in a large two apartment dwelling house. My parents own the house and rented the upstairs out to other people. My parents worked plus my dad was a retired Sergeant from World War II and a certified mechanic. My mom, she was a Nurse’s Aide, she worked in rich white folk’s homes cooking for them and in the convalescent homes too. I can remember her taking me to work with her when she worked for the convalescent homes, one was called the Author Nursing Home and the other was the Grandville Nursing home. My mom worked for the Author Nursing home when we lived on Cass Ave., and I’m not sure what happened to that job she had at Author Nursing home, but she switched to The Grandville Nursing home after we moved from Cass Ave., and The Grandville Nursing home was one block away from where we lived on Oakland St. on the west side of town and my mom could walk to work. Yes, I remember her taking care of those old people too and when I went to work with her, I used to talk to those old elderly people and I wish that I would become a nurse just like my mom.

Now let’s get into the story about the beginning of my life. I can remember one day being at home I was around three years old maybe four years old not sure exactly but, my dad wasn’t home he must’ve been at work or out somewhere nevertheless, when he came home, and I saw him pulling up and parking his car on the other side of the street from where we lived, I got so excited seeing him that I started running outside the door and off the porch onto the sidewalk calling his name and ran right into the street and got hit by a car. I was knocked unconscious and everyone (my brothers and sister) told me that the car had hit and knock (drag) me three blocks and I wondered why I wasn’t dead. After I was release from the hospital no real major damages to my body everything was going as well as expected I was healing and being spoiled. I guess my family really cared about me and I knew that I was never going to do that again and that God had spare my life. I was three or four years old and I really do still remember running out the door calling to my dad I can still see his car on the other side of the street in my mind right now. Well after that incident my parents would make my older brothers and sisters watch me better and take care of me. My brothers had a lot of friends and they were very popular on Jefferson Ave and I know that they would get mad at me because they couldn’t play with their friends like they wanted to because they had to watch and take care of me (I was the baby girl my skin was light I was the lightest child my parents had and my brothers and sisters were all darker than I was Carmel colored and I was the youngest child at that time) But my parents wouldn’t have it any other way they had to watch me while she went to work. Then something happened, my parents didn’t stay there on Jefferson Ave, very long after I got hit by the car, I guess my parent must have lost the house and we all had to move into an apartment about three blocks down the road on the next street. We moved to Cass Ave., in a downstairs apartment just think how my parent must of felt having own a two apartment house and renting to other people and losing the house to move and have to pay rent in an apartment themselves. Well it happened, but that’s how life is and the way things go sometimes. It wasn’t all that bad though because my parents were not on the streets and we kids were not taken away from them and put into the system.

At that time I don’t believe that my two younger brothers were born yet. I was the baby girl and I was potty trained and that helped a little. Now when we moved from Jefferson Ave. to Cass Street into an apartment my older sister and I had to share a room together. My sister was almost eight years older than I was and I remember my mom always making us pray before we went to bed. I remember the prayer she had taught us it goes like this: Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep and if I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take. I am so glad that my mom taught both me and my sister that prayer and she would make us pray it every night before we went to bed. But one night tragedy happen in our loving household my brothers were playing in the kitchen and broke the back door window and my dad could not afford to have the window fixed right away so he put cardboard on the back door window. This didn’t stop the intruder from breaking in the house and kidnapping me. The intruder broke in the apartment and kidnapped me and took me out in the alley and put me on a telephone pole and started molesting me I can’t tell you what the intruder did to me but it was very insolent the thing that he made me do, was retarded. He did not have sex with me but he tried and that’s, when I kicked him as hard as I could right between his legs and he jump off me and I got up and ran back into the apartment the backdoor was still open and I ran in screaming and calling my mom; and I told my parents what had happened to me, my mom was pregnant and my dad got up out of the bed and got his shotgun and went outside, but the intruder was gone. I was lucky that time too because about a week later a young girl probably a few years older than I was that lived just on the next street was found dead and no one knew who had killed the little girl it was sad that had happened really sad. My family was in shock and we prayed for this family and comfort them in their loss this was so close and nearby because we knew these people as friends and as classmates. It is funny how things worked out I still don’t understand why my sister didn’t wake up when the intruder that child molester had kidnapped me out of the same bed.

I don’t know, she was probably sleeping hard and didn’t hear or feel me leaving the bed. My dad called the police and the police checked my neck and body and asked me if I felt alright and if I wanted to go to the hospital and my parents said no. Then the police asked me if I saw the person who attacked me and I said no I don’t remember how his face looked it was dark outside. Then the police left and we heard nothing else from the intruder he was never caught. A few months later my mom had her baby a little brother. Then my parents found another apartment and we moved from that apartment into another apartment about 5 miles away from Cass Street, onto Prospect Ave. It was a smaller apartment my parents didn’t really like this apartment because it was in an apartment building with a lot of other families and too much noise but at that time it was all they could afford even though my parents were quiet people and loved their privacy they put up with it. I remember one day my dad was off to work he had a big dump truck and he would haul trash and do odd jobs in his spare time.

One evening my dad was getting ready to go to work and my brothers and I had planned to get on the back of my dad’s truck and when he got half way down the street we would jump off. So we did as we had planned and we got on the back of dad’s truck and when he got about half a block down the street we all would jump off the truck then we did it my brothers landed alright on the ground but when I jump off the truck and hit the ground I was knock unconscious and the next thing I can remember was laying in our apartment on the couch and waking up with a big bruise on my face. My dad and mom were so mad at my brothers for pulling a dangerous stunt like that. I was only a little girl and I was always following my brothers and trying to do what they did I didn’t know any better and maybe they didn’t either. My brothers were all older than me I had an older brother that was almost 10 years older than me and two other older brothers’ one was almost 7 years older and the other one was 5 years older and my baby brother who was just a infant. And whenever they ask me to do something I did it (I kind of grew up being a tom boy). Another incident happens to me when we were staying in that apartment complex I met a boy who was my age and his name was Donnie and we fell in love. Donnie and me would play together and do everything together when we were outside. One day Donnie and I were outside playing by a garage and we went on to the side of the garage away from the street where no one could see us and Donnie said to me look I can pea and he took his little we-we out and started to pea on the ground and I was such a follower that I pull down my panties and started to pea too. Just as I was peeing my mother came out looking for me and she found me and Donnie outside peeing by the garage and my mom grab me and slapped me and said girl you don’t do that and she told Donnie to go home and she took me to the bathroom and ran some water in the tub and gave me a bath she was really mad at me, that I was outside playing like that with that boy or Donnie he was my friend.

And another incident happen when we were staying in that apartment building my sister had a man friend my sister was only about 13 years old and she had a man friend who had a car and he would come over to see her. Now one day my sister man friend came over he had a car and he park his car in the drive way and came inside and my sister and him they were inside talking. I went outside and took my leg and put it into the fender of the back end of the car and got my leg caught in the fender and I screamed and screamed until they came out and got my leg out of the fender. I don’t know what I was doing just being a curious kid I guess but thank goodness they got my leg out of that car. Well we didn’t stay on Prospect Ave. very long (I think that, that place was a jinx for me just like all of those other places we stay in) because my parent moved and found another house and invested in it they were buying again and had sign another land contract and we moved out of that apartment building and into; guess what it was located on Cass Street a block away from where I was kidnapped and all most killed.

This neighborhood on Cass Street was different from the neighborhood down the street it was a more well kept up neighborhood with a lot of well organizes families, it had a neighborhood watch and everybody was watching out for each other. Families were thriving for achievement, equality and freedom. There were Mexican’s and Puerto Rican’s, and Indian’s and a lot of black’s or African American families living on this side of Cass Street and we all got alone and got to know one another there. There was this one particular group of college students that had open up an empty house a few door down on my side of the street just for the kids in our neighborhood, other kids heard about it on the other streets and would come to the house but, it was open especially for us on this side of Cass Street. This house was called the Friendship House and it had everything in it all kinds of toys and books, coloring books and crayons, pencils and chalk board, it had a kitchen and food like snacks and just everything us kids could ask for… We would get out of school and go there after we had finish our homework. Than we could go jump rope and build mountains out of the leaves that fell from the trees we kids had a lot of fun on Cass Street it was very different from what had happened to me, when we live down the street on Cass no hanky picky there, we were all together.

There was also this church bus that would come and pick up the children and take us to church only with our parents’ permission it was a good street we grow up in expectancy it was a blessed street and it was only the part that we live in. How can I explain what I’m talking about to you little bit better? Let’s say that Cass was from Wealthy Street to Steven Street, from Wealthy street there were 8 blocks to Hall we lived in the 3rd block and that block of Cass was different from every other block in that 8 block radius it was different there, no crime, no break-ins, and the families got alone perfectly except for this one couple that lived next door to us, the couple had got into a fight and she was cursing her husband out and saying all kinds of mean things to her husband but it didn’t happen too often. She called him mother Fuckers and told him to kiss her ass and pulled up her dress pulled down her panty and patted her ass at him and told him to kiss it. That was so funny I laugh but she was serious because he had hit her and she was really angry at him. I can’t remember the couple names but they really put on a scheme that day. The next day they were together and I guess they had made up (lover quarrel). But one thing I can say is that it was organized on that one block and every other block going up and down Cass Ave was different from where I lived. There were even famous people living in that block of Cass Street. Right directly from where our house was a great big apartment building with about 3 apartments in it. There was this one family a mother and her son Mrs. Robinson and her son Junior. Mrs. Robinson was the sweetest and most friendly lady that I knew outside my mother. Mrs. Robinson had a son and he could play the organ and it sounded so good when he played he was a teenager and we kids would stop and listen to him play he could of made it to stardom if he had not of gotten killed one day trying to rob a store. He was a nice person but I guess he needed some money he was unfortunate, I really liked him. And in that same apartment building lived Al Blue just before he got famous he use to sing and Junior would play his organ. I also know of a Doctor, Business Administrator, Nurses, Office Manager, Chef, Supervisors and other important people that lived in that block of Cass Ave. I believe a majority of the residents that lived on Cass Ave accomplish something out of their lives. They made a difference and prove that they could obtain something out of themselves.

I was enrolled in Lafayette Elementary School right down the streets about two blocks away from where we lived. I attended from kindergarten to sixth grade; I graduated sixth grade from Lafayette Elementary School. That was my very first graduation. After graduating from sixth grade I was enrolled at Murtleville High School. I wanted to go to Murtleville High so bad because it was what was happening. Murtleville High had the best Basketball and Football players amongst all the other high schools in town and I was proud to go to Murtleville High. None of my brothers or sister went to Murtleville High as they went to South High school. It was a kind of schools where only the tough people went to. I don’t know why but I just didn’t go until I was fully grown and I enrolled in a night class at South High but I didn’t attend long I drop out. It’s funny I was the only one that went to Murtleville High and all the rest of my brothers and sister went to South High even my younger brothers when they grew up. Any ways I didn’t stay at Murtleville High long just for my seventh grade because the school system had passed a new millage and started to change our course of education because of the riots back in those days. That was when the blacks got tired of being treated like they were unequal and they began to retaliate against the whites.

Chapter 2

Martin Luther King Jr. Riot

I can remember being in the riots back in the late 1960’s when Martin Luther King, Jr. took a stand for Justice and equal rights for the black man and the minorities. One day I was with my brothers and they had gone over to Jefferson Street because a lot of blacks or African American or Negro was gathering together to take a stand for justice and equal rights and because Martin Luther King Jr., had gotten shot. So a lot of the Blacks in the neighborhood started to riot and whenever a white person would ride down the streets we would throw bottles and rocks at their cars and break their windows and drag them out of their cars and beat them real bad because we were tired of the rat race being treated like animals and disrespected when Martin Luther King, Jr. got killed that really hurt a lot of black people not only in our neighborhood but in black neighborhoods all around the nation.

It was terrible many people got hurt and many people got arrested. I can remember standing outside on the side walk with my brothers and a lot of other African American people in our neighborhood on both sides of the streets for about three blocks long there was nothing but African American standing with sticks, bottles, rocks and whatever we could find to throw at a car with a white person in it. When all of a sudden the State trooper came and form a parade with their guns in their hands and we stopped and stood still as we watched the State troopers march down the streets of Jefferson Ave. They (The State Troopers) were shouting disperse, disperse and no one moved we all just stood there watching them march down the street with their guns in their hands then the State Troopers raise up their guns and shot into the air and the tear gas started to get into our eyes and noses and we all broke and ran into any where we could get to and a lot of people got hurt and trample on and got arrested. One of my brothers were arrested that night I just can’t say which one but I know that he went to jail. I ran into a house on the corner and stay in there until it was safe to go out wiping my eyes of the tear gas and then I ran home and waited for my mom to get home from work so that I could tell her my brother had been arrested. The riots didn’t stop they were still going on it they had just been moved to another location on a different street and it was a lot of buildings being burned down and lots of glass and paper and rocks on the streets it was hard for people to drive on those streets for a while until the city made some kind of arrangements or agreements with the peoples issues and concerns. Anyways changes were made in the school system and the city started to bus students into other areas outside their location into the white school areas I guess you can call this from segregation to desegregation. Because at first we had to walk about two miles to school every day now we were being bus I didn’t mind, it beat walking two miles every day to school and a lot of my friends were walking to school with me. I also got to meet new kids at that school that was in my classroom the school was called Ragoon Middle Junior High and what a surprise the Principal was an African American in this typically all white school.

I had a run in with this African American principal Dr. Robert Polk. Now this is what happened; one day in class I pull a plank or a practical joke on my white teacher in my homeroom class, by putting some gum in her chair and she sat on the gum and when she got up she felt something pulling her to the chair and she felt the gum that was sticking to her dress. Then she asked who had done it and threatens to make us stay after school until she found out who did it. Then the kids in class told her it was me so I was sent down to the principal office and he asked me why I did it? And I told him I didn’t know so he made me go outside and pick up all the paper on the school front lawn. I was so mad at him but I was wrong to do what I had done to my homeroom teacher, so I took my punishment like a real one and did it without any complaints.

I apologized to my homeroom teacher and started acting like a student with respect for those that are trying to help me learn and get a good education and began to interact with a lot of classmates and we became friends we would talk and do our homework together and even visit one another after school even my brothers became friends with them because they lived around us in the same area.

Chapter 3

The Draft

At that time the war in Vietnam had began and lots of young men were drafted a lot of my brother’s friends got drafted and I was afraid that my brothers would be drafted too but, I think because my brothers had been arrested and went to jail, or something, they were lucky and somehow was skipped from being drafted. But it was sad when a few of my brother’s friends and my friends were killed in the war in Vietnam and sent home it was a sad time for their families. I guess God had other things for my brothers to do and they were spare from doing duties and time in the U.S. Army I can remember how afraid they were about getting drafted. Finally my family sold the house on Cass Ave. because some realtors were buying the houses in the first three blocks of Cass Ave. The realtors were going to tear down the houses on those streets that we live on and build condominiums.

Chapter 4

Moving

So we packed up and moved. I really loved that house, it was a big house and it was kind of like a mini mansion.

I can remember having all my fun in that house. That house was where I had my first experiences like smoking my first cigarette, learning how to inhale, and blow smoke out of my nose (of course I didn’t let my mother know) at eight years old, and falling in love with one of my