The Day I Met Nano: How to Have a Great Mother-In Law Relationship

By Marian Olivia Heath Griffin

This book is about the relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in -law, who became proxy mother and daughter. They were able to communicate across the miles and became very committed to each other. They became confidants and shared many incidents and situations from child-birth to Lucy’s Legacy. Bert knew that he had a very loving mother and wanted her to nurture his bride. His mother did so.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796070873

Marian Olivia Heath Griffin

Marian Olivia Heath Griffin lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with her husband of fifty-eight years. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor and College Administrator (retired) for thirty-six years, the last seven years as Director of International Student Affairs. After she retired from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she decided to utilize her degree in Mass Communication and Photography to tell her people’s stories and history. Griffin graduated from Delaware State University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology and Psychology, a Master’s Degree program in Atlanta University School of Social Work, a Master’s Degree program at Gammon Theological Seminary of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. She received her Master’s Degree from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in Psychological Counseling and Social Work. She received a Master’s Degree in Educational Supervision and Mass Communication and Photography from Southern University. She did further study at Louisiana State University and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She studied Genealogy at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library in Baton Rouge. She has traveled over the fifty states of the U.S. and six of the seven continents. She has written eighteen books in two years, published them with XLIBRIS and compiled and published two photo books with MYCANVAS BY ALEXANDER. She is proud of her three children: Rev. Bertrand, II (Rev. Kotosha Seals Griffin), Karen G. Phenix, (Keith Phenix) and Dr. Michael (Tracie Haydel Griffin). She adores her eight grandchildren: Nia, Kiara, Christian-Paris, Michael, II. Amelia-Grai, Victoria, Olivia and Sophia – all Griffins and one god-child, Whitney White, one great grandchild – Keomi Phenix, one great- godchild, Amelia Pleasant and her brother, Warren, six great- nieces, Whitney Foucheaux, Amoree Sanders, and Danee Heath, Tikia and Lentia Brown, and great nephews: Bobbie, Jr., Enrique and Alberto Garcia, Tyler Heath, Lauren and Kee Kee Dennis, Arshawon Brown (recently deceased), Willie, Jermaine. Brown, Michael Martin and sons, and Devonte Walker.

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Copyright © 2019 by Marian Olivia Heath Griffin.

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.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible

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

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/07/2019

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CONTENTS

Author’s Notes

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Historical Perspective

Chapter 1 Nano’s Miracle

Chapter 2 Nano Saved the Day

Chapter 3 Nano’s Temperament

Lucy’s Legacy

Lucy’s Features

Chapter 4 Nano’s Baby

Chapter 5 The Dredges of Slavery

Mama Nan Born a Slave

The Mason-Dixon Line

Chapter 6 Cousin Irma and Others

Chapter 7 Bert Meets his Cousins

Chapter 8 The Gumbo Pot

Chapter 9 The Blessing

Chapter 10 Families Connecting

Conclusion

Bibliography

Reference Books

Selected Resource Material

DEDICATION

T his book is dedicated to all of the ancestors and descendants of Nano, Mama Nan and Cousin Irma. They include the Gillespies, Sanders, Griffins, Carters, Clarks, Kimble and in-law families: Cloutier, Jones, Hudson, Kimble, Berry, Lee, Howard, Jacque, Toussan, Cross, Holt, Manual, Placide, Harris, Merrick, Heath, Cooks, Newman, Jenkins, Stewart, Hamilton, Washington, Johnson, Emanuel, Taylor, Jacquet, Fields, White, Howlett, Lazaro, Bradley, Betts, Coleman, Robinson, Woods, Ellis, Sample, Hector, Lawrence, Golden, Pullman, Antoine, Abban, Narcisse, Jackson, Brown, Piga, Villanueva, Hunter, Hutchison, Seals, Phenix, Haydel from whence they came – our grandchildren and great grandchildren and beyond, on whom the mantle will fall to continue the legacy of their ancestors.

UNCONDITIONALLY LOVED!

AUTHOR’S NOTES

I met Nano when she was around sixty- three years old. I was twenty -three years old. I had just married her youngest son, Bert, two months earlier in Atlanta, Georgia. Nano and her other family members did not attend the wedding. Bert notified them three days before the wedding and they were not able to come at such short notice.

When I entered Nano’s home in Alexandria, Louisiana, I met Bert’s great aunt, Mama Nan, and his elderly cousin, Cousin Irma, along with Nano. All three of my husband’s favorite relatives were sitting in the living room of this spacious home in Avoyelles Parish in Louisiana. He had grown up with these three ladies and they loved him dearly. It was obvious that Nano was committed to her family and nourished them with her kinetic energy. There was a PRESENCE in this home that I could only feel. Somehow, I felt like I had been here before. I guess that is Deja vu.

According to African oral tradition, Every birth is the rebirth of an ancestor. (Danielle Follmi, ORIGINS: AFRICAN WISDON FOR EVERY DAY.

Long before birth, the child as a pre-existing soul, is watched over by a whole line of ancestors down to and including the placenta and the primadian mother that begins to fashion him. (Alassane Ndawe, Follmi.)

Nano’s home was well appointed, beautifully decorated with antiques everywhere.

Bert was from a rich African American middle class extended family, I thought.

Bert had told me that his mother insisted that he and his siblings go to school for as long as they could and get their college degrees. Nano went back to school to Straight College in New Orleans to get her Bachelor’s degree in education. She had taught school earlier when her children were little. (In earlier times, high school graduates could teach younger children.)

Looking back, many blacks, except for a few exceptions were not able or allowed to learn how to read or write. They had only oral tradition and oral history to chronicle their lives. Oral memoirs may help us understand why people acted and did what they did.

Many individual’s stories will not be told. That is because they do not have a story teller to record and tell their history.

When we look at the intertwining structure of the many branches of black families, we envision a new world order. With a new Black president – President Barack Obama- we still experience complexities, yet, Blacks are optimistic and hopeful for a better life. They live their lives through others.

Ellis Cose, expresses in THE END OF ANGER, American generations see the increase of maturity in whites, whose attitudes have changed through the years, and has freed a rising generation of African Americans and other people of color to aspire to a future their parents and grandparents could only dream about."

Today, October 27, 2019, as I write these notes, I am watching a state funeral of Elijah Cummings on TV. He, an elderly 77 year old black man, has been a House Representative for many years. He told the story one day about his father being in the audience when he took his oath of office for the first time on the Congress floor.

His father, a ‘share cropper’ from Baltimore, Maryland looked at his son’s raised right hand and said, That could be my hand.

Elijah had finished college and law school at Harvard Law School, a feat his father could only dream of. He had risen to the heights of Representative and chairperson of several committees in Congress. His colleagues trusted him. Yet, Elijah had remained humble and kind to his constituents and colleagues alike. He was dearly loved by members on both sides of the aisle. He laid in state at the Capital and had a State service. He was eulogized and given the honor of lying in state in the same manner as Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States of America.

Elijah wrote his own funeral and Congress granted his every wish. Thousands of constituents paid tribute to him those two days that he lay in state. It