Surviving Lions: A Story of Tests in Resilience

By Jamaica Wynn

Surviving Lions is an emotional tale that centers on Elena Mae, a feisty mulatto who grows up in Savannah, Georgia, the second of six children crammed into a small home during the Jim Crow era.

Elena Mae is named after her mother, a southern beauty from a proud, hardworking family of tenant farmers in a rural Georgian town. She is the apple of her father’s eye, an Army vet and doggedly devoted family man, who was abandoned at birth. Her fiery, temperamental personality complicates her relationships with her siblings who love her but don’t understand her. Soon, her rebellious antics stretch the boundaries of her parents’ patience, straining her relationship with her mother and drawing her father closer than ever. Ultimately, she completely rejects her parents’ way of life and leaves home by 16. By her early 20’s, Elena Mae makes a huge leap of faith when she emigrates to the bright lights and big city in New York. After freeing herself from the confines of small-town life, she believes her life is on a promising, new trajectory. Elena Mae marries and raises four daughters amid a life in the city ripe with strife, misfortune and disaster. Years later, when she goes home to heal after her husband’s murder, she runs head-on into her last misfortune.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798823019293

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© 2024 Jamaica Wynn. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/21/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1928-6 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1929-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023923763

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.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. 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.

Contents

Forethought

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Mommy’s Story

Chapter 1   Homecoming

Chapter 2   Love & War

Chapter 3   In the Army Now

Chapter 4   Men & Boys

Chapter 5   Born on the Fourth of July

Chapter 6   You Can’t Choose Your Family

Chapter 7   Two Springs

Chapter 8   The Heif’a

Chapter 9   Space to Think

Chapter 10  Growing Pains

Chapter 11  New Awakenings

Chapter 12  Mars

Chapter 13  First Love

Chapter 14  Ella Marie

Chapter 15  I’ll Be Back

Chapter 16  The Man She Would Marry

Daddy’s Story

Chapter 17  Marshall

Chapter 18  The True Love of Her Life

Chapter 19  Her Secret

Chapter 20  An Inside Job

Chapter 21  Every Road Has Its End

Chapter 22  Mary’s Plan

Chapter 23  Fear of the Unknown

Chapter 24  She Dash Weh Belly

Chapter 25  At the End of a Long Tunnel

Chapter 26  Devastated

Their Story

Chapter 27  Love Struck

Chapter 28  Love & Marriage

Chapter 29  The Son

Chapter 30  Her Last Chance

Chapter 31  A Monkey’s Uncle

Chapter 32  A Dark Thought

Chapter 33  Her Last Year

Chapter 34  A Bad Feeling

Chapter 35  Dangerous Liaison

Chapter 36  Cleanup and Rescue

Chapter 37  Notice

Chapter 38  He Restores My Soul

Chapter 39  The Other Sister

Chapter 40  The Awakening

Chapter 41  The World Through New Eyes

Chapter 42  The Invaders

Chapter 43  Recovery

Chapter 44  Close Call

Chapter 45  Going Forward

Chapter 46  The Art of a Good Education

Chapter 47  Unforgiveable

Chapter 48  Head Start

Chapter 49  The Second Horse

Chapter 50  The Silver Train

Chapter 51  A Good Day

Chapter 52  Physical Battles

Chapter 53  Her Greatest Heartache

Chapter 54  Famous Last Words

Chapter 55  Forever

The Twins’ Story

Chapter 56  Bait & Switch

Chapter 57  Lost Causes

Chapter 58  Twin City, USA

Chapter 59  Faith

Chapter 60  Managing Different

Chapter 61  The Model

Chapter 62  There’s No Place Like Home

Chapter 63  Savannah

Chapter 64  West Broad Church School

Chapter 65  Beauty and the Brain

Chapter 66  New Beginnings

Chapter 67  A Simple Surgery

Chapter 68  Gym Class

Chapter 69  Good Company

Chapter 70  The Dream

Chapter 71  A Bloody Warning

Chapter 72  The Morning Before

Chapter 73  Gunshot

Chapter 74  The Last Burned Bridge

Chapter 75  The Second Death

Chapter 76  The Investigation Begins

Chapter 77  The Wheels of Justice

Chapter 78  Smith and Clark

Chapter 79  The Chair

Chapter 80  Wolves at the Front Door

Chapter 81  An Altered Reality

Chapter 82  To Know Terror

Chapter 83  The People versus Louis James

Chapter 84  Queen Bee

Chapter 85  The Funeral

Chapter 86  The Hearing Before The Trial

Chapter 87  The Big Surprise

Chapter 88  Don’t Touch Anything

Forethought

Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up.

It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning, a Lion wakes up.

It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or he will starve to death.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle…

when the sun comes up, you’d better be running."

African Proverb

@AfricanProverbPage

Acknowledgements

For my granddaughter, Buttercup, who is always the brightest light in my life and any room. Thank you for believing I can still do this.

To my son, Jag, my best friend and the straight shooter of the family. Thanks for keeping me grounded when my rose-colored glasses threaten to take me away.

Last but certainly not least, Thank You, God, for life, health and strength, and the gift and ability to transfer the stories I see in my head onto a blank page to share with the world.

Prologue

Total Recall

Fall, 2005

Savannah, GA

…So, would you please ask him why he didn’t help her?

Say what, hun?

Could you ask him why? Why didn’t he sit her up like she asked?

…uh, well, hun…uhhhh. Hold on for a minute, sugarplum. Uh. Ok. He’s right here and he heard you. He’s saying that when he first come up, he thought he was rollin’ up on a car accident. Her car was smashed against the fence and still runnin’. As far as he knew he wasn’t s’pposed to touch ’em…accident victims.

Well, how did he figure out that she wasn’t? Did he ever go over to her?

Uh-huh…Ok. Hun, he’s telling me he didn’t know she was gunshot until he looked in there at her. It was his first day on the job and back in those days, well, he didn’t know any better. He thought it was protocol to do it like that…

But I mean if she kept calling him and asking him…?

…uh, yeah, hun. He’s saying that he does remember that she just wouldn’t stop talkin’…She just talked and talked the whole time, uh, just wouldn’t shut up…but, uh, no, he didn’t touch her or nothin’. He left her right where she was for the medics.

…

Responding to the whispered gasp on the other end of the line, the secretary asked, Hun? Y’ there?

Summer choked back a burgeoning crying jag, blinked past the falling tears, and forced herself to focus. Clearing her throat, she continued her ‘interview’ of the man who found her dying mother on the side of the road more than thirty years before. Calming her breathing and shutting off her rage, Summer put on her sweetest voice for the woman who was speaking to her via speaker phone. The woman with the Savannah twang was a secretary that worked at the Savannah Police Station. One of their officers had discovered Summer’s mother in her wrecked car along Louisville Road. Mere minutes before the officer happened by on his way to work, a killer had slinked away into the darkened icy cold, dawn.

…Uh, yeah. I’m here. Hey, listen, ask him what kind of things did she--what was she saying?

Even though her voice was muffled because she was covering the mouthpiece of the phone, Summer could still hear the secretary when she asked the former patrolman her question. Uh, R.P., she wants to know what was the lady saying?... There was some rustling of the phone cord and then, the secretary came back on the line and said, He says that she kept saying, Please help me, sir. Please sit me up. Just over and over again. She just wouldn’t be quiet, he’s telling me."

… Again, Summer muffled an incredulous gasp. Ok. Does he remember anything else that she said while he waited for the ambulance?

’member anything else, R.P.? the secretary asked off the line. Returning to the call, she said, He’s telling me that it was a real long, long time ago and he don’t remember that much about it. Other than what he told you already. Summer could hear a man speaking in the background. The secretary cleared her throat when she returned to the line.

Uh, yeah. He said that two weeks after that happened, he was transferred to Albany. You know what, hon? J.P. just transferred back here just a few weeks ago ’cause he wanted to retire in Savannah where he started. He remembered your mama ’cause that was his first case as a lawman. Good thing you called today, hon. It’s J.P.’s last day as a police officer, she said and laughed dryly.

Well, thank you—Tell him I said thank you for calling for help for my mother, and congratulations on his retirement, Summer managed.

Will do. Now, you take care, the secretary said and hung up.

MOMMY’S STORY

1922 - 1969

Chapter 1

Homecoming

March 8, 1922

429 Bull Street, rear residence

It was Thursday. First thing that morning, 21-year-old Elena ‘Ruth’ Morgan woke up with a gasp. She knew she had to move quickly.

She grimaced in pain as her mid-section cramped heavily. It was time.

As usual, nearly 2-year-old Pearl laid snuggly on Ruth’s chest in the bed the family shared. Straining past the growing agony, Ruth gently eased her daughter out of her arms. Swallowing a shriek as her stomach shifted and another wave of pain hit, Ruth elbowed her sleeping husband, Robbie, awake and pointed at her belly. She gulped in pain as an especially brutal contraction engulfed her. Ruth caught her breath as the intense pain began to subside. Through gritted teeth, she used her husband’s special pet name to ensure she had his full attention as she spoke.

Rye, go tell Moe ’cross the way dere we gon’ need his car today an’— Ruth stopped to gasp air and whine noisily for a few seconds. As soon as she could, Ruth added, an’ tell ’im you ain’ gon’ be goin’ in ta’ work dis mornin’, she managed. Moe, their neighbor of many years, went way back with the young couple. The two men had met when they were laborers down on the waterfront at Savannah’s Southern Cotton & Oil Company near North Lathrop Avenue.

Ruth’s 27-year-old husband of 4 years, Robbie Morgan got up straightaway. The cocoa, brown-colored Army vet threw on a white undershirt over his bare chest, a pair of trousers and sockless shoes faster than any other time he could remember.

He soared out the door of his humble abode, a rear-entrance rental home on Bull Street, bumping into almost everything in his path, including the wall and the door frame, on his way out. Under the early dawn light, Robbie hurried to a house on the other side of the street. He came back minutes later, breathless, grasping a set of car keys, and met his wife and little one at the door. She’d put a couple of things into a small bag and woke up Pearl, who was hanging from her right shoulder sleepily.

In his absence, Ruth spruced herself up to make the trip to the hospital. She’d jumped into a dress, quickly applied some face powder to her pain-flushed cheeks and smoothed on a little of her signature red lipstick. While continuing to endure frequent contractions, Ruth tucked her long black hair under a neatly tied, colorful scarf. Robbie gingerly tucked his small family into his friend’s black 1920 Talbot—with its huge, white-walled wheels on the front side and bouncy, leather seats, and musical horn—he’d borrowed to drive to the hospital.

But first, he had to make one stop on the way.

Robbie drove to the Five ’n Dime on the corner of Bull Street. He went around back to use the pay phone there to place a quick collect call to Ruth’s oldest sister, Nettie. Nettie was a carbon copy of Ruth and twelve years her senior. The main features that contrasted between their looks were Nettie’s light-colored hair and eyes. The two were the closest of all the sisters; they were best friends. Robbie knew Ruth wanted Nettie to be the first to know the baby was coming. But Nettie didn’t have a home phone. Luckily, she worked days in town at Williams Grocer’s, a small food store that also had a switchboard set up in back. Most of the day, Nettie served bowls of stew to customers at the front counter while the merchant’s wife rang up groceries at the register. At other times, Nettie stocked shelves and helped with the telephone lines. Most of the time when Ruth needed to reach Nettie, she could just ring her at the store.

Now, Robbie needed to let his sister-in-law know the baby was coming.

He approached the battered, wood framed telephone booth on the sidewalk. On the roof, a sloppily written sign that read, Negro Phone. The metal telephone box looked to be in disrepair and the line was always staticky, but Robbie was sure it still worked. He’d used it many times before. Just to be sure, he lifted the receiver to his ear. When he heard the dull dial tone, he dug out one of the two dimes occupying a side pocket of his overalls. He plunked the dime into the coin slot and waited for the operator to come on. As Robbie waited for a live voice to come on the line, he glanced at the passenger side of the car and bristled. Ruth was grimacing in pain.

After delivering his message to Nettie, Robbie took the short drive to the back entrance of the hospital on Reynolds Road. The sign above the door they entered was the same as the one over the phone.

In the tiny Georgian town of Garden Valley, where they all grew up, five minutes after five o’clock that evening, Nettie stood near the doorway of Williams Grocer. Finally, her husband, Toisie drove up to the curb in their sky-blue pick-up truck. He stopped just ahead of a small cloud of thin, black smoke it always emoted after more than a half hour of operation. Shirtless under his overalls, Toisie hacked out a congested cough out the driver side window and put a cigarette between his fingers. Their 11-year-old son, Junior, sweated heavily under the heat of the dying sunlight pouring over him in the bed of the truck and chewing on a stick of hay.

Hey, dere, Nettie said to Junior before hopping into the front seat.

Hey, dere, Ma, Junior called back. Fanning the smoke still whisking by as she settled on the seat, Nettie blurted out, Robbie called the store. I gotta get to my sister’s, Tee. Ruthie’s having the baby today!

Uh-huh, Toisie said as he drove away from the curb and onto the dirt road.

I hooked me up a call to Reesie ’fore I left, tellin’ her we’s comin’ to get her ’fore we go into de city to see Ruthie, she said happily.

Turning onto the two-lane road toward Nettie’s sister, Reesie’s hog farm, Toisie nodded.

Me and de boy gon’ come back her’n ’til you wanna get back, he said lighting his cigarette over the steering wheel and taking a deep drag. Me an’ de boy gotta finish clearing d’ose fields ’fore the weekend. Lor’ knows, ain’ nobody else gon’ do it.

Ok, Nettie said, feeling excited that she would soon be seeing the newest little one. Me an’ Reesie can handle it.

Reesie, the middle sister of the Daniels clan, stood just over five feet tall. Everyone who’d ever met her agreed she seemed to be ten feet tall because of her feisty, fearless personality. Her sunbaked, ruddy skin, deep set dark eyes and long, black hair she kept tied in two silky braids that swept the ground behind her feet strongly showed off her mother’s Native American roots. Although just 29, Reesie had always been a very old soul with an appearance that matched. Youth never clung to her, even as a child. She wore a constantly serious facial expression and took over any room she walked into. Reesie talked in a smoky, low voice that helped her take charge of everything in her wake. She married late—a matron in her mid-twenties at the time—to a man 6 years her junior named Solomon Terrell, a man dark colored, stout, and short in stature, and as rough as a bear in every respect. He was the perfect match for Reesie, who smoked a pipe, and kept a long-handled rifle in her arms as she rocked the day away on her front porch.

Their place in Reynolds, Georgia, a modest farm hidden behind a wall of pecan trees and crop fields that surrounded them.

Solomon and Reecie started their day around 4 a.m. Well before the sun rose, the two went to work. Solomon shucked on some overalls and a pair of work boots and went out to feed the stock and other animals. Meanwhile, Reecie would throw some of the wood into the belly of the stove and fire it up for breakfast. They’d make big breakfasts of fish, eggs, grits, and bacon. They’d routinely get their fish from a big pond near the property. They’d go to bursting Flint River to bring home frogs and catfish, and wade into the frothy swamps in the area to hunt alligator to put on the table in the evenings. In fact, one favorite supper for the Terrells was fried gator tail. Reecie’s 6-year-old Johnny and 4-year-old Orelia had regular chores that included getting the vegetables, most often, okra—and other vegetables they grew in the yard on one side of the house—picked in time for dinnertime. Even at their young ages, they were consummate veterans, holding their potato sacks and wearing their sun hats, as they worked their way through the rows. They’d been introduced to the harshness of the crop field as soon as they could walk. Rarely did they complain about how painful it was plucking the plants, as prickly as fiberglass, could be on their little hands.

The entire family loved animals and had many pets, including a huge, black bull with one chipped horn they let roam free in the front yard. Visitors learned not to wear red around it because if you did, the bull would chase you.

When Toisie and Nettie drove onto the front yard at Reesie’s, she quickly piled her children onto the bed of Toisie’s truck and settled into the front seat for the familiar jaunt up GA-16 to Savannah.

Meanwhile in a crowded Savannah hospital room, Ruth strained through the pain and agony of giving birth to her second child. Other women were in various stages of labor, some crunching on ice chips from a plastic cup, another wailing and yet another was curled into a ball withstanding an especially painful contraction. None of the women in the hospital room had their spouses with them at their bedside. All the expectant husbands had been relegated to a waiting room not far away where they awaited notification that their newborn had arrived. Most took frequent smoke breaks in the parking lot, others paced the cement squares loose inside and a few tried to sleep in the straight back chairs, until that time. Instead, a couple of nurses and a doctor circulated the room, spending differing amounts of time with their suffering patients. As time passed, Ruth hadn’t a moment’s comfort. She realized this birth would be much more fitful than her first. Miserable, she clenched a hand tightly around a wrought iron bedpost above her head. All the while, Ruth cursed Robbie under her breath, solidly swearing she’d never have another child if she had to go through this. Her other hand squeezed a wad of the bedsheets pulled around her. Bright crimson bathed her fair complexion. Sweat plastered her soot-black hair on her head. The silkiness of it shiny, slicked flat and drenched from the effort of a new life squeezing out of her.

The windows in the medicinal room were pushed open, letting a crisp breeze through just when it would have gotten unbearably stuffy inside. The immediate view was the sight of a solid brick wall, dull and chipped from time. Somehow, fresh spring air sifted through, cooling off the unairconditioned room.

The morning light melted into noon and the noon shadows poured into the evening sunset.

Fifteen hours after Ruth awakened to the first hints of labor, she was still trying to bring forth her second child. Just after dark, the doctor informed Ruth the child was stalled midway down the birth canal, so she worked harder. Her own mother had given birth to ten babies, having lost two. One arrived stillborn and her oldest child, Eva, simply didn’t wake up one morning not long before her second birthday. With those things coursing through her mind, Ruth blew a sigh of relief when the baby’s head of jet-black curls was finally crowned. Although, the tiny one easing out of her body like molasses still refused to make her entrance into the world.

What is you waitin’ on, chil’? Ruth murmured in her spirit to her unborn child, doing the impossible task of screwing up the needed patience as pain racked her body.

Ruth bravely labored to bring forth the burgeoning new life inside her until ten minutes past midnight when her baby was finally born.

It was a girl she wanted to name Elethra.

Robbie soared into the room accompanied by a petite, dark brown skinned nurse with huge brown eyes. Ruth was pale, sweaty, and glowing when he walked up. He kissed the heads of his wife and new daughter before sitting down in the tin and dented bedside chair. The new baby squirmed, kicked her feet out of the blanket.

Ah, dere she is. Our brand-new baby girl!

"Meet Elethra," Elena said with resolute pride. Robbie laughed softly.

Huh? she asked curiously.

Nah. Uh-uh. Dis here beautiful thang is gonna be called Elena, too. She gotta be, Robbie said, leaning over his wife to gently kiss his daughter’s nose.

Sighing, Ruth frowned. ’cept don’t nobody call me Elena. All y’all calls me Ruth or Ruthie, ’member? Robbie clicked his teeth.

"Den won’t nobody get confused. Oh, yeah, I got it now. Dat’s it. She gon’ be Elena Mae," Robbie said with a broad smile.

Sucking her teeth, Ruth said, Her’n, in a voice laced with mostly feigned annoyance. Take dis young’un. I’m already sick of her, she said playfully. Robbie filled the room with the joy of his hearty laugh, slapping his knee lightly.

The nurse chuckled as she scooped the baby from Ruth’s arms and laid the bundle in Robbie’s embrace. Ruth relaxed on the pillow behind her.

Rye, where Pearl? You take her where I tol’ ya, right?

Uh-oh, Robbie teased as he settled his daughter into his arms. She done caused you a li’l bit too much’a trouble already, huh, Mrs. Morgan? Ruth shook her head, tried to hide a half grin. Sighing satisfactorily, Robbie gazed for the first time into her lively brown eyes and grinned. After a moment he remembered his wife’s question.

Uh, yeah ma’am. She wit’ Ann ’cross de street, Robbie answered, meaning he’d taken their oldest daughter to his friend Moe’s house until they came back from the hospital. Turning their attention back to their baby, both chuckled as they watched her.

She al’ight. She ok. Jus’ hold onto her for a minute, Ruth said signally to the nurse to lower the head of her bed some.

Uh, Mister...Morgan. Yes, good to meet you. Dr. Stevens, the physician said to Robbie, nodding at him. Seven pounds. Very good weight, said the doctor as he clamped shut the hardback medical file he held in hand. Smiling, he attached the medical file to a metal hook at the foot of the hospital bed. Congratulations. You have a good, fine baby, he said. "Good. Fine baby girl," the nurse chimed in, looking at the happily grinning couple and their fair sized little one bundled in the white blanket.

"I guess I’ll see you, the doctor said, turning his attention to Ruth, at my office in about six weeks."

Yes, sur, Ruth replied weakly. She moved her legs under the stiff covers, felt just how much the birth had taken out of her. The doctor moved on with a curt wave and the nurse was close behind.

Later, a flurry of nurses entered the room, placed the babies in their cribs and rolled them out so they could sleep in the nursery. The head nurse walked in and looked around. She consulted the watch on her arm for a second, then noisily flipped the switch up and down on the wall to flash the lights.

All right, y’all. Congratulations to all our new parents. Now. Visitin’ hours is over, she announced in a thick, Savannahian accent. Dese gals done been through a lot today. Time for all of you new pappies to go’n home. Dey needs dey rest, she added and left the room. Just before Robbie walked out into the hallway, he turned and winked at his wife. Looks like we got us duh second comin’ on our hands. Yes, ma’am, we do, he said with a warm smile.

Say what? Ruth asked through a chuckle, settling under the covers.

"Did ya look at her?! Dat girl dere is the second you, Ruth, Robbie said grinning. She, right dere, gon’ be ’nother you. Now, you watch and see, he said as Ruth cackled. Her face had ceased looking unwell and had taken on the glow of motherhood as she laid against the pillows.

Rye, you crazy, she said as he stepped out into the hallway with the other spouses. But secretly, the compliment pleased Ruth and she smiled widely as soon as she was alone in the room. You sure is.

On the morning of the 10th, the Morgans were ready to take their new baby home. At the back entrance of Candler Hospital, a porter with dark brown skin and a crew cut dressed in a starched white uniform, pushed Ruth outside. Robbie stood next to the open car door holding their tiny, brand-new baby girl in his arms. The porter helped Robbie’s beaming wife into the front seat where 18-month-old Pearl sat quietly sucking her thumb. As the porter dragged the wheelchair back inside, he quipped over his shoulder, Y’all be good, and closed the door behind him. Robbie settled behind the wheel of his friend, Moe’s car, and pointed it in the direction of home.

‘Home’ in this instance meant Ruth’s childhood residence, which was better than three hours away. It meant taking on nearly two hundred miles going west on a rugged road to the sleepy rural town called Garden Valley. The Valley, as the family called it, consisted of a total of just 436 feet of rich cropland.

There, Ruth would be in the hands of her mother, Ebony Bonnie Daniels. Bonnie, 56, a dark-haired, dark-eyed, buxom woman, who was well known as an excellent cook. Bonnie also enjoyed an exceptional reputation as a well-respected and long-seasoned midwife within her family and the community. She had offered her services to all her daughters as they became wives and mothers. It had been her intention long before she ever pushed out a young one of her own, to bring forth her own family members. Ebony’s husband was a strongly built, 62-year-old farm owner named William. He was called Red Bill because of his light, reddish colored skin. Red Bill was first penned with the nickname during the Civil War when he was a three-year-old junior potato peeler on the slave house staff. Many years later at the age of 24, Red Bill became 18-year-old Bonnie’s faithful partner in life from the moment they’d jumped over that wicker broomstick tied with a white ribbon together way back in 1884.

Twenty-seven years later, the couple’s oldest daughter, Nettie, and her husband, Toisie Lee, made a midnight ride down the winding country road to give the elder Daniels their first grandchild. Nettie was proud to be the first of the Daniels girls to experience the much-revered midwife’s loving care as she delivered her new baby into this world. After that, the other sisters followed suit as their children came forth. Everyone headed home to ‘Mother Bonnie’ to bring forth new life nestled comfortably in the soothing familiarity of the Valley. In the embrace of the many narrowly carved farms strung together by devoted hard work and a fiercely close-knit community. In the atmosphere bearing the Daniels children’s footprints deep into the chalky, brown dirt of the fertile land.

But Bonnie’s daughter, Ruth, always had a mind of her own.

It was not a shock to Bonnie when her boldest child decided to do things differently than the rest of her brood. After all, it had been a little less than 2 years since Bonnie helped to deliver her last grandchild, a girl they named Orelia born of Bonnie’s next eldest daughter, Reesie. But Ruth didn’t feel she could trust she would have 3 hours to risk in a car riding down a dark, country road lined with hidden patrol cars with White patrolmen looming in the long-grass brush. The last thing she wanted was to have her baby in the backseat of a car or parked on the side of the road. Or worse, she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t lose her little one because they were too far away from a hospital or family member while driving around in the middle of nowhere. She wouldn’t risk any of it.

So, Ruth started her own tradition. Beginning with the birth of her first child in the winter of 1920.

When Ruth gave birth the first time, it was a few weeks before Thanksgiving. She was at home doing laundry when her water broke, and she sent a neighbor to get Robbie from work. With this being her first baby, Ruth thought she had plenty of time. Robbie was back home soon enough to drive his wife to Candler well before it was time for her little one to come. In those waning hours when she was waiting for Robbie to get home and for her baby to be delivered, Ruth vacillated about her decision not to rush home to let her mother deliver her child. In the end, Ruth rationalized her mind was at ease by being tucked into bed at a hospital full of people who would make sure she was out of pain as soon as possible. Everyone knew: Ruth and pain were morbid enemies. In the end, she’d put up with 14 hours of labor before they’d put Baby Pearl in her arms.

A day and a half after Baby Pearl came into the world, Ruth and Robbie piled into Moe’s automobile, and headed down to the Valley—home to Mother Bonnie. As Ruth held their tiny newborn in her arms, Robbie drove at a safe, cruising pace that wouldn’t attract the attention of roadside troopers. They sighed a silent breath of relief when they made it. Upon arrival, Ruth found her sisters converged at the patriarchal home from their individual areas of the world and stayed through the end of the week. That Sunday afternoon—directly following a rousing church service where the elder Daniels served as head deacon and deaconess—Robbie was back in the Valley to drive his family back to Savannah.

A year and a half later, Robbie and Ruth planned to follow the same routine.

Only hours into her first full day of life, Baby Elena Mae journeyed out of Savannah in her mother’s arms as they made their way down south to the Daniels family home. They stopped briefly to eat a quick lunch parked securely out of sight in the high grass beyond the tree line. After a diaper change and a potty break for the others, the family continued their uneventful travel on the endless dusty road. It was late afternoon when they rolled into Garden Valley. Interested residents let their unabashed curiosity show as they began to eye the approaching visitors. Those who lived along the Reynolds and Ideal Public Road—later named Garden Valley Road as part of Ideal, Georgia—watched as the dark colored automobile with the Chatham County car tag slowed down and turned off the area’s main road, Highway 127. The driver skillfully made the transition onto the bumpy, rock-filled, and unpaved motorway called Reynolds Road. It was narrow, barely carved and lined with tenant farms on both sides.

All eyes were on the young man who’d glided the car onto the grass in the front yard of Farmhouse Number 59 and shut off the engine. Everyone admired how tender the young man was when collecting his formerly pregnant wife and freshly birthed new baby from the front seat of the vehicle. When Ruth stood up and the sun hit her face, those craning their necks in the vicinity immediately recognized her. They saw that she was the regal and comely daughter Ruth, the Daniels family’s middle child. Robbie put his arm around Ruth who readjusted her little one in her arms as they slowly made their way to the front steps.

When the neighbors saw her, they were delighted because of whose she was. Mother Bonnie, as Ruth’s mother was known, hadn’t only been a midwife, but had also spent the years of her life as a high deacon’s wife, and her most prized role, a seasoned schoolteacher. All of Bonnie’s children had been model students, knowing they didn’t have a choice to be anything less. She ruled her classrooms with an iron fist and her household was even stricter. But the children loved Bonnie immensely because of her big heart. Her notorious bark sometimes made it difficult to believe she harbored a gentle kind spirit when she rendered her formidable bite when it was needed.

Some of the locals outside in the spring sunshine that day had looked on from neighboring porch seats, waved field hats from stopping points in their crop fields, or hollered greetings out of kitchen windows. Laughter and spirited play filled the air. Children scampered around outside on the unpaved road trying to use up the best of the day’s sun. These tots were too small to attend the area’s school that took place in the local church sanctuary. There, Bonnie had devotedly taught children of all ages and the few adults that had appeared in her classroom for years. Born just a year after the Big Freedom Day, Bonnie had followed her mother, Mariah, into the field of teaching. For as long as she could remember, Bonnie had watched intently as many former slaves filled her mother’s makeshift classrooms year after year, starting with the schools established by the Freedman’s Bureau that became available to all ex-slaves at the end of the Civil War. Using all she’d learned from those lean times; Bonnie had eventually taken over classrooms with her own students. All her adult life, she delighted in enlightening their eager minds with reading and writing skills so they could sign their name and read street signs and other scribing that could keep them out of trouble. Bonnie was especially hard on her students about mastering arithmetic because she wanted them to be able to adeptly figure their wages. Just six years before in 1916, at the age of 50, Bonnie deemed herself too old to run a classroom of impish young ones any longer. She had finally tired of battling the sass of the older children and innocent mischief of the younger ones. When the notion hit Bonnie that she was nearing the end of enjoying her career, she’d looked around for a replacement and found it in a bright young lady in her late teens. Bonnie began to train the girl to follow in her footsteps just as her mother had done for her all those years ago. Bonnie felt good when she stepped down. She was confident and satisfied that her students, and the ones to come after them, were in good hands. With a glimmer of sadness in her heart, Bonnie had taken off the hat of classroom teacher she’d worn dutifully since the age of 19.

When that spring had passed, Bonnie was happily regulated to teaching a Sunday School class of adults all about her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

After getting Ruth up the porch steps, she asked Robbie to go back to the car and grab her small bag. Little Pearl tottered around underfoot all the way back to the front door. Red Bill and Bonnie came out of the front door of the modest farmhouse with faces beaming. They greeted the couple and their children with warm welcoming hugs. Playfully shoving past their father were Ruth’s youngest brothers. First onto the wood-based porch was 18-year-old Willie, shorter than the other males in his house and muscular in build with large, black eyes and high yellow skin. Rubbing the shock of the day’s sunlight out of his eyes as he dragged out of the house lazily, was the older of the two, 23-year-old Oliver. Covered in rich, dark brown skin that perfectly matched his eyes, he emerged barefoot with one shoulder of his overalls unhooked. Oliver was slim, and lofty at just over six feet. He greeted his sister with a cautious embrace. After, Oliver shook hands with Robbie as he walked up the steps holding Ruth’s overnight bag. He seemed not to notice the group of preteen girls standing by the curb that giggled at the sight of him. Oliver grabbed Ruth’s bag from Robbie as they all went back to the house. This time, Willie’s wife of just shy of four years, Gwen walked into the room holding hands with their 4-and-a-half-year-old son, Willie Lee, and their 2-year-old son, Aubrey.

As soon as Ruth entered the house, still pale from the taxing business of birth, Bonnie took the tiny pink baby from her. She asked her youngest daughter, Ilene, 14, to start a warm bath in a tub in the rear of the home and lay out some fresh clothes for her daughter. Once Ruth had settled in, Bonnie handed the new baby to Ilene, who cuddled with her for a few moments before passing Baby Elena Mae from one family member’s waiting arms to the next. Brothers Willie and Oliver sat on the floor, rousingly engaged in the card game of pinochle. Ruth’s father, Red Bill took a seat on the porch in a sturdy chair he built with his own hands from a good cord of cedar. Humming to himself, he whittled a small piece of wood, dropping the shavings over the side of the porch as he listened to the beautifully harmonious hub of familial activity commencing inside.

But among the good spirits and joyous times being enjoyed was a thin strand of negativity mixed with the average competitive rivalry among the two Daniels boys. That year, Willie’d taken work at a cotton factory in nearby Oglethorpe, where an epidemic of malaria earlier in the year had killed many of its residents and run off a chunk of the remaining population in the large city—creating numerous job opportunities for the brave ones in surrounding areas in need of steady work. Willie and a few of his friends along Reynolds Road had taken jobs there. He was proud of his independence and, more importantly, liked being a working member of his father’s household.

His older brother, Oliver remained on the family farm as a hand working the fields with his father, as all the Daniels boys had done since the age of 6. But Oliver harbored a secret. He was less than a week away from enlisting in the military where he hoped to go see the world. Even though he was the older of Red Bill’s last two sons, Oliver was privately miffed that Willie had somehow beaten him to the punch.

In early 1918, Willie ran off from his mother’s loving home and joined the Army. He lied to the recruiters at the enlistment office, feigning age 18 when he was only 14 and a half. Standing three inches taller than the required height of 5"6', and with a barrel chest that met the physical requirement of 34 inches across, Willie, who’d first grown in facial hair at age 12, easily made the grade.

Willie had been fawning over the U.S. involvement in the overseas conflict since it first began back in 1914 when Willie was just 10 years old. He could barely wait for his father to finish the newspaper he read cover to cover every morning. It was borrowed from one of their neighbors whose boss man in town allowed them to take the scribed document home in the evenings. That paper was usually shared from farm to farm each day for anyone who wanted a good read until the last person had leafed through the wrinkled black and white pages. The only drawback was that the written war accounts were always a day behind. In the evenings after supper, Willie excitedly sat with his father at the cleared table and warmed himself by the stove fire to listen to a swift-talking narrator lay out all the details of wartime action occurring on foreign land. The daily accounts that took over the air waves were told in great and dramatic detail.

Feeling as though the war would be over before he was old enough to see any of the action with his own eyes spurred Willie into action. He wanted nothing more than to be in uniform and in the thick of things on the battlefield. In February 1918, Willie helped his father and brother collect the spring crops of peppers, tomatoes, squash, snap beans, eggplant, cabbage, and leafy greens on the property and take them into town to sell. At dawn the next day, he packed a bag and headed off on foot down Highway 127. He hitched a ride into Macon and whisked into the recruitment office there. Willie’s leap of faith took him far. The Army had been hurting for enlistees. First, he was off to training at an installation base in Atlanta, and then onto Fort Smith, Arkansas to undergo additional training and conditioning for a few weeks.

While there, Willie met a girl named Gwen Davis. She was a 20-year-old Red Cross volunteer who lived in the nearby city of Sebastian. She attended college classes during the week down in Little Rock. He’d first met her during one of his first passes when he was at Fort Smith and continued his charade as an 18-year-old soldier. They’d met down on the docks where the Saturday night dances were held, events where young women from all walks of life in the surrounding cities attended with the specific goal of securing a military man for a husband. Gwen hung around at the waterfront dances when she got off work after hours of rolling bandages, reading to injured soldiers in the medical tents and running errands for the doctors. After they met, they got together regularly for weekend evening dates, occasions that took place at the pier while fishing, with sandwiches, and fruit—and orange soda drinks from the base’s snack counter that Willie contributed to their meals. Although he was closely guarded about his own life because of the lie he was living under, Willie quickly learned Gwen’s entire life story. He fell head over heels for her as he realized she wasn’t like a lot of the other girls who walked the docks looking for a date. Gwen was a humble, country girl born to parents who’d moved to Arkansas from Tennessee. He loved her good nature and simple talk. Her parents obviously worked hard to fill her with all the dreams they felt they could never realize. When Gwen’s church raised enough money to send her to study education at Philander Smith College, or PSC, in Little Rock, the Davises had tearfully sent off Gwen to live on campus. Every so often, Gwen’s father, Solomon drove his grumpy Model T to Little Rock to transport Gwen home for a short visit and then back to campus. Gwen also managed to get work pressing hair at a small salon to help pay for books and personal items. Her mother, Mary’s youngest sister, Mattie, a nurse, worked at the local clinic for blacks and donated some of her time to training the volunteers who worked for the Red Cross. Mattie got Gwen interested in working at one of the Red Cross locations. She volunteered to drive to Little Rock three afternoons a week to pick up Gwen.

Gwen had spent every available semester taking classes, including summers, to accelerate her tenure in school. By the time Gwen met Willie, she was entering her junior year at PSC.

In late summer Willie received word of his imminent deployment. The night he delivered the news to Gwen, she tearfully informed Willie she was pregnant. They went up to the city of Fayetteville and quietly eloped. Days later, Willie took his new bride to her childhood home in Sebastian to announce their nuptials. After the long evening, they piled into a car of an Army buddy of Willie’s. They took the long drive to Little Rock where Gwen showed up proudly wearing a wedding ring. The two men reported back to the base and Willie awaited his orders just in time for curfew. Within a week, Willie was posted to a front-line Pioneer Infantry Battalion in 92nd Division, a group called the Buffalo Soldiers Division. Willie had been a crack shot with his father’s hunting rifle since the age of six and was athletic as boys come. He served his country with great pride and distinction, learning everything he could from the leaders of his squadron. There were gaping holes in the difference between his fantasized ideas of war and the reality of it, but Willie was determined to stick it out. And so, he held on to the front lines with other young black and brown soldiers beside him, dug down in the muddy trenches and fighting the enemy. All summer and deep into the winter, Willie was shoulder to shoulder with the inescapable presence of death and destruction of the fading war, but also the ultimate examples of camaraderie and unity among his fighting brethren. Willie filled his letters to Gwen with how well he was beginning to get used to the rigors of warfare and the unexpected treatment he experienced as a soldier of color. After the warring adversaries signed the armistice in November, some of the men were beginning to get sent home. However, none of the men posted to the front lines were getting their walking papers, but everyone would eventually, because it was well known that the conflict was all but over.

Elated at the prospect of going home soon, Willie’s resolve was more relaxed. Then, one night, Willie let out his secret one sleepy night during a mindless conversation with a fellow soldier. The fellow private was both impressed and insulted. Others found out, and they passed along the word until it got back to the lieutenant colonel. Probably more because of the looming end of the war than anything else, the Army immediately snatched the boy soldier off the front lines.

The next month, a fellow private delivered Willie the news that Gwen had their baby three days after Christmas that year. She’d named their baby, a boy, after him, Willie. Lee, his middle name, belonged to the deceased brother she’d lost in an accident in childhood.

Willie, the soldier, was devastated.

Just after the New Year, the military deported Willie back to the United States. Once he was back on home soil, Willie languished at his former post in Fort Smith under the disgrace of deception. Despite his poor standing with the military, after cooling his heels for a few weeks at Fort Smith, they had mercy on him. The Army granted Willie a weekend pass which he spent in Sebastian with his wife and month-old son. Not long before she gave birth, Gwen had replaced her Red Cross work with substitute teaching third grade at a public school to gain early experience in the classroom. She’d finished all but two semesters of school and had Baby Willie over the Christmas break. But after Baby Willie was born, Gwen stopped working and didn’t return for her senior semester so she could devote all her time to him. She was over the moon excited when Willie showed up on a surprise visit where he met his newborn son for the first time. Gwen’s father, Solomon felt swept up in the joyousness of the moment. He scraped together just enough money for the Army vet and his family to get a rented room at a motel for the next couple of days on their side of the railroad tracks—in the black section of town. Departing travel time came far too soon on Monday morning for the Daniels family, but Gwen returned to the Davis’s household looking fully rejuvenated and Willie returned to the base at Fort Smith, a newly inspired soldier. He could face anything now.

Bright one morning, a corporal shook Willie awake and shoved discharge papers into his hands along with a bus ticket back to Atlanta. The military had released Private Willie Morgan on his own recognizance on permanent leave from service; he was going home.

Instead, Willie made a beeline for the city of Sebastian, hitch hiking all the way. Once he landed on his in-laws’ doorstep, he peacefully shared a home with them for a year. With the World War over back in November, Willie didn’t need to make up any story about his discharge. No one was the wiser of why he came home, not even his wife. Once he settled into the Davis’s home as a roomer, he sought work. Because of his service, Willie easily found a job at an oil plant close by. Still, Willie longed to go home to the Valley. He felt his time on the battlefield had leap-frogged him into adulthood like nothing else could have, despite still being just 15. He wanted to know what it felt like to look his father in the eyes as an Army veteran. He also yearned to be with his family, and he especially missed his mother’s cooking. And there were his quiet moments when he lamented hurting her by leaving the way he did. His father, he always believed, would understand. Finally, he told the Davises he wanted to take his family home to meet his family. The following week, the young couple was in the back of a Greyhound bus headed to Georgia.

Willie would have felt like a dog skulking back home with his tail between his legs if not for one thing.

Gwen held in her arms their first child.

Still, fear overwhelmed Willie. He still hadn’t revealed his real age to Gwen. Facing his fears on the battlefield, which had been constantly alive with soaring bullets, land mines, and flying explosives, was one thing. Facing his wife was quite another. He wrote a letter home to his parents before leaving Arkansas, telling them about his time in the service and begging them to keep his confidence. Willie didn’t think they would divulge his secret, but he knew they also would not outwardly lie. He worried about his sister and brother, as well as other people that came through the Daniels’ family home, that might not be able to keep tight lips. Willie told himself he would cross that bridge when—or if—he had to. But after they arrived in Garden Valley and settled in, Willie believed he’d worried himself senseless over nothing. He arrived wearing his Army uniform in full regale. Willie looked and acted every bit of the part he was playing. Instead of comments, there were compliments about how brave he’d been and his sharing of wartime stories that enthralled everyone. People had too much respect for his service to his country to cause trouble. But trouble found him anyway.

Two months later, Gwen awoke to find she’d lost their second baby in her sleep barely into her first trimester.

After Gwen joined the Daniels’ family home, she tried to get work in her desired profession of teaching. She quickly discovered the community in that area cherished that role. Bonnie had held the position firmly in hand for 40 years and by the time Gwen came along, the teacher who replaced Bonnie had built strong ties with the area’s children and their parents alike. Reading the writing on the wall, Gwen donned a pair of overalls, rolled up her sleeves, and joined the family in the fields. She had toiled as a farm hand in rural Arkansas from the time she was in high school until she went off to school and to work with the Red Cross after the First World War broke out. The house rule had always been that everyone above age ten worked on the farm, even Willie’s 60-year-old father. Several of Willie’s smaller family members who lived with the Daniels family from time to time never worked in the fields. Their job was to help keep Bonnie’s house clean on the inside.

As a thank you for her daughter-in-law’s graciousness as part of her home, Bonnie gave Gwen a set of her own personal books she’d learned from when she was preparing to teach and some she’d read after she’d been teaching for a while. They were filled with tidbits she could never have gotten in her classroom at the university. They were books about history and geography and science that were perfect for teaching to her students when she finally had the chance. Gwen curled up with one or two of them almost every night.

In a matter of months, things changed. The local teacher at the schoolhouse got married and moved away, opening a spot for Gwen. It was a highly desired opportunity for many people who’d been waiting on the sidelines, in some cases, for years. Bonnie used her influence with the decisionmakers at the church to push Gwen over the line for consideration. Gwen won the position and profusely thanked her new mother-in-law when she got word of the opportunity. Once inside the classroom, Gwen found being around the young ones eased her pain and added to her yearning for the one she lost simultaneously.

In the spring, Gwen was surprised to find she was again pregnant with child. Bonnie was elated because she was sure she’d get to deliver the child at her family’s home in the Valley. But, late in the year, Gwen went home to Sebastian for one last visit with her parents before she had the baby. But, their second son, Aubrey, decided to come a month early and she had him there. Willie and Gwen had another Christmas baby, born on the 19th, that made the holidays a double cause for celebration that year. When the baby was a few weeks old, Willie went to Arkansas to escort his wife back to their home in the Valley. Once again, he met his newest child well after it was born, but again he was captivated. The new baby seemed to propel the couple into the rest of their lives. Willie thought their little one created a bond between them that couldn’t be broken by any one detail. He hoped so anyway.

On the day Willie Green Morgan turned 18, on the 23rd day of March 1922, he went to the local Navy enlistment office. He didn’t know if they’d accept him back again after what happened, but it was his civil duty to register when he turned 18, so he did. Ever since the First World War, the Selective Service Act required that all men aged 18 to 35 voluntarily register with local draft boards. It was also one more thing Willie didn’t volunteer to tell Gwen when he left the house that morning.

Days later, Willie met his sister, Ruth, at his parents’ front door. In her arms lay her newborn, second child; the one she would call Elena Mae.

Chapter 2

Love & War

Friday, April 6, 1917

Savannah, GA

It was 7 a.m.

TGIF, 21-year-old Robbie Morgan thought as he emptied his coffee cup and sunk it into warm dish water in the sink. The smooth sounds of the baritone crooners, the Hampton Quartette, harmonizing on their Top 40 hit, Listen to the Lambs, sprang from the old Victrola spinning in the other room. For over a year, Robbie had been a boarder at the cramped but comfortable home at 314 Walburg Lane in east Savannah.

He glanced at his watch and snapped his fingers crisply.

Robbie hurried upstairs to his room. He had less than an hour to change into his porter uniform and get over to Broughton Street to begin his shift at Brooks Brothers.

Robbie had been in his room for less than five minutes, when Prince Barney, another boarder in the house and a good friend, excitedly banged on the door. Robbie got up to let Prince in when he burst through the door holding a newspaper. With bugged eyes, he handed it to Robbie with bated breath. Robbie opened the paper and gasped. Splashed across the front page like blood was the headline, Wilson Declares War on Germany.

It was the first official announcement confirming President Woodrow Wilson’s dramatic about-face about the war going on overseas. Since the fray had begun, he’d promised Americans would not be getting into that brawl no matter what we heard about it. Now, it was big news that Wilson’s decision for the U.S. to steadfastly remain neutral was bygone.

The Germans had craftily pushed Wilson into fighting by, among other things, snuffing out innocent American lives by launching U-boat attacks in the Atlantic. The cautious U.S. president had finally had enough. The Germans could have their war.

Just a couple of days before, Wilson’d proclaimed to Congress he needed to lead America into the conflict to ‘make the world safe for democracy.’

Although both men were inspired to action, both took different ones. 28-year-old Prince planned to stop by the recruitment office on his way to work in downtown Savannah. He knew part of Prince’s motivation to enlist was that the military was easily steady employment. But Robbie had always been lucky enough to find work when others couldn’t. Besides, it looked like it was a White man’s war about things only important to White men. He couldn’t decide what conflict overseas had to do with his life. He liked to think about keeping his head down and his nose clean. Just surviving in the world with all its traps set for men with black and brown skin was enough for him to focus on. Then, early in the summer, the president made the public call to arms for all men of eligible age, requiring them to sign up for the draft. Starting that day, Black and White men alike made their way to their local recruitment offices to perform their patriotic duty. This time Robbie was among them. He conceded he had no wife, no children and no family members depending on him for anything. He was free to go and fight if, and when, he was called.

On the 5th day of June, Robbie stopped by the 44th Precinct on Center Boulevard and registered for the draft during his lunch hour.

One afternoon two weeks later, Robbie was one of a multitude of Black recruits and enlistees soaring away from Oglethorpe Avenue as loved ones stood on the curb waving goodbye. These men from various sections of Savannah settled onto the Greyhound bus headed several hours on a paved road that led to a specific location in northeast Georgia. They were on their way to bootcamp held at Camp Gordon and would offboard at the U.S. National Army training base in Chamblee, 14 miles outside of Atlanta. At the time, it was the most important epicenter for war-training in Georgia. In fact, it was the training site of the famous Eighty-Second All-American Division. The Army division swept in mostly Georgian men but