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Paternal Grandparents
Martha J. Samuel Hunt Lennon (1869 - 1948)
My paternal grandmother was born in Georgia and became a teacher. This was no everyday feat for her time. Getting an education was a big accomplishment for Black people. We were just out of slavery, after all. The Klan was on the horizon; White Supremacy (the mother of racism) still beat in the bosom of White America, and the American South’s economic shambles (due to the Civil War) screamed for cheap (or free) labor. The threat of bondage (of one kind or another) loomed over the heads of many, if not all, Black people at the time of my grandparents. For a woman to get an education was gigantic achievement. Other factors aside, Black women—women in general didn’t strike out in the world to be independent and be self-supporting… do whatever they wanted, whatever fulfilled them. That time was yet to come. In the mid-1960’s to be exact.
I was told that she was married twice. My uncle Frank, the oldest of her three children, was the child by her first marriage and my father and my uncle Madison were her children by her second marriage. The second marriage was to George Henry Lennon, Sr. in 1906. They stayed married until he died in 1926. Grandmama outlived him by 22 years. But I only knew her for a too-short four.
Grandmama, I remember, was the color of macaroon cookies. I have a couple of pictures of her. One as a young woman, standing with my grandfather. When I look at the young woman picture, I can see a woman with Native American features. With piercing eyes and smooth, flawless skin. She has on no jewelry at all. But she is a beauty, no doubt, stylish with her long hair swept up into a pompadour, wearing a duster coat over a blouse with a high, lace neck. But mostly, I see I can see myself in her. I inherited her mouth, the full lower lip, via Daddy, her son. The other picture is Grandmama as I knew her. As an old woman. She stands, short, fragile-looking, in the yard of her house. She has on a print dress. She holds her hands, clasped together, in front of her. She is wearing glasses. When I look at that picture, I remember that she steadied me, calmed me. And I still feel her love.
Sometimes, I think I remember that my parents and I lived at Grandmama’s house before we moved into the Meet Street house. Her house, like an old-fashioned, Victorian gingerbread home, seemed to be clutching for dear life at the face of a steep hill. The street itself, either Church or Temple Street, was hilly like others in Knoxville, Tennessee. To reach the front door of her house, you had to climb endless, concrete steps that shot upward at what I thought was a vertical angle. I was afraid of those steps and I climbed them carefully, holding my mother’s hand, making sure not to look back and down, else I would surely fall and fall and fall down into the mouth of the earth.
The rooms weren’t big inside her home. And I remember the house being dark. Probably because light fixtures and lamps weren’t strategically placed as a regular part of a home’s floor plans like today. In the dining room, which had a fireplace like the parlor did, there were sparkling lead crystal objects and do-dads that teased my eyes; there was red and pink hand-painted china, and an all-glass china cabinet which Mama and Daddy inherited after Grandmama’s death. The tiny parlor had furniture that was dark cherry or black walnut. And there was a bay window, I remember, which faced the street. I loved that window, in fact, still love bay windows today simply because I associate them with Grandmama. There was no central heating then, so you had fire places in every room or pot-bellied stoves where you built a wood or a coal fire. In Grandmama’s house, the pot-bellied stove was in the kitchen. I remember her stoking the fire, shoving in kindling (wood sticks) and cautioning me to stay well clear of it. A few years ago, when I was awarded a writing fellowship to Hedgebrook Writer’s Residence, I had a pot-bellied stove in my cabin. Learning how to build and keep a fire going was a new, a fascinating experience for me. It reminded me of Grandmama’s house.
Two strong memories of Grandmama stand out in my mind. That I played in her kitchen though she never complained about me being under foot. If I close my eyes, I can see the pot-bellied, black stove in the middle of the floor and I can see, standing against one wall, her old-fashioned, white enamel stove…one that cooked food, not with gas or electricity, but with coal or was it wood? I can see her washing dishes at the sink by the back door. I associate her kitchen—and always will—with the smell of yeast that came from her homemade rolls baking in the oven. The other memory is seeing her at Sunday morning church services. That was when our church was East Vine Methodist Church. She always sat four rows from the front on the right side. I’d ask Mama if I could go sit with her. And having got permission, I’d run down the aisle from the back where Mama and I sat to scoot in and plop myself down next to her. She’d hug me, squeeze me. And I’d be content then. Just to be near her. She made me know I was someone very special and very precious to her. It is a feeling I have never forgotten.
George Henry Lennon, Sr. (1866-1926)
Born a year after the Civil War, my grandfather, Grandmama’s second husband, came into the world in Bladenboro, North Carolina. He was a Methodist minister. This meant that the family moved a lot because Methodist preachers traditionally never stayed very long at one church. I didn’t know my grandfather. He died well before I was born… before my parents’ marriage even.
I don’t know anything about him but there is a picture. It’s the one with Grandmama. They are young and looking straight into the camera’s eye. Neither is smiling, but they aren’t frowning either—rather they look intense and serious. Granddaddy’s is a dark-skinned man, sporting a moustache and wearing a dark, Edwardian style coat over a neat, white shirt and dark bow tie.
He holds his head just slightly titled to the right in posing for the camera… just the same as Daddy did when he posed for a photo… and as I do now. I have to consciously stop myself from doing the tilting thing when I pose for a picture. I always wondered where I got that habit from. Now, I know. I’ve got some of Grandaddy’s features, too. My eyelids, my hairy eye brows, my oval-shaped face, and my African broad nose. Looking at the picture gives me a sense of belonging to a tribe. I have some folks…some peeps!And I wonder what nations, what tribes of Africa birthed him…birthed us.
Paternal Grandparents
Martha J. Samuel Hunt Lennon (1869 - 1948)
My paternal grandmother was born in Georgia and became a teacher. This was no everyday feat for her time. Getting an education was a big accomplishment for Black people. We were just out of slavery, after all. The Klan was on the horizon; White Supremacy (the mother of racism) still beat in the bosom of White America, and the American South’s economic shambles (due to the Civil War) screamed for cheap (or free) labor. The threat of bondage (of one kind or another) loomed over the heads of many, if not all, Black people at the time of my grandparents. For a woman to get an education was gigantic achievement. Other factors aside, Black women—women in general didn’t strike out in the world to be independent and be self-supporting… do whatever they wanted, whatever fulfilled them. That time was yet to come. In the mid-1960’s to be exact.
I was told that she was married twice. My uncle Frank, the oldest of her three children, was the child by her first marriage and my father and my uncle Madison were her children by her second marriage. The second marriage was to George Henry Lennon, Sr. in 1906. They stayed married until he died in 1926. Grandmama outlived him by 22 years. But I only knew her for a too-short four.
Grandmama, I remember, was the color of macaroon cookies. I have a couple of pictures of her. One as a young woman, standing with my grandfather. When I look at the young woman picture, I can see a woman with Native American features. With piercing eyes and smooth, flawless skin. She has on no jewelry at all. But she is a beauty, no doubt, stylish with her long hair swept up into a pompadour, wearing a duster coat over a blouse with a high, lace neck. But mostly, I see I can see myself in her. I inherited her mouth, the full lower lip, via Daddy, her son. The other picture is Grandmama as I knew her. As an old woman. She stands, short, fragile-looking, in the yard of her house. She has on a print dress. She holds her hands, clasped together, in front of her. She is wearing glasses. When I look at that picture, I remember that she steadied me, calmed me. And I still feel her love.
Sometimes, I think I remember that my parents and I lived at Grandmama’s house before we moved into the Meet Street house. Her house, like an old-fashioned, Victorian gingerbread home, seemed to be clutching for dear life at the face of a steep hill. The street itself, either Church or Temple Street, was hilly like others in Knoxville, Tennessee. To reach the front door of her house, you had to climb endless, concrete steps that shot upward at what I thought was a vertical angle. I was afraid of those steps and I climbed them carefully, holding my mother’s hand, making sure not to look back and down, else I would surely fall and fall and fall down into the mouth of the earth.
The rooms weren’t big inside her home. And I remember the house being dark. Probably because light fixtures and lamps weren’t strategically placed as a regular part of a home’s floor plans like today. In the dining room, which had a fireplace like the parlor did, there were sparkling lead crystal objects and do-dads that teased my eyes; there was red and pink hand-painted china, and an all-glass china cabinet which Mama and Daddy inherited after Grandmama’s death. The tiny parlor had furniture that was dark cherry or black walnut. And there was a bay window, I remember, which faced the street. I loved that window, in fact, still love bay windows today simply because I associate them with Grandmama. There was no central heating then, so you had fire places in every room or pot-bellied stoves where you built a wood or a coal fire. In Grandmama’s house, the pot-bellied stove was in the kitchen. I remember her stoking the fire, shoving in kindling (wood sticks) and cautioning me to stay well clear of it. A few years ago, when I was awarded a writing fellowship to Hedgebrook Writer’s Residence, I had a pot-bellied stove in my cabin. Learning how to build and keep a fire going was a new, a fascinating experience for me. It reminded me of Grandmama’s house.
Two strong memories of Grandmama stand out in my mind. That I played in her kitchen though she never complained about me being under foot. If I close my eyes, I can see the pot-bellied, black stove in the middle of the floor and I can see, standing against one wall, her old-fashioned, white enamel stove…one that cooked food, not with gas or electricity, but with coal or was it wood? I can see her washing dishes at the sink by the back door. I associate her kitchen—and always will—with the smell of yeast that came from her homemade rolls baking in the oven. The other memory is seeing her at Sunday morning church services. That was when our church was East Vine Methodist Church. She always sat four rows from the front on the right side. I’d ask Mama if I could go sit with her. And having got permission, I’d run down the aisle from the back where Mama and I sat to scoot in and plop myself down next to her. She’d hug me, squeeze me. And I’d be content then. Just to be near her. She made me know I was someone very special and very precious to her. It is a feeling I have never forgotten.
George Henry Lennon, Sr. (1866-1926)
Born a year after the Civil War, my grandfather, Grandmama’s second husband, came into the world in Bladenboro, North Carolina. He was a Methodist minister. This meant that the family moved a lot because Methodist preachers traditionally never stayed very long at one church. I didn’t know my grandfather. He died well before I was born… before my parents’ marriage even.
I don’t know anything about him but there is a picture. It’s the one with Grandmama. They are young and looking straight into the camera’s eye. Neither is smiling, but they aren’t frowning either—rather they look intense and serious. Granddaddy’s is a dark-skinned man, sporting a moustache and wearing a dark, Edwardian style coat over a neat, white shirt and dark bow tie.
He holds his head just slightly titled to the right in posing for the camera… just the same as Daddy did when he posed for a photo… and as I do now. I have to consciously stop myself from doing the tilting thing when I pose for a picture. I always wondered where I got that habit from. Now, I know. I’ve got some of Grandaddy’s features, too. My eyelids, my hairy eye brows, my oval-shaped face, and my African broad nose. Looking at the picture gives me a sense of belonging to a tribe. I have some folks…some peeps!And I wonder what nations, what tribes of Africa birthed him…birthed us.
