Page 76 of Under the Tulip Tree
“I suppose in some ways, yes. We spoiled her since she was our only child. I probably gave in to her wishes far more than I should have.” She pressed her lips into a smile. “But she has a good heart, Rena. Underneath the layers of self-importance and harshness, she loves me. She loves you girls, too.”
I knew she was right, but it was difficult to accept some days. Mama cared too much about what other people thought. I wished she cared more about what I thought.
When we reached Grandma’s house, she turned to me. “Come inside and tell me more about the woman your Frankie knew. You have me quite curious.”
I followed her in. We decided on hot cocoa to take away the chill in our bones, then settled into comfy chairs in the small parlor, each with a mug of the delicious drink.
“Frankie said she was born on a plantation about a day’sride from Nashville,” I began, trying to recall the details of Frankie’s early life. In my haste to hustle Grandma out of the house, I’d forgotten to run upstairs to retrieve my notebooks. “It was owned by a family named Hall.”
Grandma sipped her cocoa, a look of contemplation in her eyes. “Go on.”
“I don’t recall the man’s name, but his wife’s name was Sadie.”
“Hmm.” Grandma frowned. “That doesn’t sound familiar, but then I’m not so good with names these days.”
The tightness in my chest eased some with her admission. Maybe the similar name was simply a coincidence. Helen and Charlotte were both fairly common.
“When Frankie was six years old, Sadie beat her with a fireplace poker after Frankie accidentally wet the carpet. It broke her fingers, and she still has a deformed hand.”
“Oh, my, how dreadful.” Grandma shook her head. “It’s hard to imagine a woman treating a child in such a way, but I fear things of that nature happened far more than we would like to admit.”
“Not long after the beating, Frankie took a book from Sadie’s daughter, Charlotte. She hid it outside, but she was eventually caught. They sold her the next day.” Emotion welled in my throat. “She never saw her mother again.”
Tears glistened in Grandma’s eyes. “Poor child. What an awful thing to happen to one so young.”
I leaned forward. “But you don’t think Sadie is related to your great-aunt Charlotte?”
“I can’t say for certain, dear. Aunt Charlotte married a gentleman from Ohio and moved before I was born. She’d visit Grandmother Helen from time to time, and Mama always took us to see her when Charlotte was in town.” Her eyes squinted. “You know, I believe I have a box of old photographs and things that belonged to Grandmother. If I recall, there’s a picture of Charlotte among them.”
We hurried to her bedroom, where a large, old trunk with a rounded top sat beneath the window. I lifted the heavy lid for her, and she rummaged around, exclaiming over this item or that, until she came to a cloth-covered box that looked like it had once held sewing items.
When we returned to the parlor, we sat side by side on the sofa. Opening the box was like stepping back in time. Dozens of black-and-white photographs filled it, all of people long dead.
“This is Grandmother Helen,” she said, taking out a picture of a woman who looked to be in her fifties. Her dress was in the style of the late 1800s, and she held a lacy parasol over her head despite obviously posing inside a studio.
Grandma turned the picture over and nodded when she read the handwriting on the back. “Yes. Helen Hall Morris, taken in 1875 here in Nashville.”
She flipped it back over and we studied Helen.
“You look a little like her,” I said, noting the similar facial features.
We dug through more pictures, some of people Grandma recognized, some she didn’t. Near the bottom, she found oneof a pretty young woman with pale curls piled on her head. She sat posed with her bell-shaped skirt spread out around her.
“I believe this is Aunt Charlotte.” She turned the picture over and smiled. “Charlotte Hall, 1850.”
I reached for the picture, studying my ancestor. “She was very pretty.”
“She was, even as an older woman. I remember her smile.”
Grandma kept digging in the box while I studied Charlotte’s picture. She looked to be in her late teens, with a fresh face and sparkling eyes despite the lack of color to the picture. It made me wonder what I might have been like had I been born in her day. Would I have accepted slavery as most residents of Tennessee had?
A gasp next to me drew my attention back to Grandma. “What is it?”
She held a small picture inside a book-like frame. Her wide eyes met mine before she handed it to me.
I recognized it as an old-fashioned daguerreotype. Although the images behind the slightly clouded glass weren’t as clear as some of the paper photographs we’d found in the sewing box, I noted a woman dressed in her finery sitting in a chair while two children, a boy and a girl, stood beside her. None of them smiled, but the woman looked especially sour-faced. I turned it over to read the scrawling on a slip of paper glued to the back.
Sadie Pope Hall and children.
