My Great Grandmother’s Fork
By Daphne Muse
More than thirty years
ago my father, Fletcher Henderson Muse, Sr., gave me my great-grandmother’s
fork. My father had a way of passing on family
history and legacies, for he also gave my brother Vincent the knife with which
he so deftly carved meat for the dinner parties he served in wealthy homes up
and down the Eastern corridor.
Born an enslaved woman
in Cuthbert, Georgia and my namesake, Daphne Allen lived to be
97-years-old. That fork, made of tin and
wood, now has a ball of cotton on the prongs which I picked on a trip to
Cuthbert about twenty years ago. It sits in the lap of a beautiful doll made by
my mother. The doll sits on a rocking
chair that belonged to my great-grandmother when she was a child. I’m now amazed that she is a part of my life
in this way and am reminded of her presence each time I walk past that rocking
chair.
I met her twice: once, when I was about
six-years-old and again at Christmas break from college, when I went to spend a
very challenging holiday in Cuthbert with my grandparents Henderson Muse and
Johnny Clyde Muse. They argued incessantly
about the Bible, him touching her Bible and maddening matters not of a
biblical nature. I thought I’d been
sentenced to hell for impure thoughts and transgressions made during early childhood.
While I don’t so much
remember her physical presence during the 1962 visit, I have a very clear
memory of meeting my great-grandmother when I was about six. She had on a crisp white dressing gown and
had just finished serving my great-grandfather breakfast. She was a short spindly woman framed in
Ebonized skin with no smile, but a solid suit of armor surrounding her spirit. I don’t recall one word my great grandfather
said, as his head remained buried deep in his plate, while he sat alone at the
head of the table. One did not sit at
the table with him, while he ate. I
guess he came up out of African royalty of some sort and one needed an
appointment to speak with him.
That humble fork is
about to be installed in an exhibit I’m mounting and will rest on the page of
Ruth Gaskins A Good Heart and A Light
Hand: A Collection of Traditional Negro Recipes.
Instead of transporting it the
three miles from my home to the site of the exhibit at Mills College’s Olin
Library, I feel as though I should hire a Brinks trunk to transport that
fork. I’ve been the caretaker of this
“family jewel” for more than three decades now.
My great-grandmother’s legacy is integrally intertwined in this fork and
embedded with secrets both culinary and personal. She held it in hands prickled by the thorns
from picking cotton and hopefully soothed by cradling the children to whom she
gave birth. I remember being absolutely
perplexed upon a visit to the Smithsonian some fifty years ago and seeing
George Washington’s teeth included in an exhibition. I could not fathom why his teeth would hold an
esteemed place in a museum, especially one like the Smithsonian. But I’ve learned from historians and scholars
including John Henrik Clarke, Francille Rusan Wilson and Leon Litwack that those
teeth are filled with stories about class, race, gender, power, privilege, and
slavery. Her fork tells another kind of
story about the same dynamics. My
enslaved great grandmother’s fork is just as important to me and my family as
Washington’s teeth, extracted from slaves, are to the history of America. Her fork reflects the history as well as pain
and pleasures of her life long-lived life; she lived to age ninety-seven
despite an often bone crushing existence across two centuries in rural Georgia.
While others place rare
jewels, trophies of conquest and priceless carpets from vast empires on
display, my great-grandmother’s fork has now been cataloged for an
exhibition. As people cast their gaze
upon three centuries of iconic books and ephemera in On These I Stand, they will stop and gaze at her fork, learn her
name and a little bit more about the relationship between this simple eating
implement, my family and the history of 19th and 20th
century America. At every turn, we have
to find ways to honor our ancestors, their survival against all odds and learn
to wear the armor that allowed them to keep their spirits marching towards
freedom land.
Daphne Muse is a writer, social commentator and
poet. She proudly lives in Oakland,
California and recently completed her fifth children’s book about a squirrel
named Leroy.
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