BILL G. writes:

Your recent post on white guilt from 6/5 had me remember a neighbor we had in a mixed neighborhood in St. Louis county (near Ferguson).  During the late 70’s my parents had an economic set back and we moved into my great grandmother’s house which had recently been vacated when she moved into a nursing home. The neighborhood was comprised of mostly empty-nester whites and younger black families. It is now all black.

The black family who lived behind us had a mother who was quite friendly and had a huge presence in the neighborhood. I would hang out with her kids with whom I attended school as I was a free range latchkey kid with parents who were not home until evening.  She would make us fried bologna sandwiches and occasionally bring us along to her church in north St. Louis city where she would work on some weekday activity while we ran around the building. I remember her as a very tall, warm-hearted lady who had a voice that carried far.

One day I heard her yelling for my mother over the fence.

“Pat!, you can’t be sending my K.K. (Kelly Kathleen) to that school!”

My sister was going to be starting kindergarten the following year.

“Them nigger boys have been messing with switch blades on the playground. They gunna to eat her up!!  They can’t let nothin be nice!”

My mother, who thought of our financial setback as a good way to let us experience a mixed-race setting for a while took her advice and enrolled us both in a Catholic school that fall. Her frankness has always stayed with me.

Her obituary that she wrote herself gives a good picture of who this woman was.

Thank you for all you do.

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