A MOTHER'S DAY TRIBUTE TO THE WOMEN OF MY FAMILY

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:


My Mom, Ruby Love, was the most beautiful woman on the planet - and she married the finest Black man on the planet, my dad, Warner Hale Dulan, Sr.  - the love of her life.  They had 47 beautiful and tumultuous years together raising 4 knuckleheads who were both challenging and fun - how they did it, and maintain their sanity and love for each other I don't know.  

I am ever grateful for the examples they set for us - so when my three came along, I had some understanding of what it took to be parents - especially a mom - because I can tell you raising me pushed every button there ever was.   Many a behind whipping coming up - Time out?? what the heck was a time out??  Go get the switch - heard that many a day - and it had better not be dry.  LOL 

My mom was a fabulous cook, she designed and made her own clothes; decorated our house - loved my dad and kept him  happy after a long day at Tinker Air Force Base dealing with some of the most racist rednecks on the planet.  That negative energy never came into our home.

She was the Queen to his Warrior King.  
Regardless of what was going on she was in his corner, and he was her protector.

I loved watching this loving couple together - and knowing that this was the atmosphere in the Dulan and Gaines families in general - My Grandmoms and Granddads on both sides of the family tree were lifelong lovers - and our families were intact families.  

I am saluting my Mom, my Grand Mothers  and all of the women of the Dulan and Hornbeak/Gaines families for being such a wonderful inspiration and showing me how to be a mom.  

My Mom RUBY LOVE DULAN

                                  MOM AND DAD AT THEIR BLACK COUNTRY CLUB 








                 Mother's Mother Cornelia Hornbeak Gaines

My Grandfather built her a home - it was the only home on the Texas-Oklahoma border in a little town called Burneyville (an all Black town) near Ardmore, north of the Texas Oklahoma Border, that had electricity and hot and cold running water.  They had 180 acres.  She raised 6 chldren - made the world's best biscuits, and German Sweet Chocolate Cake from scratch - among other things.  She was a great fisherman and was always bringing in buffalo fish, cat fish and trout.  My grandmother could crochet, make quilts, and birch bark furniture.  I sometime helped her tie them together.  She was also a midwife and helped bring quite a few babies into the world. 

Grandmother loved jewelry, and always had a mini trunk on the hall buffet with all kinds of necklaces, earrings, and bracelets in it.  I was always trying on her stuff - I think that's where I got my love for jewelry from. 

We would go pick prickly pears, pecans, black walnuts, peaches, pears, plums, chinese apples and then make them into preserves.   We had a gully with caves in front of the house, and my siblings and I would spend most of our day exploring down there.  
Grandmother made a lot of spice Native American food - and I loved it all - cho-cho, succotash, and a variety of hot pepper sauces.  She would marinate the beef in it for 3 days and then roast it on a spit until it was juicy and falling off the bone - flavor would be saturated throughout the whole thing, down to the bone. 

Grandmom had a swing on the front porch and my sister Brenda and I loved sitting and swinging in it.

She put the fear of God in me about toad frogs - said that they would give you warts - for that reason, I never liked frog legs. LOL   Grandmother told us all kinds of stories about her childhood -  
She had an original Cherokee name, but I've forgotten what it is - she was in a missionary school and they gave her the name of Cornelia - she was put through a lot of detribalization as a child - as were her sisters and brothers.  My Grandad rescued her from missionaries who were trying to cut her hair with a bowl over it - he brought her from northern Oklahoma down to the Texas Oklahoma border to keep them from punishing her - they were married in 1909 and stayed together until she passed in 1958.  I always loved going "down home" to stay with my grandparents - there was always so much for us to get into - from sun up to sun down.

Mother was the baby of the family, and the only remaining child in Oklahoma - so Grandmom would come up to stay with us for  week - and spoil us rotten.   We loved it!!!   Anything we asked, she'd get for us.  

Grandmom had a belief - old Indian belief - that if you pulled out the grey hair, you would never go old; so she would have us looking for all the greys - we would have to pluck them and burn them - not put them in the trash, because the birds would find them and put them in their nests - the thing is that once they had you hair, they would follow you around to pluck more hair for their nests.  LOL 

Grandmom could make anything, and one year she crocheted a black rooster with a red cockscomb - I loved that thing to pieces - have no idea what happened to it - but always amazed at the fact that she had so much talent.  
 

 



                                         Daddy's Mother Zady Washington Dulan

My grandmother Zady was the quietest member of the entire family, having been raised among the Creek Nation where women did not speak, except to each other and the children. She and my grandfather married when he was 16 and she was 15 - and started with a ready made family - my great grandfather had been murdered by white racists - My great grandmother killed herself out of grief and despair.  Granddaddy Silas Dulan Sr. took on the job of raising his other 9 brothers and sisters - his eldest brother Roy Dulan had already married and moved to another part of Oklahoma.   Granddaddy raised all his siblings and put them all through college, while raising his own family - which consisted of my aunt Alene, my dad, Warner, my aunt Zethel, and my Uncle Adolf - my aunt Jean died as a baby.  Granddad had 86 acres of land, but no hot or cold running water - they had a well they pumped water from; no electricity - they used kerosene lamps; they had no heat - they had a pot belly stove; the kitchen consisted of a cast iron stove and fire wood that had to be chopped every night.  There was no toilet - they had a out house during the day, and a pot with a lid at night.  

 Grandmother had a root cellar for drying and preserving all manner of food, roots, herbs, vegetables.  My grandmother's cooking rivaled most restaurants people brag about - her biscuits would float off the plate; her cornbread was from heaven; her ribs were literally falling off the bone.  Greens, green beans, rice, you name it - she cooked it.  And everybody in the family had to help and had to know how to cook - so every Dulan was/is an excellent cook - 
She was the inspiration for my Uncle Adolf's restaurants Aunt Kizzy's Kitchen in Marina Del Rey, Adolf Dulan's King of Soul Food on LaCienega Blvd (California) and my Cousin Greg's restaurant, Dulan's on Crenshaw.  Anybody who has eaten there knows exactly what I mean.

Grandmom would sew on her treadle machine and made dresses for my aunts and her younger inlaws.  Thanks to my grandmother and grandfather, every one of Granddady's brothers and sisters attended and completed college; and every on of her kids, except for my dad (who was in the service) finished college.

My favorite memory of grandmom Zady was making butter, drinking iced cold buttermilk; making home made ice cream, and canning tomatoes; picking watermelons and canteloupes - granddaddy grew them and would sell them off the back of his pick up truck.

I always loved breakfast there - especially her pancakes stacked high with butter and log cabin syrup and home made hot sausages.  Can still taste it.  
Grandmother sooooo quiet - she would sit with her hands folded in her lap, in the meantime my granddaddy, Silas, would be talking a mile a minute - telling jokes, gossiping - he was good at it too. If my grandmother said 10 words in 3 hours - you were shocked. 

These three women were part of my universe growing up.  My aunts Alene, Zethel, JoAnne, Altrecia, Ula, Mary, and Mrs. Augusta Perry - better known as Moma P, Ada Stewart,- my second moms in Philadelphia;   Sylvia Woods (of Sylvia's Queen of Soulfood) these wonderful women/moms were major parts of my formative years - I have tried to synthesize what I learned from these wonderful, loving, wise women.  

They are all part of the Ancestor/Angel realm now - hopefully looking down and being pleased that I have had the blessing of raising three beautiful people of my own - KIRA, RAIS and ADIYA. 
I hope I got some of it right.  I AM EVER GRATEFUL FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL MY SISTER MOMS 
Stay Blessed & 
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Jeanne






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