MEMORIAL DAY MEMORIES & CHERISHED PEOPLE

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:

Those of us in the South and Southwest grew up celebrating Memorial Day by gathering with our families and decorating and cleaning the graves of our ancestors.  It was originally held on May 30.   

 

After we cleaned off and decorated their graves, we would have a picnic and listen to our parents and grandparents, and other relatives/elders tell stories of many of those ancestors who were buried there. It appears that this may not have been the case of our brothers and sisters in the north, or on the East and West Coasts. To many, it's just a day off, or a day for a cook out or to take advantage of a sale, or just a day to chill. 

 

Many may not be aware that Memorial Day was started by Black People, and has remained our tradition regardless of whether it received national holiday status or not.  We did not need whites to give us credit for its origins.  They have an annoying habit of confiscating our concepts and pretending it was theirs all along.  If we sat around and worried about their inconsiderate, racist methods, we'd never do anything. 

 

We have been practicing Memorial Day long before it became a national holiday.  At least from its beginnings in 1865, non stop.  Sadly, however, in these so-called modern and confused times, with so many of us living far from our original neighborhoods, the practice of physically gathering together and cleaning and decorating our family gravesites is no longer practiced. I know I haven't done it since I graduated from high school and moved away from Oklahoma City. And, in so many other cases, the upkeep of the gravesites are  now left to professionals. 

 

But, as I sit here, I think back on my ancestors - I'm having a little Memorial of my own.  And there are so many precious memories that I am dusting off, and decorating with my heart:

 

I think of my Grandfather Enoch Gaines,  who was a deep dark bittersweet chocolate brown, and my  wonderful Grandmother Cornelia Gaines, a beautiful woman on the Cherokee Nation Hornbeak Clan - who were my mother's parents.  My grandmom was 7 years older than my grandfather.  They had 7 children together, and he adored her.  He built her a beautiful home with all the amenities of the day.  They were one of the few families - and maybe the only Black family - to have electricity and hot and cold running water, and indoor toilets.  

 

I think of my great grandfather, her dad, Squire Hornbeck, who lived to be 123 years old - I never met him, but heard so many stories about him.  He made the front cover of the Daily Oklahoman and Times newspaper, with him standing in front of an old T-model Ford; white beard and all on his 123rd Birthday. 

My Grandmom was raised in a missionary school in Stroud, Oklahoma; but my granddad rescued her and brought her down to Burneyville,  an all Black town near Ardmore, OK, on the Oklahoma/Texas Border.  My grandmother sang all the time, so I think she must have been very happy.  And who wouldn't be.  My grandfather was a Fine Black Man.  He rode his horse all over the place.  I used to sit in front of him on the saddle and ride with him.  I felt like a giant.  I still remember it.  Such treasures.

 
I also think about Aunt Lydie Hornbeak who was my grandmother's sister, and who used to tell us all kinds of stories as kids about their childhood in Oklahoma.  She lived in Oklahoma City, and was a widow.  She would sit on the front porch of her house and we'd pass by on the way to the supermarket.  We'd always stop and talk with her.  She always had cookies for us.

I think about my Grandfather Silas Sylvester Dulan I, and my Grandmother, Zady Dulan - who were my Dad's parents.  My grandmom was quiet as a mouse, and was a deep dark rich chocolate brown.  She was Black and Creek.  She almost never spoke, but Granddaddy did enough talking for the both of them.  Grandmommy made home made icecream, and Brenda (my sister) and I got to help.  We loved it.  I could remember the anticipation.  Her icecream always tasted like peaches or pineapple, and was so smooth.  She would churn butter, make butter milk, can fruits and vegetables, and cook up  the most wonderful food on a wood burning stove.  The house always had the fragrance of eucalyptus, which always has a sentimental value to me.  My dad, aunts and uncle Adolf were raised in that hand built cabin, along with my grandfather's 13 siblings, who were orphaned after the death of his parents - Ben and Anna Dulan.  Granddaddy put them all through college.  He served in WWI - he was a hero, and the family Patriarch.   He was a man who let nothing stop him from accomplishing whatever it was he set his mind to.  I loved talking to him, because he could talk you under the table.  He talked in pictures, with these graphic depictions of things.   He was also an herbalist, and had a vast knowledge on a variety of things, and loved people.  My granddadddy had the best watermelon in Oklahoma, and kept us supplied during the summer. 

I remember my favorite uncle, Adolf Dulan, my Dad's youngest brother (only brother) and one of the Finest Black Men on the planet. Entrepreneur, personality, lady's man - generous and loving heart; family man who raised 5 beautiful kids.  He was the first, and perhaps the only, millionaire in the family.  He was certainly the most famous Dulan.  He served in the Korean War, and moved to California after it was over.  He started out as a social worker, then decided to go into childcare and development.  He had one of the best DayCare programs in California for years. Then, in the 70s, he and his wife, Mary, decided to go into the restaurant business - and the rest is history.  As a result of his vision, he had Hamburger City, Aunt Kizzie's Kitchen, Dulan's King of Soul Food; and his son, my cousin Gregory Dulan, has Dulan's on Crenshaw.  Growing up, Adolf was my hero.  He was the go-between for the adults and the rest of us kids who were fast becoming adolescents.  I could talk to him about anything.  We used to hang out and hit the clubs throughout NYC.  The first thing we'd do is go to Sylvia's, then to Showmans, and wind up at Perks.  He loved it because California didn't have the nightlife we had.  Of all the favorite things to do, he loved going to Jezebel's - a famous restaurant Black in the day.   He and Alberta, the owner, would sit and talk and compare notes for hours.

Adolf made his transition in May of 2017 after a prolonged illness.  I still miss him very much. 

 

I think about my mother's brother, Uncle Buddie (A C Gaines), who folks thought was an alcoholic, but it was later learned he was actually allergic to alcohol - it rendered him in a state of incompetency for most of his adult life. But he was a loveable, wonderful man.  He used to show up at our house so drunk, we'd wonder how he functioned.  After my grandfather's passing, Uncle Buddy was so bereft, he got plastered, and, while driving the car from Burneyville to Oklahoma City, had a major accident and hit a tree.  The car was wrapped around the tree, but Uncle Buddy walked away from the accident, and somehow walked to our house.  It wasn't until days later that he discovered he had a broken jaw bone and a broken collar bone.  The police arrested him for leaving the scene of an accident, but made sure he was tended to before he spent  6 months in jail (back then our guys weren't getting beat down like they do now.  The policeman politely knocked at our door.  Asked if he was there.  He was sober by then - or what passed for sober.  They didn't even cuff him.  It took my Uncle Buddy to the age of 60 to find a woman who loved him enough to help him become clean and sober. She was a nurse and a member of the Seven Day Adventist faith.  She changed his entire perspective.  He spent his last 7 years happy and in much love with this wonderful woman.

 

I think about my favorite aunt, Alene (Dulan) Talton, who was my running buddy. She and I loved to shop til we dropped. We loved to cook and sew, and would buy fabrics together. I remember that Alene sold Avon Products when nobody was doing it, and used to give us the sample lipsticks so my sister, Brenda, and I could play make up.   I was the eldest grandchild, so I used to babysit my cousins for Alene - and we'd have a ball.  I also remember that Alene and my aunt Zethel, Dad's youngest sister, were teachers and devoted to our education -as was my mom and dad - and made it a practice of correcting our grammar and pronunciation/enunciation of our words.  You could not talk "flat."  It was a rule - and any time any of us tried to get away with it, and we were in the presence of any of the Dulan clan, they would immediately correct us.  One Christmas we were all visiting together for our family gathering, and my daughter Kira was 4 or 5, and she said "dis" instead of "this."  Everybody said "THIS" at the same time, so that it sounded like it was in stereo.  She stopped still, frozen in her tracks and looked around at all of us, her eyes nearly popping out of her head.  It was then that she grasped how serious our family was about our education and pronunciation.  I don't think she ever made that kind of slip again. 

 

I remember my uncle Major, Alene's husband, who used to have a collection of pipes he smoked. He was a hamm radio operator and raised and bred Chow dogs. It was because of him that I fell in love with the breed.  It was because of him that I eventually owned two pure bred Chows - Fuji, a Cinnamon Chow, and later Blackjack, a beautiful Black Chow with that majestic mane of his.  I loved Fuji so much that when I relocated back to New York from California, we brought him with us  - well, at least Lou did, because Adiya, our youngest daughter, said it wouldn't be fair to come to New York without Fuji - they were raised together.  We were living in Washington Heights at the time (I call it Upper Harlem), and when our neighbors saw us walking Fuji, they thought he was a miniature lion.  I actually, unknowingly started a trend - suddenly you began seeing Chows in the neighborhood. 

 

I remember my mother's sister, Altrecia - who lived in Detroit, and was a caterer, known for her elegant cakes and settings. She was in great demand. When ever I visited her, she used to try to feed me to death because at the time I was so skinny everybody was trying to fatten me up.  At that time, I could eat anything and it would just slough off.  I had a very high metabolic rate.  My favorite cake was/is German Sweet Chocolate cake, and my favorite pies were Pecan Pies and Lemon Merengue Pie - 'Trecia would always have some on hand for me.

 

I think about my mother's sister, JoAnne Plumber, who also lived in Detroit, and loved to bowl. 

She, along with her daughter, Billie Jeanne, were bowling champions.  Billie Jeanne was older than me, and very statuesque and beautiful.  She had been engaged to a football great, Big Daddy Lipscombe - they were to be married, when he allegedly died of a drug overdose.  Something my cousin vehemently disputed, because he had never been known to be involved with drugs.  She never got over his death, and it took her 35 years before she finally met someone she loved as much.  They married while she was in her 60s - but she died within three years.  Sadness - she deserved better. 

 

Mom's sisters Eula Pearl Bradford, and Mary Hicks lived in California.  I barely knew Eula because she was the first born and the first to move from Oklahoma.  She rarely returned home, so I barely knew her kids - Carolyn, Ronnie, Yay-yay (knickname), and one other.  Aunt Mary never had children, and was more of a recluse - but she was my favorite aunt.  She would regale me with stories of all the stuff my mother would get into when she was little.  It was from Aunt Mary I learned that my parents had eloped during WWII, the same night they met, and could not be found for four days.   When I was little, I used to love to watch Aunt Mary put on make up.  She was absolutely beautiful, all the way through to her final transition to Ancestor Angel at the age of 90.  Long hair - it was silver white by the time she passed on.  But the entire 9 years I lived in California, I rarely saw her.  After her husband, JD, died, she kept to herself.  The only person she kept in contact with was Mom.  

 

I remember my Mother and Father in Law, Doris and Wilfred Wilson.  I loved those two people.  I loved the fact that they still loved each other and openly displayed it - by holding hands.  They loved watching their sons perform, and would sit, smiling as they displayed their talents.  Dad Wilson and I used to love to talk politics.  He was so knowledgeable and humorous.  He was protective of me in my comings and goings - and would always tell me to call him when I reached home to be sure I was safe.  I usually forgot because I never went straight home.  Moms Wilson and I were like running buddies.  She and I both loved to sew.  I was always inventing stuff, so she was always on the look out for something I could transform from junk to treasure.  I was with her favorite son, so that made me her favorite daughter in law.  Plus she wanted a daughter, and having had five boys (six if you counted Dad Wilson), we got along beautifully.   

 

I think about my Mom, Ruby Love, and my Dad, Warner Hale Dulan - and yes, Love is my mother's real middle name.  She was called Ruby Love from the day she was born; but I didn't realize it until I was 13.  We were visiting some of the relatives near my grand parents' farm, and one of them blurted out, in country fashion, "Is dat cuzin Ruby Love??"  I got so tickled about it, I started calling her Ruby Love from then on.  And the name stuck.  Dad even began calling her his Ruby Love.  Mom was a beauty - all the way through the age of 91.  She was always sharp, witty, sweet, and fun - at least when she wasn't whipping our butts for some crazy mischief we had gotten into - especially yours truly.  We were always up to something - and I'm sure my mom's dream of cute little sweet, obedient, clean, doll babies went right out the window when I first came on the scene.  I was in, under, and climbing over everything - all the time.  Plus I talked - all the time!! Brenda, my sister, was the exact opposite - but I was always getting her involved in my schemes.  And because she had to work, and child care was expensive, or non existent, during the summer mother would put me in charge of my sibs.  What could she have possibly been thinking.  I was a handful all my life.  

 

Mother could sew and design anything.  All she had to do was see it.  She had a vintage Singer Sewing Machine with all the parts - she could make gloves, put sequins on dresses, design some of the most elegant, elaborate outfits ever.  I used to love to sit and watch her make magic on that machine.  I started sewing when I was 5 because of her.  I had the best dressed dolls.  When I was 10 I started using the sewing machine.  I was obsessed with making things that no one else ever had or had seen.   There was nothing she could not cook.  She made great desserts from scratch.  And she was a fox - or did I say that already.  My mom and dad were romantic all their lives - it was great watching them together. 

 

Daddy was quiet, like his mother.  His nickname was "Scoop," and my uncle Adolf called him that all his life.  He was a FINE BLACK MAN - in fact, I've said this before, all Dulan men are FINE BLACK MEN.  They come from an amazing gene pool.  Of course I can only trace it back to my grandfather - who was also a FBM.  Daddy loved learning new things, was great with his hands, and tinkered around with all kinds of stuff:  Carpentry, mechanics, upholstery, playing the clarinet, boxing - because my Grandfather taught him, and all his sibs, that there was no such word as CAN'T.  And as soon as that word came up, Daddy would challenge himself to go from Can't to Can to Did.  

 

Daddy was a man of high principle - loyal to his friends and family.  Daddy hated to travel outside Oklahoma City - as a result of the horrors of WWII, and his experience of full on racism in Alabama - he was stationed at Camp Siebert Army Base.  He was traumatized and held a silent anger against whites as a result.  I remember during the time before segregation ended in Oklahoma City, some of the white shops used to have signs in their windows that stated: "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."  Dad would see the sign, and would go in and quietly defy the owner to refuse service.  We wouldn't say anything like "Black power," or "honky," he would just place his order, and wait.  He was never refused.  It seemed they could sense this was not the one to mess with.  I think I got my militancy from him.  Of course, I was not aware of the kind of crap he was also going through at Tinker Air Force Base, where most of the personnel there were white.  There was a large number of Black employees there as well, but there was never equal pay, and they gave them the crappiest jobs - and dad was a veteran - as were most of his other fellow Black co-workers.

Daddy made the best bar-b-q.  He taught me the difference between pork ribs and beef ribs - Pork ribs are spare ribs; beef ribs are baby back ribs - something people on the East Coast obviously don't know.  He taught me to be a great jack leg carpenter.  I also learned to mow the lawn - hated it.  I was so glad when he finally got a power mower.  As I said, I had a bad case of motor mouth - inherited from my Granddaddy.  Sometimes I would say stuff that was totally inappropriate, and his response, in that deep, quiet voice of his was: "DON'T BE NO FOOL!" And that was never a threat, it was a promise.

I especially think of Dulan Christmases together when all the Dulan families would gather together at one of our family homes to host Christmas dinner.  We would all make a dish to bring, plus a dessert.  My grandfather was a master punch maker and would make a huge galvanized tub of punch with big blocks of ice in it.  All the women would be in the kitchen; all us kids would be in the den or in the yard playing.  And all the men would be gathered around the card table playing DOMINOES - it was the family GUY thing.  We females were never invited, nor did we dare ever approach that table.  It was sacred ground!! We used to crack up about how, as soon as they got together, Daddy, Adolf, Major, John Q, and Granddaddy, nothing else in the world mattered - not even football.  It was dominoes!!  The only thing I ever learned how to do with them was make them knock each other down.  LOL 

 

At our Dulan Christmases, everybody brought a family gift, and a gift for each of the children.  We'd clean up.  We looked forward to that event because we knew were going home with at least five more gifts each.   Once we were all grown, gone and living in different states, the tradition of Dulan Family Christmas died.  

 

Of course, on Memorial Day, I lovingly remember Lou Wilson, the love of my life.  Those memories dredge up other memories, which dredge up even more.  Sometimes I find myself laughing at something he said or did - I loved watching him with our kids - he loved kids; he was a big, overgrown kid himself - all his life.  He was a genius, a natural comedian, a scholar, a natural educator, lovable, loving - and so many more things that aren't going to be outlined here.  We could talk about practically everything.  He was proud of his West Indian/Caribbean Heritage; and equally proud of having been raised in Brooklyn and graduating from Boys High.  He loved track and field, and participated in athletics.  He also tried his hand at boxing, but quickly realized, he didn't like to get hit.

 

Lou's musical genius  permeates everything Mandrill ever did - Music, lyrics, stage presence.  He was the voice of Mandrill.  However he was never on an ego trip about it.  He loved people, and would engage people in conversations if there seemed to be the least bit of synchronicity between them.   His Panamanian Roots - Father from Jamaica, mother from Barbados - caused me to dub him a JamaicaBajaManian.  He loved it!!  His transition to the Ancestors was perhaps the most difficult for me to accept.  It was like he was ripped from us, with no warning - and certainly, without my permission.  We had so much unfinished business between us.  We still have conversations with each other - ever so often he just enters my subconscious and pulls me away from what I'm working on to something totally unrelated from the past.  Before I know it, I'm having a memory - I have to catch myself. Luv4U Lou

 

Some  other treasured friends  and relatives who have recently made their transitions, and who I miss are: my Cousin, Sheryl Lynette Talton, Alene's daughter who died too young of a heart attack;  Sylvia & Herbert Woods of Sylvia Queen of Soul Food;  Zachary Cornell Husser, one of my favorite brother/friend/mentors; Leslie Wyche, Beverly Alston, Mary Long, Nick Ashford, Norma Harrell (Kira's Mother-in-Law), Randy Weston,  Gil Noble, Elombe Brath, Dr. Stuart Grayson, Rev. Ike, Glenn D. Cunningham (first Black mayor of Jersey City), Percy Sutton, Hal Jackson, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee Davis, Lena Horne, Noel Pointer, Nancy Wilson, Jitu Weusi - people I had come to know and love over the years.  

 

These are people I think of with fondness and love when Memorial Day comes around.  Their faces and voices resonate in my memory.  Of course there are so many more in my family line who have made their transition - but these people do have a special place in my heart.  

They are part of what I call the Ancestor/Angel league that watch over me - watch over us all.  I am so grateful for each and every one of them and what we've shared, and what I've learned from them.  Hopefully I had some kind of positive impact on their lives as well.  

GOD THE LIVING SPIRIT ALMIGHTY brought us here for a season, a reason or a lifetime.  And I try to make sure I get the blessings from the lessons they have taught me and the fun we shared over the years.

So, as you go through this Memorial Day/Week - take some time to remember those who were/are part of your heritage or life who have made their transition to the realm of Ancestor/Angel, and take some time to listen to what they have to say to you.

 

Have a Blessed Memorial Day

Stay Blessed &

ECLECTICALLY BLACK

Gloria

 

 

 

 

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