A Charmed life.


Growing up in the Roaring 20s in Little Rock, Mama led a life of ease privilege.Nowadays I guess she would ahbe been considered a BAP. He father , Daniel Joy Dubisson was the main black 'undertaker in LittleRock. According to mama Gandpa Dubisson had left his home town  Hard Scrabble, Tennessee, at very young age. How he ended up in Little Rock is anyones guess. but it was  a good city for a young black man who was enterpfising and willing to work hard could do well.Althought he had only finished the third grade,he had what folks called drive and  a head for business. He tried several businesses, including bartending and finally wound up as an apprentice of a Jewish mortician, Mr...  aAccording to Mma her father and mu.. had gotten along so well,that Mr. Helllllllllped Dniel set up his own business. they had

When mama was a small child the family lied in samllwell keptpt frame house, by the time she was bout 10, the family thd moved into a large 2 story brick  house at the coronerof 15 anad Ringo Streets. A two sotry brick Prairie style house, , it was on eof the finest homes in the black neighborhood of Little rock. Biuilt by dr. Ish in ...    .My mother lived there with her father and step mother until my dad came ack from the se\\war amd t hey moved to st louis. 

I'm still amazed that duing the Great depression ,my mother's folks continued to live well. I guess death is one business that never slows down. Folks would spend whatever they had to make sure their relatives were "put away right",,  Grandpa either didhnt drive or didnt drie well so one of the men wo worke ant the funeral home had to drive him arouroud t own in on to fhteir fleet cars.  when he bout a new Model A ford, One of the men drove the familyout to Callifornia and b ack. . there begana life time love.Mom loved California and always wanted to live there .for the rest of her life. She wanted to got to Berkely College, but herparents woulldnt hear rof therir only child going so far away. She'd graduated at 16 but had been accepted at berkely and Howard.  Berkekly ws out of the question ,and  sheAfter conferrig with a friend wh lived in Washing ton DC , who refreerd to it a sodom and Gamorrah, Howard got the kibosh. Mother went to Phialnder Smith College just up th estreet from her house. Finally when she was 18 she left for Talladega, where she ended up majoring in hisotry. Just about every summer, the mom and her mothe Cara would go north to  Chicago Michiganc and vacation there. She always spoke fondly of  the time she ahn d hr mother spent in detroit wtih oneof he mothers reinds who lived there and ad a daughter aboutmamas age fonly remembered going to Belle Isle  Shhe told wonderful stories about that  house. One of myfavorites was the at Someone had palanted a shryb called a night blooming Sirius in  hte yard,, adn dhtat  I t only bloomed once every . According to mama when that bush bloomed, it was so beautiful and rare that p there was a steady stream of gawkers dribing pas her house to see the flower.The gotherthin g was that sincee black folks culdnt sty in hotels when celebrities of the day came to town they stayed in private houses. Mother told me that marian Anderson sty at her house when she acame to do a concert in LR.  Admidast a;; apr tje good things, there were tow sad thienesses, that Mama expressed to me. Fist that she's always been lonely, sinc tshe had no seblings,a nd Not mnay playmates. haer  parents life was a whirl of social aactivites and business, so se was often in the companly of adults.
When she got married on Dhristmas day of 1941, she thought no one would come to At Big Bethel to that Whristumas in 1941 to sned off their princess.