Remembering and Honoring Legacy

November 22, 2014, a mighty oak fell in our family tree.  My dad called early that Saturday morning with the sad news.  Our uncle, one of my dad’s favorite uncles, Richard Cromwell Peace, had gone to Glory.  I say “our” Uncle Richard, because no matter the familial relationship, everyone pretty much referred to him as Uncle Richard.  My dad said that one of the things that he admired most was the way Uncle Richard always took care of family and always helped the community.  He worked with you and showed you how to do things so that you could be self-sufficient too, such an important life lesson that runs throughout the family.  I also found out in talking with Daddee after the memorial service, that Uncle Richard is actually “Little” Uncle Richard, as he was named after his uncle, “Big” Uncle Richard Cromwell Peace.  I’ll tell you more about him a little later in my story.

I remember when I was a little girl how he instilled in us cousins and siblings, little acorns then, the importance of family and legacy.  Uncle Richard was one of the elders who would gather us together at the family reunions, make us sit up front, show us pictures and tell us the stories, history, and the legacy of the Jordan clan, born from the great Peaces, Alexander and Lethia Downey Peace.  These stories sustained me, made me proud, and helped me to endure when times got tough for me, especially in college and when I first started teaching.  I would think back to the fact that “I am from a long line of preachers and teachers”, and I could then square my shoulders more resolutely and press forward.

Sometimes we met for the family reunions at “The Home Place”, at Uncle Richard’s house down in the country past the family cemetery and Uncle Garland’s apple orchards with the best apples for eating, making pies, and making Mommee’s famous homemade apple and apple/plum jellies and homemade applesauce, chunky or smooth, the only applesauce that I would eat.  After some of her homemade applesauce, thawed from the freezer so that it still had a few frozen bits of applesauce it in, I never wanted to eat store bought applesauce.  One of the stories that we listened to was the story of how “The Home Place” came to be in the family.  The story goes that back in the day when the family went to the bank to make purchase of the land, the banker scoffed derisively and granted them the loan, saying, “You’ll be giving it back soon; that land will never be yours”.  That was over one hundred years ago, and I remember that legacy of determination, pride, a hard work ethic, and family, that “I’ll show you” attitude of quiet defiance that propels me to endure until I achieve my goals and overcome obstacles in life.

In talking with my dad, I always learn something new, that there were TWO Uncle Richards, a “Big” Uncle Richard Cromwell Peace, and a “Little” Uncle Richard Cromwell Peace.  Their connection was another example of how family legacy would help me overcome an obstacle standing in the way of my life’s goals.  In graduate school at Duke, my first class was a history class about the immigrant experience in America.  Our final paper in the class was to write about an immigration experience of someone in our family.  Although I can go back a few generations in my family tree, especially on my father’s side of the family thanks to my cousin Chuckie, the family historian and genealogist, the only immigration experience I really knew was being stolen from Africa, somewhere in Africa perhaps never to be known by me, and brought to this land in chains to toil as slaves.  As I studied and asked my dad about my family’s history, I discovered that most of us chose to remain planted near our NC roots, but in talking with Daddee, he pointed out a notable exception, “Big” Uncle Richard, who I mistakenly thought was the same Uncle Richard that I grew up knowing.  Though in class readings and discussions we glossed over the Great Black Migration within the United States in the 1930s-1940s, a mass migration of African-American people seeking better lives and opportunities by leaving the repressive, regressive south and going to the big cities in the north, I knew a lot about the subject from my undergraduate days at Duke and four semesters of US and Afro-American history under the teaching of Dr. Raymond Gavins, who taught from the perspective of the disenfranchised and powerless people and regions in American history. 

I had discovered my topic and began to interview my dad, who told me the story.  “Big” Uncle Richard left Oxford to seek his destiny riding “The Silver Meteor”.  He was a Pullman porter on the route from Florida to New York, and was very successful in his career.  “Big” Uncle Richard was my Great Grandpa Peace’s brother, who “Little” Uncle Richard was named after.  As a porter he worked hard and saved his money.  He had a nice car, and always had money in his pockets.  My dad said that was a really big deal, especially for an African-American in the segregated society of 1940s America.  When the train would come through Oxford, “Big” Uncle Richard would stand on the back of the train, waving as the train passed by the station blowing its whistle.  I wonder if that is where the Jordan tradition of gathering on the porch to say the “Great Goodbye” came from, everyone calling out a chorus of goodbyes and waving as our car turned around past Mrs. Gregory’s house on the way back down W. Front Street, on our journey from Grandma Jordan’s house back to our home in the Warren County country.  From Grandpa Peace, preacher, ice delivery man, farmer, and jack-of-all trades, to “Big” Uncle Richard’s successful service as a Pullman porter, to “Little” Uncle Richard’s business and real estate acumen along with his brother, my Uncle John Thomas “Biggis” Peace, I could not help but learn the lessons of using dogged determination to reap the labors of hard work and working endlessly to achieve one’s goals, even when faced with difficulties.  The fruits of my labor earned me a B+ in my first graduate level course, and I was very proud of myself for figuring out a way to successfully accomplish the assignment’s goal.

That strong sense of legacy and family pride, and memories of a big family clan gathered together to fellowship at family reunions are nestled right beside memories of running around and playing with my cousins, my aunts and uncles slapping down books and laughing at the Bid Whist table (I always wanted to learn how to play), Uncle Ed frying the best fish and chicken in the big, black, cast iron cauldron pots in the back yard, and always, always, big pans of fresh corn pudding.  Those memories filled my heart and flooded my soul during the memorial service and bathed me also in the loving memory of Grandma Jordan, sitting in the short pews in the front of the church, right side, second row, adjacent to where the big organ, now in the choir stand, used to be.  As my cousin, Franthia Darby, sang Uncle Richard home to “Amazing Grace” (one of my favorite hymns), on his final leg of the journey to the everlasting life, I was overcome with emotion.  I wept quietly and shamelessly, but they were not tears of sadness; they were tears of uncontrollable joy as we said goodbye and remembered fondly a man we all loved, “Little” Uncle Richard Cromwell Peace.  RIP

P.S.  Uncle Richard, please tell Aunt Rosa Lee that the grass she and I stomped down leading the Love Train one year when the family reunion was at our house in Embro has finally grown back, hahaha!

Blessed be the ties that bind,

Your niece, Jan