The Help

THE HELP

Read Stowe

February 2012

"Now my second Cousin

His name ws Callaway

he died when he barely turned two

It ws peanut butter and jelly that did it

The Help she didn't know what to do

She just stood there and she watched him turn blue"

From "Family Reserve" by Lyle Lovett

The help was mostly Black women named Ann Key, Bessie Mae Thornton, Thelma, Octavia, Viola, Odell, Ethel, Coot, and Mrs. Fairley with a few men Aaron, Smith and even an Eastern European called "Shakie".  They usually had just one name but they always were there.  Often cleaning something up.  when we were young they also sometimes served as surrogate Mothers.

Buckhead 1940s

Occasionally, we played with their children and wondered what happened to them when we finally went to kindergarten - our friends just disappeared.  They often lived just a short distance away.  Usually within walking distance or a short drive.  They didn't drive because they never had a car.  When they left in the afternoon they would usually carry home some food.

Buckhead 1940s

Their houses were easily identified since they were unpainted.  In Buckhead, just outside of Atlanta, they would live in enclaves or quarters consisting of about 10 multi-family units.  In urban areas it was "the Grove".  While in rural areas they were isolated houses.  If I remember correctly the "quarters" as they were called were sometimies surplus military barracks.  Usually there was no grass arond their house. I asked Aunt Bessie Mae Thornton about the absence of grass in her yard and she said her husband Smith kept it chopped out.  When pressed for an answer she said "that ghosts can walk on grass".

Bessie Mae Thornton's house near Pleasant Hill, Georgia

I also wondered, but didn't ask, why their houses were never painted.  Looking back obviously, in many cases it was economic.  However, in some instances it was simply a recycled old house that had once belongd to a White person and it was made of heart pine that is difficult or impossible to take paint.

I spent a lot of time inside Aunt Bessie Mae's house  It was a good place to keep warm in the winter and had wood burning stoves.  Lots of insulation from old newspapers stuck on the walls.  Aunt Bessie Mae made buttermilk pound cakes which were without a doubt the best cakes in the world.

Matthew, Andrew and Noel Stowe and Bessie Mae Thornton (early 1980s)

Often Black maids would unjustly be accused of stealing things when actually they were grossly underpaid and were the ones stolen from everyday. My Grandmother Nellie's maid Coot, who was about the same size as my Grandmother - about 5'- was accused on a regulr basis of stealing silverware - once Grandma Nellie said she saw Coot wearing one of her sweaters downtown.  As far as language, my grandmother was a typical southern lady, but when she and Coot got into it there was some of the roughest talk I have ever heard.

Shakie was an Eastern European who spent part of the 1940s in a Nazi concentration camp near Bremerhaven, Germany.

Shakie 1958

In the 6913th U.S.A.F. Radio Squadron Mobile we had the "help" to pull K.P. or clean the barracks for us.  You had to kick in $7.00 a month or do it yourself.  Shakie lived just outside the main gate to the Air Force base and he swept and mopped the barracks.

The Help continues today. We never would have made it without them.