Secrets of a Storage Shed

I had been told that longevity runs in my family but I didn't believe it.  Although my father lived into his late seventies, most of my relatives surrendered their lives much earlier to the usual suspects of modern grim reapers – a plethora of cancers, heart attacks, and strokes.  So I was surprised when I received the call from Mac's Storage Emporium located in Evansville, Tennessee informing me, via answering machine, that I had until Thursday to pay for the storage facility or he was going to foreclose and sell all the contents within. 

"Say what?"

"You heard me," said the man whom I later learned was Mac himself.  Either I pay for the last six months or he was exercising his rights to sell the contents within, "Most likely at a loss." 

Mac may not be the most perceptive of individuals, but he seemed to pick up that I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.   "Lady I got your number from the lawyer.  You're Jasmine Phillips right?" 

"Yes," I hesitated actually wondering if this was a prank.

"The Jasmine Phillips currently living in San Diego, daughter of the late Dr. Clarence Phillips of Chicago?" he asked between bites of what I assumed was a sandwich.

"That's me."

"So," his voice muffled by talking with a full mouth,  "Are you paying or not?"

Having met Mac in person he looks just like I expected, but happily I find him more honest than I would have initially presumed from a man who has those naked lady silhouette mud flaps on his pickup.  And if it weren't for Mac, I would have never stumbled upon the personal effects of Dorthea Evans Rampart.

After two days, I finally was able to track down the story and sent Mac a money order for the back rent.  I knew I had heard of Evansville, Tennessee before, but it took a while to remember when and where.  I was six when a cousin dared me to go to my father and ask him when he was planning to take me to Evansville to visit our relations.  I asked, but regretted it the moment I saw the blood drain from his face.  My mother got her rare but deadly, "you don't want to mess with me" looks but didn't aim her wrath at me.  Instead, she took my hand while my father gathered our coats then we left his sister's home.  We seldom returned after that, usually when someone had died.  

Turns out Evansville is where my people are from…well the white side at least.

With each passing generation so called "mixed marriages" are less of a big deal.  Of course, two, three, four generations down from the Civil War (in the south no less) mixed relationships were a HUGE DEAL.  Woe be the black man caught fancying a white girl… for that was a lynching offense.  

This explains why Dorthea Evans Rampart was not on my Christmas card list - she wasn't even on my radar.  Really, it was too bad since we seem to have shared similar taste and she did live to the ripe old age of 103. 

Dorthea was an aunt to my grandmother, Tessa Evans.  She was only ten years older than her niece, but they probably didn't share much of a friendship.  I think Tessa was considered the wild child of the family even before her fall from grace.  The one picture that I know for sure is Tessa shows her dressed as a flapper, her face distorted in such a way that you can practically smell the gin on he breath.   Whatever Tessa's temperament, at a very impressionable age, she was able to charm her father into letting her go on one of those grand tours of Europe the white gentry used to do.  It was 1927, two years before the stock market crashed and burned. 

I'm sure in retrospect her family, stymied over their secret scandal, would shake their heads out on their massive mahogany porch lamenting on the stupidity of letting a girl that unpredictable leave the continent.   I picture them doing this as they drank their freshly squeezed lemon aid while watching black folk do the lawn work - all without irony. 

From what I could gather, my grandmother managed to dump her appointed entourage somewhere in England and ended up crossing the Channel where she was soon swooning over my light-skinned grandfather Nathan "The Cat" Phillips as he played sax in some smoky Parisian salon.  Besides a life long hankering for black men (you know the saying) I imagine Tessa probably would have returned to Evansville and married someone her family found respectable if she hadn't gotten pregnant. 

This part of the family history is murky, after being disowned by her family Tessa gave birth to my father in Paris.  "The Cat" may or may not have married Tessa, but somehow he ended up with his son who was raised by his third (maybe) wife whom I assumed was my biological grandmother until Mac called.

Tessa spun so out of control ten years later she was found dead in the Vienna hotel room she had made her home.  No one knew who paid the bills and there was speculation that she may have been a professional. 

I had been paying rent on Dorthea's storage facility for a year before checking it out.  I could have gone earlier, but didn't.  I had a niggling feeling that I may not like what I would find, as if there was a slim chance Dorthea had been a grand wizard of the KKK.  My relief was palatable when Mac turned the key and slid the door open and there was no Confederate flag saluting me.

I am a fashion stylist (yes, I work with the stars) whose business goal has always including expanding.  Going into Dorthea's locker made me feel like a kid entering Disney World for the first time.  She had twelve trunks full of perfectly preserved haute couture from the last century, among with paintings, one a Picasso from his blue period, and other treasures.

Like me, Dorthea was a collector.  Of the many haute couture I found were important pieces such as a Chanel pantsuit from the 30's, in the style that Dietrich used to wear.  As an investment I'm sure, she also had a 1969 bridal gown made Emanuel Ungaro that was inspired by the hippy movement.   My personal favorite was the Christian Dior  "Bar Suit" that ushered in the "New Look." 

After realizing the importance and potential worth of just her clothing collection I had to grab my asthma inhaler and sit down while Mac got me some water.  After recovering, I took Mac out to his favorite diner and I made immediately made arrangements for the contents to be moved to California where my friends were compelled to ask, "How did you end up with all of Dorthea Evans Rampart's great stuff?" 

Dorthea was left a sizeable income when her husband died.  He had made some wise investments in Texas oil in the early part of the last century.  Good fortune, excellent health, and no children allowed Dorthea to spend the next several decades traveling and buying articles of interest. 

Youthful pictures of Dorthea indicate that she wasn't the belle of the ball, but her widowhood changed all of that.  After the second war, she made her home European capitals from which she would often fly to all sorts of exotic locales.  There were pictures of her by the Pyramids, skiing in the Alps, and hiking on, what I assume, are the moors of Scotland.   In the photos from the fifties she is often accompanied by a much younger man, but after going through all of her papers it is apparent that his name has gone to the grave with her. 

As fate often has it, the Evans family fell fast and hard during the Depression due to some very unwise investments and plain bad luck.  Stephon Charles Evans IV, Tessa's father, was the last Evans who was the American equivalent of a medieval prince.  He lived until 1942; still disowning his only daughter, though she was already dead, and knowing that his surviving son, (the eldest was killed in WWI) would drink and gamble what was left of the family fortune.

I'm sure Stephon knew that Dorthea had enough money to save the clan but for whatever reason she didn't interfere.  Dorthea continued to have fun while the rest of the Evans family continued their decline right to the present where I found many of them now living in manufactured homes on the outskirts of the town named after their, I mean our, ancestors. 

My white relatives neither courted me nor made an issue about my skin color.  One distant cousin noted, "It is what it is."  A few of them had heard family lore about Tessa and gave me additional stories about her, but none had bothered visiting Dorthea in the Nashville nursing home she moved into sometime in the mid-80's.  When she died many of them had long assumed she was already dead, so they were delighted when each direct descendent received $5,000 from her estate.  The rest went to specific charities.   

It took me a while to go through all of Dorthea's papers.  It wasn't something that needed to be done, but I felt I owed it to her.  Thanks to her collection (only a small part I sold off) I moved to a larger home and my children's college funds are secure. 

Dorthea didn't leave behind any correspondence.  All I had to piece together her life were unorganized pictures (not one had a name or date attached) and fragmented documents.  Some of the more interesting tidbits included a death certificate for an infant son date June 7, 1924, verification of 5,000 shares of Ma Bell stock, and a cancelled check from Temple University where my father went to medical school.

The ebb and flow of our lives is a constant.  I feel as if I have just won big in Vegas and yet there is a sense of loss for a woman with whom I shared tangible links, yet no relationship.  In her will she left the contents of the storage facility to my father, but having already died it went to his only child thus leaving me to ponder questions that no one alive can answer. 

Racially speaking, for myself anyway, the past has weathered enough where evidence of long denied heritages can be examined without stirring great passions.   Stepping back, I still see the faded images of the life of Dorthea Evans Rampart, a woman I did not know.  I am left to conclude that it is what it is.