Sal and Nell

 

Today as I was taking my daily hike in the woods I listened to the Diane Rehm show on NPR.  Beverly Lowry, an author, was being interviewed about a biography she had written on Harriet Tubman, a slave and leader of the Underground Railroad.  I learned so much more than I had known about Harriet Tubman, and possibly I’ll read the book now.

The conversation sparked a childhood memory.  When I was eight I traveled about an hour’s drive away with my father and uncle.  They were going to see a couple of bothers.  I don’t know the particular business.  The brothers were living in a house together.  As I recall from the conversation in the car preceding the visit they were quite old, in their eighties, and had outlived their wives. 

When we arrived my father and his brother were friendly greeted.  I’m sure they and the two brothers had a nice visit.  When we went in the house there was an old, slender, but not so frail, gray headed, black woman bent over with a mop in her hand and bucket of sudsy water on the floor.  No one knew exactly how old she was, but knew she was well over 100.  She spoke, but stayed in the background going about her business.  Her name was Sal, and she had been a child slave along with her sister Nell. 

The memory is like a dream now; but it did happen.  It was a living history lesson. I questioned my father and uncle on the way home.  Her sister, who was not that much older than her was also still living, in a nearby nursing home.

I learned not too long after the visit Nell had died, and Sal had moved into the nursing home as well, where she also died not too long after that. 

My father is now in his eighty’s and a few months ago, after telling my husband of the incident, we talked to my dad trying to gather more information about Sal and Nell.  My dad said they had been slaves for a family who lived just a few miles away from the farm we live on now, also where my dad grew up. That is how he knew them.  Sal and Nell had continued to live with the family after their freedom.  They were treated as part of the family and took care of future generations, including the two brothers who were left.  My dad said there were no other black families in our area.  The sisters never married, and on the rare occasion they came in contact with those of their same race they shied away.  

This incident in my childhood was an amazing moment for me.  I was in awe to see this person who had incarnated as a slave and lived this history.

Jerri