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My Mom’s "Vintage" Sausage

Copyright © 2005, W. David Tarver

Tink-a-link. My mother’s sausage link made a startling little sound as it landed on her plate. I looked at her and we both laughed. I caught her red-handed again, eating an old, overcooked piece of sausage. That piece of sausage was so hard that it could break a tooth. I had to laugh because my mother is always eating stuff like this – I call it "vintage food" – even at the mature age of almost eighty-three. She doesn’t eat this stuff because she has to, but because she just hates to throw anything out. Her attitude is born out of a connection to her past, and it reflects who she is.

My mother was born in Flint, Michigan in 1922. Her parents moved to Flint from Georgia after World War I to find opportunity in what was then a growing automobile manufacturing town. My grandfather started a dry cleaning business, one of the first black-owned businesses in Flint. After several years, things got difficult for the family in Flint, so my grandmother, my mother and her siblings moved back down to Camilla, Georgia to stay with relatives. Life in depression-era, segregation-era Georgia was tough. Money and food were scarce.

As soon as she could, my mother left Camilla and got a job in Albany, Georgia working for Rosenberg’s Department Store. She was paid a few dollars a week to do odd jobs like gift wrapping and cleaning. For entertainment, my mother and her friends would sometimes go to the "colored" section of the local movie house. They couldn’t afford the popcorn, so they would buy a bag of leftover popcorn kernels – the kernels that wouldn’t pop – for 1cent. My mother still jokes about how those popcorn kernels made her teeth strong!

While working in Albany, my mother learned of an opportunity to study nursing at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. The school for blacks was called the Grady Colored School of Nursing. While there, my mother secretly married my father – nursing students were not allowed to be married. My mother had a hard time finishing school. She became pregnant with my big sister and had to leave school for a time. Then my father went off to serve in the army during World War II. My mother persevered though, and ultimately she got her degree in nursing from Grady.

After WWII, my folks settled back in Albany, Georgia, and my mother got a job as a nurse at Phoebe hospital. Phoebe Hospital was divided into two sections connected by a long hallway. One section was for white patients, the other for blacks. The white section was nice and new, and the black section was old and dilapidated. One night, my mother had an urgent need to use the restroom, and she happened to be in the hallway near the "white" section. She ducked into the nearest bathroom, which happened to be a "white" bathroom. One of the white staff members saw her and reported her, and she was severely reprimanded. At that point, my mother decided that it was time to leave the South.

In 1951, my mother and father gathered their two kids – my older sister and brother – and moved to Flint Michigan. My mother got a job as a nurse at Hurley Hospital – a large facility that was owned by the City of Flint. She was one of the first blacks hired as a nurse at Hurley. In the ensuing years, she would become the first black nursing supervisor in Flint, and then the first black Assistant Director of Nursing.

By the time I was born in 1953, my folks had made it through the really hard times. Even so, they were still very frugal. I don’t recall a single occasion before 1968 when they went out to eat. On those few occasions when my mother would broach the subject, my father would simply say, "I like your cookin’". No, we Tarvers ate at home, we cleaned our plates, and we hardly ever threw anything out.

When I reflect on everything my mom has been through, I know why it is no big deal for her to eat a piece of "vintage" sausage. For her, it is just a reflection of her struggle, and it is part of who she is. Like many African Americans of her era, my mother struggled mightily to overcome poverty and racism and achieve a better life. I am proud of her, even if I don’t share her taste in sausage.

W. David Tarver

February 8, 2005

Red Bank, New Jersey