On September 12, 1903 Mr Frank Scott, Sr and his spouse, Ms. Martha Collins-Scott observed the home birth of their sixteenth of seventeen children and named him Frank Jr. Because of birthing complications, only eight of the total pregnancies survived.

 Early life in rural Hale County by all accounts was hard and disappointing but Frank Jr and his five brothers and 2 sisters managed to busy themselves with the mischief of childhood and the ever increasing demands of family life caught in the grip of poverty and a raciest and terrorist society. Della and Maggie were taught the task of domestic homemaking and child care by their mother. As growing boys, Johnnie, Isiah, Julius, Robert, Lucious and Frank Jr were instructed in farm and field work, care of the land and often worked as manual laborer’s for hire on seasonal & rotational basis as their father and other men-folks of the nuclear and extended family advised. School learning was often sacrificed for immediate survival demands that would only multiply as childhood gave way to adulthood.

 

Time is reported to have passed quickly as boys grew into men during the great exodus that often separated families in search of the promise of a better and safer way of life. One-by-one new relationships were moving adult Scotts into marriage and the awesome responsibilities of adulthood. The opportunity to apply the skills learned during the “growing season” was an ever evolving aspect of this maturing process. The role of the extended family in which relatives and other responsible adults lent support, discipline and guidance was very much a part of this growth & evolution.

 

We are reminded by the words of Caleb Colton that “all adverse and depressing influences can be overcome. Not by fighting, but by rising above them.”

 

Frank Jr’s first marriage to Ms Mandie William-Scott produced four female children: 1) Clara Scott-Lawson, 2) Asalene Scott-Bryant, 3) Bertha L. Scott-Rankin, 4) Fannie M. Scott-Walker. Although this marriage ended in divorce, the precious fruit of its union are lasting symbols of the expanding mission of family and displays the importance of the parenting process. We seek to keep this bond and this blood kindship active through renewed outreach to promote active communication, to engage in “fence mending” where needed and by the spoken word that can do much to keep the links in the chain strong and well lubricated by providing the necessary background & insight so as to make relevance these matters of the heart.    

 

Kahlil Gibran in his work, The Prophet, reminds us that as parents, “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”

 

As the only surviving offspring born to the union of her parents, Mr Tom Barker and Ms Clara Sanders-Barker, Verner Mae Barker was truly a welcome addition to her parents on October 24, 1918. Her birth home of Jefferson Co Alabama was not to be the community of her childhood experience, for she was soon in transient due to the marital discard between her parents.

 

School and friendships were often interrupted as Verner Mae was shifted from one relative to another for physical and emotional care. Such lack of cohesive family structure cause one to grow up fast having to adjust to the harsh reality of a way of life that seemingly apply to you only and over which you have no control nor any way out. Such a beginning could easily foster a very negative and suspicious prospective of life and human worth. But such a prospective was not to be found in the adult heart nor conscious of Verner Mae. She believed very deeply in God and envisioned his plans for her and her family as a potential unknown worth fighting to realize.

 

Abandoned by her mother at age 13 years, Verner Mae tried to find love, support and direction from her father, who was too deep in the grip of alcohol to respond to her emotional needs. Matter of fact, it is stated that he often remarked that his only needs were a good shot of whisky, a smoke and a cup of coffee.

 

In 1932, Verner Mae moved to Hale Co Alabama at age fourteen. During this period of her life she tried to continue her schooling, keep in touch with her ill father and to find her run-away mother.

 

Henry Fielding said, “he that can heroically endure adversity will bear equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former will likely be transported with the latter.”

 

After a relatively short courtship Mr Frank Scott, Jr married Ms Verner M Barker on June 27, 1939 in Newbern, AL. (just a footnote: I came to realize as I was compiling this manuscript that my wife and I were married on the same Month & Date)

 

This union has left an indelible mark through strong parenting and family commitment displayed through the lives of twelve off-springs and a vast number of direct blood line kinsmen.  It is our hope that through the process of Family Reunion, the knowledge of who we are will further advance the understanding of where we are individually and collectively so that the generations that continue to carve out the destiny of why we are will have clear vision and resolved commitment to the purpose to move our historic archive in the onward and upward direction of achievement and fulfillment.

 

I close with the ever contemporary remarks of the late Reverend Doctor Martin Luther king, Jr, “ I’ve decided that I’m going to do battle for my philosophy. You ought to believe something in life, believe that thing so fervently that you will stand up with it till the end of your days. I can’t make myself believe that God wants me to hate. I’m tired of violence. And I’m not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. We have a power, power that can’t be found in Molotov cocktails, but we do have a power. Power that cannot be found in bullets and guns, but we have a power. It is a power as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth and as modern as the techniques of mahatma Gandhi.”   

~Vernon Scott, Sr