A Beginning……..

 

On September 12, 1903, Mr. Frank Scott, Sr and his spouse, Ms. Martha Collins-Scott observed the home birth of their sixteenth of seventeen pregnancies 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 with many disappointments but Frank Jr and his five brothers and 2 sisters managed to busy themselves with the mischief of childhood and the increasing demands of family life caught in the grip of poverty and a racist and terrorist society. Della and Maggie were taught the task of domestic homemaking and childcare by their mother. As growing boys, Johnnie, Isiah, Julius, Robert, Lucious and Frank Jr were instructed on farm and field work, care of the land and they often worked as manual laborers for hire during seasonal planting & crop gathering basis as their father and other men-folks of the nuclear and extended family advised them to do. 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 period that often-separated families in search of the promise of a better job and a safer way of life. One-by-one new relationships moved the now 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 their 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 display the importance of the parenting process. We must constantly seek to keep this bond and this blood kinship engaged through renewed outreach to promote active communication, to participate 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 and family bonds.    

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 accelerates one’s need to grow up facing & adjusting to the harsh reality of a way of life that seemingly applies to you only and over which you have no control nor a way out. Such a beginning could easily foster a very negative and suspicious impression of life and of human worth. But such a negative view 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 & day)

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 family history in an onward and upward direction towards achievement and fulfillment.

The ever-contemporary remarks of the late Reverend Doctor Martin Luther king, Jr, are a reminder of this type of commitment, “ I’ve decided that I’m going to do battle for my philosophy. You ought to believe in 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.”  

…a tale of faith’s expanding proportions:

Verner Mae eventually found her mother who had abandoned her at age 13 years. But let me set the prospective for this rosetta stone of my mother’s adult life odyssey. 

I can remember one thing constant on Sunday morning was waking up to the voice of our mom praying & petitioning to God to let her locate her mother. She had not seen or heard from her mom since she was a teenager & none of the network of family members seemed to know where her mentally ill mother was. And yet, our mother always spoke of her mother as being alive although she had no proof….until this prospective changed.

Mom was in her early 50’s when in 1969 she received a lead that her mother was a resident in the State of Alabama’s mental illness institution called Searcy Hospital located in Mt Vernon, AL. This lead did result in communication & visitations & ended with Ms. Clara Barker coming home to live with her adult daughter & family. 

My grandmother suffered from psychosis & lived in a world all to herself. Her conversations with us family members were a matter of necessity only & not long tolerated. She, however, kept constant verbal & social interaction with an array of individuals of adult and infant stature, who were vivid in her isolated & individualized world. I believe my younger siblings were fearful & certainly confused by her behavior. I however did find her intriguing & welcomed our exchange no matter how fragmented. 

My mother noted a possible mass in grandmom’s breast & we took her back to the facility as instructed for an evaluation. While we were there awaiting the intake process to be completed, grandmom took ill, suffered acute respiratory failure & arrested there in our arms and expired rapidly. I was 17 years old & the sheer sense of overwhelming helplessness I believe set the stage for my interest in medicine as a profession.

Now many years later, I think, in hindsight, of how things worked out related to the way God answered my mother’s prayer to allow her to find her mother. How our grandmother passed away less than 1 year after she was located. How I just happened to be with my mother to support her at this shocking event. 

I am strengthened daily on my life journey as I recall that my mother prayed for all her children & sought God’s blessing to blanket their lives. Because I believe that God heard my mom’s prayers, I understand with sharper mental clarity how we are blessed beyond measures & I can find calm with less of a struggle when the challenge of the unknown seems to loom heavily on the horizon.

So, I truly have had my faith strengthened by this life circumstance acted out in the life of our family………

We are reminded in the poem Invictus (unconquerable) penned by the British poet William Earnest Henley:

It matters not how strait the gate

How charged with punishment the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

Our pop was a special and unique type of guy…

Growing up with both parents in the home seemed natural– as most kids that I was familiar with did have two parent homes. As our society and family structure have changed, I know in retrospect how important these two pillars of family structure were.

My dad had no formal book learning and was illiterate and unable to write his name but by sign X. He, however, did manage to work as a day laborer and farm hand to support his growing family. Unlike our mother, Pop was not one for pushing to get material gains and was quite satisfied with the status quo– or at least that was the contrast between he and his “got to get it improved” spouse. This often-caused arguments as to what ought to be the energy invested in the pursuit of trying to better oneself and by extension-one’s clan.

Dad never learned to drive an automobile and had no problem walking. He made it a practice to walk on a regular basis to and from work in all seasons. He often would walk to the local side store where he would often return with treats that, as a kid, made waiting for his return seem like an eternity. Dad lived to be 97 years old, was never obese and was active in mobility without a cane until a few years before his death.

As a child growing up, I resolved that I would never be like my dad because I felt the similar drive and ambitions displayed in our mom’s lifestyle and her active engagement. But after I became a man and returned to Alabama with my family, I did have the good fortune to witness my dad’s resilience & tolerance as he aged into his life cycle. I, without planning, began to appreciate a type of strength and wisdom that allowed him to embrace his physical decline with such resolve that it made me take conscious notice of his inner peace. He would often comment that “I am getting old son” when it was noted that his physical state was declining. The passage of time seemed to carve into his facial demeanor a type of serenity and calm, even as his mental and physical stamina slowly declined until he required custodial and physical help daily. But even then, he never complained about his situation.

I now reflect on the life and times of this soldier who took his journey into that “foreign and unknown country” seemingly with the resolve and understanding that such a path awaits all travelers on this mortal side as an inevitable and absolute voyage awaiting us all. I am therefore challenged to try by all measure to be like my pop in this endeavor for it calls into recognition one who fights the good fight, and one who with resolve prepares for the challenge to embrace the last stage of life’s cycle.

Kahlil Gibran in his work, The Prophet, speaks with clarity on this issue of death:

For what is it to die but to stand naked

In the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing, but to

Free the breath from its restless tides, that

It may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

 

~Vernon Scott, Sr