Looking For Dignity
Lot of folks looking for a little dignity. Look hard enough, you’ll find it. There was a time in the south when it could scarcely be found. Itinerant workers simply had to move around a lot to find the work. Something about putting down roots and finding a solid place to hang your hat proved elusive to many.
In 1931, Donald Thomas and his wife, Hettie Ann, came north from Virginia and settled in Harford County, Maryland. They found work on a large farm at Olney. May have been the historic farm owned by J. Alexis Shriver. The farm was a large tract primarily used for cows, horses, and ponies, although crops were still grown. Like much of the country, Harford County was growing and advancing with technology. Still, it was mainly an agricultural area with plenty of farms growing plenty of corn, wheat and barley.
After settling at Olney, they also settle on having a family and their firstborn, Dorothy Elizabeth, is born there. Fate stirs again, when her firstborn, Dorothy, becomes ill and dies at three months. Hettie and Donald carried on.
Not much is known about Donald Thomas, except that he was a hard working, decent and decisively southern man. Yet, suppositions are that he never really cared for the north and longed to return home to his Virginia. Hoping to find work in the south, following Dorothy’s death he and Hettie move back home.
For a year or so, they work the farms and live near Lebanon. In 1932, a second child is born, Margarette Evelyn. Turns out she is the only one of the Thomas family to be born in Virginia. Also as it turns out, my one and only mother. Turning 87 this year, she has been the primary source for the family history.
When my mother was about a year old, the work again dries up and again they return north to Olney. Another child, Mary Ethel, named for Hettie Ann’s mother, comes into the world and new roots are put down. Eventually, Hettie became pregnant with a son, Paul, but by now, Donald Thomas had had enough of the north. With Hettie two months pregnant, he left his family behind and returned south.
No real explanation is ever given, he simply up and leaves. One story has him going off in search of railroad work. There’s a footnote he had been shell shocked from the first great war, left part of himself on the battlefield. There were rumors of him living in West Virginia, later, much farther out west. No matter, he isn’t seen or heard from again and Hettie Ann carries on.
1932 was my birth date. You are doing a beautiful job writing a history of my history.
love the way you intertwine history with the personal family story. The line “my one and only mother” made me smile – says it all 🙂
nicely done…last image of Hettie and the quote was worth the read.