Chapter 35 Tabitha
Charleston and Georgetown, South Carolina
June 1925
“Tabitha Moore, nothing else is going to fit on this wagon.” Brady pushed the last box into the bottom of the wagon bed and pressed it closed. “Not unless you are planning to catch another wagon.”
Tabitha stood there holding a bag of shoes and dresses that she could not fit in the trunks. She inspected the items. She would not ride all the way to Georgetown with these things on her lap.
“Can we take these to the YWCA?”
Brady removed his hat, wiped his forehead around the hairline, and put it back on. “Woman, the YWCA was supposed to be done.”
Tabitha knew his protest was less about the time it would take than the simple fact that Brady was tired. He’d gotten a ride to Georgetown yesterday to retrieve the wagon from Mama and ridden it back. Now he was going to have to make the trip again.
They were leaving Charleston. The economy shifted, and with it, many of the businesses in the city suffered. As it was everywhere in the city, Negro men lost their jobs on the docks first.
“Where is Margaret?” she asked, looking around for her daughter.
“Here,” Margaret said, coming down the steps carrying a book. One would think she was summoned for a funeral. She did not want to leave Charleston. It was the only home she knew. She had friends and activities here; Georgetown would be slower paced and quieter. Rather than see it as an opportunity to enjoy more peace, Margaret anticipated boredom.
“Let me help you.” Brady helped Margaret climb into the wagon bed where he had put quilts and other bedding to make the ride more comfortable for her.
“Does it feel like you’re leaving home?” Tabitha asked, looking back at the building they’d moved into after they married two years ago.
“Home is where you are.” Brady kissed her cheek and lingered close to her.
Tabitha lifted his hat and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “Are you sure you’re not upset that we’re going to Georgetown instead of Columbia?”
“There isn’t much for me in Columbia but farming. Farming don’t feed anybody these days.”
Brady shook his head, but she knew he hated starting over. There was no plan for Georgetown. All they had was shelter and food at Mama’s house. He’d always worked for himself, and now he would have to find a job. The newspapers did not paint promising prospects of that. South Carolina was suffering. The four-year drought and two years of the boll weevil destroyed harvests of food and cotton. More than thirty thousand farmers and many more sharecroppers walked away from their land. Negroes went north to manufacturing jobs, away from Jim Crow and its vagrancy and other oppressive laws.
Brady helped Tabitha into the wagon. Carrying their first child, she was more belly than anything else these days.
She didn’t have to ask Brady to ride past the docks. He wanted to look at them for the last time too. They passed their boarded-up businesses but carried the ache of their loss with them. At first they combined stores, moving his business into hers, but doing that didn’t help. There were no Negro and very few white dock workers to sell food or goods to. Without cotton, there were no textiles or exports, which meant there was nothing to ship.
“We have each other, Tab.” She tore her gaze from the buildings and found Brady’s beautiful brown eyes. She’d rode into this town carrying Margaret. It seemed a lifetime ago, but as her daughter was only nine, it had not been. Tabitha placed one hand on his thigh and the other on her belly and trusted that each other was all she would need.
***
October 1936
“A papermill is coming to Georgetown.” Tabitha turned the folded newspaper around so Brady and Amos could see the headline.
Brady didn’t seem much fazed by it. He was too busy packing their son’s lunch pail. “I saw that. What about it?”
“I’m thinking the men working there will need lunch. I could start up a lunch wagon.”
Brady chuckled. “You’re trying to resurrect Tabby’s Place.”
“I won’t be resurrecting anything. I like new things and new plans, sir.” She shimmied her shoulders at him.
Their son Brady Jr. entered the kitchen and put his books on the table.
“Where is Tom?” Tabitha asked.
“He likes a girl, so he’s dressing slow.” Amos cackled. It was hard to believe this was Tom’s last year of school. He was the book smartest of her four children. He would have already graduated, but the schools weren’t always open during the Depression. She hoped to have money to send him to college.
Amos had already eaten breakfast, but he reached for another piece of salt pork and popped it in his mouth. “I can help make cakes,” he said.
Amos had become a pretty good baker. He made ten cakes for his high school graduation. At the reception, everyone complimented him. Since then, he’d baked quite a few for pay.
Brady Jr. added, “You can name the wagon Tabby’s Meats and Sweets.”
“Somebody was listening to grown folks’ conversations before he came in here.” Tabitha cupped his chin with her hand and kissed him on the top of his head. “I like that idea, but you, sir, need to get down the road to that schoolhouse.”
He hugged his mother and his father, took the lunch pail Brady handed him, and left the house.
Tabitha picked up the coffee cup she’d abandoned and took a sip. She stared at the new announcement again. “If this country ever finds itself out from under God’s heel, I will open another restaurant with just that name.”
“I don’t think God is much to blame for greedy men destroying the banks,” Brady said, “but things will get better. Bad times don’t last forever.”
Tabitha nodded her agreement. “This article says eight hundred men will be hired to build the plant.”
Brady cocked an eyebrow. “You think any of them will be Negro?”
“Whites need to eat too.” She thought some more. “We should be able to get excess from the local farmers. They’ll be glad to sell for something rather than waste the crops like they’ve been doing. All I’d need to buy is some meat.”
“We’ll see,” Brady said, but it wasn’t his vision. It was Tabitha’s. She saw.
In February 1937 Tabitha, Amos, and Margaret set up a food wagon outside the construction site every day at lunchtime and sold out her purloo rice and whatever meat she could get. Amos sold slices of cake for dessert. Tabby’s Meats and Sweets was born. As the heel of God’s foot lifted, businesses in Georgetown started ordering food for their employee parties. Tabitha received orders from people having weddings, birthday parties, and holiday parties. She named her signature purloo dish Tabby’s Rice. It became well known all over the county.
One Sunday afternoon after dinner, Mama said, “We need to go somewhere.”
Tabitha looked at Brady. He avoided her eyes, and she couldn’t help wondering if he knew what Mama was up to. The two of them were as close as mother and son. Brady replaced the two sons who had abandoned Mama with evil disregard.
Brady, Mama, Margaret, and Tabitha climbed into Mama’s old Model-A Ford. It took ten minutes to reach their destination, which was a small building located on the main road. Once they arrived, everyone stepped out.
“What is this?” Margaret asked, walking to the door of the building. She leaned to the side and looked in through the glass.
“This is Tabby’s Meats and Sweets,” Mama said with pride busting from her throat. “It’s time for you to expand your business.”
Tabitha felt the tears welling up in her eyes. She glanced at Brady and back at her mother before stammering, “This is too much.” Her eyes went back to Brady. Just as she thought, he knew about this surprise.
“I believe this is just enough,” Mama said, stepping closer to the building. “When I first visited Tabby’s Place, I felt a pride in me that I’d never known before. I thought, My Bitta did this all by herself. Nobody to help her and with little children on her hip. Then, when you opened the food truck at the plant, I was so proud...” Mama’s voice trailed off. “You can make something of this, Bitta.”
Tabitha rushed to Mama’s side and hugged her tightly. “I will make rent every month, Mama. You don’t have to worry about the credit.”
Mama released a light laugh. “There is no credit. This is your building.”
Tabitha shook her head. She heard the words, but she didn’t understand. “But how?”
“How?” Fierce joy was the expression on Mama’s face. “I have something to tell you.” Mama took her hand, and Tabitha followed. They stopped just under a shady live oak tree behind the building and sat at an old table and chair set.
The serious look in Mama’s expression deepened. “This is a secret I promised I would take to my grave.” Mama looked at Tabitha as if she was still considering whether to break the promise she’d kept. “Papa’s parents took him and his siblings and left the South after freedom. They lived as white people in Chicago for the last seventy years.”
Tabitha wrapped her arms around her middle and let those words settle in her mind.
“His father opened a business. It was very successful. Whenever Charles traveled, that was where he went... to Chicago. He was going to see ’bout family business there and to get money. He had an allowance. His father passed right before you were born, and then his mother died in May of 1915, right after your birthday.”
Tabitha didn’t say a word. She was processing her mother’s words and the timeline of events.
“You remember Papa got a telegram. That was rare. It was urgent, so he left. He didn’t know he was traveling to his mother’s funeral. It was a hard time for him. But that’s why he left and stayed so long sometimes. He had obligations, and his family did not know he was down here living with a Negro woman. Well, one brother knew. He sent the telegram, but if the rest of them knew, they would have cut him out of the family.”
Tabitha shook her head. She was still trying to let this sink in. Papa, pretending to be a white man... She could not imagine that. His skin was white, but he still looked Negro to her. All white-skinned Negros were still recognizable as Negro people. She’d seen plenty of them in Charleston. “What did his family think he was doing when he was with us?”
“Traveling. Seeing the world. That’s what he told them. Negroes couldn’t pass and then be with Negro people in other places. They had to leave the race behind. Mixing the worlds was dangerous.”
“My goodness,” Tabitha said. “This is so surprising.”
“Let me finish because there’s more.” Mama took a deep breath and exhaled before continuing, “Charles knew that if something happened to him, I would have nothing... that his children would have nothing, so he sent your brothers to Chicago to live in his house, to get an education, join the business, and enjoy the privilege of his family’s money.”
“Who did his family think was the boys’ mother?”
Mama shook her head vigorously. “Charles had a story. None of that matters now. Being his children, your brothers could inherit what I couldn’t.”
“That’s how you bought the house after he died.”
“That’s how I bought the house. It’s how we survived all these years of depression, and it’s how I purchased this place.” Mama pointed to my building. “They are very wealthy, Bitta. Charles made sure we got his share.”
Tabitha raised a hand to wipe not only the sweat on her lip, but a tear that made a path through the perspiration. She had so many more questions, but the one that stuck in her mind, she asked. “He wanted you all to go north, didn’t he?”
Mama looked at her.
“I heard him say it. He wanted you to leave me with Miss Fran.”
Mama frowned. “I didn’t know you heard us talk on that.”
Tabitha reached for her mother’s hand and squeezed it. “You stayed for me.”
Mama nodded. “Of course.”
“Did you ever have regrets?”
“No, baby. I don’t regret anything about my life. Your father sacrificed too much for me to have regrets. He had to work at the mill to keep from being locked up for vagrancy. He hated that job. He drank because of it. That and fear that he would be discovered and ruin things for everybody.”
Tabitha had thought little of Papa. She felt like no one because he was willing to leave her behind, but in truth, some of his motivation for wanting to leave was fear. It had to be. “I just thought he didn’t care about me.”
Mama was contemplative for a few moments. “It was resentment that he felt about you, but he got over that, and once you were gone, he missed you... missed your cooking.” Mama laughed. “On his deathbed, he told your brothers to tell me to do something special for Bitta and tell her she’s always been his giant.”
Something exploded inside of Tabitha. It felt like a special kind of joy. The kind that made you feel worthy. Her voice cracked when she asked, “Did he?” If he did, that meant she was accepted, and that was all she’d ever wanted from him.
“That’s why we’re here,” Mama said, smiling wide. “I wanted to give you this place when I came to Charleston, but I saw the way you and Brady looked at each other, and I knew you wouldn’t come.”
“Brady and I weren’t a thought then.”
Mama raised her eyebrows and reared her head back. “I could see what you two couldn’t. And you deserved love after the way Joseph treated you. Anyway, by the time you two came to Georgetown, the economy was bad. There was no way I could buy a building. White folks and Negroes would question where the money came from, and no one was eating in restaurants. I had to wait for things to get better. For the Depression to end.”
Tabitha turned and looked at the back of the building. “Life is funny, isn’t it, Mama?”
“Sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’s sad. Everything we struggle through has a purpose. That’s what God’s Word says. We have to take the good and bad and the bitter and sweet.”
Tabitha folded herself into Mama’s open arms. “I love you.”
Mama pulled away and looked into Tabitha’s eyes. “I love you too, Giant.”
Tabitha looked at her building. Her heart smiled, and for the first time in her life, she was Papa’s daughter.