By Pauline Masson – The late Mamie Hinkle Baker of Robertsville once said to me, “If you want to get to know Black people, go to church.”
I followed her advice and attended services in five local Black Churches in our area: Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church of Villa Ridge, Mount Calvary Baptist Church and Robertsville Temple in Robertsville, and Pacific Temple and Historic First Baptist Church in Pacific. Historic First Baptist is now closed for renovation but the other four churches make up a vibrant enclave in our community.
In these churches I met a welcoming group of people eager to tell the stories of how they came to this area, and worked to build their place in the community.
Without exception, family stories began with ancestors who had been adults at the time of the 1864 Emancipation Proclamation. This was the beginning of their family history. Slaves had no surnames. Their ancestors had been identified in plantation records by their first names only. Most of the families took the surnames of their former owners. Some were from local plantations, others had migrated here from distant place with hope of acquiring a small piece of land to call there own.
The Adams, Bland, Cole, Henson, Hinkle, Hulsey and Perkins families of Pacific, Robertsville, St. Clair, Villa Ridge and Labadie, invited me into their lives and sat through numerous interviews to share their family histories.
These families were often invisible as local historians and news papers recorded the lives and times of white residents. But they were here all along, collecting their history in family lore carried down generation after generation.
I have to tell you . . . I can’t take credit for discovering the family lore of these unique chapters of local history. The late Barbara Bruns, a white school teacher, who carried the lifelong memories of the Black families that lived near her home in a corner of Old Town Pacific, introduced them to me in 2002.
“There is a unique history there that has not been written,” she said.
By the time I came to know Mamie Baker, I was already acquainted with the Black families in my Robertsville neighborhood: The Hulseys: Sherwood and his wife Martha, Marvin, Carletta and Verla Mae (Perkins) Hulsey. I was a widow, transplanted from city life who lived alone. This family took me under their collective wing with no thought of history, just neighbor to neighbor, helped me navigate the intricacies of country living.
“Don’t ever burn anything outside by yourself,” Sherwood Hulsey said. “Call one of us. We will come and help.”
Over a twenty year period, I was invited into the homes of Black families. I attended graduations, wedding, and funerals and wrote about their lives in my column in the Washington Missourian newspaper.
I spent the greater part of Black History month 2022 assembling the previously printed items and adding new stories that haven’t been printed to create a free eBook honoring the families and their stories. You can download “Black History in the Meramec Valley,” and read it on your computer, or other electronic device.
It is not complete. I have hopes that readers will share other stories with me that I can add to the eBook to enhance our local history. It will remain on my blog to be dowloaded free.
Email any local history to [email protected]
I look forward to reading it.
I am the grand daughter of Mamie Baker and I look forward to reading it
My Grandparents are on the first page of your book. But, they were Generallys. You did not mention them at all. I guess you have not researched them yet and they were in St. Clair not Robertsville . Look forward to a second book that includes them.
Audrey, I interviewed Clyde Generally and wrote about the Generally family in about 2003. I couldn’t retrieve the earlier story when I worked on the book but have continued to search for it and plan to add it to the book. Clyde gave me the picture that I used for the book, which was really the best of all the photos I have of local Black History. I think I have finally located the piece I published and plan to add it to the book. I was at the St. Clair History Museum today and saw the wonderful video that includes Clyde talking about the family and showing some of the photos he gave me. I have a great personal memory of Clyde. When my grandson, Joe Cotham, III, “Joey” decided to be saved at Rose Hill Baptist Church and stood for an altar call, Clyde spontaneously rose and walked to the altar with him. It was an unforgettable moment. Thanks for responding to the book.