Member-only story
I’ve not written anything since September
Miss Dora, my Mama’s BEST friend, who was like a mother to me for a large part of my becoming, passed away at 95 first (Mama died at 65 in 1996 after retiring at 62 so she could, according to her, “Get my damned Navy retirement and Social Security so I can live the rest of my life how the hell I want!”). I didn’t go to the funeral though — I.just.couldn’t.
I mentioned her here in my, “Were it not for Isaac Woodard, there’d be no Brown v. Board…” Talking to her daughter, Gwen the day after the funeral, she told me ALL the Waring descendants were in attendance at her funeral — as well they should’ve been (It was Judge Waring who encouraged Thurgood Marshall to file the Brown v. Board case).
She was the other Mama into whose arms I fell — when I found my brother had mortgaged my mother’s paid-for home on the Peninsula, as well as her land on the island, for a get-rich-quick scheme that never materialized. The SC Probate Court only read the first line of her will literally, leaving all her property to her son. They ignored the second line, which said he had to give both my sister and I deeds to both properties equally. He ignored it too (greed among family is a Mofo). We talked about getting a lawyer and suing him — but in the…