Family members considered Clara Belle Williams a very young hundred years old. Her neighbors in Lake Meadows, a lakefront community on Chicago’s south side, considered the elderly Black woman a treasure. Everyone who lived and worked in the area, from the butcher who slipped her a little extra when she shopped to the garbage collector with the laughing eyes, always greeted her and called her Grandma. Patients at the clinic where she had once worked as a receptionist sometimes used the word angel. She considered herself an ordinary, down-to-earth woman who fully enjoyed the privileges that came from reaching the milestone century mark.
Like, the privilege of not finding herself bound and gagged while men in ski-masks roamed through her house.
Her friend and housemate, a woman more than twenty years her junior, whimpered occasionally. Anyone who knew her could have told the invaders that she lived frugally. She considered her intelligence and common sense her most prized possessions. No one could take those away, she told her students. Unlike her meager physical belongings.
At least the marauders were not after Clara Belle or her friend, after tying them up the two women were ignored. They also ignored the bedroom and most of the living room. Maybe they did know her. At least well enough to know there was no money or non-existent jewelry to be found there.
Her companion hung her head and sobbed. Clara Belle remained calm as she watched the men. Habit, honed from years working as a schoolteacher in a one-room school while raising three sons, kept Clara Belle calm, although her heart pounded. One of the men stepped beside her and leaned close. Something about the way he moved seemed familiar. Did she know them? She certainly knew and understood the desperation that had them clearing out her kitchen and pantry.
He placed the end of a rope in her bound hands. “Pull this after we leave, it will release the knots holding you,” he said. “Wait twenty minutes, first. We’ll be watching, and we’ll be back if you don’t obey.”
He started to walk away. After two steps and a heavy sigh, he returned to say, “This place is too easy to break into. You need better locks.”
She could breathe easily again. No need to tempt fate. After they left, she followed the order to wait before pulling the rope.
Clara Belle continued to live in her house over the protests of her sons and grandchildren. Members of her family urged her to move so she could get over her trauma. But Clara Belle was not about to let men hiding behind ski masks make her afraid. She had lived in the wilds of a New Mexico homestead in the early years of the twentieth century. She’d faced down white students who did not want to share a college classroom with a woman of color. She survived on prayer when her sons were drafted to fight in World War II. After all that, she was not going to let anyone, not even her boys, talk her into giving up her independence out of fear.
Instead of making plans to leave her home, she talked. She shared her story over and over, describing her ordeal to everyone who would listen. Her grandson learned to be patient. Sometimes when he visited, she would spend an entire time telling him about the break-in. Slowly he realized she was not doing this from fear. Repeatedly talking and sharing was her way of conquering her fear and reclaiming the home she loved.
One day, when she told him the story, she added, “I know who broke in that night.” It had not been hard to figure out that it was the man who no longer greeted her or smiled when she passed him on the street; the man with the laughing eyes couldn’t look her in the eye or even lift his head.
“No, I’m not going to tell the police who he is,” she explained to her grandson. “Those poor men. They must have been so desperate. They could have done anything to me, but only took food and supplies.
“Besides,” she added, and this time her eyes twinkled. “He’s never coming back again.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can, because I took his advice and got those new locks.”
He had to laugh with her. His grandmother had always been that way, even as a young girl. She worked through her trauma her own way and didn’t carry anger around afterward.
Maybe that’s why Clara Belle Williams lived to be 108. She kept her backpack of life light by keeping only nuggets of good inside. She was quick to toss aside grudges, anger and other heavy rocks she encountered in her life.
Unlawful Orders, the true story of one of Clara Belle's sons, Dr. James B Williams, will be published in 2022 from Scholastic.
3 comments:
Barbara, I had an aunt who lived to a few months shy of 105. I asked her what advice she'd give to me who wanted to live to at least 100. While she didn't use the "kept her backpack of life light" that is certainly the essence of what she said. "Life happens to all of us. Know what to keep and what to allow to slip away."
I love, love, love this piece about Clara Belle and how she lived her life. This really captured all of it: "She kept her backpack of life light by keeping only nuggets of good inside. She was quick to toss aside grudges, anger and other heavy rocks she encountered in her life."
What a story about the break in and how she handled it as well. Thank you for sharing this. You can tell the people who live life by focusing on the good, providing love and understanding when bad occurs, and learning and adapting as needed. They do seem at peace most of the time.
May my life emulate that as best I can.
I love this post. I have recently downsized dramatically, and as there were few opportunities to get rid of stuff in the middle of the pandemic, I put far too much into a storage unit. out of sight, out of mind! Except of course, that there is the continual niggle at the back of my mind that I should be doing something about it.
The concept of the backpack of life clarified for me the amount of unnecessary stuff I'm carrying. Mental and physical. I'll keep the image with me as I start to shed all those things that are no longer helping me towaards a life of peace.
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