Fall 2003
Featured Article

Stories from Rural Elderly African Americans

By Iris Carlton-LaNey

Social workers continue to advocate the strengths perspective in our work with individuals, families, and communities. The strengths perspective is based on the observation that it is easier to help people achieve positive and lasting changes by building on their strengths than by focusing on elimination of their problems. Yet many social work practitioners, educators, and students fail to actually utilize the strengths perspective and instead rely on the problem-reduction model. For example, the editor-in-chief of Social Work, Jeanne Marsh (2003), wrote in a recent issue of that journal that in a group of second-year students at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, only one-third said that they routinely assess family strengths in their work. The students described important gaps in their practice knowledge in the area of family strengths as an explanation for the disparity between the values that the profession promulgates and practice behavior.

Social work scholars, educators, and practitioners must close the knowledge gap that inhibits effective strengths-based practice. One important strategy is to document core processes and relationships that people use as resources, and there are numerous ways to do so. One often ignored or undervalued mechanism is listening to family stories.

Studying African American family stories is essential for understanding African American culture, and understanding culture is essential to identify and build on strengths. The following family stories, presented here as vignettes, were told by a small group of African American elders who lived in rural southeastern North Carolina and worked as farmers in a community of kinfolk. The stories are a rich source of information and perspective.

The first of the eight stories, which we have entitled "Phlox in Early Spring," focuses on the sense of community and shared existence among elderly rural women. The following seven tell of resilience, family commitment, health and sickness, stoicism and pride, humor, and tradition and lifestyle. Furthermore, the stories allow the listener or reader to have a better understanding of what services might be needed and accepted and to identify strengths upon which services, programs, and policies can be hinged. These life-defining and lifestyle stories help us to see their tellers more clearly. Once we look at them from this perspective, they are no longer just clients or patients, but whole people with full lives, histories, resources, and ways of coping. Moreover, these types of stories can illuminate for social workers, policy makers, and others the unique collective family patterns, relationships, and history of accepting and adapting to massive changes that characterize these elderly men and women.

Patterson (2003) notes that as social workers, we must be aware of our own role in co-constructing people's life-defining stories. She further indicates that researchers must listen carefully and self-consciously to the other's experiences and voices if we are to nurture sources of strength.

'Phlox in Early Spring'

The Crosspoint Home Demonstration Club had a community beautification project. They decided to plant flowers in the fork down the road by the mailbox where the dirt roads intersect, forming a near perfect triangle section of land that was covered with weeds and sand spires.

One day early in the spring, the club members, Mama and the other women in the neighborhood, all met at the triangle in the road with their hoes, flower seeds, and determined spirit to complete their beautification project. They chopped the triangle mound clean, turning the soil over just so, then planted, pink, white, and violet phlox seeds.

The flowers bloomed beautifully that spring and every spring thereafter, covering the triangle mound like a colorful blanket. In the bright sun and the well-drained sandy soil of southeastern North Carolina, the phlox thrived. Today, some forty years later, the phlox continue to bloom each spring. But there are very few of the flowers still on the original triangle mound. Thanks to the birds, the wind, the rain, and the state road maintenance crew, the seeds have spread and the phlox now bloom all along the sides of the road, into the edge of the fields and down into the ditch. It's as if the flowers are determined travelers trying to spread to each of the five club-women's homes to blanket the community in their memory.

I wonder if the women ever imagined that the delicate candy-colored flowers would outlive them.

'When The Home Demonstration Club Agent Didn't Come'

Miss Anita Johnson was elegant, stately, well-spoken, attractive, well-educated, and respectful. The women of Crosspoint really respected, admired, secretly envied, and were awed by Miss Johnson. They welcomed her into their midst once per month like a routine doctor's visit. She was the Home Demonstration Club agent from the Agricultural Extension Office. The Home Demonstration Club was an important educational component of these farmwomen's lives. Each month the club would meet at a different member's home and the agent would "demonstrate" some modern, new, or better way to do some type of home maintenance or enhancement. It could have been canning fruit or arranging flowers. Whatever the demonstration, the women all testified that they learned a lot. Yet they also all agreed that they had the most fun at the meetings when the agent did not come.

The club meetings were held during the weekday in the early afternoon. The hostess club-woman cleaned her house thoroughly and prepared a special meal for the members. Mama always made us polish the furniture, especially the dining room set, which had far too many grooves for my fingers and the Ole English furniture polish rag. The process took hours.

Mama, like each of the women who hosted the meeting, made a special meal, one that we did not usually have, and it always included ambrosia and deep-dish apple pie, and a few other delicacies. We loved club day and could hardly wait for school to end so we could get home and eat what was left.

After the business meeting and the demonstration, the meal was served. The whole occasion was special because it gave the Crosspoint women a chance to stop farming, to dress up, and to spend time with each other. But it wasn't leisure. It was purposeful. They had no understanding of leisure. Time was too precious and there was too much to do.

The women were on their best behavior while the agent was there. They were careful that their subjects agreed with their verbs. They tried to act intelligent, to ask intelligent questions and to always maintain their most proper and intelligent decorum. They were very relieved when Miss Johnson left so they could be themselves again, a little less intelligent. That's when they really began to have fun. They laughed and joked with each other and laughed and joked about their husbands. They were attentive to each other's needs. They comforted each other. They offered advice, but mostly they just spent good and valuable time with each other.

The Home Demonstration Clubs were segregated because the white Miller women about a quarter of a mile up the road had their own club and they had a white agent to demonstrate in their homes. I always wondered if they tried to sound and act intelligent for their agent and if they had as much fun as Mama and her sister friends had after their agent left.

'The Night the Barn Burned Down'

It was about two in the morning and everyone was asleep. My sister was home for a visit. The cows' lowing woke her, and as she opened her eyes she saw a bright reflection from the tin covered-shelter. She ran to the door and saw the tobacco barn burning. She woke Mama and Daddy, who, startled and arthritic, struggled to respond to the emergency. Daddy's eyes rolled back in his head and his body was drooped like rain-drenched people look when they have resigned to being soaked. He seemed about to faint.

My sister called the fire department. The biggest fear was that the fire would cause the fuel tank to explode, spreading to the house and nearby woods. The firemen didn't know how to get to my parents' house. My sister tried to give them directions while the barn burned. Exasperated, she finally called our oldest brother, who guided the fire fighters out to the farm.

They put the fire out. The barn and all of its contents were destroyed. When the water hit the fuel tank, it sizzled like bacon in a hot frying pan.

On the radio the next morning, the announcer--in a detached, matter-of-fact monotone that silenced all of us at the breakfast table--said, "Fire truck went to Galloway Carlton's on State Road 1173 this morning around two . . . tobacco barn fire."

Daddy was quieter than usual for the next few days. Sometime during the fire, he had decided he would not grow tobacco another year. Two flames went out that dewy summer morning, the tobacco barn fire and the one in our Daddy's eyes and heart. For him, a way of life was coming to an end.

'There Are People Who Need It Worse Than Me'

On Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving, I asked Daddy to go with me down to Holtsville to apply for the Low-Income Energy Assistance program. It's a little money to help you and Mama pay for the gas to heat the house this winter, I told them. Daddy said, "I don't have time" or some such weak excuse. I asked again. He said, "They ain't gonna give me nothing." I said, "Maybe not, but lets try." He finally said okay.

I always tried to tell the folks about social services that might help them, that they would be eligible to get. They weren't eligible for most programs because they were landowners. They loved their land and were always scared that it might get taken from them somehow--a practice they had witnessed many times when white people decided they wanted a black family's land. They saw any kind of farm loan as a threat to their land and were reluctant to apply for the few loans that were actually available to black farmers. Most weren't.

Daddy and his brothers were very proud to be landowners. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, they always tried to buy " a little piece of land" here or there. The most recent piece of land acquired was always called "the new ground." "The new ground" could have been bought thirty years earlier, but if it were the most recent purchase, it was "the new ground." The saying among my folks was "They ain't making no more land." The land was precious and to be sold outside the family.

Getting handouts from the government was always a threat to the land. My folks were paranoid, and it had helped them to stay safe and to keep what they worked for. So when Daddy said okay, he'd apply for the fuel subsidy, I was shocked and hurriedly said, "Let's go" before he could change his mind.

I drove him to the office in Holtsville. As we approached the nondescript corrugated building, Daddy seemed to sense static in the air like right before a storm, but he persevered. We went through a relatively painless process that did not embarrass or belittle him. He was eligible for the one-time fuel subsidy, which was scheduled to get to him sometime the following February.

Daddy was encouraged by the process and felt like applying for something else. So he said, "I'd like to apply for food stamps." I was shocked again and hurried Daddy over to the other office so he could apply for the food stamps. Again, he was eligible, like I knew he would be. He and Mama were eligible for the minimal per month allotment . . . about $12. It was still a victory. I finally got Daddy to apply for some social service and he had to stop saying, "There are other people who need it worse than me." When the $78 came for the fuel, it helped a lot.

Daddy and Mama never used the food stamps though. The food stamps arrived each month and Mama and Daddy "put them away" as if to accrue interest. My sister and I would go home to do their monthly grocery shopping and asked where they had put the food stamps.

"Look over there on the desk or maybe your Daddy (or maybe your Mother) put them on the dresser" was their response.

My sister and I would track them down and add that $12 to the money for the groceries. But Mama and Daddy never acknowledged the food stamps. They never used them and didn't seem to care whether they came in the mail or not. They promptly put them away to accumulate like dust balls until the next month's food stamps arrived or until me and my sister found them and did the monthly grocery shopping.

'Home from the Hospital'

With a look of fear, but an air of acceptance and resolve, Mama asked if I thought that the doctors had "given up" on Daddy to send him home in this condition. Mama was worried because Daddy had been discharged from the hospital with a Foley catheter. Having something foreign attached to the body like that really confused both of our parents. Daddy was clear that he was sick and that the sick role was the right one to take. But when the home-health nurse tied the bag to Daddy's leg and disconnected him from the IV pole, he was not sure if he should take on the sick role or the well role. He decided to be "well" and set off to "farm" and to feed the hogs.

The home-health team added further confusion to the situation. The registered nurse came out to do the initial paper work and to explain about home health. The nursing assistant came regularly, about three times a week. She came to help Daddy with his bath, to clean his area, and to prepare light meals and do his laundry.

Daddy was usually a good patient and was very comfortable with the nurse and the nursing assistant, but not Mama. Mama would get up early each morning when the nursing assistant was scheduled to come. She'd help Daddy bathe, change into clean pajamas, change his bed linen, have the wash going and be in the process of cooking breakfast or lunch, focused and meticulous like a new bride preparing for her mother-in-law's first visit.

We constantly asked Mama to let the nurse and nursing assistants do their jobs and reminded her that she was doing everything and there was nothing left for them to do. Like a worker bee, Mama had lived all of her life with no one except her children ever doing any housework or cooking for her. She was not able to understand the nursing assistant's role. To Mama, the nursing assistant was a stranger who visited several times per week. She was a guest.

Finally when I tried again to understand Mama's behavior and to ask her to please stop cleaning up for the nursing assistant, she responded with the wounded innocence of a confused child: "You can't have people coming into your home with it looking any kinda way."

The nursing assistant arrived one morning to find Daddy outside, his 80-year-old frame weakly weaving to the pack house to get feed to take to the animals. She recognized his frail state and tried to help. He insisted that the feed buckets were to heavy for her and he would take care of it. She accompanied him to feed the animals because she knew that he might, in his weakened state, fall or be knocked down by the animals. After they returned to the house, the nursing assistant finally accepted one of Mama's many invitations to join them for a meal. From then on the nursing assistant could do no wrong. They looked forward to her "visits." She was still a visitor, a guest, but one who could be trusted. They decided to let her "help" them.

'Ol' Lady Ngo'

Daddy called his doctor "Ol' Lady Ngo." I think it was out of some combination of affection and respect. It had a rhythmic sound like just the right blend of voices in the Sunday choir and Daddy liked to hear himself say it. The doctor had a rural practice filled with elderly people. Whenever Daddy became ill, we had to almost force him to go to the doctor. He would reason that he really couldn't go because he still owed her from the last visit and should wait until he paid her all that was owed before he returned.

After some coaxing, Daddy and I arrived at the doctor's office. Daddy put his Pall Mall cigarette out knocking the fire off the end, careful not to crush the long butt that was left. After he was sure the fire was gone, he put the butt in his shirt pocket but changed his mind and placed it in the car ashtray instead. He responded to my questioning glance that he didn't want "Ol' lady Ngo" to see the cigarette because he didn't want to "hear her mouth."

Daddy was comfortable with the patient role. Mama always accused him of pretending to be sick whenever we came home for visits so that he could get our attention and be coddled. That could have been true, or maybe he held on to his health until we came and then he gave his body permission to collapse, since he had someone to care for him.

Whatever the truth, whenever I took him to see "Ol' lady Ngo" she treated some real, not imagined, ailment.

'Hospital Psychosis'

Daddy was admitted to the hospital early in the spring. His blood was very low and he was extremely weak. The first time this happened, Daddy was in his late 70s. He was very confused in the hospital and he began to hallucinate. My sister and I were terrified. We had never seen Daddy like this before. His personality had changed completely. The nurses asked us if he was usually this way.

When we got a chance to talk with the doctor, himself an elderly man, we asked him if our father had suffered some type of brain damage that was causing the confusion and hallucination. The doctor matter-of-factly responded, "oh no, he's just an old man in the hospital."

I thought, that is not a very reasonable explanation because . . . you [the doctor] are an old man in the hospital, and you're not hallucinating.

My sister and I could have been saved a lot of hours of anguish if someone had done a better job explaining to us that elders in hospitals can sometimes get confused because of the new environment, the change in routine, the poking and prodding of the medical personnel throughout the day and night, and the illness or injury itself that landed them in the hospital in the first place.

My sister and I weren't so afraid the next few times that Daddy went into the hospital and began to hallucinate. We were even able to see some humor in his new and more exuberant personality. Even though we could now give the behavior a name-- "hospital psychosis" --we were still fearful that Daddy might not come back to himself.

An even more dreadful aspect of this hospitalization was that he was restrained both medically and physically. The doctor put him on Holodol. It wasn't good. We insisted that the doctors take him off of it because of the side effects. The doctor was not impressed with us and was affronted that we would make such a request of him--the expert. He wanted to know what we "did for a living" and where we worked. I simply wanted him to use a less harsh drug. I'm still wondering what our request and inquiry about our Daddy's healthcare had to do with our employment status and place of employment.

These Vignettes

These vignettes come from a lifetime of observing, listening, respecting and loving elders in my small rural North Carolina community. The people in the stories range from 75 to 86 years of age. These stories are an accumulation of my memories and experiences. They demonstrate a community of people who relied on each other for resources and comfort and who were masters at coping and managing hard times. They also knew how to laugh and live meaningful lives. I hope that by writing and sharing theses vignettes I have encouraged others to listen to their elderly family members and to in some way record their life stories.

Iris Carlton LaNey, Ph.D., is professor, School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

References

Marsh, J. 2003. "Arguments for Family Strengths Research." Social Work 48: 147­9.

Patterson, F. 2003. "Heeding New Voices: Gender-Related Herstories of Asian and Caribbean-Born Elderly Women." Affilia 18: 68-79

From Generations Fall 2003 issue, 27(3): 34-38. © 2003 American Society on Aging

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