Memories of "Grandma Beck"

By Eleanor D. Bullock Shelton

Rebecca Marrow Cross Lewis

July 2, 1847 – January 1, 1950
 
As a child, I remember my great-grandmother Rebecca Marrow Cross.

I looked forward to the once-a-week visits to Grandma Beck’s house during those hazy Summer afternoons. There she’d be … sitting on the porch in her rocking chair that just barely fit her. Her apron, spanking white, covered her calico dress.

Her stepdaughter stood next to her fanning the flies away. I never could figure out who this person was that spoke little but kept in time, fanning with the rocking. It was many years later I learned her name: Fannie. No one spoke much about her or to her. For the most part, she was invisible.

When my mother Elnora, grandmother Harriet, Aunt Henrietta, my sister Lillian and I came up to the gray wooden house with its protruding logs and small cloudy windows, you had a sense this house, worn with age, was a testimony to years of struggle and survival.

Grandma Beck was a regal figure sitting on her throne. I was hesitant to go near her. She had a commanding presence. Her lips unsmiling, her huge hands scarred from picking tobacco, and her piercing large brown eyes – instinctively said she was no one to mess with.

In a commanding voice, she said, “y’all come on up here and sit a while … Elnora, c’m’over here!”

A smile flashed across my mother’s face as she planted a kiss on Beck’s cheek.

 “… and who these chillim there? Y’all c’mon over here!

I walked slowly towards her until I felt her strong hands lift me on her soft pillow-like lap. Suddenly I felt safe in her arms.“How you, Harriet?” she motioned for her daughter-in-law to take a seat on the straw one her husband, Samuel, made years earlier.

“Been fine, Beck.” She turned her attention to my mother.

             
“Elnora, these chillum sure has growed up …” Her face softened and her eyes dampened. My mother smiled, knowing the statement was one of approval. Without warning, Beck yelled an order to Fannie to bring out some watermelon and cantaloupe. Fannie rushed to the command and the planks on the porch squeaked as she almost ran through the screen door. Fannie appeared with her boney hands gripping an oversized “melon.”

I climbed down from Beck’s lap. My sister and I laughed as we tried to out-do each other spitting seeds. We finished with our mouths wet with juice. Wiping our lips on our bare arms, we dropped the rind in the bucket reserved for making watermelon rind pickles.

My sister and I knew automatically that it was grown-up time. As we ran off to explore the woods, we heard Beck, Grandma, Mama and Aunt Henrietta laughing.

I was too young to ask questions of my Great-Grandma Beck. All I was told was she was related to the white Thomas F. Marrow Family.[i]Indeed that is true. Her father, Anderson Marrow[ii], was half-brother to Daniel Marrow[iii]. [iv] 

Like many female slaves who were subject to the sexual advances of their master’s, Anderson’s mother was unable to resist Thomas F. Marrow’s advances. Thomas fathered six children with his wife, and (according to long-held family accounts) Anderson, by his slave.[v] 

My Aunt Lucy, my mother’s sister, told how ‘ole man Drury S. Marrow,[vi] with a long white beard, visited his niece Grandma Beck when she was a child. She told the story of him pulling her to him with his cane and it ‘scared her to death.’

Discovering my great-great-grandfather was a son of his master, Thomas F. Marrow, raised a myriad of unanswered questions, and feelings of anger and sorrow. How did Anderson feel, knowing his master was also his father? How did his mother cope with being a slave “mistress?’ Did she feel shame being unable to escape the sexual exploitation of Thomas? Was she subjected to abuse by the wife of Thomas? How were they treated by the other slaves? 

As I continued to reflect, I wondered how deep were the wounds that pierced the heart of an enslaved soul. That they survived slavery is a testimony to their strength, fortitude, resilience and self-determination.

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[i] An inventory of the Property of Thomas F, Marrow,  (1847) North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.

[ii] Ibid. Recorded birth in 1824.

[iii] Report from court, September term 1857, Granville, North Carolina. Equity, September Term 1857, Daniel Marrow and others against Drury S, Marrow, Executor of Thomas F. Marrow, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.

[iv] Five generations of Marrow oral tradition maintained and passed on by Rebecca Marrow Cross Lewis. Additional sources include the will of Anderson Marrow.

[v] Ibid,

[vi] Drury S, Marrow – presumed to be Anderson’s half-brother -- inherited Anderson, b. 1824, his wife, Lucy, b. 1827 and “Becky”, b.1847 following his father Thomas F,. Marrow’s death. Report from court, September term 1857, Granville, North Carolina. Equity, September Term 1857, Daniel Marrow and others against Drury S, Marrow, Executor of Thomas F. Marrow, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.