I found Bill, my dad's boss from when he was an ambulance attendant in Atlanta, even though all the other family friends from that time told me that Bill seemed to have fallen off the planet.
I found Neb, Jr., the now 80-year-old man who was the mythical child who called to my mother's sister Sunny from across the street, so that she dashed in front of an oncoming car. The whole family witnessed her death, as did Neb. He still remembers that day, nearly 75 years ago.
I found Pilgrim Congregational Church, with the striking blue roof, where my dad was minister for a year and a half while Birmingham was coming apart, and so was the church. That church was torn down this week, sold to a developer to become a new housing development (see the story here: http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-34/120284634741750.xml&storylist=alabamanews).
Really the only people I haven't been able to find are the ones who have passed on. Those are the true heartbreaks--the people I would love to talk to, ask them to share their stories, hear what they have to laugh about, see the twinkle in their eyes. But they're gone.
One of those is Frances Pauley. She was an amazing woman--a tireless worker for civil rights in Georgia. Spunky, fearless, determined. Julian Bond was quoted as calling her "everybody's grandmother and nobody's fool." She also happened to be my daddy's boss at the Georgia Council on Human Relations in 1967. It's part of the next chapter of my book.
Frances died before I set out on this quest, so I've done what I could to find other ways to get to know her. My cousin gave me a book about her, written by folks at the Open Door Community in Atlanta, where she was active in her later years. I read that. Her papers are housed in special collections at the Emory University library, and I went down to check it out. I got more of a behind-the-scenes sense of her there, and began to form some hunches about what happened when Dad worked with her, which was her last fiery year at the Georgia Council. I recently had breakfast with a friend of mine who knew her, but my friend couldn't remember much.
All of this left me wanting more. If only I could talk to her, ask her my questions, follow up on my hunches, hear her voice! I wanted to get to know her personally, have more connection than the words on a page.
And yesterday it happened.
I was dinking around on the internet, yet again, when I landed on the Southern Oral History Project at UNC, my own alma mater. On a whim I typed "Pauley" in the search place. And what do you think I found?! An interview that Jacquelyn Hall had conducted with Frances Pauley in the Pauleys' living room on July 18, 1974. The transcript and the recorded interview itself! I
could download it! I could listen to her voice! As I sat on the floor of my study, headphones on, enrapt, I marvelled that Dr. Hall asked most of the same questions I had been aching to ask Mrs. Pauley myself. I felt like I had time-traveled, and my wish was granted.One part sticktuitiveness, two parts luck.
Ask and it shall be given unto you.
If you have some time and want to make a great new friend, follow this link: http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/G-0046/menu.html.
