The Seventh Child

Zusatztext "Baxter...sparkles with energy; she loves life; and she's not afraid to tell the cold! hard truth."-- New York Post "Baxter's distinctive! wise voice--is fresh and vital. It teaches as it delights. It seeks to set the world right."-- Daily News Informationen zum Autor Freddie Mae Baxter lives in New York City. Klappentext "Charming.... An uplifting story of tough breaks! hard work! and a generous heart."--People In The Seventh Child! Freddie Mae Baxter--75 years old! compassionate! hauntingly wise--tells her story and the story of the twentieth century in her own charming! unforgettable voice. Freddie Mae is as complex as she is irresistible. The seventh of eight children! she grew up in poverty at the height of Jim Crow. She picked cotton! worked in a factory! and raised the white sons and daughters of Manhattan's Upper East Side. She is a devout believer who disagrees with the Church and a fiscally responsible citizen with a weakness for Atlantic City. Heartwarming! vivid! illuminating! The Seventh Child celebrates the bounty of life's simple joys and introduces an American Soul to be cherished. From "Growing Up" I grew up in a town called Denmark, South Carolina--like Denmark in that other country. It was a pretty big place then and is a very big place now, but I can't tell you how many people live there. My mother and father were married and my mother's name was Julia and my father's name was Henry. They had eight kids: five girls and three boys. My mother told me she was pregnant with me when my grandma died. I don't know anything about my grandparents, except I think they died in about 1922.           The eldest sister was Lumisha. She was four or five years older than Willie, my oldest brother. He was three to four years older than the next brother, who was Henry. That brother was about two years older than Daisy, the next sister. And Victoria, the next sister, I would say was two and a half years younger than Daisy. Then comes Margaret, who is two years older than me. Then there's me. So that's the five girls. My brother Julius, he's the baby. I'm five years older than Julius. That makes me the seventh child--the lucky one.            My father left when I had to be about five or six. He was supposed to be the father of all the kids but I wouldn't know about that. I really don't know too much about him. I don't know the reason why he left. I don't know how it happened. My mother didn't give a reason. She didn't say why he left. Nobody asked no questions then and they didn't get no answers. In those days you didn't ask questions. If you tried, they'd say, "Get out of here." And that was it. Children today can ask their momma anything.           I knew my father was in another town after he left my mother. He was the boss of his own farm. He grew everything: corn, cotton, potatoes, tomatoes. He had everything a farm had: horses and mules and plows. My brother Willie went up and helped him one year. But I still didn't ask no questions about him. I was really angry at my father for a long time because all through the years he never got in touch with us. He was doing pretty well but he didn't do anything about his own kids. I heard that he had a lady friend but I never knew for him to have any more children.           My father was the one that I don't think I would've given a piece of bread to if I had a piece of bread. When I used to sit and think about it, I'd say, "How could he? How in the hell could he?" That's all I could say. Now, when you see these TV talk shows where the father leaves the family, I really want to hear everything about it because I don't see how he could've done it.            A father is not like a mother. He walks away and those kids will care more about that father that walked away than they care about the mother that stayed there. That's what I can't understand. On ...

Product details

• Authors: Freddie Mae Baxter, Gloria Bley Miller
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 09.05.2000
• EAN: 9780375705939
• ISBN: 978-0-375-70593-9
• No. of pages: 240
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 203 mm x 15 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Social sciences, law, business > Ethnology > Ethnology