by Cicely Tyson
Our area was called the East Side slums. Nowadays, it is known as East Harlem. Scarcity was and is the neighborhood’s salient feature. We were poor, a reality I see most clearly in hindsight. When I was a child, it seemed we had much of what we needed, largely because my parents were so enterprising. Our food stamps and blocks of bright-orange government cheese were supplemented by the steady flow of vegetables my father brought home from his produce cart. We ate well. My mother, a masterful seamstress who created exquisite garments from mere scraps of fabric, dressed me and Emily like little princesses, because in her view, we were. Our community was largely Italian but also racially mixed, filled with parents who, like my own, toiled to lift their children’s prospects. If I had any real inkling of our standing on the bottom rung of the country’s socioeconomic ladder, it came when we walked through our neighborhood. Ladies of the night sashayed down the boulevards at sunset, hoping to capture the glances of weary shift workers crawling home. Broken bottles and cigarette butts littered empty lots. In deep winter, homeless people shivered beneath scaffolds, huddling together around trash barrel fires. Poverty has an odor to it, and in a nation then on the front porch of the Great Depression, it smelled at once of desperation and striving.
My parents worked relentlessly. Both rose before sunup, exhaustion sitting heavily on their eyelids. Mommy set out for the elevated train, known as the El. She commuted to the Bronx to work as a domestic for various white families, bathing and feeding their young’uns as a way to carve out a life for her own three. In addition to pushing their produce cart all around town, my father and his business partner, Mr. Taylor, also set up shop close to our home, at an open market between 101st and 102nd Streets on Second Avenue. On Mom’s “days off,” she’d often walk over and help at the cart. Enter the woman we knew as our Nana, a neighbor my mother befriended. In those years when my siblings and I were too small to be at home on our own, Nana took care of us while our parents worked.
We never knew our grandparents back in Nevis, and Nana came to feel like one to us. So did a sweet woman by the name of Beal. On the day my mom brought me home from the hospital, Beal, an elder who lived close by, was standing at my parents’ stoop. When she saw my mother approaching, she reached out her arms and said, “Give me that child.” That same day, she insisted on becoming my godmother. From then on, there wasn’t a weekend that Beal didn’t visit us. Sometimes it’d be snowing or raining so hard that Mom would look out the window and say, “My God, I wonder if Beal is coming down here tonight.” At that moment, there’d be a knock at our door. We’d open it to see Beal, standing there with joy on her face and her cute mutt, Bella, at her side. Between Beal, Nana, and my parents, the Lord kept four sets of eyes fixed on us.
The streets of the East Side slums stood in marked contrast to our home. My mother was spick-and-span about our apartment and required us to keep it immaculate. Near the building’s top floor, we shared a three-room space. Mom and Dad had the bedroom. Up until I was nine, we three children slept together in the living room on a queen-sized rollaway bed, which we folded up and put away every morning. Across from the bed was the kitchen. In its corner sat the claw-foot tub where we bathed and where Mom washed our clothes by hand using a washboard. In another corner sat an icebox with a small mirror attached to its front and a top compartment for storing fifteen cents worth of ice that came wrapped in a canvas bag. When we returned from the market every weekend, we’d place our milk, cheese, and other perishables next to the ice. My siblings and I each had a Saturday morning chore. Mine was to sweep and mop the living room, and later, when I was older, to wash the windows. Melrose and Emily kept the kitchen and bedroom pristine.
When you’re poor, two of the few realities you can control are your own appearance and that of your immediate surroundings. My mother exercised powerful jurisdiction in both domains. “Do not go out of this house with no dirty underwear,” she stressed constantly. “If you fall down sick in the street and your underwear are dirty, nobody is going to touch you.” Before bedtime, I removed my underpants, thoroughly washed them in the bathroom sink, and hung them up, using a wooden clothespin, on a line outside our kitchen window. The last thing my mother did every evening was check that line. If she didn’t spot my panties out there, she’d wake me up. “What did you do with your underwear?” she’d press as I sleepily rubbed my eyes and tried to remember. I’d sometimes still have them on, or else I’d tucked them someplace random. No matter how late it was, she’d pull me from that bed to complete my duty. In our home, cleanliness wasn’t just next to godliness; it was the heavenly Father personified.
Under the Tyson roof, respect for elders was sacrosanct. Children had not a say, but a mandate: to trust and obey, in the words of the old hymn. Sassing my parents or any member of the community was enough to draw ire and a belt. My backtalk took the form of willfulness. I might have been quiet, but I did plenty of rebutting in my head. I also did exactly the opposite of whatever my mother instructed me to do. “Sit down,” she’d say. I’d stand up. “Walk,” she’d command. I’d take off running. It was my way of asserting an independence I seldom experienced in the long shadow cast by my mother’s lingering presence. She kept close tabs on all of us, but with me, her sickly child, Mom’s vigilance was devout. I craved the space to move around without her always staring down over me, yet I was never afforded the same freedom as Emily and Melrose. If the two of them went out to play, Mom would find a reason to keep me at her side. “Sis, I think you’re getting a cold,” she’d say. Off my siblings would go, and there I’d sit, sulking and plotting my getaway.
The hovering didn’t end as I grew. It continued long after that doctor assured my mother I was fine. There was the time I had the chicken pox and a high fever, and someone told my father to give me a spoonful of sugar with a touch of kerosene in it as a remedy. The minute it touched my tongue, honey, I began bleeding from every orifice in my body: my nostrils, my ears, my mouth. As Mom screamed, Daddy jumped down several flights of stairs to go summon Dr. Gatsby, a crippled physician who lived three blocks from us. I don’t know how that doctor even made it up our stairs, given his limp, but he came hobbling through our door moments later to save my life. After that incident, my parents did not let me out of the apartment for a year. Another time, I got an infection under my right arm. Somebody told my mother to take some kind of brown soap, wrap it in a rag, warm it up in hot water, and put it on the bump, which was the size of a lemon. That didn’t help. When my father came home and found me in bed screaming, he rushed to the drugstore and returned with a can of black salve and a roll of gauze. He applied both, and the bump burst open—yellowish pus oozing out to ease my throbbing discomfort. The fact that Dad had beat Mom to a remedy aggravated her. She accused my father of always trying to outdo her in their joint quest to ensure my health.
Try as my mother did to keep me within view, I often found my way outdoors and onto the subway, even when I was as young as eight. When Mom went to help Dad with the business on Saturdays, I’d wait fifteen minutes after she’d left the house and then I’d dash through the door. I’d make my way over to 103rd Street and Third Avenue, hop on the train, and ride it all the way up to the last stop in the Bronx. Once off, I’d stroll through the neighborhood, peeking into the windows of the beautiful suburban homes, savoring my freedom and alone time. Swearing Emily and Melrose to secrecy, I always managed to get back into our apartment five minutes before Mom returned. My mother never found out about my adventures. Yet she knew that even when she was with me, I’d dash off in a heartbeat if she turned her head. “As long as you’re alive,” my mom would often say, “Kyar Tyson will never be dead.” My father’s mother, Carol, was gone by then, but Mom believed my grandmother’s restless spirit had found a home in me. By nature and by choice, I was a wonderer and a wanderer. I still am.
Even as a young child, I had a strong sense of autonomy, a feeling that I belonged first and foremost to myself. My mother begged to differ. When I challen
ged her authority, she’d pick up whatever object was near her, be it a wooden clothes hanger or an extension cord, and reassert her reign. In place of a time-out, there was a knockout, a single blow that could send you down onto your knees. Now such treatment would be called abuse, but in my era, it was called excellent child rearing. Mostly, my parents didn’t even need to wield a switch in order to restore order. They had only to raise an eyebrow and we understood exactly what that meant.
Education was paramount. Each of us had a mission, and for my siblings and me, that was to excel in our studies. My parents viewed education as a passport out of poverty, a corridor toward a prosperity that hadn’t been possible for them in Nevis. It’s why Melrose caught hell from my father when he’d act up in class. I was a good student and loved our public school, which was integrated. Daily attendance liberated me from my mother’s hawk-eye and provided a place where my curiosity could roam freely. Still, I rarely spoke in front of the other children. I enjoyed reading on my own, and I’d ask questions of my teachers one on one, but no way would I raise my hand to answer a question. Too bashful.
My third-grade teacher, Miss Sullivan, somehow spotted a potential in me that I didn’t then recognize in myself. Prancing by my desk, she’d sing from the famous tune, “You oughta be in pictures, you’re wonderful to see, you oughta be in pictures, oh what a hit you would be.” I’m not sure what prompted her prediction. Perhaps I’d flashed an impish grin or cast a penetrating stare in her direction, because it couldn’t have had anything to do with my speaking. All the time now, I remember her sidling up to me, with her navy suit and brunette bob, and I think, Miss Sullivan, you were foretelling my future.
Every afternoon when my siblings and I got home from school, we were met with a question: “Where is your homework?” That query was followed by a command: “Change out of your school clothes.” We could never fool around the house wearing our nicest garments; we had to replace them with our old ones. Once we’d done so, the three of us would sit at our table and work on our lessons. Only after we’d completed our assignments could we huddle around the radio for an episode of Amos ’n’ Andy. The radio series was all the rage during the 1920s and 1930s. In it, two white actors (Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll) portrayed a pair of poor Black farmers who’d left their land in Georgia and migrated north to Chicago, carrying just $24 and four ham-and-cheese sandwiches. In retrospect, I recognize how the show’s characterizations covertly reinforced racist clichés. But in those years, we were hungry to hear or see any representation of ourselves in the mainstream, even if those depictions were stereotypical. It was an acknowledgment that our presence in this nation mattered—that we were visible. Following the nightly episode we ate dinner, did our chores, and then, of course, scrubbed our underwear before climbing into the rollaway.
We’d usually awaken to the aroma of Mom’s cooking. My mother was some kind of cook. Though I lacked a voracious appetite, the smell of her okra and cornmeal mush always made my mouth water. Her macaroni and cheese has yet to be rivaled by any other I’ve tasted, though I’m sure my mother’s version contained enough condensed milk to trigger a diabetic coma. On weekdays, she’d prepare our lunch before she went to work, stirring up a soufflé of creamy mashed potatoes, made all the more fluffy because she whipped in a soft-boiled egg. She’d slide a mound of those potatoes on a plate, put three pats of butter on top, wrap it up tight, and set it on our radiator to keep it warm. School was close by, so we had time to race home and eat at noon.
By 10 a.m. during math class, I’d already be dreaming of those potatoes. When I charged through our apartment door, they’d be there waiting for me on the radiator, the butter cascading down into a golden pool on the plate’s outer rim. Lord have mercy, I can almost taste them. I’d be so eager to devour my lunch that I’d sometimes neglect to say grace aloud. For health and strength and daily food, I’d pray internally as I shoveled in the first spoonful, we praise Thy name, oh Lord, amen.
I never once saw my mother look at a recipe. She kept everything in her head, just as her mother had: a pinch of this, a dash of that, and all meals made from scratch. During the holidays, she’d weigh down our table with a royal feast: cookies, sugar cakes, coconut rum bread pudding, roasts, soups, curried goat, and potatoes—you name it. Friends and relatives traveled from all over town just to sample my mom’s clear broth. Decades later, after she’d passed, none of us could replicate that broth. Emily came the closest. Emily’s daughter, my niece Maxine, has now taken up the mantle. My mother’s secret wasn’t any one single ingredient. Her creations were a symphony of flavors, blended together perfectly with love immeasurable.
3
Church Girl
CHURCH was the cornerstone of my childhood. My mother was determined that our foundation be spiritual, just as hers had been. There was Sunday service, followed by Monday and Wednesday prayer. Friday was choir rehearsal. Emily and I were in the choir as young children. On Thursdays and Fridays, there were usher board meetings, youth meetings, elders meetings, and any other gathering the pastor could dream up. On Saturdays, my family cleaned the church. When I tell you we were in God’s house all the time, I mean it.
We attended where many West Indians did, St. John’s American Episcopal Catholic Church. In naming the church, our pastor clearly wanted to be inclusive, but our services followed the Episcopalian tradition. The original building, a storefront, was on 234 East Ninety-Ninth Street. The year I was eight, the congregation moved north to 1610 Lexington Avenue, near 102nd Street. I still recall the Sunday when our hundred or so members walked from the old spot to the new one, carrying lighted candles as we sang “Lead on, oh King eternal, the day of march has come.” The second space was a four-story brownstone converted into a place of worship. The sanctuary was on the main floor, and down below, there was a cavernous basement for all those meetings. Reverend Joseph Byron, who grew up in St. Kitts, lived with his wife and their five children above the sanctuary. The very top floor was rented out, providing the church with an income stream. By day, Reverend Byron watched over his flock. As a side job, he managed a moving van and shipping business.
Emily and I were the best-dressed girls in church, as well as on the East Side, period. Mom made sure of that by sewing all our clothes, most of them from scratch, others using the Butterick and McCall’s patterns she kept stuffed in a drawer. As she stitched together her magic on a hand-crank Singer machine, her wrist rotating ’round and ’round, she’d periodically yell out, “Sister, come try this on!” Mom poked and prodded us with so many stickpins as we tried on a dozen versions of whatever she was making. It drove me mad. Because of that, I still refuse to try on clothes in a store. I just buy an armful of outfits, test them out at my leisure at home, and return whatever doesn’t fit. It didn’t take Mom two minutes to whip out her creations. She’d finish our dresses, which were usually just alike, during the week leading up to service. Then on Sundays, Emily and I would step in wearing our matching organza numbers with soft layers that fell gently as a balloon, or colorful ones with elaborate smocking—finished off with black patent-leather Mary Jane shoes, shined to the hilt. When the Tyson sisters showed up in church or anyplace else, we didn’t look like we came from any slum.
We sang a lot of the traditional hymns. Verse after verse of those songs will always live in my memory. I can still hear the congregation’s thunderous chorus of voices rising up to the rafters with “Where He Leads Me, I Will Follow” and “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross.” My mother’s favorite hymn was “Blessed Assurance.” In the early mornings before service, she’d hum it in the kitchen as she cooked, the notes wafting through the air and settling over the peas and rice. Then in church, when the organ piped up with the song’s opening line, she’d clasp together her hands and close her eyes. “Blessed assurance,” she’d sing as she swayed, “Jesus is mine / Oh what a foretaste of glory divine.” For my mother, that song was more than a hymn. It was a testimony of God’s unremitting guidance along her
spiritual path, a journey ordained by a dove.
Church was the one place where my timidity fell away. The deacons’ wives often staged little plays, based on Bible stories, for the youth to take part in. More than once, I was cast in the leading role of Mary, mother of Jesus. For all of my reticence, I relished delivering my lines as the members encouraged me on with claps and amens. I wasn’t at all nervous to take the spotlight. That’s because in my mom’s mind, and thus in my own, I wasn’t performing. A performance is what happened in the secular world, that sinful place Mom referred to as “a den of iniquity.” What we did in church was distinct from that realm and therefore sacred.
I’m blessed to have been raised in two rich spiritual traditions, Episcopalian and Baptist. On any Sunday when my parents couldn’t make it to service, my siblings and I attended with Nana. Her Baptist church was right next door to St. John’s, but a universe away stylistically. Order lives at the center of an Episcopalian service. Each follows a familiar rhythm: opening hymn, Old and New Testament readings, a couple of choir selections, a sermon, and a final prayer. Our worship began at 11 a.m. and always ended at 12:30. In Nana’s church, the Spirit, not the clock, took the lead. As Reverend Hawkins whooped and wailed from the pulpit, the saints leaped from their pews and danced up and down the aisles to the staccato beat of the tambourine, the organ’s vibrations providing the scene’s musical score. Service lasted for two hours or more, until the Holy Ghost got ready to simmer down. I’d sometimes fall asleep next to Nana, my cheek pressed into the pew cushion as the fire around me raged on.