Courage in the Face of Tragedy

 

kShe stood filled with quiet dismay as she surveyed the scene of pain and devastation before her:

gfgfPeople were crying out with sickness, their bodies shuddered with fever and chills, the stench of those who had not survived was overwhelming and made her stomach churn sickly. Tears rolled down her cheeks like waterfalls, cascades of grief for those she had lost. As she stood there she wondered if it was all a dream, if the ones she loved and depended on had really been snatched away from her at such a young age.

gfgShe took a few minutes to bear up, and then she wiped her eyes defiantly. She would not let this tear her down, or tear her family apart. She would stand up and do whatever she could to survive and make a new life to support herself and her siblings. This day would be the beginning of a new life, a life where she would be independent and strong, and where she would show the world just how much courage was in the heart and spirit of this young woman.

 

It was the summer of 1878. Sixteen-year-old Ida B. Wells was at her Grandmother Peggy's farm, which was miles away from Ida's hometown Holly Springs, Mississippi. The young energetic girl was helping her grandmother with the tasks at the farm and keeping the old woman company. Ida heard news that Holly Springs had been struck by the yellow fever, a fatal disease that was spread by the bite of mosquitoes. Hundreds of people throughout the south died every day from this frightening epidemic that only needed a few days to take its toll. Ida reasoned that her father would take the rest of their family away from the town to the country where they would be safe from infection, so she did not worry.

gfgHowever, Ida didn't know that unlike the thousands of other people who had fled Holly Springs in fear for their lives, her parents stayed behind with the other children to help those who had been inflicted with the disease. Her father, a carpenter, made coffins for those who died, and both parents brought food and compassion to comfort those who were in desperate times. They stayed and risked their own lives to benefit others, but nonetheless they too where struck with illness. Ida wrote about how she found out about this in her autobiography Crusade For Justice:

jjg"One day after a hard chill I was sweating off the resulting fever common to that malarial district when a hail at the gate brought me to the door. Three horsemen were there and came in... The men were all known to me as friends of my father and mother... gfg"After they had seated I asked if they had any news from home... one of them handed me a letter that had just been received by one of the refugees in their party... I never dreamed there would be anything of personal interest in it. We were so sure that our family was in the country with my aunt Belle.

gfg"I read the first page of this letter through, telling the progress of the fever, and these words leaped out at me, 'Jim and Lizzie Wells have both died of the fever. They died within twenty-four hours of each other. The children are all at home and the Howard Association has put a woman there to take care of them. Send word to Ida.' That is as far as I read. The next thing I knew, grandmother, aunt and uncle were all in the house and ours indeed became a house of mourning...".

 

gfgIda felt an urge at once to go home to help take care of her now parentless brothers and sisters. She was warned however by her family and many people at the railroad station from which she traveled that she was sure to perish if she went to Holly Springs. She was told to stay in the country until the epidemic was over, then to go take care of her siblings, if any had survived. She wrote:

gfg"I consented to stay there and write home. But when I thought of my crippled sister, of the smaller children all down to the nine-month-old baby brother, the conviction grew within me that I ought to be with them. I went back to the station and the letter that should have carried my letter took me home. "

gfgIda's extreme demonstration of devotion to her siblings, a mirror of the compassion her parents had always shown to others, continued as she proceeded to go home, despite various warnings even from the conductor of the freight train she boarded, since no passenger trains would risk going into Holly Springs. gfgWhen she arrived home she found two of her younger siblings sick with the fever. She also received more bad news, her nine-month-old baby brother Stanley had also died of the fever. Immersed in new grief, Ida found another struggle at hand: the fate of her 4 orphaned younger brothers and sisters Annie, Lily, James, and George, and her crippled older sister, Eugenia. Different families, friends of Ida's parents in the community, offered to take in the four youngest children, but no one even planned to take in Eugenia. Instead they decided to send her to a poor house. They also decided that Ida was old enough to take care of herself.

gfgIda refused to let anyone else decide the destiny of her family and she refused to have her family separated. She told the families,

"My mother and father would turn over in their graves if they knew their children were scattered like that.">>Click image above to go to Creative Reflections page

 

gfgIda then told them that if they would help her find a job, she would make every effort to take care of the children in order to keep them together. At first the families who had offered to take the children in laughed at this idea; how was a 16-year-old girl, a child herself, going to take care of 5 other children? Then, seeing how obstinate Ida was about her plan, they agreed and set up an appointment for her to take an examination to become a country school teacher. In order to get the job, Ida passed the exam, lied about her age, and made herself look older by lengthening her skirts and piling her hair up in a more mature style. While Ida taught during the week in the one room schoolhouse, her Grandmother and her mother's friend would take care of the children. Ida would return on weekends and take on the parental role to do all kinds of tasks for her family.

dfgfThough Ida tried very hard to keep all of the children together under her own care, it became a difficult task. A few years later she had to let her Aunt Belle take in the three oldest children, Eugenia, James, and George. Ida moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with the two youngest, Annie and Lily, where they would go live with their father's sister Fannie. Ida began to work in a another school in a city called Woodstock, in Tennessee. Later on Fannie would take Annie and Lily in as her own children and move, leaving Ida to be independent.

gfgMemphis was a city that was larger and more industrialized than Holly Springs. It provided more opportunities for Ida as she expanded her interests in journalism and other fields. It is also where Ida faced her first major battles against injustices in society.

>>A Life of Crusades