When a stranger cousin visits Beverly Smith looking for her family’s obituaries, she is set on a journey to discover her family’s history from slavery to the present day.
Smith, 67, a renowned mixed-media artist, has won acclaim and awards for her work on her black ancestry, but it’s her own family’s story that is most special to her.
In her work, she combines a variety of artistic techniques to pay tribute to the names and faces of those who have been lost or overlooked.
Her interest in her ancestry began about 15 years ago when she first researched her family history, tracing it all the way back to York County, South Carolina.
After talking with her cousin, Smith learned that Callens had been uncovering her family history, and she encouraged Smith to do her own research.
She was visited by Ms. Smith’s cousin, Mary Currence, and Ms. Smith said that although they did not know each other at the time, Currence resembled her aunt and had visited her mother’s house looking for an obituary that Ms. Smith’s mother had kept.
Soon after, Smith said she was visiting libraries and government offices throughout York County and visiting historical sites.
“I can’t thank her enough for coming to my house and delivering the obituary,” Smith said. [family] They helped me write names on the tree and showed me how to use the obituaries to track down family members.”
Where it all began
Smith traces her roots back to her paternal grandmother, Cathy Meacham, who was born in 1789.
By the 1820s, Meacham was free, but Smith was unable to conclude whether she had been born free or slave.
During his investigation, Smith also found a ledger detailing Meacham’s purchases, including red shoes, a spelling book and a two-ounce container of madder, a dye made from insect blood that Smith believes Meacham used for lipstick.
“My great-grandmother was beautiful,” Smith laughed.
Meachem was freed, but Smith discovered a truth that came back to haunt her: Her great-grandmother had been a slave owner.
Smith later learned that the only slave Meacham had ever owned was his great-grandfather, Dickey.
“This was the only way my grandparents could stay. [together] “As a family. The law at the time didn’t allow marriage between a freeman and a slave, and my great-grandfather was a slave.”
For the few black slaveowners of the time, it was not uncommon to hold spouses, family members, or friends as slaves, often as an attempt to protect them from a worse fate, such as being sold into harsher, more violent conditions.
In the 1830s, when Meachem owned her husband, the law stated that the mother’s status determined the child’s status, meaning that all eight of their children were born free.
One of the children Smith learned was her great-great-grandfather, Spain Meacham, who is recorded as a master stonemason.
Spain married Mariah, Smith’s third great-grandmother, a marriage that was not legal because Mariah was a slave, but was recognized within the family.
Wishes from ancestors
Mariah was born in 1827 and was hired out as a slave to Jeremiah Blaylock, who owned land that had belonged to generations of the Smith family until he died in 1830, when his children inherited the land and lived nearby before moving to another plantation.
Smith told QCity Metro that she believes her grandmother communicates with her, and one of the ways Mariah contacts her is through dreams and hallucinations, she said.
Smith said Mariah came to her one day and asked her to find her twin sister.
Puzzled, Smith began researching and discovered that Mariah had a twin sister, Minerva, who had been separated from her at age six after Minerva was sold off.
“Minerva was sold to a woman whose name I don’t know, but whose name begins with the letter F,” Smith said. “She was sold for $200.”
While Minerva was sold at least seven times, Mariah remained on the same farm for many years, surprising Smith.
Slaves were constantly being sold and rarely stayed in one place or on one plantation for long.
Smith said the nature of the information was physically and mentally draining.
“I took a week off,” she told QCity Metro, “but as soon as I regained my strength I returned to my studies. I never truly understood the pain of separation our ancestors went through until I witnessed the death of my sister, who committed suicide on my birthday,” she said.
Coming to Charlotte
In 1865, many of Smith’s ancestors left South Carolina and settled in the historic Brooklyn neighborhood of uptown Charlotte, then known as Logtown.
“By the time my ancestors came to Charlotte, they had been emancipated,” Smith said. “They became teachers, ministers, maids, bricklayers and so on, and continued their education.”
When asked why he chose Charlotte, Smith said it was proximity.
“Our people were migrating to escape the memory of being slaves working in the cotton fields.”
Smith’s maternal great-aunt, Sarah, was active in the Logtown community, helping relatives and friends who moved to the area find house cleaning and other odd jobs. At the time, she lived where Bank of America Stadium is now, Smith said.
“She was helping them become independent. They would stay with her and then she would arrange for them to stay with other people,” Smith said.
In 1935, when Smith’s mother, Willie Mae, was 14, she moved to Brooklyn to live with Sarah.
Smith’s grandfather, who had immigrated to New York, sent Sarah money to help her emigrate Willie Mae from South Carolina, which was experiencing rapid economic decline due to the Great Depression.
On the journey to Charlotte, Willie Mae experienced what Smith described as divine intervention. Before reaching Brooklyn, the immigrants stopped overnight in a small town outside of Charlotte. Smith’s mother did not know she would be stopping there, and she did not know where to go after she arrived.
“It was the middle of the night, there was just darkness and a bench. [passengers] “I was just going to sit there until the next train came back,” Smith said. “But [my mother] We saw a light moving on the road. It was a woman with a lantern. She took my mother to her house, fed her, put her to bed, and helped her catch the train the next morning. We felt like this woman who came along the road was an angel.
A few years later, in 1948, Smith’s mother met his father, James, in Brooklyn, and the couple had six children together, including Smith, the youngest.
Life in Brooklyn was better for Smith’s family than slavery: They had to work hard, but they were free and could work for themselves, she said.
Despite being deemed uninhabitable because of plumbing and drainage problems, Smith’s family and neighbors transformed Logtown into a thriving, close-knit community with a school, church and small businesses.
Many of them learned a variety of skills during their time as slaves, including stonemasonry, blacksmithing, crop harvesting, and clothing making, all of which helped their neighbors become self-sufficient.
Smith’s relatives were among the last generations to live in Brooklyn before it was demolished for “urban renewal.”
She said her work is an expression of her roots and a way to keep her ancestors alive.
“I started making quilts that told my family’s story,” Smith says, “My grandmother taught me that the tiniest scrap of fabric holds truths that span generations, so nostalgic materials and repurposed clothing feature in my work.”
“It’s a way to reconnect with my ancestors. I wanted to honor them by including them in the quilt and calling them by name.”
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