Tuesday - June 11, 2013

Mooch’s Maternal Marker Mistreated

Vandals knock over monument for Michelle Obama ancestor
Police are trying to figure out who knocked over a monument dedicated to an ancestor of first lady Michelle Obama.

“When I saw it, I shed a few tears,” Vicki Smith told Channel 2’s Linda Stouffer.

Smith helped get the monument to Rex. It’s a tribute to Melvinia Shields, the great-great-great grandmother of [Mrs.] Obama. Shields was born into slavery in 1844 and later moved to Georgia.

Clayton County Commissioner Sonna Singleton said the monument company will have to lift the heavy stone to check for cracks after someone pushed it off the foundation block.

“It was our little source of pride because here we are in little old Rex, Georgia, and we had ties to the White House, so there’s pride in us for that,” Singleton said.

It was almost a year ago that the Clayton County community celebrated the monument’s installation.

“We’re going to believe just the way we showed that unity on that day here in Rex when we had the dedication of this memorial, we’re going to believe that there’s not that kind of hatred or dissension that someone would do this,” Singleton said.

Gosh, that’s just low.

Granted, it’s a “who cares?” kind of monument, seeing as Melvinia was just a person. One slave out of millions. So putting up the marker in the first place doesn’t hurt anything, but she wasn’t a person of note like an artist, inventor, surgeon, or politician. She was just a woman of her time. And perhaps that’s sufficient reason. Just that she was born in 1844. Oh, and she’s a progenitor of FLOTUS on her mother’s side, so Rex GA is currying a bit of favor. That’s it. And now someone has kicked it over.

Two more things here I find interesting:

One, Michelle Obama is just over 3 years younger than I am. My great grandmother was born in 1875, so presumably my great-great grandmother was born somewhere around 1845-1855. Her family has managed to squeeze in an entire extra generation in the same time period, 6 generations in 120 years.

Two, G3gma Melvinia grew up in bondage, spending the first 21 years of her life as a slave, with all the terrible trials, tribulations, suffering, and neglect inherent therein. And she lived somehow to the ripe old age of 95. I recall reading somewhere that the laborers who built ancient Egypt, whether they were slaves or not, generally died in their early 40s if they lived that long. The government housed and fed them as best as they could, but they still died OLD at that young age. Actually, throughout most of history women have generally died young, not just from injury, famine, and disease but from the rigors of childbirth. Guess Melvinia was one of the very lucky ones, even completely escaping the malefaction of slavery. Actually, looking at Mooch’s family tree I see that quite a number of her enslaved ancestors lived decently long lives.

I’m sure the little stone marker will be reset ASAP.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/11/2013 at 12:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Obama, The One •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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