In Darkness with God by Gomez-Jefferson Annetta L.;

Author:Gomez-Jefferson, Annetta L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

In conclusion, he noted that “all the papers concerning search of title, and all other matters connected with property at Bitely, Michigan,” were ready for Joseph’s examination.43

The property in question was Ransom’s cottage at Woodland Park, which had been deeded to him for one dollar by Hallie Q. Brown some years ago. He was now in the process of deeding it to Joseph. Woodland Park had been settled by Blacks who had migrated from the South in the early part of the century. Unable or unwilling to adjust to big-city life in the North, they had found Woodland more suitable to their lifestyles. Here they could fish, hunt for deer, and raise enough food to sustain themselves. They preferred Woodland to the more resort-like atmosphere at Idlewild, fourteen miles away, which had become the summer playground for middle and upper middle-class Blacks. Hallie Q. Brown was one of a few middle-class Negroes who had preferred the more rustic life at Woodland, and she had bought the cottage around the turn of the century.

Ransom’s cottage looked out on a lake of diamonds, or so it seemed when the sun settled on the water in the early morning. He had been going to Woodland every summer since 1941, and he had often invited Hazel and Joseph to visit him there. They had fallen instantly in love with the site and were delighted when Ransom offered them the property. In his declining years Ransom found it more and more difficult to make the trip, and he knew that his friends needed some restorative place to reside during the summers before the Annual Conferences began each fall.

The Gomezes spent the Christmas holidays at Tawawa Chimney with the Ransoms and then left for Cleveland to meet Annetta, who had damaged her knee in ballet class at the Dramatic Workshop. She was admitted to the Cleveland Clinic for a cartilage removal. Joseph had to leave a few days after the operation, but Hazel stayed until the doctor let her bring Annetta home to Texas. He had assured Hazel that Annetta should be able to return to New York after a month and a half of therapy.

On January 3, 1950, Annetta Louise Butler, Eula’s second child, was born in Los Angeles. Eula brought her new daughter and her son, Marvin, to visit their grandparents in Waco the next month. For the first time in a while, the entire family was together. Joseph and Hazel thoroughly enjoyed watching the playful antics of their grandchildren, especially Marvin, who insisted on trying to take care of his sister. Annetta was proud that Eula had named her daughter “Annetta Louise.”

Other family matters occupied Joseph that month. On February 13, he received a letter from his brother James in regard to a house Joseph planned to buy for Amanda. James wrote that he had found “a wooden tenement on a lot of City Council land which cannot be acquired.”44 In other words, Joseph could purchase the house but not the land. Most people in Trinidad did not own the land on which their houses sat.

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