Bronis Suadrey Reid
Bronis Reid and infant Walter Jones in 1936 in Mississippi.
Bronis Suadrey Reid, the second of five children born to Gus and Dolly Reid, was born in the Sartinville Community of Marion County, Mississippi, on 5 June 1909. She grew up on farms. As a young girl, she learned how to cook and sew at home and in school. Homemaking was a major subject during that time period. Life wasn't easy for a young girl growing up in the early twentieth century in southeast Mississippi.
After the Great Yazoo Flood of 1927 took everything her family had, Bronis moved to the big city of New Orleans where she worked and sent money home to help out. In 1933, she had an affair with a man named Walter Jones, Jr., and ended up pregnant. I, Walter Singleman Jones, was born on 2 September 1934. She never married Walter Jones, Jr., and she never told me why, whether it was her choice or his.
She took me and returned to Mississippi. She couldn't stay for long because times were worse than before, so back to New Orleans she went. She would return to visit as often as she could. Sometimes she would take me with her to New Orleans, to visit Mrs. Singleman. In 1942 her father died and her mother and son moved in with her brother, Dee. In early 1943 Bronis and her sister, Inez, moved to Mobile, Alabama, and got jobs in the shipyards. They got an apartment on Blakely Island, where they brought their mother and their children (myself and my cousin Pat). Her mother was not happy living in the city, so they saved their money and the next year they bought a place in the Enon Community. Dee took over the farm and her mother and her son moved in with his family. Bronis went back to New Orleans where she met Earl Fitzpatrick and they were married on 21 July 1945. Before school started in 1945, she took me to New Orleans to live.
In 1947 we had a hurricane. Mama just had to see what was happening outside and opened the storm door just in time to be hit by a piece of slate on her shin. Needless to say, the storm door stayed closed after that. On 10 August 1948, Patrick Michael Fitzpatrick was born. Bronis and Earl had another baby boy, but he was stillborn. After that, things kept getting worse in the Fitzpatrick household. Earl started spending more and more time at the local bar. Mama got a job at Charity Hospital to pay the bills and buy food. In 1951 I went to New York to live with my Aunt Ned because I couldn't stand the fighting any more. Earl had become an alcoholic and spent most of his time in the barroom.
After her mother died in 1956 Bronis moved to New York to live with her sister and her brother-in-law, John Walsh. Bronis got a job at the Reader's Digest. I had joined the Marines in 1953 and in 1959 I received orders to Japan. I asked Mama to come and stay with Polly and watch the girls while Polly worked. While she was there she taught Polly how to sew and how to cook Southern dishes.
After my fifteen months in Japan were up, I received orders to Quantico, Virginia. We were able to rent a house in Triangle, Virginia. At Thanksgiving, Aunt Ned came to visit. We had what they called then "the snow storm of the century" and Aunt Ned ended up staying over a week before she could go home. When Robert Paul was born in 1961, Mama and Mike returned to New York to live with Aunt Ned and Uncle John. She returned to the Reader's Digest and worked there until she retired.
When we lived in Virginia our two oldest girls were really well-dressed due to Mama and Polly making their dresses. Aunt Ned owned a fabric shop and she gave us remnants of rolls of materials. Patty and Roberta were really dressed up for our pay, thanks to them. In the years we spent at Quantico and Jacksonville, North Carolina, we visited some week-ends and most of the holidays with them. The time they had the great blackout in New York, we were visiting, and my mother blamed Uncle John for the blackout because he was messing around in the cellar.
In the fall of 1966 I went to Viet Nam for thirteen months and Polly and the kids moved to California to stay with Polly's mother. In 1968 we lived in California again after I returned from Viet Nam. Mama came to visit for the summer. One of the things she wanted to see was the redwoods. So we went up the Pacific Coast Highway through the redwoods. The first day was a really nice trip. The next day we were going to go over to I-5 to go home. Then we decided to take a scenic route. When we started up the mountain we saw a sign that said "Enter at your own risk." We thought they were kidding. What a trip! It took us all day to go a little over a hundred miles. Mama got a real close look at those trees - when she could open her eyes. We also visited Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland that summer. Mama liked Knott's much better than Disney.
After California, we were back at Quantico and we were able to visit more often again. After Armstrong walked on the moon, every time we had bad weather, it was because people walked on the moon, according to Mama. You could never convince her otherwise.
In 1971 Aunt Ned and Uncle John purchased a farm in the Enon Community of Mississippi in the area Aunt Ned and Mama grew up in and where their brothers still lived. They had a house built on the land and they all retired and moved back home. In 1973 I retired from the Marine Corps and we bought a house in Kenner, Louisiana, about 120 miles from Enon. We visited some week-ends and most of the holidays with the "poor folks" as Aunt Ned liked to call them. The children spent most of the summer there every year as did my cousin Pat's kids from New York. They really enjoyed having the grandchildren there.
Once when Mama came to visit us, Robert had caught a snake and his mother told him to get rid of it before his Grandma came. He told his mother the snake was gone, but it had actually escaped. Polly and I were gone somewhere and just the kids and their grandmother were in the house. Patty's cat kept going to the pantry, which he did sometimes because he'd rip open the cat food bag and help himself. Finally, Mama decided to see what he was doing and as she started towards the pantry the cat suddenly jumped about six feet straight in the air, his hair all bushed up and gave out a great big Siamese yowl. He had found the snake in a bag of potatoes. Robert Paul was on the top of her list for awhile after that (big sister's note: Robert Paul was often at the top of her list).
Uncle John passed away in June of 1978. Mama and Aunt Ned stayed on in the big house, but Aunt Ned was spending more and more time in New York with her daughter and grandchildren. Mama stayed with us when Aunt Ned was gone. Her health was failing. She had diabetes and an enlarged heart. She was in and out of the hospital the last few years of her life. She spent the Christmas holidays of 1980 with us in Kenner. After the first of the year, she wanted to go home, because she had an appointment with her doctor. They put her in the hospital. We didn't even know she was in the hospital until they moved her to McComb. The last time I saw her, her last words to me were "Good-bye, my darling." She was buried in Enon Cemetery on 31 January 1981. She was always happiest when she was doing for others, but one thing she never would do was tell me about my father. She went to her grave with everything she knew about him. I'm sure she is with her God now. I have missed her and I know her grandchildren have missed her too.
Written by Walter S. Jones, 7 August 1999, at Kenner, Louisiana.