Easter Mae Cossey. Saying the name evokes a strong image, something perhaps out of a coffee table book of photographs taken in the historical South, maybe a fine collection of photographs by someone who made his or her name documenting images of Blacks in the rural south, specifically Texas, in the first half of the twentieth century. Easter Mae Cossey, wife of Bub Cossey, living in Kohrville, an old Black community in northwest Harris County. A Google search reveals the following from the Handbook of Texas about what was a depleted, worn-down, rural community during my growing up years in the 1950s.
KOHRVILLE, TEXAS. Kohrville, also known as Korville and Pilotville, was a small black community near the intersection of Farm Road 149 and the Spring-Cypress Road twenty miles northwest of Houston in northwestern Harris County. Freed slaves from Alabama, who made up the community's population in the 1870s, bought land or cut timber for the nearby Louetta sawmill. The town was named before 1880 for Paul Kohrmann, a German immigrant who ran the post office when mail was first delivered in 1881. In the early 1900s the community had a general store run by Agnes Tautenhahn Kohrmann, a cotton gin, and a sawmill, and reported a population of fifty. In 1906 the local school had thirty-one pupils and one teacher. The post office was discontinued in 1911, and mail was delivered from Hufsmith. In 1940 the town reported one business, a school converted into a community recreation building, two churches, two cemeteries, a ballpark, and a population of thirty. The 1980 county highway map showed a school, a church, Solomon Temple, and a cemetery at the townsite.
A Google search of Kohrville turns up mostly real estate advertisements for another rural neighborhood in way northwest Harris County lost to development, bulldozers, concrete, strip malls, tract homes—another name for production homes, mass produced homes. These days this can mean homes well in excess of $100,000—certainly not something that Easter Mae and Bub Cossey could have ever owned, not unless they had owned acreage they could have sold to turn the profits into a big, fine home. Likely, they wouldn’t have even wanted one anyway. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Kohrville wasn’t just another bedroom community for Houston back then. Not so when I was growing up in the 50s, living on West Montgomery Road, aka Tomball Highway, aka SH 149, just south of Cypress Creek. We all lived in the country.
Easter Mae. I can see her coming up the back sidewalk, head wrapped in a faded cotton rag—I see all of this in monochrome—very black skin covering her prominent cheekbones and the little bit of leg and feet left uncovered, worn down shoes, dress and apron like the head rag washed to what must have been heavenly softness, and carrying her big satchel, stuffed to overflowing with who knows what. In later years my mother and sisters have referred to their totes as Easter Mae bags. Those prominent cheekbones suggested some Indian heritage, Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Black Seminole. According to an Internet source, the historical relationship between Native Americans and African-Americans has been called, "one of the longest unwritten chapters in the history of the United States." No doubt, Easter Mae is part of that unwritten history.
Easter Mae was our ironing lady, not maid. She did cook sometimes, I’m remembering a cobbler here and there, but mostly, she ironed. Back then everything was cotton, mostly khakis and white short-sleeved shirts for Daddy, jeans and shirts for me, dresses, skirts and blouses for my mother and sisters. Easter Mae dipped snuff and Mother used to complain about the snuff specks on Daddy’s white shirts.
Another thing I remember about Easter Mae is lunch time—just the two of us, a selfish perhaps rewritten memory—and how I had to insist that she sit at the round oak table in our kitchen with me, rather than at a TV tray. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I do remember conversation. And I do remember one time her husband Bub helping me clean our large yard, filled with fall leaves from the many hardwoods and thick mats of wasted pine needles. He told my parents that I was “a working ass.” I smile at this early recollection of my time in the yard, and I’m proud that Bub found me a hard worker. I’m still digging in the dirt 45 years later.
Easter Mae’s time with us spanned several years, including the leap frog of our house from one side of Tomball Highway to the other when the State bought right-of-way to widen the road. Our family’s response was to buy six acres on the other side of the road and move the house. This happened in my senior year of high school—1961—and it was so noticeable that Dr. Bleyl, the school superintendent, had this to say when he announced that I had made the All-State High School Band in Dallas. Harold’s family is so proud that they moved their house to the other side of the road. Not so much a logical cause and effect relationship, but a fond memory nonetheless. House resettled, Easter Mae continued her work for us—ironing, pulling garments from the plastic, zip-up bag stored in the refrigerator where Mother had placed them after completing the task that had to be performed before ironing. Clothes went from the washer, to the starch pan, to the clothesline for drying—khakis and jeans on metal stretchers—to the kitchen table where they were sprinkled (we still have that sprinkle bottle), then rolled and stored in the plastic bag in the refrigerator, awaiting ironing day. Easter Mae day, maybe a peach cobbler as lagniappe.
I don’t remember when Easter Mae wasn’t around any longer. I guess I’ve probably asked Mother somewhere along the way. I remember Easter Mae as already old when she ironed for us, although my mother says she probably wasn’t as old as we thought. Anyway, what do children know about age? She like everyone else had to sit down eventually and embrace the inevitable. I have no doubt that Easter Mae knew her God and probably shouted Hallelujah many a Sunday morning in her Kohrville church, although I don’t even know if she was religious. In my experience, most country Black folks are. It is their God and faith that have lifted them up through the hard times they’ve known. “All my trials, Lord, soon be over” go the lyrics to a beautiful American folk song. "All my trials lord, soon be over….If religion were a thing that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die. All my trials lord, soon be over."
I trust that Easter Mae is with her Lord, Bub as well, along with my Mother, Daddy, Grandma, Mamaw, and all the uncles and aunts I have loved—all these saints who for a time God shared with the world.
Harold Hollis (December 9, 2005 – Normangee Texas)
KOHRVILLE, TEXAS. Kohrville, also known as Korville and Pilotville, was a small black community near the intersection of Farm Road 149 and the Spring-Cypress Road twenty miles northwest of Houston in northwestern Harris County. Freed slaves from Alabama, who made up the community's population in the 1870s, bought land or cut timber for the nearby Louetta sawmill. The town was named before 1880 for Paul Kohrmann, a German immigrant who ran the post office when mail was first delivered in 1881. In the early 1900s the community had a general store run by Agnes Tautenhahn Kohrmann, a cotton gin, and a sawmill, and reported a population of fifty. In 1906 the local school had thirty-one pupils and one teacher. The post office was discontinued in 1911, and mail was delivered from Hufsmith. In 1940 the town reported one business, a school converted into a community recreation building, two churches, two cemeteries, a ballpark, and a population of thirty. The 1980 county highway map showed a school, a church, Solomon Temple, and a cemetery at the townsite.
A Google search of Kohrville turns up mostly real estate advertisements for another rural neighborhood in way northwest Harris County lost to development, bulldozers, concrete, strip malls, tract homes—another name for production homes, mass produced homes. These days this can mean homes well in excess of $100,000—certainly not something that Easter Mae and Bub Cossey could have ever owned, not unless they had owned acreage they could have sold to turn the profits into a big, fine home. Likely, they wouldn’t have even wanted one anyway. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Kohrville wasn’t just another bedroom community for Houston back then. Not so when I was growing up in the 50s, living on West Montgomery Road, aka Tomball Highway, aka SH 149, just south of Cypress Creek. We all lived in the country.
Easter Mae. I can see her coming up the back sidewalk, head wrapped in a faded cotton rag—I see all of this in monochrome—very black skin covering her prominent cheekbones and the little bit of leg and feet left uncovered, worn down shoes, dress and apron like the head rag washed to what must have been heavenly softness, and carrying her big satchel, stuffed to overflowing with who knows what. In later years my mother and sisters have referred to their totes as Easter Mae bags. Those prominent cheekbones suggested some Indian heritage, Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Black Seminole. According to an Internet source, the historical relationship between Native Americans and African-Americans has been called, "one of the longest unwritten chapters in the history of the United States." No doubt, Easter Mae is part of that unwritten history.
Easter Mae was our ironing lady, not maid. She did cook sometimes, I’m remembering a cobbler here and there, but mostly, she ironed. Back then everything was cotton, mostly khakis and white short-sleeved shirts for Daddy, jeans and shirts for me, dresses, skirts and blouses for my mother and sisters. Easter Mae dipped snuff and Mother used to complain about the snuff specks on Daddy’s white shirts.
Another thing I remember about Easter Mae is lunch time—just the two of us, a selfish perhaps rewritten memory—and how I had to insist that she sit at the round oak table in our kitchen with me, rather than at a TV tray. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I do remember conversation. And I do remember one time her husband Bub helping me clean our large yard, filled with fall leaves from the many hardwoods and thick mats of wasted pine needles. He told my parents that I was “a working ass.” I smile at this early recollection of my time in the yard, and I’m proud that Bub found me a hard worker. I’m still digging in the dirt 45 years later.
Easter Mae’s time with us spanned several years, including the leap frog of our house from one side of Tomball Highway to the other when the State bought right-of-way to widen the road. Our family’s response was to buy six acres on the other side of the road and move the house. This happened in my senior year of high school—1961—and it was so noticeable that Dr. Bleyl, the school superintendent, had this to say when he announced that I had made the All-State High School Band in Dallas. Harold’s family is so proud that they moved their house to the other side of the road. Not so much a logical cause and effect relationship, but a fond memory nonetheless. House resettled, Easter Mae continued her work for us—ironing, pulling garments from the plastic, zip-up bag stored in the refrigerator where Mother had placed them after completing the task that had to be performed before ironing. Clothes went from the washer, to the starch pan, to the clothesline for drying—khakis and jeans on metal stretchers—to the kitchen table where they were sprinkled (we still have that sprinkle bottle), then rolled and stored in the plastic bag in the refrigerator, awaiting ironing day. Easter Mae day, maybe a peach cobbler as lagniappe.
I don’t remember when Easter Mae wasn’t around any longer. I guess I’ve probably asked Mother somewhere along the way. I remember Easter Mae as already old when she ironed for us, although my mother says she probably wasn’t as old as we thought. Anyway, what do children know about age? She like everyone else had to sit down eventually and embrace the inevitable. I have no doubt that Easter Mae knew her God and probably shouted Hallelujah many a Sunday morning in her Kohrville church, although I don’t even know if she was religious. In my experience, most country Black folks are. It is their God and faith that have lifted them up through the hard times they’ve known. “All my trials, Lord, soon be over” go the lyrics to a beautiful American folk song. "All my trials lord, soon be over….If religion were a thing that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die. All my trials lord, soon be over."
I trust that Easter Mae is with her Lord, Bub as well, along with my Mother, Daddy, Grandma, Mamaw, and all the uncles and aunts I have loved—all these saints who for a time God shared with the world.
Harold Hollis (December 9, 2005 – Normangee Texas)
3 comments:
Harold: you write the best stories I think I've ever read. I've probably told you this already. There is such feeling and you can actually believe you are standing right there as you are telling the stories. Just amazing!!
I forgot to also mention, we had an Easter Mae, except her name was Aunt Minnie! She worked for my aunt and uncle in the country and when she would cook, she put sugar in everything! Sugar in beans, sugar in vegetables, you name it, it had sugar!! Brings back memories.
Is this a pic of the settlers in Korvile
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