Mami T -- Part 1

When I first began trying to write this short story several years ago about my great, great grandmother Charity A. Taylor McDuffie, who was known to our family as Mami T, I only had the stories about her that my dad had told us many times while I was growing up to write her story with.

I am quite sure that these stories were handed down from older family members who knew her quite well. Daddy was born in 1915 in the Whitewater Community, and she died in 1917. But even though he was so young he remembered her vividly, and admired her greatly!

My dad was a great story-teller and spinner of yarns; he could tell such a great story that it made the listener feel as though you were there too. And in my mind she became a powerful and living memory; so much so that I always felt as though I knew her personally, even though she died long before I was born.

I was so intrigued by the stories he told us about her because she was such a strong woman that she seemed larger than life to me. I was born and grew up in an era when southern women were subservient to men.  But she was not; she was always her own person; which was very unusual to say the least.

She became my hero, I know that heroine is the correct term for female, but I think if I am able to convey to the reader her true character, you will understand why I admired her as my hero!

Daddy described her as being a tiny woman, four feet eleven inches tall, and she had long jet black hair. He said, "She was not afraid of anything that walked, neither man nor beast, she was a free-thinking woman way ahead of her time."

She lived in an era when females were ‘Chattel’ or property of their father or husband, and women and children were subservient to males. But no man ruled her!

This might be a little difficult for some in today’s world to even imagine how it was back then, but for me it was not so difficult; things had not changed all that much from the period of time when she lived in the Panhandle to the time when I was born and raised.

A Corn Cob Pipe

She spent much time alone with her three small children in the wilderness of the sparsely settled Florida Panhandle, and she needed to be able to think for herself. Daddy said, 

"She was feisty, a scrapper if need be, and she smoked a corn-cob pipe and cussed worse than any sailor you ever heard."

For many years I had thought that she was my great grandmother, and that William H. (Tony) McDuffie was my great grandfather, because when Daddy spoke of them it was always in the same context. So I just assumed they were husband and wife instead of mother and son.

I mentioned this in conversation with another family member quite a number of years ago, and she corrected me, and gave me the right connection. This sparked my interest even more about Mami T.

Then I wondered why my Dad had never mentioned my great, great grandfather, and it was only after I began doing some research (I use this term loosely, I am a novice at researching), and began to come across records that I could even think about piecing together a more complete story about Mami T; the tiny woman who cast a giant shadow; which spanned several generations!

I consider myself to have been very blessed that another family member, Sharon Tibbits Grant, had been doing research for many years; and she has very graciously and generously shared her files with me; all of the files that she had been working on for many years collecting and compiling about our family and its various connections; which are many.

Her file was and is a treasure trove of information to me, especially the information I gleaned about Mami T. I began trying to write a short story about this wonderful woman with strength of steel back then, and as I learned more I had to re-write it several times, and now I have decided to just begin a new one.

Daddy always referred to her as Mami T, and I always assumed it was spelled Mammy T. But somewhere in someone’s writings I came across this present spelling which is now the name of her story.