Working Wednesday: When Our Ancestors Show Up in Unexpected Ways

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, Jr. was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. What does this have to do with the blog theme I’m posting under today, Working Wednesday? 

A memorial to President Kennedy in the 1963-64 Yearbook of Fairmont H.S., Griffin, Georgia. Courtesy of Mike Kendall and the Griffin-Spalding African American History Project.

Well, across the nation, millions of students sat in their school classes, oblivious to what had happened until someone broke the news to them. And in a classroom at Fairmont High School in Griffin, Spalding County, Georgia, the person who broke the news was my maternal 2x Great-Grandmother Scoatney (Scott) Cooper's niece, Beuna Nell Crew.

Beuna Nell Crew in the 1963-64 Yearbook of Fairmont H.S., Griffin Georgia. Courtesy of Mike Kendall and the Griffin-Spalding African American History Project

How do we know that? Because in 2017, the Griffin African American Oral History Project interviewed siblings Cheryl Head Rashied and Raymond Head III. A recording of this interview and its transcript were placed online as part of a larger set of Oral History Collections held by the University of Georgia University Libraries.

Here’s what Ms. Rashied recalled:

“I think everything was all well in my world until maybe 1963, and that was the year that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. And I can remember my biology teacher making that announcement to the class. And she came into the biology lab and said, "The President has been shot," and I thought this is the most terrible thing, how could the president of the United States be shot? And she was quite disturbed by this fact. And so I can remember quite distinctly walking home that day thinking that if this can happen, anything can happen, anything terrible. My world seemed to be changed in a sense. And maybe right about that time in 1963, we started to have this upheaval all across the country in terms of civil rights. But up until that time, my mother and my father -- I would say we were maybe sheltered from most of the woes of the world, and we had a happy childhood” [Time markers 00:04:00-00:09:00].

When the interviewer asked who the biology teacher was that Ms. Rashied had mentioned, she replied, “Ms. Crew…. Ms. Beula[sic] Crew, C-R-E-W. Yeah, she was the biology teacher.”

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What a powerful - and terrible and moving - memory to have. And how amazing that it 1) is connected to our ancestor, 2) was recorded and transcribed, and 3) has been made accessible to the public? I feel incredibly lucky to have come across it.