Meet Delia, My Great Grandmother

In this photo, taken about 1885, my great-grandmother, Delia Penland sits surrounded by her family. Her husband sits to her right, her eldest daughter, my grandmother, sits to her left.

Delia was born a slave, owned by Robert Penland, who gave his name and his DNA to this branch of my family.

Delia and her husband, William, managed somehow to send my grandmother from western North Carolina “across the mountain” to a Freedman’s Normal School in Tennessee where she was educated and taught before returning to Waynesville, NC to teach in the two room Black school for over 40 years.

I look to Delia as an example of strength and perseverance, but most for that commitment to education, that commitment my mother inherited and passed down to me and that I have tried to pass down to my children. That commitment to education is part of my ancestry, part of the values and culture that are my inheritance from those who have gone before me.

On Sunday I will be bringing a copy of this image to include on the paper “ancestry quilt” that we will create in the Sanctuary.

I hope all of you will bring something to contribute to that quilt as well: a copy of a photo, or a picture you have drawn, something you have written about your ancestry or a favorite poem that has come down to you. Please make them copies, because we will be taping them to our “quilt” and they may be damaged.

This quilt will be a visual representation of the truth that we draw inspiration and strength from our ancestors, whether they are relatives or ancestors by by love and admiration, by choice. It will also be a visual presentation of the many gifts we pass on to those who will follow us.

I hope to see you in the sanctuary on Sunday.

Blessings,

Bill