Commentary

*Daddy left no will for the family house and land at Jerusalem. Mama had no legal right thus to dispose of the land. It is unclear whether the absence of a will was done by intent or by neglect. The intent of the law, however, seems to have been to protect the rights of orphans under the age of consent. But when Daddy died all his children were or had been married with land and property of their own. So legally, it seemed as if the daughters or the children of his daughters had a right to property and land that they had never lived on, except for Annie, and never paid a dime into. 

Moreover, Daddy had given Susie and her husband land and also built Susie a house. He had done the same for Edith. He had also helped Sistuh’s husband in the building of their family house. So the law in a manner had left Mama a kind of abandoned orphan, in her own house and on her own land that she helped to pay for and to keep up since 1948. In addition she had paid the taxes on the land and the property since Daddy’s death in 1970 and paid bills that he left outstanding. She also buried him without assistance from his daughters. Daddy left me a policy of $500 but I handed that over to Mama, for I knew it was she who had kept the payments on the insurance.

** Mama owned about thirty acres inherited from her mother Laura and father TeeJay.