Sun and Soil

By Sanquilla Hopkins

There is an old African saying, an individual is educated when a man is educated. A nation is educated via the education of a woman. A culture that looks up to men but treats women differently because of their strength and work ethic undervalues the slow, steady work of a woman's hands turning the land that yields food for her loved ones and future generations. The women in my family are anything but weak and lazy. Their lives demonstrate the power of determination and brilliance. My mother and grandmother are the women who have had the most impact on my family's history. They are not mentioned among civil rights leaders. Moreover, their contributions pale in comparison to those of Rosa Parks. In any case, everyone from Miccosukee, Florida, all the way to Perry, Florida, should be quite proud of them. They are Johnson women. Here on the Johnson plantation, we grow oranges. For three generations, my family farmed the land. Not any old farmers. Farming women. This soil has undergone so much metamorphosis from its start till now, as our roots go to work in it, as seen via the orange trees. What this means is that from the 1950s till now, many breakfast tables in Leon, Jefferson, and Taylor County had a glass of Florida orange juice from Johnson trees. The perfect amount of rain and sunshine, blistered hands, wounded egos, and broken hearts tied to the seeds planted in the soil, and eventually, harvesting—that is what one cup of orange juice represents to my family.

Threaded into my DNA, I am intrinsically linked to my great-grandmother, my great aunts, my grandmother, and my mother. I observed in the field and sat around the kitchen table listening as a little girl. My understanding of farming grew through two paths. One led to the past and the ancient systems that ordered community. The other to an ideal future where there would be no barrier between dark hands or light hands, youth or aged, which would carve out a path of transformation for me in the new world. All their stories became my life. All their hate became my love. All their pain became my joy. They are all familiar yet mystical. They are traditional yet innovative. They are everyday yet legendary. And I count myself unqualified to tell their stories, yet they entrusted them to me. Farming is not just brute work, like a mule behind a cart. It is a tool of trade. Like a merchant going from continent to continent searching for the most valuable resource and trade secrets, a farmer first looks at the soil. It all began with my great-grandmother Ida Rose Blanchet’s daddy, Henry Blanchet, gifting her an orange grove for her sixteenth birthday. While other girls’ daddies went out “lookin” for a proposal from a beau, her daddy gave her farmland.

“Cause he ain’t want no man wit his foot on her neck.”

He was Creole Black and had done a pretty good job of passing, and many believed his daughter would not be afforded the same privilege no matter how beautiful she was. And Great Grand was a beauty. She looked like her father’s mother, who was French. Except Rose was dark like a clove with wavy, thick, dark brown hair, the deepest eyes, the thickest lashes, sharp cheekbones, and full lips. While her color was frowned upon, her looks allowed her father some leverage—that and the land as dowry for a marriage proposal. He purchased grove land with young orange trees right before the war. They still had not quite budded which was a defeat for the government but a win for him. The world had entered World War II, in some way, shape, or form. Although American soil was not directly touched with a bomb or invasion, everyone had a price to pay. Everyone was a communist and then volunteer or voluntold. They all had to offer up soil. The South emerged as a crucial supplier for the war effort, specifically through the provision of orange juice to the troops. All orange farmers operated with a sense of responsibility and achieved sufficient profits that contributed to both the nation's economy and their livelihoods. Henry Blanchet’s orange grove stood poised for the careful stewardship of a dedicated orange grower, one who would cultivate it to establish lasting wealth for his family. While the mature groves were slaves to the U.S., he spent three years training his sixteen-year-old daughter, Great Grand Rose. Long walks and meaningful talks transpired between father and daughter. Gazes at the sky hoping for the right amount of light and the right amount of water. It was the looking glass towards her future. Building her a small house with two rooms and a wooden stove. Out back was a second living quarters for any passersby that would eventually help during harvest season. Those three years would be the most meaningful gift he gave to her but would seem like both a blessing and a curse. Three years of plenty would turn into years of lack. Possibly because she was not supposed to own anything, being a single Black woman during the 1940s. That and no man wanted to propose to a dark-skinned girl no matter how good-looking she was. The babies were sure to come out dark, and there was no hiding it. Back then, black people did everything they could to make sure the next generation was lighter than the last. It was as if they were trying to wash away every shred of color. No heritage came with a certain kind of privilege.

He refused to marry her off to any man for years. Once he settled on her becoming an old maid who would bear no children and the land would go to the government upon her death, she met a good-looking man, Elijah Johnson, from Gadsden County, whose mama had been a Cherokee Indian and daddy had been mixed white and black, that is the way my granny described her father. He simply said he was all mixed up and confused about his life. He wanted Granny because she was complete. “She was of the richest black I had ever seen. Her skin glistened under moonlight. Crayola had not invented a crayon that matched her yet.” He smiled proudly. And she came with her own price. He did not have to worry about falling on hard times. It was a match made in heaven. Two dreamers. Two outcasts. They wanted to have children. They wanted to leave a legacy. They married when Granny turned twenty-two. One year after saying "I do," they welcomed Mary, their first baby girl.  The land was fruitless for six years in a row. They had just come out of the grove that night. Granddaddy was quite the singer then. He serenaded her to pass the time quickly when no matter how nourished the trees were, the oranges simply would not blossom. They worked into the wee hours of the morning, expecting the trees to give way to their hopes and desires. He swayed down the middle of the dirt road ahead of her, singing loudly to the sound of her steps. She staggered behind him, not quite full term. She stopped in her tracks. She crashed and she screamed at the same time.

He ran towards her and caught her in his arms. He could not see what was making her cry out because the night was so dark, but he felt wetness on his feet as she went down. He wanted to take her inside, but it was happening now with or without a place of comfort.  She toiled through the night mourning and in grief. He thought he would lose her. Mary’s lungs were fully developed. She let out a wail to let the world know that she was here for a full four hours, and then she went silent. Granddaddy buried her in the orange grove. No words were spoken over her. No hymns sung. And her body was exchanged as a form of payment for the harvest. The trees bloomed bright oranges the seventh year. The ground gave way to Grandmama Rose’s grief. For the next three years, Grandma Rose mourned by digging up the earth. Digging runoff drains for the grove. Picking ripe oranges. Juicing them and taking them to market. The business did not turn a profit as no one was interested in purchasing oranges from people of color. The process was stressful at first because it involved two people doing the brunt of the work. Tilling from four in the morning into the night. Making sure the soil stayed healthy. And then the silence of loss. Hands moving not towards each other but away from one another to till, to pull, and to pluck and bag. Juicing for market to sell at a decent price to people to make enough to put some food on the table only for two. A constant reminder of a loss of life. In between that silence and shortage, their son Isaac was born. This time in a hospital. My uncle Isaac was beautiful. His skin color was golden brown, descended from Rose’s daddy. For a baby of that era, he was abnormally large. He was eight pounds and eight ounces of health. His hair and eyes matched the sand.

The nurses came from the other side of the hospital just to coo at him. Grandmama slept with him because she feared she might lose him too. She thought her warmth would protect him from death and the grave. After a week with her beautiful boy, she was ready to take him home. Times were different. The hospital bill was due before checkout. They believed enough oranges were sold to pay it. Unfortunately, property tax for the land was also conveniently due. She and Henry could not pay it. They would work it off the following year. The following year would never come. The nurse told her an arrangement had been made and the bill was settled. They owed nothing. On the far end of the hospital, a place where they were not allowed to cross, a woman whose name they would never know and whom they would never meet wanted a baby. And a colored baby of the most beautiful shade and form was payment enough. The nurse took Isaac from Great-grand’s arms to get him ready “to go home.” She tried to follow, but Grandad instructed her to trust the staff. After arguing with him and the nurses, she watched them wrap him up and leave with him. In her gut she knew it was wrong.

 “He’s gone. It’s paid.”

The nurse told her casually. What she did next almost got her arrested. GG let out a bloodcurdling scream that made doctors come running. She laid ungodly hands on that nurse. Grandad had to pull her off.  He felt responsible, knowing he told her to trust them. Now, he could only hold her in his arms as she sobbed. That was the last time she would ever see her son. The last time a boy would be in the cards for her. From that day on, GG’s domain was out among the orange trees, where she grew bitter, her arms got bigger, and her hands got rougher on a routine of sun, soil, and silence.

Two years later the men begin returning home from the war. America used them up and spit them back out. They came home to nothing. Disparate treatment and no jobs. Word got around that Henry and Ida Rose were searching for colored help. And they could pay a decent wage plus room and board. In 1948 they hired on seven Black workers. They all became uncles when my great aunt Lily Rose entered the world. Great-gran barely pushed, and out she came. "She said it was God’s way of apologizing for what happened to Isaac." A spitting image of her brother, with the same golden-raisin color, almond-colored wavy dark brown hair, upturned nose, and full peach lips. My great-grandfather adored her because she reminded him of his mother. Since neither he nor GG could read, he wanted her to go to school. He did not allow her to work in the grove. Felt like it was a waste. He argued with GG about sending her in town to go to school. She responded with manipulation about Isaac. He accepted defeat but retaliated when GG attempted to take her into the grove to do anything. He felt like it was a waste. She only learned how to cook and clean. Occasionally, she escaped her mama’s apron.  She wandered into the grove and nestled under her father’s orange sack. Instead of working, he did more drinking, but he always welcomed her in his arms and hoisted her up on his shoulders to the highest orange her arms could reach. Then he would tell her,

“This here feeds our family, but this ain’t yo future.”

He talked with her for hours about being the first one of their children to live in a house bought, not built. The first one to live among whites. While he looked down at what Henry Blanchet had built for his daughter, GG solidified it that year by birthing both Lily Rose and the Johnson family business, orange juice. It required the perfect orange. It must be heavy. It must be firm. The aroma must be flowery. The men could only bring her the best of the best from the harvest. The workers peeled them and rinsed them. She and Lily Rose pressed them one by one and bottled them. When GG went to market, her wagon was lined with jars of her orange juice and fresh-picked oranges. After yelling to passersby to come and quench their thirst, word about her spread quickly. Men and women of all races and statuses gathered around her to buy a jar and inquire about the secret of the sweetness of the oranges. 

Business started booming for the Johnsons in 1950 when my mother’s mother, Aster Jean, was born. She tried to burst from GG’s womb feet first. Thankfully the midwife was a farmer who witnessed enough animal births to turn Aster without killing them both, mama and baby. Aster was dark bronze. And Henry Blanchet’s French genes skipped over her. She had a bell pepper nose and full downturned lips. She was GG’s most difficult child. This was probably because she shared many traits with her mother. She started walking at nine months. By age two she was fully running. When she was five, she followed GG into the grove, and by seven, she knew she would eventually take GG’s place. Opposite her mother, Aster was not close to her father. She gazed silently at him when he drank more than he worked. She stopped holding her tongue and mouthed off to him once. After GG slapped her hard, she resented him. That made great-granddad hold his head down. At eighteen she turned up pregnant. GG suspected one of the workers, but Aster never confirmed it. Great Gran and Grandad fought constantly, but he refused to question one single man. Then a girl’s father demanded a marriage out of fear of his family name being disrespected. There was no such thing as proof of paternity. The only proof given my GG was a chocolate baby girl, Iris. When word got around that Aster was unmarried and with child, the juice business slowed to a crawl. Slow sales only made GG more resilient. Regardless of the whispers and eye-cutting, she was still the loudest at the market: “Fresh-squeezed orange from the best oranges in town.”

 Iris’ birth was unwelcomed, yet it healed the whole of them. She loved both her grandparents. They ultimately raised her throughout her mother’s waywardness. She clung to GG under the orange trees. Thomas Johnson finally put down his liquor, but by that time the alcohol had taken its full effect on him. He slowed down and could not pick Iris up to touch any branches. He bent down to give her forehead kisses. He held her hand, and they took short walks. He talked. She listened. He told stories about his mama’s heritage and how all his chirren including her, had inherited her beauty. He talked about Henry Blanchet and his beautiful daughter Ida Rose. When she grew old enough to understand, he spoke about Mary and how they all owed her because her sacrifice made the trees sing until they bore fruit. For the first time since that hospital visit, he remembered he smiled proudly, remembering that somewhere in the world his son Isaac lived. GG and Iris spent more time in the kitchen and less time in the soil. And finally, GG’s prized homemade orange marmalade batch was made. The boiling water in the saucepan made the oranges thick until they bubbled up. Then they were cooled before transporting them into jars. They delivered them to town along with one sample, hoping they would sell as much as the juice. The marmalade sold quicker than the juice. People put in preorders for the marmalade because they wanted it for holidays, weddings, and even on their breakfast toast. They made huge batches, but they always received complaints about there never being enough. Iris decided to put Henry Blanchet’s name on the marmalade because of his vision to give a little Black girl an orange grove in the white South, where only men thrived in business, overlooking the precipice of prejudice and barriers and imagining a limitless world and predicting a successful future.

In 1978 my great-grandfather died. Lily Rose was married with three sons. Aster stopped wandering and found her place back on the farm. Iris wept bitterly. Great Gran shed many tears, but she moved on and never looked at another man. Once again, many suitors lined up to help the emotionally poor widow. Financially, GG wanted for nothing. Her cabinets were full, and there was plenty to eat on her table. She rarely drank orange juice, but the surrounding neighbors around her started their day with her family at their table. Her O.J. was a premium choice, and her marmalade now lined shelves in stores. Men wanted her because she was rich, my great aunt Lily Rose told me. GG stopped farming that year. Aster and Iris picked up the business, but by then Johnson oranges were no longer hand squeezed. They used a machine for faster production. The number of workers had more than doubled. The older ones moved on to other careers as times changed. Younger ones still showed up seeking employment on Johnson soil. Iris grew closer to her mother. She respected her as it was required in Ida Rose’s house. Their bond never grew to the magnitude of hers and GG’s. All the wisdom about growing perfect oranges, hiring the right people, and how to sell GG was passed down to Iris. In her eyes, Iris was the future of Henry Blanchet. She could no longer trust something so valuable, like a namesake to Aster. Injuries long forgotten left incurable scars between them. There was still love there, but there were more moments filled with awkward silence. Their stomach was filled with something familiar but not butterflies. I know Iris wished it were butterflies, but it was fear. They feared offending each other and ultimately cutting each other off. So, they never had deep conversations. They dwelled on the surface.

In the fall of 1989, Iris married Carlton Howard. She was a farmer. He was a schoolteacher. The ceremony was held in GG’s front yard across the street from the orange grove. By that time GG’s original house had been torn down and rebuilt into a four-bedroom home. The bride wore lace from head to toe. Her black wavy hair had been straightened, and her shoulders were draped by the thickest curls. She wore no veil as requested by her future husband. He wanted to look upon her chocolate skin and Blanchet and Johnson features. GG sat in the front row next to Aster. Lily Rose was in the second row with her husband and sons. The vows were spoken and the wedding song played. She danced to every song, and GG watched.  At the end of the night after the guest left and Aster went to her room, Ida Rose lay in the dark in silence.  She had to have been in bed looking up at her ceiling, thinking about Elijah Johnson, Mary, Isaac, and how at the center of all her trouble was the place where she had been preserved. The pain experienced led to the emergence of every dream, ultimately transforming it into profound joy. She fell asleep with a smile on her face. Ida Rose had passed away. Her funeral ushered in crowds of people. Folks from Leon County, Gadsden County, Jefferson County, and Taylor County all came to pay their respects to the woman who contributed to their daily intake of vitamin C and loving conversations around their breakfast table. Lily Rose, Aster, and Iris were applauded when the family car carrying Ida Rose drove by. She was buried on her land next to Elijah Johnson and Henry Blanchet.

Spring of 1992 Iris had a bouncy baby girl she called Nia Rose Howard. Again, the beauty of her great-great-grandfather Henry Blanchet, great-grandad Elijah Johnson, great-grandmother Ida Rose, her great aunts, her grandmother Aster Jean, and her mother Iris Howard shone through her features. She never picked up a sack or made one orange product. She went to the orange grove simply because it was her birthright. She started reading when she was two years old. She was placed in the gifted and talented category when she was seven years old. She won the science fair contest three years in a row in her middle school years. In high school she mastered all math. She entered college on a full MIT engineering scholarship. How she will put it to use is yet to be determined. What is known is that she possesses the characteristics of those women who came before her. Some good and some bad. Those characteristics distinguish her from being anything but exceptional. Now she is certainly fulfilling the dreams of old and launching a fresh wave from the past, the present, and the future by reclaiming and retelling it. All the past has been a wonderful helping hand for her. The lives of venerable human beings were even more crucial for her understanding. Women, farming, and the family history of my past and present will be useful for charting me toward the future. I am Nia Rose Howard. I am their hopes and dreams. I am the quiver in their bow. I am their avenger. I am searching for my great uncle Isaac either to bring him home or to bury him in his rightful place. Either way, he will know about Ida Rose and Elijah Johnson. He will hear their sorrows and their happiness. He will see all that they built. We walk through the grove feeling the sun above and our bare feet on the soil.

By Sanquilla Hopkins