Day 27 - Pauline Williams Gooding

Some called her “Monk. Her twin sister they called, Toot.

She was mother, sister, aunt, friend, daughter, mother-in-law, and she was my grandmother. My MaMa. Born on February 28, 1912 to Forrest and Zephora Williams in Kinston, NC, Pauline Williams Gooding would grace this earth for 57 short years.

I met my grandmother in name only, and through the memories of others. I’m her namesake. As it is with many people thinking lovingly on someone, my father simply says of his mother-in-law, “Mrs. Gooding was a good woman.” 

Like so many Black Women during her time, my grandmother believed that an education for her daughter was not an option. She became a domestic worker specifically to pay my mother’s college tuition at Shaw University. “She consistently sent me $2.00 every week while I was at Shaw. She never missed,” my mother remembers. 

Perhaps the ride from Kinston to Raleigh, driving through Johnson County and passing the sign that read, “Welcome to Klan Kountry” was the constant reminder for my grandmother of why an education for her daughter was important. For Black people, living on the east coast of North Carolina, education was revolutionary. 

During Hurricane Hazel, my mother remembers how she sat in the door praying, refusing to close the front door.

My grandmother loved gardening, but never bought flowers. She would save her seeds from season to season, or someone would give her a sprig. A few days before she passed, MaMa caught a dove and to the astonishment of my grandfather, began setting out Bay Leaf Trees. My grandfather was puzzled as to why she was hustling around planting trees. 

The dove died the same day she died. The Bay Leaf Trees began sprouting shortly after she died. My grandfather understood.

MaMa transitioned in September of 1969. I was born in September of 1970. 

Whenever I say that I never met MaMa, some of my older cousins say that indeed I have – in my mother. I still wish I’d met Monk, though.