Memorial - Bettina Network's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Memorial’

In Memory of Sarah Scammell

Thursday, October 11th, 2018

If any of you reading this knew Sarah and would like to add your remembrances to this – please email us at bettina-network@comcast.net

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Sarah was a friend and someone who worked with Bettina Network, inc. for several years. One day, just a few months ago, someone came to our door to say Sarah had just died.  It was an amazing moment of confusion and rejection and denial.  I was sure the information was wrong, it must have been about someone else because Sarah was only about 58 years old.  I had tea with Sarah less than a week before and she was just fine.  Not ill, not complaining about anything, looking healthy and fit, but here was a friend of Sarah’s come to tell us that Sarah had just died.  She was talking to her landlady and just fell to the floor.  They say she was dead before she hit the floor. Isn’t life unpredictable and scary and unknown.

We met Sarah when she came to our door, knocked and announced she was a neighbor and listed her skills.  If we ever needed help, said Sarah, she would be happy to help.  A week or so later I called Sarah and asked if she could come over because we did need a bit of help and from that point on we were friends and she was someone who worked for and with Bettina Network, inc. whenever we had the need and the money.

Sarah spent her young adult years in California where she studied art.  While she did not work full-time following her art training, it was her passion and whenever she could she spent time with her photographs and wood cuttings and so much more.

The last time I saw Sarah, she came by for tea to talk about working with Bettina’s on Estate Sales and the Foundation.  Sarah had worked with us on Estate Sales several years prior, but we were changing the concept and looking for a new footing.

We had many ideas, which we had discussed in a group which included Sarah with others working with Bettina Network Foundation and Sarah particularly liked the role we carved out for her.  She took the sketch and turned it into something exciting.

We talked about the need to have someone live in the houses in which we managed estate sales so they would not be empty and during the day, style, price and generally get the house together for the sale with the help of others who would show up to help her during the day.  In the evenings, she would explore the neighborhood, take advantage of art, music, restaurants and other offerings she found there and just generally enjoy that time in a new place.  I was worried that this meant Sarah moving every week and I wasn’t sure that would be workable.  Sarah thought that was the exciting part of the job.  She loved going to museums, new art and music offerings, seeing how other people lived and she couldn’t do a lot of that because she had no car and limited funds.  This way she didn’t need a car and would get to look and experience much she wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

What I remember most about Sarah was her caring and concern for others.  There was an older woman who was homeless and who lived mostly in and around Harvard Square, close to where Sarah lived.  Sarah would look for this woman every few days to see how she was doing and she always had a few dollars to give her.  These few dollars were a lot for Sarah because she did not have much money, but she always had enough to share.  When Sarah moved to Arlington, she still came to Harvard Square to visit with friends and to check on her friend in Harvard Square.

When a friend of Sarahs became terminally ill, Sarah moved from her house to live with her friend so she could help as much as possible and so her friend would know someone was always there.  When Sarah’s friend died, Bettina’s managed the estate sale of what she left behind. What was amazing to me was the way the neighbors responded.  Since Sarah’s friend moved to a hospice at the end of her life, the house had not been lived in and did not have utilities nor water.  We worked, getting the house ready for the sale during the day light hours and brought bottled water.  One neighbor put her hose through the kitchen window so we could have water to do things like wash the dishes and other little things that you don’t think you need water to do until there is none.  We didn’t ask, she just offered.  Several others in the neighborhood stopped by because they wanted to remember and say goodbye to this neighbor who they didn’t know well, but she lived in their neighborhood.  They all knew Sarah.

We have a lot of Sarah stories.  What I have shared with you speak to who Sarah was, why we will remember Sarah for a very long time and why she will always be a part of Bettina Network, inc.

Marceline Donaldson

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It is a pleasure to add my note to our remembrance of Sarah. My remembrance of her was when we were co-participants in a meeting to enlarge the visions of Bettina Network Foundation.

I found Sarah to be a person who was actually present as we talked and planned.  She was committed to bless the world with her presence and art.  She was congenial toward me, and showed honest interest in what other people were offering.  Compassion and peace were in her own offerings.

May Sarah’s family and friends be comforted.

Francis Maloney

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Sarah was someone who took the word ‘Friend’ seriously. I saw her extend friendship to acquaintances, family members, employers, strangers, animals, and people in need….

She was a person that people knew they could talk to and really be listened to. Sarah had her personal antennae ‘ON’ and could understand things intuitively, which is a gift.

Since the shock of her death, I have realized that she knew things about me that not many people will ever know. I will truly miss the presence of a friend who understood some very deep things about me, I will miss that presence for the rest of my own life. In her memory I will try to become a more sensitive listener to others.

We had some nice dinners down in the kitchen….and I am sorry that I won’t be able to make the chicken soup with chicken breast, snow peas, broth, lime juice, scallions, and sprouts for us….which would have been followed by a few rounds of Chinese Checkers!

It interested me that we each wanted the other person to win, but at the same time we were both pretty good players….so it was always a close call.

A conversation with Sarah usually ended up with some humor entering in, one way or another. Her cheer and joyous laugh will be greatly missed. I hope that Sarah is at peace
With kindred spirits surrounding her….We miss you Sarah!…….

Love, Alexandra xxxooo

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I was shocked to learn of Sarah’s death.  Especially because of her very warm presence and almost joyous conversation.  She exuded a warmth and always upbeat presence.

To say she will be missed is an understatement.  We mourn her death and truly will miss her presence.  May she rest in peace.

Robert Bennett

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

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In Memory of Francis Albert Dynan

Sunday, September 2nd, 2018

by:  Frances Maloney

It is written of Mary of Magdala, that, after the disciples had returned to their homes, Mary lingered like a humming bird before the silent face of the tomb, weeping.  “And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.  And they said to her, “woman, why are you weeping?”  She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.”

I am that woman.  And so, I am deeply grateful to Mary Flynn, Katherine, and Suzanne, and to all of you who grieve Frank’s passing, for allowing me to join you in this company of mourners.  Frank and I did not attend Frank’s parents’ funerals, because Frank chose not to go without me, and I wasn’t sober.

Frank was merciful and kind, honest and true, first with himself and with God, then with all of us, indeed with all creatures, great and small.

Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro has provided this prayer for bride and groom that I think was fulfilled in our marriage:

“Dear God,

You have brought this couple together

that they might risk the joys and sorrows of love.

They have said “yes” to You and to each other.

We now ask that you bless them

with love and compassion

righteousness and truth.

Guide them in ways of deep and loving

friendship that they may forever

cherish, honor, uphold and sustain

each other and the divine image

that is our deepest self.”

Ma, that is, Frank’s mother (of blessed memory), taught me to pray, “Thank you, God, for all you have given me, for all you have taken away, and, for all you have left me.

Left me, are vital memories, full of Frank’s spirit and likeness.  For example, one day, when we lived in Ann Arbor, a bee appeared in our apartment.  I was terrorized and called on Frank to save us.  Well, Frank took what seemed like an hour to tackle that bee, amused at my distress.  Anxiety turned to wonder as I watched him carefully collect the bee into the palm of his hand and lovingly escort the bee outside, a sweet man doing a sweet thing.

Like Frank himself, the honey bee

The humble, the lowly honey bee

Needed to feed the earth

Needed to feed the earth.

By his spirit and example, his farmer’s faith and heart of a fisherman, Frank drew me to something better than I had ever known, becoming my personal rock, my personal redeemer.

Remembering the concluding line of a poem by Langston Hughes, as reads, “Yet you never know, when a woman like me is free.”  I testify that I never want to be free from the Love of God, as expressed by my only husband to his only wife.

Frank was patient, Frank was kind

Frank was glad for the well-being

    and success of others, such as

    his brother Joe, who was a

    blessed father and grandfather

Frank envied no one

Frank was generous, unassuming,

    faithful, devoted

Not egotistical, not ‘in your face’

Not rude, never selfish

Frank’s heart was a vessel of gratitude

Frank was slow to take offense,

    harbored no resentments

Frank was merciful and forgave in truth

Frank was moral

Frank was ethical

Frank did Matthew 25:34-36

Frank was courageous and brave

Frank bore all things, believed all things,

Hoped all things

Endured all things.

Francis Albert Dynan nearly died in infancy.  In Vietnam, he was flown around in helicopters packed with explosives.  Surviving these, Frank never missed, for an instant, his work as an instrument of peace, in thought and deed.

Frank and I never parted without desire and hope to behold each other again.

Francis Albert Dynan, how do I love thee?  I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace -, and, if God choose, precious, gracious, loving, compassionate man, my Rabbouni – I shall love thee better after death.

Ed.Note:  Francis Jean Maloney served in the United States Army as did Frances Albert Dynan.  They met while serving together in Germany and married.  After several years, they divorced, but in spite of their legal status they remained friends and remained married and true to one another for the rest of their lives.

Francis Maloney came from an amazing family.  Her mother was the first African American to perform with a major symphony orchestra in the United States and her father was Surgeon General of Liberia.  Frances was homeless for a time.  What she experienced and suffered should make all of us think about how we treat those who served these United States.  She is currently on the board of Bettina Network Foundation, inc. and is a tremendous asset to the Foundation and everything it does.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

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Posted in African American history, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Foundation, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Frances Maloney, Francis Albert Dynan, Memorials, Spiritual Reflection, Who are the Bettina Families | Comments Off on In Memory of Francis Albert Dynan

The Last Word: Stay Woke – A Memorial to Dick Gregory

Wednesday, August 30th, 2017

By:  Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.           
August 23, 2017

“It is through our struggles that we gain victories”

Stay Woke are words to remember from my best friend–the one and only Dick Gregory. Who in Black America (or America for that matter) hasn’t heard of Dick Gregory?  I certainly had known him for years before he left us a few days ago. I didn’t meet him in person until 1986 when Congressman Mervyn Dymally invited him to come to my home state in Louisiana while I was a candidate for the U.S. Congress in the old Gillis Long district.  Mr. Gregory spoke for a fundraising event for my campaign, and he didn’t ask for a dime–not even his airline ticket.  That was impressive because others required all kinds of things, including what they wanted in their hotel rooms to drink while there!

After the campaign was over, I moved to Washington, DC, and one day out of the clear blue, he was stranded in Baltimore and needed to get back to DC that night. I guess my reputation for helping anybody I could was out there already and he had heard about it!  He called me and asked if I would travel to Baltimore to get him; I did.  We became friends on the ride back to DC, and that has never changed. He began bringing over veggie burgers and cooking them while inviting friends by to see how great they tasted. I met so many wonderful people through him.

He soon became known as my best friend and running buddy.  We attended many events together, but the term running buddy came from the fact that we’d run on every track we could find, run through Rock Creek Park or get up at 2 am to test new health equipment about which somebody had told us.  I wasn’t crazy about getting up that early in the morning, so I wound up buying a lot of the strange equipment so that we could use it anytime! Consequently, my home became filled with all kinds of exercise and health gadgets.  He introduced me to just about every vitamin ever made. At that time, I had a health products business so it fit right in with what he was advocating.

He saw the thousands of books at my place, so he decided to add to my collection!  Aside from introducing me to his huge required newspaper and magazine reading, he began buying two of every book he thought was worthy of reading. That was a lot! The reason for buying the second copy was for me to read to him–sometimes for hours where I literally had to prop my eyes open to finish books late at night.

The second reason was his frequent travels, and since I had every book he had, he could call me to jog his memory on certain information.  Since he had no concept of time, he often called from other time zones in other states and countries so that I could get out of bed, go downstairs and find what he needed. He also wanted to see every movie of significance, so it was nothing for me to be picked up to hang out with him for two or three movies in a single night. I had my first arrest for a good cause with him. We were joined by George Clooney, Martin King, III, Ben Jealous and others. As a lawyer, I was called on frequently not to go to jail, but to bail him out of jail for protesting about various wrongs, so my arrest record for picketing is not nearly as long as his.

Ultimately, we began participating in so many marches and protests that we made signs for numerous causes and kept them in the trunk of my car so that we could stop and participate with others as we were passing by.

I will fast forward to 2011 where we witnessed the British Petroleum Gulf Oil Spill in Louisiana. Many under-served people were not getting paid for their losses, but big companies were. A group led by Dr. Arthur Rocker, met at my home and we discussed what we would do about it. situation.  Immediately Dick and I agreed to join the cause.  We made several trips to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Texas advising people of their rights to be made whole.  We picketed BP.  We went to London, England to try to seek relief for the under-served.  We picketed the BP offices there while not even knowing the laws related to picketing.

We returned to the U.S., met with and picketed more BP offices in the U.S. At the time Dick left us on Saturday, BP has yet to pay poor and marginalized people. Despite the fact that it is impossible to fill his shoes, my last words to him were promises to carry on his legacy of service to our people and finish the projects we’d started together. Dr. Rocker and I will be returning to that Gulf Coast battlefield in a few days and we’ll carry Dick’s spirit with us.

In honor of all Dick Gregory has done for us, let us honor his memory by practicing some of the things he taught us.  He wanted us to Stay Woke and not believe everything we see!  He wanted us to know that all things are not what they appear to be.  He wanted us to rid ourselves of anger, fear, hatred and jealousy.  He wanted us to know that love is much more powerful than hate. I had the last word with him on last Saturday night after Lil and his family said their goodbyes. I could never fill his shoes because they are much too big, but I had a talk with him and promised to do my best to do the things I know he would do if he were here.  That is how I will honor my friend, the one and only, Richard Claxton Gregory from whom I learned so much.

 
E. Faye Williams, MPA, PhD, D.Min, Esq.
President/CEO, National Congress of Black Women, Inc. 
1250 4th Street, SW, Suite WG-1, Washington, DC 20024 
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

 

 

 

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Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Breakfast Table Talk, Dick Gregory, Esq., Memorials | Comments Off on The Last Word: Stay Woke – A Memorial to Dick Gregory

Aileen Clark Hernandez – (1926-2017)

Monday, March 13th, 2017

by:  Marceline DonaldsonI won’t say rest in peace.  I will say I hope you are living your life after life in a heaven in which everyone is equal – where love abounds – where justice has no meaning because the evils of this life have all fallen away.

At the end of life, one begins to think of what has my life meant! Did I spend my time wisely?  Did I work to make this world better for those I am leaving behind?  Did I do justice, love mercy, walk humbly as I tread this earth?  Can I expect to be welcomed in heaven because my life on earth was lived without making others feed my ego by feeling and acting better than?

I think Aileen can say yes to all of those questions.  She worked hard and produced much.  Not the material things in life, but those things which really count over the long term.

I first met Aileen in the 1970’s when I was elected to the National Board of NOW.  Got to know her even better when I went to a national board meeting in San Francisco with my youngest daughter who was about 4 years old at the time – and we stayed with Aileen.  The week we spent with Aileen was one I shall never forget.  I could have decorated Aileen’s house, it was that comfortable and familiar.  NOW members took turns during the meeting taking care of Jacqueline.  NOW’s commitment was to making sure board members felt free enough to bring their children.   We stayed in touch for a brief time after that, but then……

What most amazed me was her commitment to history.  She had incredible files, unbelievably organized, of everything she had done which would be of interest to historians down the road.  Her commitment to equality and justice was deep and dictated how she spent her time.  I am very grateful to have met Aileen and to have had the chance to see and be involved – for a brief time – in her life.  It was one of those times which changed mine.

When I met Aileen, we realized we had a lot in common.  Both went to New York University.  Both raised with parents who designed and sewed theatrical garments.  Both loved fashion – probably as a result of that upbringing. Both had a passion for  doing what we could to change this world for the better – and so much more.  She was a mentor for me and I am sure for many other women.  I count myself as being blessed to have had  mentors, throughout this life who have been strong, committed, beautiful people with an understanding of how we are all related and all working to bring about equality, justice, love for one another.

Aileen Hernandez

Writing these memorials is becoming a much too often occurrence.  I guess I have reached that time of life when people you know leave – frequently – for a different place and then it is time to fill those gaps in your memory because other things took precedence and you are left regretting not having called.  That is happening to me far too often.

That speaks to the way we have ordered our lives.  the activity, the action, the cause, the work of the moment becomes all consuming and involvement with friends from a lifetime ago gets pushed back for another day.  And the surprise and regret comes when you realize that day is not coming until your eyes close for the last time.

Aileen’s work and accomplishments were many and huge.  She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.  Twenty years from now, that newly coming to adulthood generation will look back to ask why she did not receive the acolades to measure her life’s work.  And the answer will be clear.  She was a woman who worked hard for women’s rights, equal rights and justice for minorities and for the union movement.  That combination is lethal in this society.  We don’t want to hold up such icons because they might just become the trail blazers to attract our children to become like them.

Aileen Hernandez, Pauli Murray and others have clearly shown the sexist lie to the now re-surfacing comments about the feminist movement being a white women’s movement.  The gains of that movement have had to push through racism, classism, xenophobia, homophobia and more to be achieved and even then those gains have been tenuous as the next generation tries to negate and destroy that move forward which freed us all for a brief moment.

Thank you, Aileen, for having been so consistent in your life and your work.  Thank you for being one of those bright lights and beacon to all of us showing us how to walk through some difficult times.  Thank you for having the courage to be one of those founding NOW at a time when the fight for the equality for women sorely needed such an organization.  Thank you for being there at a time in my life when I needed mentors, showing me there is a path you can follow because others have been there and walked through the stuff that gets thrown at you as a strong feminist and that gets thrown from all sides.

I know those greeting you on the other side are rejoicing and celebrating your life on this earth.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to bettina-network@comcast.net

 

 

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Posted in African American history, Aileen Hernandez, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Class in America and the World, Clothes, Fashion, Memorials, NOW, racism, sexism | Comments Off on Aileen Clark Hernandez – (1926-2017)

JACK GREENBERG – NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Saturday, October 15th, 2016

by: Marceline Donaldson

I read this morning of the death of Jack Greenberg and it hit me much harder than I would have expected.

Jack Greenberg, Percy Julian, Dolores Orey and so many others are among the people who surrounded me at a very dire time of my life.  I am so grateful for the fact that they lived and loved and shared and were there.  I am grateful for the way they lived their lives.  I am grateful for the way they gave to society to stand between the oppressed and the oppressors with the law as their weapon.

Reading about Jack Greenberg’s death feels to me as though an era has passed.

As a very young girl, who lived in a middle-class Black community surrounded by people who made her feel that she was really incredible and could do anything she set her mind to –  it was a recipe for constant conflict with a racist, sexist society and its institutions throughout the rest of my life.

Living in a society which did all it could to teach me that I was inferior; my hair wasn’t good enough; my skin wasn’t white enough; my brain wasn’t intelligent was defective and inferior; my birth and life’s goal should be to walk steps behind, to serve Whites, to not be pushy and absolutely to not rock the boat.  Given the lessons this society tried to teach me, the way of this country should be the way it was then and my job and life should be lived not challenging, not noticing the differences in treatment, accepting whatever this society forced on me and doing it without complaint.  The same lessons – but in a different era – which were given to the slaves were also given to Blacks not in slavery, but fighting for their civil rights.   Those that fought back and tried to escape were crazy and somehow emotionally off base, while those who accepted and did everything they could to glorify and serve their masters and mistresses were sane, substantial and who slaves and years later, more contemporary Blacks, should be.

If I did that, it was clear I would be able to live a very nice, quiet life as the wife of a very nice quiet man and have very nice quiet children.  Not very well off economically, but comfortable enough for a Black family.  If I rocked the boat; challenged the racism and sexism in this society; brought those challenges outside of the community in which I was raised there would be hell to pay.

I used to wonder why the reality of Black history was only taught in Black schools.  In White schools, not even the handful of Black children who attended those schools knew much about the oppression; the hell; the violence; the protests, revolutions, mass deaths that Blacks had gone through over the years.  As I grew older and moved out of that Black community, I realized why that was so.  If Whites are kept ignorant of Black history – especially the racial oppression and violence perpetrated on Black communities – the denials could be kept, continued and the racism could thrive.

My grandfather, O.C.W. Taylor, was principal of a school in New Orleans, but his love and passion was journalism.  He co-founded the Louisiana Weekly with C. C. Dejoie, Jr. and had a television and radio show on WNOE in New Orleans.  He was also involved in rocking boats and causing huge waves.  When he did all of this, I was right there – at four or five years old, probably younger and very definitely as I grew older.

He brought people to New Orleans through his work – like Thurgood Marshall,-  to be a part of panels discussing civil rights.  He was also a part of severing the organizational ties between the NAACP and what became the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.  I think, but for the efforts of those who were behind that separation,  Brown vs the Board of Education would either not have happened or something like it would have happened years later and much diluted in its affects.

My most fun memories of those days was of sitting at the table at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in New Orleans with all of those men listening to their conversations.  I don’t know if I understood it all, but those times certainly formed who I am today and how I have lived my life.  Today, I see this little girl at this table with all these men and it is amazing that it is me. Today,  as an adult, looking at those pictures on paper and in my minds eye, I see someone very small, looking totally out of place.  Then, at the time it happened, my feelings were that I was totally equal to any of them and joined the conversation whenever I had anything to say.

Jack Greenberg was a very young man, at the time, and just becoming involved with this group.  It was not an all Black group and that felt very right.

It was normal and good, at the time, the way Blacks and Jews worked together on fighting for the civil rights of everybody.  Later – as society began to notice the giant steps taken with this melded group, there began to be efforts and some very successful, to propagandize the Black community to reject its Jewish brothers and sisters and to have only Blacks involved.  Everyone had a theory as to why this was necessary.  None of those theories acknowledged the strength of that group which wound up at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant and made so many forays into the thick of racism and eventually sexism moving those barriers back a little at a time.

Years later – working for the Pillsbury Company and finding myself in the middle of racism and sexism in Corporate America, all of that came flooding back and I called the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.  Highly indignant that I was experiencing racism and sexism in a job, especially when I was just out of Harvard Graduate School of Business, I was outraged.  Somehow, that was supposed to inoculate me from such experiences.  Instead, it showed me the reality of life in these United States for a Black woman.  I saw the structures which supported the racism and sexism I was experiencing – their history – where they came from – how they were established and maintained.  It was an incredible awakening.

I wasn’t able to reform and remake this society, but before it crushed me, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund took the case of Donaldson v Pillsbury, knowing it would be difficult because it was the first management case filed by a Black woman.

There I met Jack and Deborah Greenberg.  Two very committed people.  I had met Jack before, but didn’t realize that until my grandfather told me the stories of my youth and identified some of those who peopled my growing up years.  Jack and Deborah’s lives were wound up in the LDF and they were very good at what they did.  I was not simply a “Plaintiff”.  The rest of my life was important to them.  They invited me to LDF Yearly Conferences; I attempted to raise money in Minneapolis through a Black and White Ball for LDF and they tolerated that; I spent a lot of time in New York because my life elsewhere was falling apart.  The helplessness of what I was experiencing was mitigated by Jack and Deborah and Percy Julian and Dolores Orey having me sit in on the discussions of my case and contributing;  listening when my anger went over the top; allowing me to be equal and acknowledging my humanity while it was being destroyed everyplace else.  When my car was set afire I called LDF; when people circled my house in a very threatening way and I was alone in the wilds of Wayzata, Minnesota with three small children, I called LDF and Percy came to visit; when all kinds of other things happened during that time frame – I called LDF – and they responded.  As I looked at how they operated over the years, what I saw was the person who headed the organization, Jack Greenberg,  had a humanity which permeated the entire group.

My grandfather filled in the blanks for me on why Thurgood Marshall looked to Jack Greenberg as his successor at LDF.  And from my experience with the group, it made a lot of sense. I didn’t know about Jack Greenberg’s family history with anti-semitism until years later.  It was not something he paraded out to justify his work or his involvement in civil rights.  And, not everyone with that family background feels called to attempt to address the evils they experienced, but thank God Jack Greenberg did.

Towards the end of my active association with Jack and Deborah Greenberg, Percy Julian, Dolores Orey and others, I was caught up in a group of people who were lobbying to replace Jack Greenberg with an African American because they claimed the organization should have  a Black head.  It was amazing to me because of the work Jack had done and was doing.  What was this about?

As I talked to more people, it became clear that it was about propaganda being inserted to undermine the LDF.  There were White propagandist in the midst doing everything they could to convince me and others that our efforts should be placed in achieving this separatist goal.  It was very sad.  Especially since many of the Blacks involved with this separatist time had done nothing to begin to contribute to the Civil Rights Movement.  They talked loud and long, but they were contributing and working in the movement to re-establish Jim Crow in the country and this was just one of many places they wanted to see that total separation happen.  It was tragic. It was also clear that if they succeeded all the work of Jack Greenberg, Thurgood Marshall and others would be reversed.

I was back and forth to New York about that time and none of those machinations seemed to bother Jack.   He just continued with business as usual.

And now, Jack Greenberg, Percy Julian and Dolores Orey have all died.  Memories of them and their lives are still very much alive and will always be as long as we value the present by looking to the past and making that a total picture as we move into the future.  There isn’t much greater than to know  your history as you live your present.  Deborah Greenberg moved on to work with others to found the Women’s Legal Defense Fund.

It was a rare time – a painful time – a truly beautiful time – which showed the human spirit in all of its grandeur.  When pressed and there are attempts to enslave, oppress, make others less than – there are those who take the other side and spend their lives doing everything they can to remove those pressures and make life better for us all.  At the top of that list was Jack Greenberg.

My prayer for Jack is one of giving thanks that he lived and made the decisions he made on how to live his life.  Without him and all the others we would all be a little less than we are; a little more oppressed; lacking an incredible example of a life well lived and a life given to very effective service to others.

Rest on your laurels Jack and the knowledge that many remember you and your achievements and your spirit.  As you now find Thurgood Marshall again and all of those with whom you worked who have gone before, it will be an awesome reunion and the reward for a job well done.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jack-greenberg-civil-rights-lawyer-who-helped-argue-brown-v-board-dies-at-91/2016/10/12/066a55a6-90c0-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html

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Posted in African American history, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Deborah Greenberg, Dolores Orey, Jack Greenberg, Memorials, Percy Julian, racism, sexism, Ubuntu | Comments Off on JACK GREENBERG – NAACP Legal Defense Fund

The Rev. Dr. Lillian D. Anthony, my friend

Monday, December 1st, 2014

by: Marceline Donaldson, president

Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

 

There are some people one expects to go on forever, but none of us lives forever.

Lillian was a force of nature. Her strength came from the clear, truthful, fearless and love filled way she lived her life.

I have always called Lillian ‘my friend’, but as I look back over our lives I realize she was also one of my mentors from whom I learned a lot.

I met Lillian back in the l960’s in Minneapolis. She was challenging the City of Minneapolis about its lack of civil rights and was in the process of becoming the first head of one of the first city civil rights departments in the United States.

It was amazing for me – a young, southern, quiet, full of my early training.  A person who wore gloves everyplace and usually with an umbrella at hand, who had been trained to always remember who she was and act accordingly – to meet this woman who always knew who she was and she was neither quiet nor southern.

I was just coming out of a not so great marriage and trying to stand on my own two feet for the first time in life. I’d found a beautiful house I loved and tried to buy, but the owner declared he would not sell to an African American. I was furious; was not going to take such; and wasn’t sure where to go or what to do when someone suggested I call Lillian Anthony – which I did.

Lillian responded immediately. She was head of the newly established Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights starting in l968 and had some power to address what happened to me.

We met and talked and hit it off right away. Lillian went off to address the problem and in a couple days called and we met again. She told me the problem was solved, the owner had no problem selling the house to an African American woman and she knew that for sure because she’d just bought it.

We started to laugh, almost uncontrollably. It was a joke that was funny far beneath what was on the surface and so off we went on a lifetime of what can only be described as a hilarious friendship full of one-upmanship’s. When we met at social, civic, or other events we would point and laugh uproariously because we knew we were the sharpest looking people in the room. I knew I looked better than Lillian and she knew she looked better than me.

We often went shopping together – to estate sales, of course – but we had to fight to buy what we wanted because we always saw the same item at the same time and it was a free-for-all as to who got to it first.

I was invited to a meeting in Chicago in the early 1970’s of 100 Black Women and so was Lillian, who was one of the coordinators of that event. Once there I met Elma Lewis – who had not yet become Miss. Lewis. There was a skit in the room with all of us gathered and a woman dressed as a waitress came in with her clothes askew looking very stressed and disheveled, crying out – ‘help me, they shot him’.

No one in the room moved, except me, who jumped up to run to this woman to help her in her obvious distress, while telling everyone else in the room how they should be helping also. Elma wanted to know “who is that woman”. Lillian, who was sitting next to Elma said – that’s just Marceline. She is always in the middle of everything saving the world . Elma called me over to sit next to her and she and Lillian laughed and carried on – at my expense.

Turns out, the waitress was a part of the skit to see who would respond and to then start a discussion on being involved. However, that didn’t work because Lillian, Elma and I couldn’t stop laughing and just having a great time out of all of this.

That was the start of a great trio of friends. We weren’t together a lot, but when we did get together it was always a good time.

Lillian designed the Afro-American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, becoming its first chairperson. She did an amazing job of helping to found the Department and headed it in a way which helped develop the entire field. No, Skip Gates was not the first and neither was Harvard.

Lillian ran into trouble at the University as Black men challenged her position which they thought should belong to an African American man who they claimed should have better credentials than Lillians’. So Lillian resigned and went off to the University of Massachusetts to obtain a Doctorate in Education. In addition she also served on the faculties of the University of Nebraska, George Mason University and Towson University in Maryland.

Even before all of this, Lillian went to seminary at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and received her Master of Religious Education in 1953 long before women were even beginning to see the possibility of a seminary education. Before that, Lillian received her undergraduate degree from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO.

After leaving seminary Lillian worked at Witherspoon Presbyterian Church as the director of religious education. A job most women found if they were lucky enough to finish their seminary education and find a job. The Church was way behind the society- still is today – in addressing the equality of men and women and Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans.

Lillian also taught in Assuit, Egypt and was the North Central Area representative for the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Ordination was not possible then, even though God’s call to Lillian to the ordained ministry was strong,  so she went instead into Religious Education. Lillian did not ignore this call to ordination into the Presbyterian ministry, which wasn’t realized until decades after she turned to listen to what God was calling her to do. What was clear in Lillian’s life was that God calls and man decides to ignore God’s way and pursue his own, blocking the path of women and minorities. It was clear looking at Lillian’s life, that it is dangerous for men to block God’s call, but they never seem to get that message because they are still today blocking as best they can – only today being joined by a few others who are not White European males!

Before I met Lillian, she had served the Federal Government from 1965-1968 as the district director for the Department of Labor establishing anti-poverty programs in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

When I moved to Massachusetts, Lillian was already there at the University of Massachsuetts working on a doctorate in Education. She insisted I join her because she felt I would need something to fall back on and with a doctorate I could teach in Academia someplace.  I was not an academician, nor anything close and I decided that was not my path. She, Elma and I got together several times while Lillian was studying and both tried to push me into this doctorate business, but I resisted and took another path.

Several years after I moved to Massachusetts, Elma Lewis called to say she had heard from Lillian who was concerned about me because we hadn’t been in touch for quite some time and wanted Elma to make sure I was alright. They both knew my penchant for jumping into the fire and they both have had to pull me out several times.  According to Elma, there were rumors and they were worried about me.

Elma called me to say John Ross was picking me up to bring me to her house for lunch, but before he did he was going to take me on a tour of Boston. I told Elma I already knew Boston, had been living here for a few years and that was great, but I preferred lunch times to tour times. Elma said nothing and John Ross picked me up and took me on a tour of Boston. Elma was now Miss Lewis and you did her bidding.  John Ross asked all kinds of questions – how are you, what are you doing, are you alright financially, can we do anything for you, and on and on he went. I finally stopped him to ask why he was trying to get into my business. John Ross said he wasn’t he was just instructed by Elma to ask all of these questions because they needed to make sure I was alright and didn’t want me to say everything was fine – when we talked over lunch – and everything was not fine.

John Ross took me to Elma’s, where she was on the phone with Lillian and they both demanded I not stay out of touch for so long and whenever I had a problem of any kind they were just a phone call away.

That was a very emotional moment for me, but I knew that was how they both were and I must have had some kind of publicity or gossip which made them think they needed to circle the wagons.

Having had that kind of mentoring, I have tried to live up to their example and be there for others – although I have not been perfect following my mentors. I do fall away and still get busy with my own business and have missed many such opportunities presented to me by the universe.

One passion in Lillian’s life was ‘collecting’. It is a passion we both shared, but mine was about 18th century French furnishings, art objects, etc. Lillian’s was about collecting negative Black images throughout history. She had an amazing collection and her house – wherever it was – reflected this passion.

At one point in Louisville and again in St. Louis her home was a place classes of school children visited with their teachers to take the tour of Ms. Lillian’s home.

Oddly enough – or should I say expectedly enough – our two passions ran parallel because as Lillian became more knowledgeable about her area of collecting she ran across many objects which were from 18th century and beyond  in the time frame of my collecting and items made by some of the same people and companies I loved. Lillian knew about and owned items made by the Dresden, Meissen and other factories of negative Black images and while artistically exquisite the subject matter made you wonder about this use of the artists talent. I remember when Lillian bought a beautiful piece of Dresden china which depicted a Black child being born out of an alligators egg and others pieces that went downhill from there.

My thoughts about negative Black images had to do with the Aunt Jemima dolls and the Uncle Tom depictions, but they went far beyond those simple objects into incredible works of art meant to support the racism against African Americans in as many and as subtle and not so subtle ways as possible.

Lillian brought a part of her collection to Boston for an exhibit along with a program speaking to this form of maintaining the structure of racism. It was well attended and the curiosity and amazement from those who had my early thoughts about this area was astounding.

Lillian was head of the Afro American studies department in Louisville, Kentucky and moved to Maryland to become a professor in the same area at Towson University.

Her life and career extended across the country and in several institutions. She left each one better for having served there.

Lillian’s last job before retiring was as the associate for equal employment opportunity/affirmative action in the human resources department in the Prebbyterian Church’s national office in Louisville, Kentucky.

Lillian was also able to function as an ordained minister before her death and her sermons were memorable, moving and caused you to rethink who you are and how you were responding to God’s call in your life.

Lillian was clearly one of God’s chosen and never forgot that she was called by God to spend her life ministering to God’s people and she did that with love, compassion, fearlessness, dignity and grace.

She received many awards and honorary recognitions like the Mary McLeod Bethune Award, presented by the Louisville National Council of Negro Women. She was also appointed to the President’s Disability Task Force.

What many people did not know was that Lillian lived with Lupus most of her adult life. How she did all of what she did and dealt with a very debilitating disease we will never know. Lillian was never a victim and nothing that happened to her turned her into a victim. She was always a child of God who she believed was the active force in her life and to whom she owed everything.  She lived that life to the fullest – always.

Unfortunately for me, I did not stay as close to Lillian as a friend should and so my grief is not over the loss of a friend – who I know is celebrating with all of her friends right now having a joyous time – but over the loss of my opportunity and responsibility not to lose track of someone who I was close to and loved like a sister.

Through all of this I have learned that life and our society separates friends and families and thereby increases the burden on those we love and don’t keep up with because of our busyness trying to keep body and soul together.

Each time this happens I resolve to not let it happen ever again and then I hear of a close friend who has died and my guilt, regret and sense of great loss starts all over again.

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Spencer Morgan Rice, In Memoriam

Thursday, January 23rd, 2014

by:  Marceline Donaldson, 2014

We were saddened to hear of the death of Spencer Rice on January 15, 2014.  He was a larger than life figure as rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in the city of Boston from 1982 to 1992.

There is always that extra amount of grief when someone you know dies, – someone who was your mentor for a period of time, especially at a life-changing moment of your life. and that is who Spencer was to me.  He was very insightful and could put his finger on what you were going through without long discussions to wear out the problems and sometimes without the fact that you were experiencing a problem with all its particulars even discussed.

Spencer ministered to a lot of people on the fringes at Trinity – people you would not think the rector of such a large Church would even notice – and he did it quietly with no fanfare and only those closeby noticing his good works.  In conversation with several people who knew Spencer, one thing was mentioned by every one – his generosity.

The best way I could think of to remember Spencer is to reprint one of his sermons which I feel encapsulats his core beliefs.  This sermon was preached on John 1:43-51. .    The Rev. Dr. Spencer Morgan Rice was powerful, conflicted, with a raging internal war which produced sermons that reached the hearts and changed the lives of many.

“WE HAVE FOUND HIM, COME AND SEE”     (John 1:43-51)

Preached from the pulpit of Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston, MA.

“This is a time of crisis.  It is not only a time of crisis in the political and military affairs of the nation, but it is also a time of crisis in the soul of our nation.  The Gospel this morning is appropriate to this crisis.  Philip said to Nathanael, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’  Nathanael said to him, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and See.’

This morning, I would like to reflect with you upon dogma, upon the peace of God, upon the treasure of God.

‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ We have heard the text many times and felt of ourselves that we readily understood Nathanael who gave this despairing, perhaps even cynical response to Philip.  Yet the matter presses upon us this morning as we, in this country, find ourselves often divided from those around us in terms of our convictions as to what should or should not be done in world affairs.  It is a crisis.  Men and women in every day and time, in every circumstance of life, are tempted to slide easily into Nathanael’s trap with a generic, doctrinaire, despairing, myopic point of view.  Those who differ from me, are they not from Nazareth?

We have seen in the life of our country many instances in the last fifty years in which these matters have been tested.  Those of you who are old enough to remember the days before World War II can well recall that the America First Committee was very powerful in the United States.  We were a nation that described herself as isolationist.  Charles Lindbergh warned us that if we entered this war, which was none of our business, we would find that we had lost our freedoms at home.  Franklin Roosevelt was saying in the same time frame, ‘We must become the arsenal of democracy.’ For us, this was a crisis, as difficult as war itself.  There were many opinions.

During my undergraduate studies, I and many other young men saw the beginning of the war in Korea, having just been discharged from the Armed Services.  Many of us were called back.  Open protests at that time were not common; our opposition was a seething, underground, resentful condition that existed among men and women.  Korea was called a police action, an undeclared war.  The sides were there; the crisis was there; the difficulty was there.  We have all seen the difficult circumstances surrounding Vietnam, overseen by three different presidents of both political parties.  We have seen men and women of conscience throughout the life of the republic differing passionately with one another.

In our enduring credit, our Congress before hostilities began in Iraq, had the freedom and the courage to witness to the world open, passionate, heartfelt debate.  It is a time when we must examine closely the temptation to join Nathanael in characterizing those who disagree with us as from Nazareth.  Christians are called, as indeed we are called as citizens, to hear those with whom we passionately disagree.

We all seek peace – peace in the world, peace in our souls, peace with our God, and Philip comes to us and says, ‘We have found Him.’ I ask of myself in the context of this Gospel, why then do men and women (including myself) under stress and in trauma, resort to rigid, doctrinaire, inflexible, unhearing positions?  I know, and I suspect that you know, that we are a lonely, frightened people.  In our aloneness, in our fright, we are given to protecting ourselves.  We are searching all of our lives for someone with whom we can share our most intimate fears, with whom we can find peace.  We search at work, we search in church;we search at parties; we search on the streets of life.

Thomas Yeomans, poet, fellow parishioner and clinician, in his recently published book The Flesh Made Word, talks of our searching.  He says,

‘In airports, or in shopping malls,

we probe each face for some relief,

some soul to recognize our grief.

But crowd averts its eye, inmeshed in time and always late.’

‘We have found Him’  It is personal.  We have found the person who can look into our souls and recognize our grief.

As we look for peace in the world and in our own souls in every conceivable way, we hope to be those people, those Christians, those citizens who can be open to their fellow citizens, whatever their stance may be.  One thinks of the verses in May Sarton’s poem ‘Now I Become Myself’ in the recent anthology ‘Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women’s Spirituality.’ She writes,

‘Now I have become myself.

It’s taken Time, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken

Worn other people’s faces,

Run madly, as if Time were there….

Now to stand still, to be here.’

‘We have found Him’ To stand still and to acknowledge this Jesus, the Christ who calls us to be open to hear our fellow citizens.

The measure of God is a person.  And Philip says to us, as he said to Nathanael, ‘Come and see.’  We ask ourselves, what is the treasure that this Christ brings us, that treasure that is beyond tolerance? We are called of God beyond patience, beyond tolerance.  We are called to a condition of life that is open to those with whom we disagree, to reach out intellectually, and indeed even emotionally, to see why they perceive things the way they do.  We are called of God.

How do we get there? What do we find in this treasure?  What do we find in this Christ? We find forgiveness.  We find acceptance of ourselves.  For nineteen and a half centuries of Christianity, the preponderance of people understood forgiveness as something that they allocated and accorded to another.  It took the social scientists of your generation and mine to reach into the intimate lives of men and women to remind us, in the voice of the mystics through the centuries, that forgiveness in life begins with my acceptance of myself, my forgiveness of myself, given to me by this Christ.  Only through that forgiveness can I open myself to hear, to respect someone with whom I passionately disagree.

No. we are not called to a new condition of doctrine or dogma, we are called not to those defensive constructs of mind that wall us off and say of the world, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ What we are called to is personal; it is trusting.  It is trusting that we have been forgiven; it is trusting in the spirit of the disciples when they come and say, ‘We have found Him. Come and see.’

In 1973 I was invited to a luncheon on Telegraph Hill in San Franciscol  A modest home, perched on the side of that artistic community, looking out over San Francisco Bay, with all of its majestic, physical glory.  There were only two guests at that luncheon given by a parishioner.  I was one of the guests and the other was the recent widow of the late Jacob Bronowski, internationally renowed scientist and poet, famous for his work at Cambridge University in England, later at MIT and at the Salk Institute at the time of his death.  He wrote a book entitled The Ascent of Man that many read, and I presume many more saw on public television the BBC-produced documentary series with the same title, which Bronowski wrote and presented.  In one of the last programs of the series he is standing by a pool of water and he turns to the camera and says:

It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers.

That’s false, tragically false.  This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz.  This is where people were turned into numbers.  Into this pond were flashed the ashes of four million human beings.  This was not done by gas.  It was done by arrogance.  It was done by dogma.  It was done by ignorance…..This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

A few sentences later, he quotes Oliver Cromwell: ‘I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.’

In the crucible of our Gospel this morning, as we hope and pray that we can hear our fellow countrymen in their convictions, whatever they may be, we acknowledge that doing so is not a renunciation of your convictions or mine; it is the humility born of forgiveness, and in that forgiveness is the capacity to let go of our dogmatic categories of mind and soul.

Alice Walker, in one of her poems, says,

Looking down into my father’s

dead face

for the last time

my mother said

without tears, without smiles

just with civility

‘Goodnight, Willie Lee,

I’ll see you in the morning.’

And it was then I knew

that the healing of all our wounds

is forgiveness

that permits a promise of our return

at the end.

The treasure that God brings to us in the Gospel this morning is that you and I are forgiven and healed, and that whatever our convictions may be about this war, about the difficulties and complexities that surround us, you and I can find peace of soul.  That is our treasure.  We can be open to our fellow citizens.  It is personal. ‘We have found Him.  Come and See.’

Let Us Pray:

Heavenly Father, our nation stands on the precipice of a crisis.  Passionate convictions clash and contradict.  Lift us above the dogma, the “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ mind set to a place of Christian listening.

We seek peace in the world.  We seek peace in our souls.  We are searching.  We have worn many other people’s faces.  Now, let us stand still to be here.  We have found Him.

Finally Heavenly Father, this Jesus, our Christ, brings us the treasure of forgiveness that we may forgive and accept ourselves, that honoring our convictions, we may have a new humility born of forgiveness, that we may hear and respect one another.  It is personal.  “We have found Him.  Come and See.’  Amen.”

Spencer –   May your soul rest in the knowledge that it is healed, forgiven and is in that place of peace which passes all understanding!  May the God we worship be with you always and may your soul continue its journey as it seeks its eternity! We are listening in the stillness to hear that you have found that treasure  and know without contradiction that it is personal! – We will, one day, come and see!

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

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The March on Washington

Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

copyright 2013 Bettina Network, inc.

This coming week we will remember one of the highlights of the Civil Rights Movement which changed so much in this country.  It is such an emotional time that I have barely started to write this and the grief, tears and overwhelming feelings take over.

I was very young during the Civil Rights Movement – it took my life from the early 1950’s until today.

As I go back to remember all of those years – from my teenaged years on – several of Dr. King’s words come flooding back.  The strongest in my memory is the quote “You will be judged not by the color of your skin but by the content of your character.”  During my darkest days that will pop up in my mind as I experience the racism, sexism and now ageism of even my closest friends and sometimes, my family.

On Wednesday, August 28 at 3pm, the time and date of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, houses of worship across the country will ring their bells in honor of the anniversary and will play hymns and spirituals.  It should be an awesome moment!  I want to be standing outside where I can hear all of them!

To contrast that to what was happening in the 1950’s and 1960’s is a stretch very few of us can make.  People were being beaten, killed, maimed and the young were being denied freedom and equality.  What young people had equal access to were the dogs, the hoses, the hostile and vicious law enforcement people who then worked hand and glove with the Ku Klux Klan.

Opportunities which these United States gave in its written documents were taken away at birth in the actual living out of life if you were the wrong race and sex.  There has been no giving back.  In fact, we still practice and allow others to practice the denial of the experiences of racism and sexism and we still strongly support the right of those engaging in such denial to be able to continue it.  The denial that was so prevalent at the time is still hanging on with much tenacity and with no sign of the structure which accepts and promotes that denial being taken down.  It is one thing to suffer the indignities and pain of racism and sexism; it is quite another to suffer those indignities and have those perpetrating them stand in front of you and deny their actions.  —it has to do with the content of their character.

So many groups will be leading marches in Washington, D. C. from the Lincoln Memorial to the Martin Luther King Memorial.  Around the country other groups will be leading marches to other places in their cities, towns, villages which have meaning in the context of this Movement.

Where will you be?  What will you be doing?  How will you contribute to the possibility that on August 29th you have helped to bring about some change which will make this a country more receptive to seeing everyone as equal?

The Bettina Network, inc. does its part – as a corporation – small though we may be – to help bring about moving us from a world of individuals, maybe even families, tribes, neighborhoods who see ourselves as better than those others out there – to a group of people who have an ethical commitment to  dismantling the racism even further; to eliminating the sexism; to addressing the ageism and to reducing our thoughts about the culture within which we were raised away from a culture that is greater than, better than, more important than, to a culture which is different from but equal to all others.  From that stance we are about giving, sharing, taking care of others as well as ourselves, and treating even the lowest and most tread upon of our brothers and sisters as equals and with respect.

The other quote from Dr. King which I hear often is “We must all learn to live together as brothers (and sisters) or we will all perish together as fools.”

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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A Larry Hagman breakfast!

Sunday, November 25th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

Such a discussion.  We need to express sympathy to Larry Hagman’s family on his death.  By all accounts he was a fun, lovely person who has done much good for those around him.  We hope his soul rests in peace.

However, a breakfast conversation about Hagman was kind of different.  Everyone was, at first, expressing what they had read in the media, heard from the media or saw on the internet.  Somehow, the conversation turned to what Hagman was really about – looking at him from the perspective of the body of work he left behind.

The general expressions were about how skillfully and completely he had taken in an entire society and projected onto all of us a lethal kind of sexism, which influenced a generation of impressionable young people.  How many are watching re-runs of “I Dream of Jeannie” and “Dallas?”

“I Dream of Jeannie” was a sitcom which I thought was cute, although I didn’t really watch more than one episode.  It wasn’t described as “cute” around the table.  Jeannie was described as a blond, Middle-Eastern belly dancer who was so into her inferiority and her role as fulfiller of this man’s needs, wishes and dreams that she even called Hagman ‘master’.  It was a complete rolling out of a sit-com which fulfilled most mens’ dreams and which negatively paralleled the women’s movement – re-enforcing and making even worse, stereotypes which the women’s movement was trying to counter with an image of woman as equal.  Was it coincidence that such a show was rolled out when the Women’s Movement was becoming an important force in American Society, Business and Culture?

“Jeannie”  also parallels the stereotype of the Middle-Eastern male warrior dreaming about dying to reach his virgins.  Jeannie herself, could very well be almost number one in that dream sequence – yet this was an American not a Middle-Eastern show. Hmmmmmmm!!

And then there was “Dallas”.  Wow! This was the sit-com which made Hagman into a multi-millionaire on the backs of women – helping to make their lives difficult by depriving them of any vestige of equality, dignity, responsibility, etc., having to fight off other women falling all over themselves to hook up with the most machismo of men – looking to cash in on the power of the men in the show!  It didn’t come in for any good comments.  Nor did Hagman at this point.  He lived well at a woman’s expense.  May he rest in peace and the body of work he helped produce be buried with him.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

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Veterans’ Day – 2012

Saturday, November 17th, 2012
Memorial Church - Harvard University

Memorial Church – Harvard University

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012 – by Marceline Donaldson

We celebrated Veterans Day by piling all of our guests into our car and their car and going to Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.

It was a great day for everyone.  Memorial Church was dedicated in 1932 to the memory of the Harvard dead of World War I and now also contains memorials of the dead of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the graduates of Radcliffe College who died in World War I.  So it was the 80th anniversary of Memorial Church.

There were prayers for many illustrious names which you can recognize as being solidly a part of the New England Establishment – we prayed for Coolidges, Appletons, Nobles, Peabody’s, Woodworth’s, Ferris’ and of course, Gomes, Pusey, and Lowell, among others.  I prayed for Mary Daly, whose sermon on a Sunday in Memorial Church caused many to rethink and changed lives, for Benjamin Mays from Morehouse College and so many more who chose uncomfortable – sometimes painful lives instead of comfortable existences which they could have had but for the prophetic pull which determined their life’s path and brought them to the pulpit of Memorial Church.  Each, out of their own lives issued challenges from that most traditional of Churches.

President Drew Faust was present because it was also the day of the Institution Service for the new minister of Memorial Church.  Rev. Peter Gomes died last year and his loss was huge. Rev. Jonathan L. Walton is the new minister and if the few remarks he made during the service were any indication of what to expect in the future his should be an interesting and thought provoking ministry, challenging many.  He started his sentences with “We come to honor a Palestinian Jew who was executed…..”  If that is any indication of his preaching, pastoring and prophetic sides his tenure at Memorial Church should be inspiring and challenging.

The bell tolled “In Memory of Voices that are Hushed” and in the process an honor guard  of Harvard ROTC students placed a wreath of laurel in the Memorial Room.

After the service, the reception was right where you were seated in the Church.  We just mingled while Harvard students who worked as waiters and waitresses served wonderful small edibles – savory and sweet along with drinks.  It was an unusual ending since such receptions are held in another room or in the basement or someplace out of the way.  To just stand-up at the end of the service to see Harvard students serving you as you greeted those you haven’t seen in a long time or talked about the service, or listened to others talk about the new minister was a new and different ending.  Hopefully, the spirit which filled Memorial Church on November 11th will continue.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

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In Memory of Roger Fisher

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

by:  Marceline Donaldson

Sprinkled through Bettina Network’s Blog you will find memories of people we knew and with whom we have interacted over the years.  This time, it is someone who was one of those – along with Larry Susskind of MIT – who were majorly responsible for the growth and survival of Bettina Network, inc.

Roger Fisher was on my mind over the past week – because I wanted to thank him for helping us begin and move forward with the bed & breakfast part of this business.  I didn’t know where to find him and didn’t push to discover his whereabouts so the newspaper informed me this morning of Roger Fisher’s death.

A long time ago, in 1984, Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind turned up at our front door to talk about the possibility of using Bettina’s for their guests coming from around the world.  I remember Roger Fisher sitting in our living room when one of those working with him took me aside to ask if I knew we were entertaining “God”.  That was my introduction to Roger Fisher.  My response was – then “God” has come to the right place because we are building heaven’s annex.  Clearly, we understood there were at least two major ego’s in that room that day!

We were just starting this business and unlike those who claim to have started on a shoe string of maybe $10,000 in debt, we started this business with some $1,000,000 in debt.  I had no idea what I was doing – I knew why – I thought I really knew all there was to know about business – we had some experience with bed & breakfast in another house, but not much – so here we were not sure where we would land, how we would pull this off or where to turn and “God” walked into our living room.

Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind sent us lots of guests and set the tone for what we would become.  Larry and Leslie would come to stay when the weather was bad and they couldn’t make it to Southborough.  Unfortunately for us, they now live in Cambridge.

Over that time period, there were White and Black South Africans in the house at the same time just across the hall from one another before Nelson Mandela and the dismantling of apartheid.  They had never been together before and it was exhilarating for them and for us as they giggled together; went to dinner together; worked together and with Roger and Larry tried to bring about something that hadn’t been seen in South Africa for generations.  We became a bit worried when the last two days of their stay the house became as quiet as a tomb.  The White South Africans and the Black South Africans had separated; went to dinner in their separate groups; stopped going back and forth from one room to another and generally pulled apart, leaving for the airport in two vans – one with the White South Africans, one with the Black South Africans. We called Larry because we were concerned something had happened and learned about “re-entry”.  Something the soul does for you when you are going back into the separatist situation from which you’ve come.

We had Hindu’s in the house the day Gandhi was shot and we were expecting another couple the next day who were Sikh’s.  We had Greek Cypriots and Turks’ sharing the house at the same time during some difficult days for them and before all of them we had Russians before Perestroika.

At one point with the Russians we knew we were going to be picked up by the CIA and hauled off to federal prison because we knew nothing about what was coming, we only knew the Russians were the enemy and here they were exchanging research across our breakfast table with their American counterparts and who were their hosts? – Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind.

Our breakfasts were nothing short of sensational and we were heady being able to talk and listen and understand what was happening in the world outside of the very narrow vision of what was normal for Boston and Cambridge.  We were spared guests who talked about the weather, their aches and pains and their miscreant children.

We thought this was what bed & breakfast was all about and we shaped a business following the path laid out for us by Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind.  Without them we would have taken a different turn and probably would be sitting on the street corner wrapped in a sleeping bag – although a very elegant one!

You go through life and never really know what or how you have touched someone else’s life.  My procrastination in reaching out to Roger Fisher to say thank you is kind of typical of the way most of us live with the assumption that life is forever.  It is not and those words of gratitude and appreciation need to be said long before the end comes.

This is very late Roger Fisher, but thank you!!  Thank you for helping us understand how we could carry that $1 million in debt, survive and grow a business which contributes goodness to life.  We don’t pretend to know much about Negotiation the way you and Larry Susskind developed it, but we do know how human and equal we all become around a table sharing food and good conversation – that alone gives hope that one day we will stop the intense violence, pretending that it will solve our conflicts and bring about peace.

Those first few years when we entertained bed & breakfast guests from the Negotiation Project sent to us by Roger Fisher and Larry Susskind were days we shall never forget and days we always keep uppermost in our minds as a paradigm for this Bettina Network business.

We reached the point, in those days, of not wanting to have guests if they did not have great wisdom to contribute over the breakfast table.  Today, we have some remembrances of that and we strive to bring everyone who visits our homes and our host families into an understanding of what that was like and how fantastic a business this is when we keep those standards, that conversation, those dreams of a world full of diversity where we can come together, disagree, work through those disagreements and walk into a very bright light after breakfast.

Roger, may you walk into a great light and enjoy the fruits of your life’s work as you enter another sphere of growing in wisdom, knowledge and understanding in a way we will not understand until we reach that end point where we join you in your endeavors.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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In Memory of Jaki Leverson – An email response.

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Dear Bettina,

my name is xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx. I was a student of Jaki Leverson’s in the Tufts-in-London program in 1983-84. I just learned that she died and am full of sadness. I remained in touch with Jaki ever since college and visited her in London every couple of years. I last saw her in August 2008. Jaki was one of the most decent, kind people I’ve ever known. Her dedication to her work and to her students was incredible. And as you said, she was a true citizen of the world. I will miss her.

Sincerely,
xxxxxxxxxxxx

ed note: The above email was received by us 7/12/2010 and we wanted to share it with you, our readers. Per our policy, the name of the person sending the email is not included.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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A Tribute to Mary Daly

Friday, January 8th, 2010

by: Marceline Donaldson

A friend of mine died on Sunday. The world is changing much too fast. Old friends are leaving, quietly. You hear nothing for a couple years and then the news comes that they have died. Keep your friends and family close. Before you know it, they will be gone. 

 
Mary Daly died on Sunday. I first met Mary when I was at Harvard Business School. On a Sunday, I went to Memorial Church. No particular reason, that was what I did on Sundays. The preacher was Mary Daly. She preached a sermon I will never forget and at the end of it led a walk out to protest the patriarchy. – Almost everybody in Harvard Memorial Church that Sunday, walked out with her – me included. It was kind of like being in a shocked, unreal, dreamlike place. It was 1971 and the world was just waking up to what feminism and the women’s movement was all about. 
 
I saw the picture of Mary Daly that the Boston Globe used over her obituary. It was probably the worst picture of her they could find. Choosing that picture said more about the Boston Globe than it did about Mary Daly. When I met Mary that Sunday, so many years ago, she was a young, very beautiful woman. I read Mary’s obituary in the Boston Globe. It said nothing about the Memorial Church walkout. It read as though what she did in life was to refuse to admit men to her classes at Boston College. 
 
I spent the 1970’s protesting, reading Mary’s books, along with many more and waking up from my southern, feminine, shy self. I turned the ‘ne at the end of feminine into ‘st and have been doing my little bit to change a patriarchy that sometimes seems intransigent. Those who fought as hard as Mary Daly did, suffer the slings and arrows; the harsh judgments of their peers; the jealousy of those fighting alongside them; the rage of the patriarchy and more, but they have the freedom, the total internal freedom that comes with knowing who you are, of defining yourself; of not allowing this world and its institutional structures to dictate your sense of self-worth. That freedom is worth all the pain and agony which goes along with claiming it. 
 
To Mary Daly – my deepest thanks for the incredible way you gave of yourself to bring about change from a baser way of living in this world to one in which me, my children and grandchildren can begin to heal from the burdens and abuses of the patriarchal system into which we were born. 
 
Out of the depths of my despair, my frustration, my confusion, my feelings of being an alien where I live every day, breaks forth my realization of the incredible joy of being me – of understanding who that is – of not compromising my equality for anything or anyone – of becoming fierce and strong and proud of my femaleness. Stereotypes fall away, they lose their grip and I see through all the games being played against me. Games to diminish me; to bind me; to keep me from being all that i was born to be, all that my talents push me to be – how glorious is that freedom. May it keep its hold on me forever. 
 
Amazingly, many of the things Mary Daly talked about I heard from my grandmother. She didn’t phrase them the same way and my grandmother would be appalled if anyone called her a feminist, but there she was. She talked about sin – if you are going to sin, sin boldly, she said. Always make your own living. You are a free, whole person – always remember that. There is nothing you can’t do. If one door closes, another door opens – only you have to be able to see the opening door and if you are crying over the door that closed in your face, you will surely miss the better one opening just a few feet away – and it isn’t going to sit there open for long, waiting until you arise from your self-pity, missy. 
 
The world will miss a beautiful soul. God bless you Mary Daly. May your soul and the souls of the departed do glorious things together and be joyous in your new life in ways that were not possible on earth.
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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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