Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
This is what the world needs now: two free-thinking “seasoned” Black women speaking their truth and inspiring others to do the same. Shaped by 45 years of friendship that began at the prestigious Brooklyn Technical High School through the Ivy League, medical school, marriages, divorces, triumphs, parenting queer children, life-threatening illness and many many amazing adventures. Each week, besties Leslie Osei-Tutu and Angella Fraser will push against boundaries in love, culture, careers, faith, politics and out-dated assumptions about women of a certain age. Remember, you’re never too old to change your mind…or your hair! (but more on that later :-)All views are our own and do not reflect the views of our institution/company. Information provided is not intended to serve as medical advice.
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
More Stories on Caribbean Ancestry
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To bring Season 3 to a close, The Besties are back together in Leslie's infamous closet where the first episodes were recorded. Episode 9 was planned as a Live on Facebook but the technology gremlins had other plans. Nevertheless, the conversation was filled with fascinating family revelations and ancestral discoveries. The Besties are joined by Natalie Hinds Scott, Colleen Hinds Rogers, their mother, Lilieth Ridguard (Jamaican heritage), and Kay Benjamin (Guyanese heritage), each with their unique tales of tracing their family history. Both family's discoveries remind us that the world is smaller than we think. You never know when you'll cross paths with a distant cousin.
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Welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.
Speaker 2Brooklyn.
Speaker 1You might recognize the shoes in the background. We are together, leslie and I are together. We're in the infamous shoe closet and it is the best sound quality in her In the house. Expansive home. No, I'm kidding. So, yeah, so we're doing a new thing here. Okay, we're doing a new thing. We want it to do a live.
Speaker 1We've been trying to do a live for a long time. We've been trying to do a live for a long time. Some stuff happened that just made it impossible. What happened is I lost my family pet. She got sick and she had to be euthanized the day before we were supposed to go live the last time. So I was not. I was just not able to do the live. We are doing a live, and it's.
Speaker 1We are grateful that there was such an outpouring of feedback from our last episode, episode 8, where Natalie was on as a guest and she shared with us an adventure that she and her sister, colleen, went on in doing some family research in Jamaica. And so we are bringing now their mom, lilith Riddgert, that you all now know through the story, but there she is in person. And we also are bringing on board a dear friend of ours, kay, and I. Kay, leslie and I went to high school together, that's right, but then Kay and I went to Penn together, and so Kay responded so emotionally to the episode and I'll tell you specifically what connected her to the episode and she shared an amazing story that happened with her, and so we thought we would invite her to tell her story. She shared some pictures with me, and so we'll have those to show you as well, and so we're going to jump in. But I do see that Colleen is here, Yay we got one more person.
Speaker 1Is that, colleen?
Speaker 3One more person coming, so our Yay, so our fan squad doesn't know Colleen yet because she wasn't on the episode with her sister, and so we now have to introduce Colleen to the gang.
Speaker 1So this beautiful woman that you see here is Colleen Heinz Rogers. Oh, what would you drink in? What do you have in that glass? You have to take it off mute, Colleen. Take it off mute and tell us what you're drinking. I said secret sauce.
Speaker 4Secret sauce. I'm celebrating myself. Actually, I passed my proposal defense.
Speaker 3Oh, that's wonderful. Is this PhD?
Speaker 4check. This is Edd, but no, as my father just said, I've earned my P, my first letter.
Speaker 1Not the HD, just the P. That's hilarious.
Speaker 4Not done, but first hurdle.
Speaker 1Hilarious hilarious.
Speaker 1Congrats. So yeah, so the gang's all here. There is a possibility that we will have another guest, but that person is someone that we talked about in episode eight. Also, kate. I invited Kate to be here your cousin that you met on your amazing discovery but, as you probably know, she is vacationing in Spain. She's going back to England late tonight, so it's possible that she may be able to join. So we'll cross fingers on that. So what I thought I would do. I'm getting two voices in my ear, so I'm just ignoring the second one and just kind of pushing through.
Speaker 3That's what I do. I get voices in my head all the time, so I've learned to you know function and life without it, a different reason.
Speaker 4I didn't take my meds today, so I get all voices also.
Speaker 1I took my meds. Oh, by the way, let me also let you know, we also let you know that we've got commentators. Samaya, that is moderator, moderator, rather, what are our moderator?
Speaker 3I mean getting the camera and that's Samaya, my God daughter, my beautiful God, Are you helping out on?
Speaker 1Facebook, are you?
Speaker 4I need to. I'm on Facebook. I have you followed. I need a request for me to join your live.
Speaker 1Oh, I see you want to take my phone and find. Live on Facebook On Facebook I'm supposed to be yeah, okay.
Speaker 3So, here you go For some reason it's not letting me join that, so I'll have to send you a request.
Speaker 1You can take this and figure it out. Thank you so much. You're a tech person, you're young.
Speaker 3You're a youngster.
Speaker 1Okay. So we talked about all of the research that was done, all the discoveries and so on. I wanted to bring up some of the pictures that you have shared with us and use those as kind of prompts to start the conversation around some more detail about what happened when you were on this journey, and I do have your pictures to K and I'd love for you to go through those pictures. They're amazing, by the way. Thank you for sending those. They were just kind of so heartfelt. I am going to mention why K First connected with the episode. If you remember the episode, I use the term Cooley Royale. I said Cooley Royale and China Royal, and I was. I was. So you see, the thing that you think is going to be the most controversial, but that is the thing that made K connect with the episode the most, because she is, in fact, cooley Royal. She is so Cooley, she's Cooley Babu, she's Cooley. What we say Lelit Cooley, cooley Babu. Yum yum, fish and ca-la-loo. That's what we say. Okay.
Speaker 3You're going to need to translate some of that for the rest of us.
Speaker 1It's just I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3It's like old time on, so you kind of like had to be there.
Speaker 1If you had to be there, and it's also really inappropriate. It's really inappropriate, but I would only do that with K, because K totally understands, she gets it. It's contextualized, it's contextualized. There you go, colleen. Thank you, right. Thank you, colleen.
Speaker 4Thank you. That piece coming in handy already? Yeah, I tell you, I tell you. But yes, in this day and time probably.
Speaker 1So I'm going to share my screen and then bring up some pictures. Let's see here we go. Here's my first screen and I want to. Just a moment, I'm finding the right one. I don't think we're live. You don't think it says we're live.
Speaker 2I'm not sure if.
Speaker 3I'm going to count.
Speaker 1Okay, okay, can you go on to the Black Boomer Bestie and see what's on that one?
Speaker 3I went on to both to check if you were alive, and I didn't see anything pop up.
Speaker 1Okay, I'm not sure, so All right. Let's see what is the right. Is this the one here? It is Okay. Can you guys see Nice green? I'm going to go into slide show mode.
Speaker 4Yes, it's showing. Yes, Okay.
Speaker 1All right, so I just kind of so. Oh, these are the pictures that I got from.
Speaker 4Wow, okay, the lady that's there, this is her family, her pictures. So this is my grandmother, my mom's mother. It's in the upper right and that's her also on the left picture. She's on the right, an older person, and that is her first cousin on the left. And the thing that's great about these two, they are their moms were sisters, and two Indian sisters married two Black brothers and you know, in their family so many of them look very similar because of that connection. And this, this is the woman on the left. She is probably my last relative on that side of the family. She's now 94. And she's still alive and healthy, wow. And her daughter is in the bottom picture. Her daughter is the woman on the left, far left, and then that's my mom on the right and my mom's sister. So my mom's sister and my mom, they're the products of my grandmother, different dads. They're eight years apart, but you know, it's just. They're just really close and I'm still very close to them. So it's just nice.
Speaker 4When I listen to the previous episode and you were talking about, like you said, angie Kuli Royale, I mean my family, I mean East Indian women were my great-grandmother and her sisters and they married Black brothers. So the mixture I know. In Guyana they call it Dugla, you know. So there are a lot of names that we share and that's why it was so funny to me to hear that Outside of. If you look at my cousin, she's also. Her father was white and Portuguese and Indian mix up, so she looks very fair right, but we're all blood relatives. You know, I've got cousins where they're. I've got cousins that are Black and Indian, black and Chinese. So I think that's not unusual in the islands right that we run into those kind of mixtures.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Lilith, remember that song Nobody's business business, nobody's business business, nobody's business but me own. You know that one. Yeah, if I'm married to a nigga man, have a picnic. A Chinese man, nobody's business but me own.
Speaker 4That's a song.
Speaker 1That's a real song. I think I have a few more pictures in this.
Speaker 4So that's Sheila on the map. I saw her a couple of years ago when my kids were in college and in Dayton Ohio, whenever I passed by I tried to stop and visit. And that's me in the middle with my cousin Loris.
Speaker 4We always used to have. I'd have the birthday and cake, you know, and this is ice cake icing, not no frosting Right and the picture on the left on the right. These are my cousins. I grew up with them in my village. My parents met as teenagers in my village and they were married 49 years when my mom passed. But all of my cousins, you know, we all grew up in the same village. A lot, of, a lot of the reasons why we were always together was because our parents left Guyana either to make their way elsewhere. My parents came to the US, my mom in 67, she was part of that Caribbean influx of nurses they were trying to bring into the States.
Speaker 4Your mom was a nurse. She was, you know, she was a nurse for 41 years and you know it's one of those things where all of us are, then we're raised by our aunts and uncles. So if we were going to the airport to send somebody off, right, that was a big excursion, if you remember. Everything was an excursion back home, right. So we all went and we didn't live in the city, we lived in the country. So you have to cross the river and a bus or whatever to take you to the airport. So can you imagine, with all of these kids and the grownups and the luggage, what it was like to?
Speaker 1I have a similar picture. I wish I could find it. Everybody dressed up when my cousin was coming to America. Michael was coming to America in our finery.
Speaker 3Yes, but that's a common thing, I think, across the whole diaspora, where when we travel, we put on the finest clothes, sometimes our Sunday clothes, and everybody you know the suit, the tie or whatever. Natalie has the picture.
Speaker 2Natalie has the picture Don't point out which one is me, like they can't tell. That's funny.
Speaker 4Me in the second row, my head is a little bent forward and that's my sister with her arms up and my brother with the little bandage on his face. Oh yeah, Beautiful.
Speaker 1Sorry, I'm still having trouble with my microphone, but we're just going to push ahead. So, anyway, I thought these were amazing. Thank you for sharing them.
Speaker 2Okay, can you quickly?
Speaker 1tell us what happened when I know you now live in Rochester?
Discovering Family Connections
Speaker 4Yes, yeah, as I mentioned, my great grandmother and her. She had three siblings, two sisters and a brother, and the sisters all lived in the country and, honestly, I didn't even I wasn't even aware of the brother. And I came to Rochester in 1987 and I got married and I was living here and my husband was out of town but my sister had come here to be a nurse, a traveling nurse, and she met these other nurses who were Guyanese and she introduced me to them. So there was a party for the Guyanese independence gala and I went by myself. So during this party they had a live band and they were really good. So while I was there I was pretty much sitting by myself a lot and they at one point they introduced everybody in the band and the owner of the band was Guyanese and they said his name was Paul Chetty.
Speaker 4Well, I knew that my family on the Indian side, their name was Chetty, but I didn't really know if he was. I didn't know any relationship to him. So before I left that night I went up to him and I said my family's Guyanese too, and my Indian side is Chetty. And he said, well, okay, so we started to. When I left Guyan I was 11, so the two things I remembered about the Chetty family when I was young. My grandmother took me to a funeral for this woman named Mavis, so I said that I told that to him and he goes oh, auntie.
Speaker 4Mavis, I'm like okay. So then I said the only other thing I remember from the Chetty side is I know this guy named Neville Chetty. He goes well, my grandfather was Neville Chetty, but he passed on. I said, well, no, the guy I know is still alive, right so. But you know to have two things. And so I said, well, let's exchange numbers. So this is like 12 30 at night. So now I can't sleep because I gotta find out if my mother knows anything. So I called her first thing in the morning and I told her I met this guy named Paul Chetty. His mom's name is Rita and she goes oh yeah, I know, rita.
Speaker 4You know that he is the descendant of the brother of my great grandmother and her sisters, and so he married an Indian woman. His family is all Indian, and I never knew that they existed, other than those two memories that I had. And I met somebody. He was, we were both about, yeah, 27 years old and that was the first meeting I had.
Speaker 3What a small world. That's crazy.
Speaker 4It was so, it was really that was special to me and you know, it's just one of those things, you just don't know all the connections, but it was really a good one.
Speaker 3It's almost seems like you were meant to meet, you know.
Speaker 4Of all places, yeah, and.
Speaker 3Rochester Family.
Speaker 1Uh oh, love that story. Love that story. Thank you, kate Moore. Thank you, kate Moore. Benjamin, I have to stop. I'm just gonna get mad at me because I never call you by your married name. I was always K-mo to you, k-mo, k-mo, k-mo.
Speaker 3That's cause we knew you when. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1So oh, let's see. I don't know if I can move that picture over.
Speaker 3I can't.
Speaker 1I won't try to edit it now, but anyway. So this is some footage that I got from. I think some of these were from Colleen, some of these were from Nat, so if you would tell us what was going on, look at Nat's face, man.
Speaker 4No, look at my face.
Speaker 3Look at those old papers also that she's looking at.
Speaker 4Right, we were at the records office in Spanish town In.
Speaker 3Jamaica yes.
Speaker 4And this is Angie. So the picture to the to my left is my mom, then Kate myself, with the squinted up face, and the archivist that was helping us picture in the middle, I'm not sure whose hand that may have been hoped in our cousins hope in his hand, in that he also was there. And the picture to my right is Kate Colleen, our cousin hoped in myself and my mom. And that was the trip that joined us on in Jamaica and we were going to explore. And what were we looking for specifically? Something specific or were we just digging? I think we were just being nosy, as you know.
Speaker 3You know, that's the key to finding out all of these things like those and exploring different leads and things like that. You know, you pick up nuggets and you don't notice significance of them until later, right?
Speaker 4So I think we were just looking for any additional information that we could find or that they could help us find. This was also earlier in our search, so this is prior to us knowing about Richard Dunn, and no, we don't really know Richard. Dunn, because we did speak to him, not sure, not that you say if we were looking for something specific, colleen.
Speaker 1I don't know.
Speaker 4I think you have two of us actually on the land where our ancestors were. Yeah, I know we were just trying to pinpoint. See it right. We heard yeah, we must have heard about it. At that point we knew about Mesopotamia, so we went to try to find it. Remember, right, does Yep, yep.
Speaker 3Now, what's the significance of Mesopotamia?
Speaker 4That is the name of the plantation that Richard Dunn did his research on. And also, where are I remember now my mom's one side of my mom's ancestors too? Yep, the red guard side, yep, yep, yeah.
Speaker 3I'm okay okay.
Speaker 1So, lily, yes, let's come on in here.
Speaker 4Come up. Yeah, you guys have a big space, echo going on Cool.
Speaker 2Unless she sits on my lap.
Speaker 4Try to get her own chair. I got her in a chair on cushions and everything. Oh, no, okay so.
Speaker 1I wanted to know, lily, like, how did, how did all of this feel for you? This is your family, this is I mean. Colleen and Natalie are once removed. This is New stuff, old stuff. When, when Kate came and you know you, you're the one who had the connection to the people, the old people were still In Jamaica, how did that feel for you?
Speaker 2See my grandfather's brother, who was my uncle Phil. He played grandfather to me because his brother who was? My grandfather had passed away when he was a young man. So he substituted as my grandfather and he told me the story about how my grandfather died in his sleep, you know. And then I was really attached to him.
Speaker 4he became really a part of my soul, that's uncle Phil on the mule I used to visit him very often because we lived in the same district.
Speaker 2That was walking distance.
Speaker 4This is Kate's great grandfather, that's.
Speaker 2Kate's great grandfather.
Speaker 3I remember that Okay.
Speaker 2So her mother's grandfather and my grandfather.
Speaker 3Were brothers Right Okay.
Speaker 2Okay, so I grew up with my uncle Phil and his children were much older and they had moved on. They went to England Only Jamaica, but they went to England.
Speaker 4Some were her grandmother.
Speaker 2Her whole whole stream went to England. Kate's grandmother went to England, mother was born there and then Kate was born there, right.
Speaker 3Now let me just ask again about this. Came up with our prior podcast where the people from Jamaica went to England around that time, to what was the name of that migration?
Speaker 1When rush, when rush, when rush.
Speaker 4So, this was I see, so.
Speaker 2So, so, so England had influenced Jamaica.
Speaker 3Let's say they owned Jamaica at the time, so at the time we thought England was on motherland. That's what we used to call England, wow.
Speaker 2It's crazy. The motherland, yeah, and I've had family members who give them money just for the trip the passage just for the passage of the ship to go to England and never return.
Speaker 3So the people that went on the ships, you never saw them again.
Speaker 1Some of them were right back not often so we thought this was like to eternity.
Speaker 4We thought they were like, what is it going to be at the funeral? Everybody would dress up and we'd try to go as close to them as we could. Whether to the house who could go to the airport would go to the airport to see them off At this point.
Speaker 2And you would cry and it's almost like having a funeral when they leave.
Speaker 3I was just thinking, it almost sounds, so it's a real.
Speaker 2Like you might never see them again and you don't even know if they would make it safely, you know, like they would just go off into the distance. Exactly. Oh, my God.
Speaker 4So some of you, some, could not read and write either, so we barely hear from them Anyway they went and they work, and some of them died there.
Speaker 2Some relocate to Canada, some comes to the United States, and that's how the family line just move around.
Speaker 3So and, of course, people didn't have the mobility that they have right now. So it was like you know people are not coming back to visit cell phones and you know all the things right.
Speaker 2It's like no airplane, no aircraft. In those early I mean they were aircraft at the time but they were used for military and so on.
Speaker 3Yeah, you didn't have access Passengers traveling back and forth.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So when I knew of my uncle Phil's children, there were two of them left in Jamaica and I knew one and her children, the one one of his sons gave me my name, lilith, oh wow.
Speaker 1And then he traveled, he came to the US and if I see him, I would not know what he looked like.
Speaker 2I never met him when I was old enough to remember his face. Yeah.
Speaker 4But my mama said he would come up to the house every day.
Speaker 2He would make sure he'd come up there just to hold me, and he would ask her to give me this name Lilith.
Speaker 3So she gave me that name. Wow.
Speaker 2He has a grandson right now in Maryland somewhere. Mm-hmm On my Facebook Jonathan and his sister Destiny and his sister Destiny. They're in Maryland. I saw a little bit.
Speaker 4When I had made that page and about the Ridgard family tree page on Facebook that I was telling you about. Destiny was one of the ones that replied to that page and she had posted a picture of her grandfather. Was in the picture as a young man, but it was. The picture was Uncle Phil, his wife, which they called Miss Mag, her grandfather, which is the one that gave mommy his name. Now, is that her name? Her grandfather Newton Was her was Newton. Yeah, that's her grandfather.
Speaker 4Kate's grandmother, and it was the other sister's wedding yeah, maryland. So when I saw that picture I asked mommy, remember I told you there were, you know referring, I'm like, is this Uncle?
Speaker 2Phil that you've been talking about in our whole life, she said oh my God, yes, that's me where you get this.
Speaker 4Where you get this. You know so that started it, and then I heard from Louise, and then Kate, yeah yeah, and you know yeah all of that stuff.
Speaker 3But, nat, you know, this is what tells me the importance of just the oral tradition of families, just talking about their families. You know, what has happened a couple of times in my family is that when they have been painful experiences in the past, people opt not to speak about them. Or speak about, you know, and move on, especially if they are doing better now. But the importance of this oral history and oral traditions and things like that remain so strong. You know here names that you've heard about as a child. They come up later on and then you're like wait a minute, is that the Phil, or is that the Nate that we heard about? Or in Kay's case, you know, it's like wait a minute, I know that Chetty's that name I've heard of that. If people stop speaking about their histories, good or bad, we wouldn't have the ability to recognize Ken.
Speaker 2Yeah exactly yeah, and he goes on through generations, right now what we're doing, we live on through generations to come.
Speaker 4What word yeah?
Speaker 2Yeah, for grandchildren, great-grandchildren could see this film, this story that comes with it and a phrase that comes with this story Exactly. It's more important than this can be eventually, you know, over the years, to come Right, and all you need is one person to be honest.
Speaker 4you know, and I think luck has to be on your side too in terms of you know, when I started becoming interested and maybe I was always interested in the stories, and thank goodness we have a mother who talks a lot yeah, right, it's not a thing, right, not to say to share stories overshare you know, Well and repetitively, you know, and to talk over and over.
Speaker 4Yes, yes, it's you, Colleen. You're right that mommy is that way. But then on the other side too, grandma, our father's mother, Angie's mom, was that way also. Yes, when the name, the pictures and who, what not?
Speaker 1and who, two of our stories and the, you know, just bringing that stuff to light so that, yeah, that's the picture. Oh, yeah, so that when we heard these names again, we knew them Exactly.
Speaker 3It's like a mother you jump on them.
Speaker 4And I said oh yes, papa's sister, aunt Manette, and you have her middle name, and grandma has her middle name and she's like and Jesse has her middle name, it's like you know, little pieces, nuggets that we can recognize, saying you know my mom, but we're fortunate on both sides, cause if my grandmother didn't talk we certainly wouldn't get it from my dad.
Speaker 3Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2You know it's not as no, that's not true, he tells stories, but I mean hers were very much animated, you know, yeah, you didn't have to have that thing I get out of her.
Speaker 4You know you obviously had to listen and sit down and be still, which is hard for, I think, young people. So that's what I'm saying you only need one person to have that interest and the luck that needs to be on your side. We are, we have been fortunate and blessed to have folks in our family who have lived long enough.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah, For that intersection to happen between our interest and their story Right right, that's the picture right there. Do you find that some of those stories you know it's funny. I've listened to stories from my dad and his brothers and you know, sometimes you hear the same story in different places and then you're like oh yeah, that sounds like the Bible.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's like the Bible. That's fine, that's the way it happens, Yep right, right.
Speaker 4I used to think my dad was telling a lie. You know, because it's like I couldn't imagine that really happened. Some of the stories were so funny, right, and you just but that it also gave you a view of what it was like to live in your village.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh, yeah, right.
Speaker 4So it was so different. I left Guyana when I was 11. So I didn't know a lot of stuff. But I grew up listening to the stories from aunts and uncles, so you do get a good picture of what their life was like.
Speaker 3Sure.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Connections and Stories
Speaker 3And this is something that I speak to Ernest about I mentioned this earlier that you know our granddaughter, aiden now is six and he has the richest stories of growing up in Ghana and the education system and his experiences of. You know, raising chickens in order to sell the eggs to buy soccer cleats. And you know different stories that she would just grab on to. You know a world that I could not even imagine. You know how he came here and the things and what have you that a six-year-old would just listen and marvel with. But I am going to take your suggestion, as you said, you know I'm going to start recording these stories so she can hear it in his voice.
Speaker 3Yes, you know I listen to these stories and my eyes are wide, and I mean me, the Brooklyn girl. It's like I have no experience with these things. You know, climbing a mango tree and the biting gnats attacking him as he climbed up and he fell and hurt his neck but wouldn't tell his mother because he didn't want to get in trouble.
Speaker 4I'm talking about the iguanas and all the other animals that, yeah. No, we live really with some wild lives, when you think about it. I mean, we grew up killing snakes that might be in your yard or in the bush Right right things that are just, you know, in chicken mangos my husband is making too. So, lord, I get the stories on many times.
Speaker 3I get all the stories Like I'm killing the mongoose. I'm like, okay, like Steven Thielberg would make movies about this, yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah, we always joke that our husbands don't let them get to telling their story.
Speaker 1My husband's from Trinidad. Khalene's husband is Jamaican and our first cousin. Nadia. Her husband is Haitian. I mean when you get to telling the tales about the.
Speaker 4It is like my kids are like uh-uh, we don't want Uncle.
Speaker 2Nick to tell us we don't want every story.
Speaker 4Rolling calves and the doppies and the yes.
Speaker 2But you know what? Kate and I had this Uncle Phil in common.
Speaker 3Right, right, she reminded me of him when I first met her Really.
Speaker 2What his daughter's asked from from? Where was that?
Speaker 4New. Zealand.
Speaker 2That's her grandmother's ashes from New Zealand. That's Uncle Phil's daughter, right Water. Back home Put the ashes on the grave of her grandmother's parents and we had a ceremony there. A present Incredible.
Speaker 1You did share that.
Speaker 3And it was so wonderful.
Speaker 2It really was yeah.
Speaker 4And I think from Kate too. If anything, when we took her around and I remember I told you she met Miss Lucille, who still lived on the same road as Uncle Phil. Uncle Phil's owned the property that they used to live on. And what's the man named Mas-Cas Cas Caswell? Right, he's the one who had dug her great-grandparents' graves and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2And he was with us and there were helpers to Uncle Phil's family, but everywhere that we went in Jamaica- you know that side of town when Mommy would say this is Uncle Phil's great-granddaughter. And they're like oh, she looks like my dad. My dad, oh, you know, and all my grandmother used to come here to get to hear all that story straight from those people and just a sense of belonging. Right, you go to this place.
Speaker 4You've never physically been but you hear about it, of course, through your grandparents, and then you're there, and then people are telling you oh, how much you resemble your family. Yes, man, you look like one of you know what I mean, Like so embracing and just yeah, Like Kate who called it a bloodbomb, yeah. Bloodbomb.
Speaker 2Yeah, we have pictures with Kate Let me do it Feel that, Missette.
Speaker 1I have a few other pictures here. Oh, look at us.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's us on the beach. Yeah Well, Kayla, Aiden, myself, Kate and mom.
Speaker 1And then us with Richard Dunn. Oh yeah, he was wonderful In Philadelphia. I have more, but I didn't bring them in.
Speaker 2Yeah, oh, it was really nice.
Speaker 4Really really nice. I sent one to you with Colleen when she went to visit him in Massachusetts too. But yeah, it was just a great experience.
Speaker 2And then also to expand on that which we didn't really get to touch on. We touched on it.
Speaker 4The first time we spoke about it, but not the second, was that we ended up doing our ancestry DNA. We had bought mom a kit for her it was Christmas or something and she did hers. We got my dad to do it, I did mine and Colleen did hers. And even meeting people through that a lot of people who were adopted and they're looking for their national family.
Speaker 4Yeah yeah, yeah and that, and we've really been able to expand our family in that way. We've met cousins who were adopted and it's like no, you are actually our one cousin, Dunn. He is a white man from Oklahoma. Well, clearly he's mixed, but you know what I mean. He has a white man in Oklahoma and I was so nervous to reach out to him initially because I'm like oh boy.
Speaker 3I still find it hard to be a white boy, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1Tulsa.
Speaker 4Oklahoma didn't do well for us when I tell you he is the sweetest soul Colleen actually had to go there on a work trip and, colleen, you can tell your part of meeting him and his family in person and everything.
Speaker 1Hey Dunn.
Speaker 4Let's meet up for dinner. Dunn was so. He was like I knew I had some black in me. From the time I started talking to him he said you know, I always knew something that I never knew. You know what did?
Speaker 3he do. He really was fond of chicken, but you know what? Because he lived in.
Speaker 2Oklahoma right, I was saying Dunn.
Speaker 4I was like OK. A lot of native tribes, he said they would always come to him and speak to him in their native tongue. When he lived in Hawaii, he said people would mistake him for a native all the time you know. Darker than the.
Speaker 2Uber. I guess you know but sweetheart like another, oh yeah.
Speaker 4All the things you would think you don't have in common to make you not family. There's just so much love there. When you talk to him he's like snooky, but from over home, but see this is, I tell you.
Speaker 3this is why, in one of our episodes, we talked about the richness and the beauty of diversity and inclusion. You know, we spoke about the end of the Supreme Court affirmative action decision in one of our podcast episodes, which I know you've listened to. But, again, you don't want to lose the opportunity to have these kind of connections and conversations and, independent of the fact that you may be related or not to these people, this history, it comes around.
Speaker 4Oh yeah, Of course, oh yeah.
Speaker 3You know, yeah, and we need more opportunities for such interactions, not less, yeah.
Speaker 4I see that and the world is so much smaller than you'd think. It's so much smaller. So, like even Jake right, and we connected of course and on Facebook. You know we connected there too.
Speaker 4Well, she had a friend that she went to preschool with, and his last name was Heinz, spelled like ours, and his father was Jamaican. So he reached out, I guess, seeing our friendship, and maybe at that time too we were probably tagging each other in pictures and stuff like that he reached out to me and he's, like you know, asking about the last name, and say you know, I wonder if we might be related too. So then we start corresponding a little bit. So he said his mother was Indian I'm bringing this up too for Kay and her last name was Lacroge. But they're from Westmoreland too, right, so I'm asking mommy about them. And he asked his mother if she knew Rick Garze.
Speaker 4And she said yeah, I know some Rick Garze. You know blah, blah, blah. I asked mommy and mommy said yeah, you know who's Lacroge?
Speaker 2That same guy who was working at Nutmeg Villa when we stayed there, we stayed at a villa, we went on a trip for a week and we stayed at a villa. And he was, he was I don't know what his position was Well, I think they may have named him the butler, but he basically handled everything with us in that house, wasn't the cook?
Speaker 4He was the butler and his name was Jermaine Mommy said yeah, he was a lacrosse too from Westmoreland, ask him. I asked the guy. He said that's my first cousin.
Speaker 1I'm telling you, the guy lives in England.
Speaker 4You, know Cousin is in Jamaica, wow.
Speaker 1My cousin that's in England. They went to school together, not even still, not even big grades.
Speaker 4I'm talking preschool Right and we happened to have the same last name, but we haven't found our connection, but come to find out. We had to just spend a week with his first cousin and his first cousin knew Mommy's cousins cause they're from the same area.
Speaker 2You know what I?
Speaker 4mean.
Speaker 1That's so crazy. That's why you have to be good to people.
Speaker 2You really have to be good to people.
Speaker 1You never, you never know.
Speaker 2When Colin was in England going to school she was doing her masters Snookey and I were at a train station in London trying to get on the train and this little half Indian girl walked up to me and she said are you Jamaican? And I'm thinking to myself am I that obvious? Oh my God, is it wetting all my forehead right? I said yeah. I said are you Jamaican? She said yes. So I said well, where are you from in Jamaica? She said I almost passed out.
Speaker 1She just feel it's like a little spot.
Speaker 4Yeah, oh my God, do you guys know a Compton Hines?
Speaker 1You never know, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 4Well, he was Guineas, but he was my headmaster when I was in Common Entrance class and he was Compton Hines. So you never know, maybe you don't know. You know we don't know much about the Hines, so we don't really know anything is possible, you know. You're like, is it a Hines with a D? Yeah, it is, it is, it is.
Speaker 3So, guys, we're going to switch gears for a minute. Sorry to be.
Speaker 1I don't know if I'm interrupting because I'm hearing so many voices in my head. We talked about that, but I wanted to just say first of all that I, when Lilith made the point about the importance of having these conversations and the way that we heard about these stories was through oral history, and it really made me see that she understood why Leslie and I do started this podcast and why we wanted to get these voices out there. Right, all of the podcasts isn't about ancestry and things like that, but I think we think it's so important to have stories about people who are like us do you know what I mean? And connection, right, and to have that be a part of what becomes this, this cacophony of stories that are out there.
Speaker 1We think it's really important, and so I want to officially announce that we have started Patreon, and Patreon is a subscription service where you can sign up and support our podcast. You can sign up at two tiers it's $5 a month or $10 a month, so not a lot of money. It does cost, it, does it? Starting a podcast is free, but doing a podcast well does cost money. We have a small team that we've hired and we want to really keep doing this, and so Patreon is the way that our fans old fans, new fans, future fans can support the podcast. So we are going to have a link to our Patreon account. So, you guys, what are we calling our fans? Oh, the bestie.
Speaker 3The bestie squad.
Speaker 1The bestie. Squad, okay Squad. So there's a call.
Speaker 3So there's a couple of hidden intellectual.
Speaker 1It's a double entendre, right, so four, because it's four B's. Don't tell us I'm sorry, okay.
Speaker 3That can come out later. Don't tell I'm supposed to.
Speaker 1I tell you, man, don't take her anywhere, don't take her anywhere, mommy would always say you can't keep a secret. I thought I was over that.
Speaker 3But anyway, we're getting a lot of feedback and we have a lot of support, and one of the ways that we know that we can continue going and continue what we're doing is to have people subscribe, and for a small amount. It's either $5 a month or $10 a month. I was the first subscriber. Hold the trigger.
Speaker 1I'm like, let me know I was the first subscriber.
Speaker 3Wait, just wait.
Speaker 1Wait till it's official, I go in. I could make changes.
Speaker 3I didn't make changes because I was already subscribed. We would appreciate your support. It's not mandatory We'll still be here if you don't subscribe but it would just give us another level of support and help us out to bring as much good content to you. And it's interactive too. We can, you know, get feedback and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1And at the $10 a month level, you will get access to lives like this, to extra content. When we have guests, for example, or when we have a particularly interesting conversation, all of them are. Of course, we'll have photos and we can go deeper. Deeper, because when you post things on the podcast, you have to indicate whether there's any language that is, you know so. But on our Patreon, when we have subscribers, we will have let loose. We'll be a little freer.
Speaker 3And you guys have access to bloopers, right? Oh my gosh, we've got plenty of bloopers.
Speaker 4But you guys have shared so much and you've made it so enjoyable to listen to stories like this. I save some when I'm walking. I walk a lot like two to three miles some days and I'm laughing as I'm going down the street. I know my neighbors probably think what the heck is she listening to. But no, it's been a lot of fun and it's been very informative, so it's well worth it.
Speaker 1Thank you.
Speaker 3Thank you, we love your feedback, so you'll be hearing a little bit more about Patreon and we're actually closing out season three today, so you got to listen out for season four. We're planning that now and I can't believe it and if you head over to Patreon.
Speaker 1There is a poll that we have set up there to get your feedback on what should come up next. So go on over to Patreon and become a subscriber. Spell it P-A-T-R-E-O-N. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 4Okay, I was like Patron.
Speaker 1No, Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. And you can find us Black Boomer Besties on Patreon. Patreon got it.
Speaker 4That's what you're drinking. No, I wish I needed to refill.
Speaker 3Well, I think this is a wrap.
Speaker 2I think this is a wrap.
Speaker 3Okay, so this has been another episode, a live episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.
Speaker 4Yes, love you, aunties Brooklyn. Please like and leave a nice comment.
