|
[http://www.aframnews.com/html/includes/left_nav_1.htm]
|
Isabel “Mud-dear” Ray
When history literate African American hear certain terms of endearment,
they immediately think of a loving mother whose children are productive,
popular and God fearing people who become good parents to a bevy of
grandchildren, to be thoroughly spoiled by their doting grandmother. Even
so, that endearing scenario does not adequately describe Sis. Isabel
“Mud-dear” Ray, whose long and wonderful life was celebrated at Pleasant
Grove MBC, 2801 Conti, on February 19, 2004, with Pastors C. L. and Sheldon
L. Jackson officiating. Reverends: Eugene Davenport, Milton Benson and John
Turner, Jr., who all had reasons to call Sis. Ray “Mud-dear,” participated
in the order of service along with Sis. Janis Harland and Bro. DuWayne
Davis.
Active pallbearers Curtis Conwright, J. C. Lewis, Jr., Derrick Robinson,
Earl Lewis, Jimmy Lansford and Francis Robinson, also had reasons to allude
to Sis. Ray as “Mud-dear,” as did Eric Collins, Christopher Foreman, Dereil
Harris, Robert Williams, Curtis Conwright, II, Melvin Foreman, Jr. and
Edrick Lewis was so loved by Mud-dear, until they were honorary pallbearers
for their Sis. Ray, who was born on July, 1915 in Pineland, Texas, a small
hamlet that’s a hard turn off U.S. Highway 96, just across the Atchison,
Topeka and Santa Fe Railway track, ten miles southwest of Hemphill in
southwestern Sabine County. It originated in a sawmill and lumber camp on
the Gulf, Beaumont and Great Northern Railway, which was constructed through
the county in 1902.
The community was known originally as John Adam's Mill but was called
Pineland by 1904, when it received a post office. In 1906 the Garrison
Norton Lumber Company took over the timber operation and constructed a mill
by 1907. In 1910 the company had decided to move the operation to another
location, when Thomas L. L. Temple, a part owner of the mill, purchased the
operation and formed the Temple Lumber Company. The town was at first
composed almost exclusively of mill hands and their families. Temple
constructed a large commissary building in the community and issued tokens,
which could be used in trade at the commissary, or, at intervals, redeemed
in currency. During the first decade following Temple's purchase of the
lumber operation, Pineland grew rapidly.
In 1914 the population was an estimated 250, and by 1925 it had increased to
an estimated 1,500. Residents of Pineland voted to incorporate in 1941.
Although the lumber company remained the basis for the community's economy,
by the 1960s the town also had other establishments, including a hospital, a
library, a bank, and a supermarket, but by that time Sis. Ray had relocated
to Houston, Texas. She was among the first wave of Fifth Warders (waiting to
buy into Pleasantville, the first planned community for African Americans in
the city’s history), who decided to take root in Garden City Park, the
second planned subrburban neighborhood that was being built in the northwest
section of Harris County outside the already thriving Acres Home community.
And it was there Isabel’s gentle nature and love for children earned her the
endearing moniker Mud-dear.
For sure, it was a special honor for Isabel, who had met at married E.
D.Ray, Jr., to be given that term of endearment, that is a close second to
“Big Mama” in Black History lore, insofar as she never had a child of her
own. But, suffice it to say, she had a host of nieces and nephews that made
it necessary for her to, not only acquire mothering skills, but apply them
lovingly enough for them to refer to her as Mud-dear, and be there for her
in her declining years. Meanwhile, Sis. Ray was divinely lead in 1968, by
the Holy Spirit, to unite with Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church
under the leadership of the late Pastor A. A. McCardell, Sr. She continued
to serve faithfully and support all of the ministries under the leadership
of Pastor C. L. Jackson and Pastor Sheldon L. Jackson until she quietly
passed away on February 12, 2004.
In the interim, she became a living historian, as she watched future history
makers be born and grow up in Garden City Park for over a half century,
during which time one street alone produced a NFL Hall of Famer, a Texas
State Representative, a Queens, New York Congressman and the first Black
union representative in the Houston Fire Department’s history. Dare we
mention a political lobbyist; an award winning journalist, doctors, a law
school dean, lawyers, military heroes and so many educators one couldn’t
possibly began to count them. Surely, some of the names ring a bell, insofar
as Cedric Hardeman was so feared (at North Texas State and later as a
linebacker for the San Francisco 49er’s Super Bowl teams), until he was
referred to as “Big Nasty.” And then there was that quiet, gentle boy who
was called to the ministry as a teenager.
That was long before Rev. Floyd Flakes became a nationally renowned
educator, minister and Congressman. And who could possibly forget the little
guy who spoke so well until Sis. Ray figured he would either be a lawyer or
a preacher. She was close, because he talked his way into Harvard Law
School, but instead of preaching, Sylvester Turner’s pulpit became a podium
on the floor of Texas House of Representatives in Austin, Texas, where he
still has no problem preaching his gospel of taking his little boat, where
the big ships are. They were all Mud-dear’s children, who surely will always
cherish the precious memories she left them, along with her one sister,
Lucille Lewis and her nieces and nephews.
|
