Day 5 - Annie Belle Core
Since most gyms in North Carolina are closed due to COVID-19, every morning I walk.
I learned the revolutionary art of walking from my babysitter, Mrs. Annie Belle Core. Mrs. Annie Belle Core was born on May 22, 1909 in Richmond County, NC, Derby Community. Mrs. Core was one of the Black women in my village who was very present in my life; she was revolutionary! Not so much because she marched or even spoke the revolutionary lingo, but because of the lessons she instilled in the children who she served.
Mrs. Core was a walker.
Whether spring, summer, winter, or fall, Mrs. Core would wrap up in one of the many scarves she knitted or crocheted, throw on her black windbreaker (in warmer temperatures), tie up her black walking shoes, with the hole in the side and pinky toe peeping out, grab her stick in one hand with me in the other, my brothers coming along (Bill in front of us and Torrence complaining in the back), and we’d set out on our walking adventure.
Mrs. Core always made each walk an adventure. I was always amazed at her pace and endurance because at my age, people who weren’t in school with me were OLD. Through woods and over streams, we’d walk checking in on the Addor community’s “sick and shut in”, visiting friends and relatives, and occasionally stopping at the community candy store for treats.
Mrs. Core was a compassionate caregiver.
I watched how Mrs. Core lovingly cared for her ailing 101- year old husband, PaPa Core without hospice, but with tenderness. She prepared him softened meals so he could swallow them and always served him with the food on a platter. She would always lean in closely to hear what words his husky, raspy voice spoke and then kiss him on his forehead. Her house was always filled with love.
When either of my parents returned to retrieve my brothers and me, Mrs. Core never took their babysitting money, so they would use us to leave it in her house. When my mother speaks of Mrs. Core today, she always includes the refrain, “Mrs. Core was a jewel.”
Mrs. Core was a teacher.
From her I learned how to:
crochet (teaching me to knit wouldn’t be part of the curriculum as “I was too young for the sharp knitting needles.”)
appreciate and fall in love with Eartha Kitt
develop a distaste for Soaps, fear spiders but proceed calmly and courageously upon a snake killing him with my shovel
appreciate the importance of community, family, friendships, and walk as a means of transportation.
And, I was always learning, because I was always watching and always asking questions.
I’d long forgotten my walks with Mrs. Core until COVID-19. I rediscovered their clarity causing benefits and their centering of nature. I think of Mrs. Core daily and how in her own very quiet way she was just doing what a natural woman does naturally with a Black Woman’s touch and created a legacy, a revolution.
Mrs. Core transitioned on August 31, 1989, but her adventurous, and yes, revolutionary even, walks and acts of love still live on in and with me today.
#revolutionaryblackwomen #revolutionary #31daysofrevolutionaryblackwomen