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 As the first blog entry got exhausted. My second book |
| Evolution of Love Part 2 |
| In 1937, at 85, he told his story to the WPA: born enslaved, sold at one month old, brought to Texas. 'You all is free as I is,' his master said. His words survived. Between 1936 and 1938, the Works Progress Administration hired writers to do something unprecedented: interview formerly enslaved people and record their stories. Over 2,300 people—most in their 80s and 90s, the last generation to remember slavery firsthand—sat down and shared their memories. Their words were preserved exactly as spoken, creating one of history's most important collections of primary source testimony. One of those voices belonged to Preely Coleman. In 1937, in Tyler, Texas, 85-year-old Preely sat down with a WPA interviewer and began talking. And as he said himself: "I never gits tired of talking." What follows is Preely's story, in his own words—preserved in the Library of Congress, a direct link to a man born into slavery in 1852. Preely's Story (in his own words): "I'm Preely Coleman and I never gits tired of talking. Yes, ma'am, it am Juneteenth, but I'm home, 'cause I'm too old now to go on them celebrations. "Where was I born? I knows that 'zactly, 'cause my mammy tells me that a thousand times. I was born down on the old Souba place, in South Carolina, 'bout ten mile from Newberry. My mammy belonged to the Souba family, but its a fact one of the Souba boys was my pappy and so the Soubas sells my mammy to Bob and Dan Lewis and they brung us to Texas 'long with a big bunch of other slaves. "Mammy tells me it was a full month 'fore they gits to Alto, their new home." Think about what Preely is describing: He was one month old when he was sold. His mother was sold because she'd been raped by one of the Souba men—his father—and the family wanted to hide the evidence. A one-month-old baby, ripped from the place of his birth, forced on a month-long journey to Texas. His mother carrying him, walking hundreds of miles, enslaved. Preely continues: "When I was a chile I has a purty good time, 'cause there was plenty chillen on the plantation. We had the big races. Durin' the war the sojers stops by on the way to Mansfield, in Louisiana, to git somethin' to eat and stay all night, and then's when we had the races. "There was a mulberry tree we'd run to and we'd line up and the sojers would say, 'Now the first one to slap that tree gits a quarter,' and I nearly allus gits there first. I made plenty quarters slappin' that old mulberry tree! "So the chillen gits into their heads to fix me, 'cause I wins all the quarters. They throws a rope over my head and started draggin down the road, and down the hill, and I was nigh 'bout choked to death. My only friend was Billy and he was a-fightin', tryin' to git me loose. "They was goin' to throw me in the big spring at the foot of that hill, but we meets Capt. Berryman, a white man, and he took his knife and cut the rope from my neck and took me by the heels and soused me up and down in the spring till I come to. They never tries to kill me any more." Preely is describing being nearly lynched by other enslaved children. The casual violence of slavery—where even children absorbed the cruelty of the system and turned it on each other. He remembers it as a child's memory: the races, the quarters, the mulberry tree. And then sudden violence—a rope around his neck, being dragged, nearly killed, saved by chance encounter. "They never tries to kill me any more," he says—as if this was normal, expected, something that just happened. "My mammy done married John Selman on the way to Texas, no cere'mony, you knows, but with her massa's consent. Now our masters, the Lewises, they loses their place and then the Selman's buy me and mammy. They pays $1,500 for my mammy and I was throwed in." Preely's mother "married"—no ceremony, no legal recognition, just permission from the enslaver. Then sold again. $1,500 for his mother. Preely was "thrown in"—an afterthought, a child included in the purchase price. Human beings bought and sold like livestock. "Massa Selman has five cabins in he backyard and they's built like half circle. I grows big 'nough to hoe and den to plow. We has to be ready for the field by daylight and the conk was blowed, and massa call out, 'All hands ready for the field.' "At 11:30 he blows the conk, what am the mussel shell, you knows, 'gain and we eats dinner, and at 12:30 we has to be back at work. But massa wouldn't 'low no kind of work on Sunday. "Massa Tom made us wear the shoes, 'cause they's so many snags and stumps our feets gits sore, and they was red russet shoes. I'll never forgit 'em, they was so stiff at first we could hardly stand 'em. "But Massa Tom was a good man, though he did love the dram. He kep' the bottle in the center of the dining table all the time and every meal he'd have the toddy. Us slaves et out under the trees in summer and in the kitchen in winter and most gen'ally we has bread in pot liquor or milk, but sometimes honey." Preely describes daily life: the conch shell blown to signal work times, the rigid schedule, the shoes that hurt his feet, the food they ate. And notice: "Massa Tom was a good man." Because he gave them Sundays off. Because he made them wear shoes. Because sometimes they got honey. This is what "good" meant under slavery—basic minimal humanity was considered kindness. "I well 'members when freedom come. We was in the field and massa comes up and say, 'You all is free as I is.' "There was shoutin' and singin' and 'fore night us was all 'way to freedom." That's it. That's how Preely remembers emancipation. Working in the field. The master walking up. Seven words: "You all is free as I is." Shouting. Singing. And by nightfall, they were gone. Seventy-two years later, Preely still remembered that moment exactly. Why Preely Coleman's testimony matters: This isn't a history book written by scholars decades later. This isn't a movie dramatization. This isn't someone's interpretation of what slavery was like. This is Preely Coleman's actual voice. Recorded. Preserved. His words. His memories. His life. He was born in 1852. He lived through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the early 20th century. He saw the world transform around him. And in 1937, at 85 years old, he sat down and said: "I never gits tired of talking." He wanted his story told. He wanted people to know. He wanted his voice to survive. The WPA Slave Narratives are invaluable because they're direct testimony. Over 2,300 formerly enslaved people spoke. Their words were recorded. Their experiences preserved. Without these interviews, we'd only have the perspectives of enslavers, the writings of abolitionists, the documents of lawmakers. We wouldn't have Preely Coleman saying: "I was throwed in." We wouldn't have his memory of soldiers and the mulberry tree. We wouldn't have his voice saying: "You all is free as I is." Preely Coleman died sometime after 1937. His interview is housed in the Library of Congress, part of the American Memory collection. Anyone can read it. Anyone can hear his voice across nearly 90 years of history. Remember Preely Coleman. Born enslaved in South Carolina in 1852. Sold at one month old. Brought to Texas in a month-long forced march. Nearly killed as a child. Sold again with his mother for $1,500. Worked the fields from childhood. Freed at age 13 in 1865. Lived 72 more years as a free man. And at 85, sat down and told his story so we would know. "I never gits tired of talking." His voice survived. Listen to it. |
| The greatest love story Tolkien ever wrote wasn't in The Lord of the Rings—it's carved on two gravestones in Oxford, 55 years in the making. Long before hobbits journeyed to Mount Doom, before elves sang in Rivendell, before the One Ring corrupted kings and wizards—J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his truest romance. And it wasn't fiction. The Meeting Birmingham, 1908. A boarding house on Duchess Road. A 16-year-old orphan named Ronald Tolkien met a 19-year-old orphan named Edith Bratt. They lived on different floors, but they shared something deeper than proximity: they were both utterly alone in the world. Ronald's mother had died when he was twelve, leaving him in the care of Father Francis Morgan, a Catholic priest who became his guardian. Edith's parents were also gone—she'd been orphaned young and had no family to speak of. They were both musical. Both readers. Both searching for something that felt like home. They found it in each other. Their courtship was achingly innocent. Long conversations over tea in local cafés. Walks through the Birmingham countryside. And one particular game that became legendary: they would sit in teashops and try to toss sugar cubes into each other's hats from across the table, laughing when they missed, celebrating wildly when they succeeded. It was simple. It was joyful. It was young love in its purest form. But not everyone approved. The Separation Father Francis Morgan watched the relationship with growing alarm. Edith was Protestant—a serious problem for a devout Catholic guardian. She was three years older than Ronald—socially questionable. And worst of all, she was a distraction from his studies at King Edward's School and his hopes of attending Oxford. In 1909, Father Morgan delivered an ultimatum: Tolkien was forbidden from seeing, writing to, or even speaking about Edith until he turned 21. Complete silence. For three years. Ronald obeyed—barely. It nearly destroyed him. He threw himself into his studies, won a scholarship to Oxford, immersed himself in ancient languages and epic poetry. But Edith was never far from his thoughts. Meanwhile, Edith—believing herself forgotten, convinced Ronald had moved on—tried to rebuild her life. She moved to Cheltenham. She played piano. She tried to forget. And eventually, she accepted a marriage proposal from another man. The Letter January 3, 1913. Tolkien's 21st birthday. The moment the calendar turned and he was legally free from Father Morgan's authority, Tolkien sat down and wrote a letter. He poured out three years of silence. He told Edith he had never forgotten her. That he loved her still. That he always would. That she was his first thought in the morning and his last before sleep. He mailed it immediately. Her reply shattered him: I am engaged to someone else. But when they met in person days later—at the train station in Cheltenham—the truth became undeniable. Their love had survived the silence. Every suppressed feeling, every banned letter, every forbidden thought came rushing back in a single conversation. What they'd felt at 16 and 19 hadn't faded—it had only grown stronger in absence. Edith broke off her engagement to George Field. She knew what it would cost her—security, social standing, the approval of the family that had taken her in. She didn't care. Then she made an even bigger sacrifice: she converted to Catholicism, knowing it would cost her friendships and support in her Protestant community. On March 22, 1916, as World War I raged across Europe and millions died in trenches, Ronald Tolkien and Edith Bratt were married in a small Catholic church in Warwick. She wore a simple dress. He wore his army uniform. Three months later, he shipped out to France. The War June 1916. Lieutenant Tolkien arrived at the Western Front just as the Battle of the Somme began—one of the bloodiest battles in human history. He served as a signals officer, crawling through mud and shell craters, watching friends die, breathing poison gas, living in constant terror. He survived the Somme. Barely. In October 1916, he contracted trench fever—a debilitating illness spread by lice in the trenches. He was sent home to England, weak and haunted, while his closest friends died without him. Through it all, Edith was his anchor. She wrote him letters. She waited. She prayed. And when he came home broken, she helped him heal. The Dance There was a moment Tolkien never forgot. In 1917—they'd been married a year, and he was recovering from trench fever—they walked together in a woodland near Roos in Yorkshire. Edith moved through the trees into a clearing filled with flowering hemlocks, graceful and joyful, dancing just for him. The sunlight filtered through the leaves. She laughed. And in that instant, she became immortal in his imagination. Years later—decades later—he would write the tale of Beren and Lúthien: a mortal man who falls in love with an immortal elven maiden whose beauty and grace transcend worlds. Lúthien dances for Beren in a forest glade, and he is so captivated he cannot speak. It was their story. It had always been their story. Tolkien himself would later write: "I never called Edith 'Lúthien'—but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief of the tales of The Silmarillion." The Life For 55 years, Edith was his partner, his inspiration, his first reader, his greatest supporter. They had four children: John, Michael, Christopher, and Priscilla. They moved to Oxford, where Tolkien became a professor of Anglo-Saxon. They lived modestly, quietly, in a series of small homes in the suburbs. Edith typed his manuscripts on an old typewriter. She listened to his invented languages. She was the first person to hear about hobbits, about Gandalf, about the One Ring. When he'd return from the university, he'd read her what he'd written that day. When The Hobbit was published in 1937, she celebrated with him. When The Lord of the Rings became a global phenomenon in the 1960s, she watched him become famous—but their relationship remained what it had always been: two orphans who'd found home in each other. They weren't perfect. Marriage never is. They had disagreements, struggles, ordinary frustrations. But they were devoted. And when Tolkien wrote about love in his mythology—about Beren giving up everything for Lúthien, about Lúthien choosing mortality to be with Beren, about love that transcends death itself—he was writing about a girl who once tossed sugar cubes across a teashop table and danced for him in a forest. The Ending November 29, 1971. Edith Tolkien died at age 82. Tolkien was devastated. He'd lost his Lúthien. He had a single word engraved on her tombstone: "Lúthien"—the elven heroine who gave up immortality for love. For two years, he lived alone. He continued writing, gave interviews, received honorary degrees. But friends said the light had gone out. On September 2, 1973, J.R.R. Tolkien died at age 81. He was buried beside her in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. And beneath his name, one word was added: "Beren." Even in death, they are together—the mortal man and his immortal love, reunited at last. What It Means The greatest fantasy epic ever written—the story that defined modern fantasy, that inspired generations of writers, that created entire worlds out of language and imagination—was born from something achingly real. A 16-year-old orphan boy and a 19-year-old orphan girl tossing sugar cubes across a table. Laughing when they missed. Celebrating when they succeeded. Falling in love. Being torn apart by rules and religion and war. Finding their way back to each other. And refusing to let go for 55 years. Tolkien created Middle-earth—a world of magic, dragons, battles between good and evil, quests that span continents. But the most powerful magic he ever wrote about was the kind that happened in a Birmingham teashop in 1908. Two lonely people finding home in each other's eyes. And never, ever forgetting. Their gravestones stand side by side in Oxford: Edith Mary Tolkien Lúthien 1889-1971 John Ronald Reuel Tolkien Beren 1892-1973 The greatest love story he ever wrote. Not in Middle-earth. But in a boarding house. In a teashop. In a forest glade. In 55 years of letters, laughter, children, words, and devotion. In two names carved in stone—together forever, just as they'd always wanted to be. That's not fantasy. That's the truest kind of magic there is. |
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