This is my great-grandmother, Christina Levant Platt, 100 years old, working in her garden. She was born a slave. Her “owner,” the wife of the family, secretly taught her to read and write, which was very dangerous at the time. She learned to read the Bible.
Christina had 11 children, but lost two of them. One of her sons became one of the first Black lawyers in the United States. She sent four of her children to Boston University, which was highly unusual for the time.
She died five years before I was born, but I feel like I knew her. My family says she used to say, “I put prayers on the heads of my children’s children,” and those prayers worked.
Christina was in Charleston, South Carolina, around April 12, 1861, during the first battle of the Civil War at Fort Sumter. She was working in the cotton fields and saw a man killed by a cannonball. She said the sky was black with smoke.
As a child, she worked as a water carrier for the other slaves and acted as a sentry for the mounted overseer. She would alert the other slaves of her arrival so they could get up quickly and return to work.
She later married a Native American from the Santee tribe named John C. Platt. Once freed, Christina made sure to bring her children north so they could receive a good education, as she knew they wouldn’t receive one in the South.
She lived 101 years and died in 1944. She and her husband were the first black family to live in Medfield, Massachusetts.
I have a lot of respect for my great-grandmother. She gave me strength in the most difficult moments. Whenever I felt I was having a tough day, I thought of her, and that helped me get through it.
Thanks for reading one of many stories. 💜
Credit _Brenda Russell