In honor of Black History Month I am reposting this story about orphans and an old man. The other day I was out on errands and spied a ‘For Sale/Waterfront’sign . In my neck of the woods that usually means river front and/or marsh land. So I turned around and followed the signs. At the end of the road I found a beautiful home on some acreage. I always like to look at real estate and I am always curious about what ‘water front’ costs. Driving slowly onto the property I began to look for a flyer. Failing that, I slowly rounded their circular driveway heading back out.
I paused at the street as a man, riding a John Deere mower, chased me down and asked if he could show me the house. What luck! I was going to be able to see the beautifully restored plantation house. I never could have imagined the story that awaited me!
It sits on three acres with a six car garage, a guest house, a barn and a doll house. The lawns spill down to a large deck overlooking a tidal creek which feeds out to the Vernon River. The live oak trees are hundreds of years old, Spanish moss dripping from every branch. The deck has been built around an oak even to the point of interrupting the hand railing to accommodate an oak branch eighteen inches thick. (it’s a southern thing; we love our live oaks.)
But it was the owners’ story that I wanted to share.
Dick and Sue bought the working farm and farm house in 1975. Back then, common in those days, the kitchen was outside on a porch so that it wouldn’t add to the summer heat within the house. The house was approximately 1,000 sq. feet compared to its 5,000 sq. ft. now.
Part of the sale was that the new owners must care for a middle-aged black man; the grandson of slaves, for the remainder of his life. That in itself was remarkable but they agreed.
Parker Bell was illiterate, didn’t know how old he was, didn’t know his mother or father’s name. As a child he was 
raised on the ‘Brown farm‘. At first I found little history referring to a ‘brown farm’ but had heard that this is where young African-American children (orphans) were housed after the civil war and into the early 1900’s. I wondered if the name was an acronym in reference to John Brown, the abolitionist?
But thanks to a friend, who loves this kind of research as much as I do….we found the ‘Brown Farm’ in Savannah, GA., and a census map.
‘Young black children who were orphaned in Savannah from the latter part of the 19th century to 1943 had – for a number of reasons – nowhere to live except Savannah’s penal farm. There the young children were surrounded by such sights as men in shackles laboring in the fields, windows with bars and chain gangs. The kids were not being punished, but it was common practice for them to be taken there.
Savannah Penal Farm
Because there was no orphanage for black children, Chatham County black youth were often placed at the old Brown Farm, a 400 acre county penal farm for convicts (located on Montgomery Crossroad near where Lake Meyer is now) where they remained until they reached legal age. The girls were sent to the Chatham County Protective Home, operated by the Savannah Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. This practice went on for years, until Greenbriar Children’s Center was established.’ (Courtesy Greenbrier Children’s Center)
Lori’s mother-in-law, Mamie (now 94 years of age) remembers the Brown Farm. She told us, “When I was a young’un, me and a girl was in a fight, and both of us was sent to the Brown Farm for thirty days. The people in charge there, had us to wash clothes for the boys that were living there. I believe that old brown farm is where Memorial Hospital is now, just off Waters.”
Back to the old man. Parker Bell lived in the guest house and had the run of the property until his death a few years back. The family treated him like a favorite cousin. He didn’t have a social security number and because of his learning disabilities couldn’t work an outside job. But he kept busy cleaning up leaves, mowing grass and helping the children with their horses. Dick and Sue kept their promise and supported Parker Bell, until his death. Dick told me the fascinating story of the night they had a dinner party for twelve. In the middle of the meal, Parker walked into the house and into the candle-lit dining room, proudly holding up a stringer of fish, saying, “Mr. Dickie, I caught us a mess of bass outta that creek.”
My whole adult life I have had my best adventures when I’ve been ‘lost’….and today was no exception. To other writers out there? Our stories are all interwoven as human beings. Your new story could be around the next bend in the road.
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