Photo-Essay: Momma T, Momma Jones and Me 1952

This is a photograph probably taken by a local photographer of Momma T, Momma Jones (my two grandmothers) with me probably the day of my christening at the home of my parents, Faith and Earl Wallace, at 365 Edgecombe Avenue. I was christened by Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Jr. at the Abyssinian Baptist church in 1952.

Momma T (Theodora Grant) was on a visit home (to see me I think) while stationed in Guam with her second husband whom everybody called Sarge, although my sister and I always called him Chiefie. I was Momma T's first grandchild and Momma Jones' second. I don't think anybody has ever had two more beautiful grandmothers. And the two of them guided my early childhood on Edgecombe Avenue, hand-in-hand, although I am realizing now that my mother wasn't always aware of just how much I saw of Momma T. and my father. My father was left handed and so was I. This was not the only thing I inherited from him and the Wallace-Rhino brood.

Photo-Essay: Faith Jones and Earl Wallace Back in the Day

This is Faith and Earl when they were first going together. They are standing together on the park side of Edgecombe Avenue in 1946. She is 16 and he is 19, having already returned from his brief tour in the Navy.

Earl was never particularly happy at home. He was an only child and his mother had to work hard in the garment district in order to support the household. His father, who had come to the United States from Jamaica in the early 20s, while being an obviously brilliant and learned man, was not of a strong psychological disposition and had little tolerance for the racism that was endemic in American society. Grandpa Bob (as I knew him) had a reputation for being an iconoclast and a musician who only worked as much as he needed to keep body and soul together. Marrying my grandmother Teddy was no doubt a mistake on his part. Having a child with her (my father) was probably even more of an accident.

Momma T (my grandmother) had immediately sent her grandson home to Jamaica to be raised by her mother (or maybe it was grandpa Bob's mother-- never been entirely sure about this). In any case, Grandpa Bob was never able to support his son or his wife. Momma T soon found a replacement whom I called Chiefie. They were ultimately married but Earl did not get along well with him at all.

I am told at one point that Grandpa Bob's sister Sissie had tried to bring Earl to live with her family in Queens but for some reason he was not allowed to do this, probably because of the stubbornness of Momma T's sister, Doris Rhino who never had children of her own and never married. It was she who had the bright idea to bring Earl from Jamaica to live with his mother. She hoped that having him in the U.S. would help to reunite Momma T. and Grandpa Bob, which of course it did nothing of the kind.

In any case, in his misery Earl had enlisted in the navy at 16, lying about his age in order to get in. He had taken their aptitude tests and passed them all with flying colors. The tests said he should do something technically advanced but since he was black, and the military was still quite race crazy, it was not possible for him to actually have the job. It wasn't long before he was AWOL and dishonorably discharged and back on Edgecombe Avenue again. I am not exactly sure how or when he completed high school but he did spend some time attending both the New School and Juilliard so I imagine that a high school diploma wasn't much of a challenge. He probably got it at George Washington High School, which seems to be where all the kids from Edgecombe went then.