The acronym WWJD has come to mean, ‘What would Jesus do?’ For me it is an instant reminder of Jessie Butler’s wisdom. Jessie Elma Mason Butler was the smartest woman I have ever known, so the question for me is: what would Jessie do? Or more appropriately, what would mommy do?
Born in 1903, she is only remembered today by a handful of people – most of her contemporaries are deceased now, like her. She died in September 1976, but to me it seems like last year because her legacy is so strong.
To most people, there was nothing special about her. She was a housewife, who did her laundry on Mondays, her ironing on Tuesdays, etc. At church she was a deaconess, missionary and choir member. Everyone loved her homemade rolls and three-layer coconut cakes. Before I was born in 1949, she did days-work by cleaning other people’s homes and helping care for their children. Before that she did boring factory work.
In her life she fell in love at least twice, getting married both times. The first time was to a man that I did not know, not even his name. In the pre-Roots fifties and sixties, people did not tell their children their history. He died long before William Butler, tall and handsome in his World War II uniforms, came into her life and certainly before I was born.
I only knew of Jessie’s first husband by an occasional overheard conversation of the grown-ups and from one story she shared with me when I was in middle school.
It seems that Jessie and her first husband lived in the country of Ocean County, near Whitesville, New Jersey in the 1930’s. Jessie worked, but did not drive. She received rides to work with friends that worked with her.
When Jessie needed to go to the store she had to wait for her husband to take her. When Jessie needed to see the doctor or dentist or ophthalmologist, she had to schedule appointments for when her husband could take her. So there were definitely no free moments to window-shop or explore anything new or to chat with shopkeepers or friends. Jessie felt stifled. Stuck in the country with no car, she had no opportunities to visit friends for a cup of tea or to visit an ailing church member. Jessie’s first husband was going to teach her how to drive, but somehow he never found the time to teach her. It was not his priority.
So what’s a woman to do?
Jessie knew that if she learned to drive, the quality of her life would improve tremendously. Encouraged by her co-workers, Jessie set upon a plan to learn to drive. She got home before her husband and she used that time for her co-workers to teach her how to work the brakes, the clutch, shift gears and all the other things she needed to know in order to drive a stick-shift car, in the days before automatic transmissions. They used the land around Jessie’s house as a training ground. Jessie practiced backing up and u-turns and k-turns. And then one day she was comfortable driving a car by herself. It was time for her to get her driver’s license.
The three conspirators picked a day when they would go to work late and they took Jessie to get her driver’s license. She passed both the written and driving portions of the test and got her New Jersey driver's license. She went on to work that day and came home that evening, as if nothing had happened. She cooked dinner. She and her husband ate dinner. She washed the dishes.
Then she calmly asked her husband for the keys to the car so that she could visit her friend Marie. He asked her why she wanted the car keys when she did not know how to drive. She pulled her new driver’s license from her pocket, proof that not only did she know how to drive but also that the state of New Jersey had approved of her driving.
He was so shocked and stunned that he had nothing to say and he handed her the car keys, without any argument or discussion. Jessie drove cars for the rest of her life, nearly forty years.
This story was told to me in the late fifties, early sixties when there was little encouragement for ‘colored’ girls to find themselves. Jessie shared this story to let me know that women and especially Negro women did not have to be stifled by someone else’s ideas of what they could and could not do.
As human beings we are responsible for finding our own destiny. It is in the simple things that people get lost and trapped into lives they do not want. To Jessie, driving was an important piece of defining her destiny. Once she knew how to drive, she could change her work from mindless and meaningless in some sweatshop to day’s work. In the twenty-first century that does not seem like much, but it allowed her to be her own boss – to work for who she wanted. It allowed her to deal as an adult with two families, who in spite of their racial difference, treated her with respect and friendship. A friendship that lasted beyond the years that she worked for them.
Jessie’s first husband would have died content if she had never learned to drive, but instead he was able to die content that she had learned to drive. She was a better partner, able to share in the tasks and carry her own weight by bringing more income into the household.
Jessie’s legacy to me is to not be trapped by my circumstances. ... use my mind and whatever God-given talents I have and work my problems out.
Jessie taught me that some situations do not require a heated argument or debate. She could have spent years fighting and fussing about when her husband was going to teach her to drive and they would have grown to hate each other. He did not say she could not drive; he just did not have the time to teach her.
Jessie taught me to figure out what is the true problem and then solve it. In the situation with Jessie’s driver’s license, the true problem was learning to drive and not that her husband had to teach her how to drive.
Jessie taught me to never settle. She encouraged me to not become content with where I was. She encouraged me to seek out and learn new things. In my twenties and early thirties, I worked for United Airlines and used my travel benefits to visit Hawaii, Europe, South America and the Caribbean. When I returned to visit Lakewood, NJ, the mothers at Sixth St Baptist Church always looked for an engagement ring and asked when I was going to settle down and marry? And Jessie would always tell them “leave her alone, she has plenty of time to settle down - she’s traveling and seeing and learning new things.”
Jessie’s wisdom was the strong foundation that I needed to go forth into a world that would present many challenges to a young, intelligent, black woman. I believe that I have faced them and that I have conquered them because of Jessie’s wisdom.
As I face challenges in the future, I believe that I will conquer them because of Jessie’s powerful legacy of wisdom, encouragement and love.
© 2009 Sandra Butler Tubbs
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