In Profile: Aunt Sadie

Sadie Bell Deramus Motley was my great-grandmother's fifth child(not counting the two that died in infancy).I never knew her as she died in 1982, before I was old enough to remember her. She is Brook and Barrington's grandmother. A woman of many talents, she designed clothing and accessories and ran two nurseries there in Birmingham. She attended Alabama State University and quickly married and had three children. She also had an affair with A.G. Gaston, who was an old friend of my great-grandfather. My mother talks about Aunt Sadie putting on fashion shows and arranging cotillions, something she apparently was very good at. She and her husband, Charlie Motley, settled in Birmingham where they had Voncile, Pat, and Kim. When my mother was a little girl, she used to stay with them quite often, a few times for extended periods. When Condoleeza Rice was a little girl, she used to attend my aunt's nursery. My mother said that she was a very heavy little girl. Angela Davis also grew up in that community.