In Profile: My Aunt Bertie

My Aunt Bertie was very special to me. She was my favorite aunt and she was the most beautiful spirit that the world ever provided me with. She was my shelter and the tree from which I grew at an early age. Aunt Johnnie was my first school teacher, but Aunt Bertie was my first teacher. My earliest memories are of being at Aunt Bertie's house(which I called Aunt Johnnie's house---they lived together and it SEEMED that it was Aunt Johnnie's house, but Bertie Lee DeRamus McDavid owned it) and being engaged with her in ten million different activities, whether it was singing, or baking cakes and gingerbread houses and gingerbread men, or reading books, or just sitting and watching her, Aunt Bertie was my spirit and my soul....and she loved me dearly. I was always at her side in everything--or more likely crawled up into her arms. When she got sick, I would often stay at home with her--I often found it odd, later in years, that we would get to Aunt Johnnie's in the morning and my mother would ask me if I wanted to stay at home that day or go to school. That was truly something else, but I think I see something of why now. Our house was right across the street from Aunt Bertie's house, so I literally grew up in her presence.

Aunt Bertie retired from teaching in 1984, suffering from Ovarian cancer. I remember her retirement tea as a beautiful event. She died in 1985 when I was four yars old. The very special thing concerning my bond with my aunt is that she told me that she was going to die. When my mother and Freda came to tell me that Aunt Bertie was dead, I didn't cry because I already knew it. That instilled something in me, I am not sure what it is, but that is my gift from my aunt.

Bertie Lee DeRamus McDavid grew up the second oldest(not counting the two who died in infancy, who came before her) of eight children. She was a straight-A student all through high school and college, the first student of Sadie Mae and John Archie to be educated under the tutelage of Fess McDavid. She recieved her bachelor's degree from Alabama State University and proceeded to do graduate work at Columbia University, eventually recieving her master's degree from Governor's State in Chicago.

This sounds quite unusual, but I guess it happened quite a lot back then and oh well, c'est la vie. My aunt was hand-picked by Mrs. Mary Foster McDavid to be her successor as Mrs. McDavid--I don't know how that worked and how much or how little Fess himself played into it, but oh well. She and Fess married and they were blissfully wedded until he died in the early sixties. What I do know is that Mrs. M.F. McDavid was quite a bit older than Fess--several...I believe she was as old to him as he was to Aunt Bertie. Fess, from what I'm told, was the same age as John Archie. Mrs. M.F. McDavid and Fess were both quite accomplished people. Mrs. M.F. McDavid had a school named after her in Montgomery. She was also, I so love to hear my grandmother imitating her introduction of herself, the first Black woman president of the National PTA.

Aunt Bertie was an exceptional woman. She also loved poetry and books and shared the passion with my grandmother of memorizing and reciting poetry. Her favorite poem was read at her funeral and I have never forgotten it, "House by the Side of the Road." My Aunt Bertie was a key influence on my life.