Baldwin: Domestic workers became part of the employer’s family
There is an art to biscuit making, and not everyone masters the domestic task. Even 10,000 years ago when the Neolithic farmers made a paste of grain and water and then baked it on hot stones, there was bound to be frustration. The word ‘biscuit’ comes from the old French term ‘biscoit’ meaning ‘twice cooked.’ For centuries, no ship left port without a staunch supply of bone-hard twice-cooked ship’s biscuits. The culinary dreams of the Middle East began experimenting with the paste by adding cream, eggs, and butter. During the late Middle Ages, sugar was added, thus, pastries, cakes and confectioners became well known among the Persian Empire.
In the 1986 best-selling cookbook, “White Trash Cooking” (endorsed by Harper Lee) ‘corn pones’ are described with three different recipes before a single biscuit recipe ever shows up. Possibly the reason is because corn pones are simpler and quicker, or maybe, because southerners invented corn pones. Women could mix cornmeal, bacon drippings, salt, and molasses much quicker than the biscuit process, which includes kneading. One writer says, “Back home, I didn’t know I was eating biscuits unless I saw the fingerprints on top.”
The kneading process was a stumbling block for many, including, Sallie Finch. As an 11th-grade student at Randolph County Training School (RCTS), she left school at 3 in the afternoon and walked to her first domestic job on Willow Lane. The Mark Lafayette “Reuben” Awbrey family employed Finch to help around the house. Mr. Awbrey ran the M.L. Awbrey Feed and Seed Store on Main Street, filled with every item a farmer could ever need. Mrs. Katherine “Kat” (Hodges) Awbrey taught at Handley High School. The Awbreys’ baby-boy, Patrick, born on August 3, 1955, became the apple of Sallie’s eyes.
Mrs. Awbrey taught math and Latin and was the faculty advisor for the school newspaper, “The Triangle.” She was well liked and even today, former students still speak highly of their teacher. She is said to have been patient and kind, and treated everyone the same. Students who transferred from the Lowell Mill Village’s, Knight-Enloe Elementary School say that Mrs. Awbrey is the one teacher they could always count on to show them love and acceptance in the same way the town students were treated.
By the time Patrick was born, Mrs. Awbrey was 44 years old and still working full-time, so she employed Ms. Pearl Robinson to keep house during the day and watch the baby. When 11th-grader Sallie Loryd (Finch) got out of school, she walked to Willow Lane for her part-time job. Ms. Robinson left and Sallie tended to the baby and prepared supper for the family.
Mrs. Awbrey got home from school at 4 o’clock and diligently began grading papers and preparing for the next school day. At 5 o’clock, she instructed young Sallie to wash and grease the outside of baking potatoes, wrap them in aluminum foil, and place them in the oven. A meat was prepared and also placed in the oven.
Then came the biscuit dilemma! Sallie’s mother had taught her to make bread, but the kneading process always troubled her. Mrs. Awbrey saw the ‘need’ to teach ‘kneading.’ Awbrey used plain flour, so 3 pinches of salt were added, followed by 1 tablespoon of baking powder, 4 tablespoons of shortening, and a cup of milk. After the shortening was cut into the flour and the dough became like small crumbs, a ‘well’ was made in the center and the cup of milk poured in all at once. Sallie stirred it up until everything was blended well. The mixture was then placed on a well-floured board and kneaded for a short while. Awbrey had tin biscuit cutters that resembled the top of a metal snuff can that had been manipulated into a biscuit cutter. After Sallie cut out the biscuits, she placed them in a greased, black-iron skillet and pressed them down with the back of her hand. They were baked at 450 degrees for 14 minutes. This process was always timed in order that the hot biscuits would be withdrawn from the oven just as Mr. Awbrey came in from work and washed his hands. Sallie placed the biscuits in a round basket and covered them with a clean cloth.
Mrs. Awbrey was a woman of order and organization. She taught Sallie how to set the table for various events, but for supper, the plates should be turned faced down with the silverware underneath the plate. During the meal, the Awbreys and their two sons ate in the modest kitchen. A small table with a stool was also in the kitchen and Sallie ate there with the family.
After supper, Sallie washed the dishes, swept the kitchen floor, and then Mrs. Awbrey took her home. Once, when Mrs. Awbrey chaperoned a high school senior trip to New York City, Sallie became a valuable asset to the family as she prepared meals for Mr. Awbrey and the children while they were left to fend for themselves. Sallie still boasts of the opportunity given to her by Mrs. Awbrey during that week and feels honored by the trust and confidence in her skills and dependability.
Domestic workers sometimes established profound relationships—especially with the children they helped to raise. Pat Awbrey remembers a moment in his young life that shaped his love and admiration of Ms. Sallie to last a lifetime. As a very young boy, he was playing in the backyard of their Willow Street home when all of a sudden a strange dog appeared in his yard. The dog stood perfectly still and faced Pat with steady eyes. It was a strange dog, one that he’d never seen in his neighborhood. The boy was struck with fear and didn’t know what to do, and couldn’t get his legs to move if he wanted to run. Sallie had been keeping a close watch on him and suddenly she saw the dog. Without hesitation or fear, she ran across the yard between the dog and the young boy she’d helped raise for four years, and grabbed him up into her arms and carried him inside. Pat believes until this day, “She saved my life!”
In the book, “Like One of the Family,” Alice Childress quotes Mildred, a former domestic, “Domestic workers have done an awful lot of good things in this country besides clean up people’s houses. We’ve taken care of our brothers, husbands and fathers when the factory gates and office desks and pretty near everything else was closed to them; we found work as domestics. We’ve helped many a neighbor, doin’ everything from helpin’ to clothe their children to buryin’ the dead… And it’s a rare thing for anybody to find a colored family in this land that can’t trace a domestic worker somewhere in their history.”
[Mrs. Katherine Awbrey passed away in 1998. Mr. M.L. Awbrey passed away in 1993. J. J. Awbrey, the original owner, passed away in 1951. They are buried in the Cedarwood Cemetery. Pat, and his brother, Mark, still own and operate the M.L. Awbrey Store and the Awbrey’s farmland. The store recently celebrated its 100th year anniversary and remains as a nostalgic Roanoke treasure.]
