is it, Daddy, that a black man would help someone dispose of a body?”
“Remember the times,” my father said. “In those years, a black would do almost anything his boss told him to do. His life depended on whatever the white man decided. Lynchings were taking place almost daily in the South. Jim Conley was a black man in Atlanta in 1913, one who could read and write, but more importantly, he was not simple. He was a man who would do what any man would do to stay alive: he would mix the truth with lies self-consciously, knowing full well that his life was at stake.” My father shook his head. “He would give four different affidavits.
“Here was a man that knew he was walking on a red-hot bed of cinders. He knew that no matter which way he turned he would be burned. Conley returned to the pencil factory with the Atlanta detectives and showed them how he had found the body of little Mary in the metal room. How he had moved the body, tied up with some cloth, with the help of Leo Frank. How it took both of them to move her body to the elevator. Once in the basement, Conley said, he rolled the body out on the floor. Then he stated that Leo Frank went up the ladder, to be on alert for anyone coming into the factory.”
Here I asked, “Does this explain why little Mary was dragged face down across the basement?”
“Yes,” he said. “It seems logical in that one man could not carry her body without help. So she was dragged.” “But, Daddy, why would Jim Conley do this knowing full well that he was now mixed up in the murder of little Mary? He must have felt that his actions could cost him his life.”
“Jim Conley did know what he was doing, but there were two factors that outweighed his sense of righteousness: fear and money! Fear of the white man and greed for money. And this is what he later told my father when they met.”
The last thing I wanted to know was a question that my father had asked his father over twenty years ago. “Why has the Phagan family taken a vow of silence?”
“Grandmother Fannie made a request that everyone not talk to the newspapers. Her request was honored. It’s that simple.”
I thought over my father’s words for quite some time. His was the Phagan family’s story of little Mary Phagan.
It was some time before we sat down again to talk about the shadow of Mary Phagan and how her legacy had affected his life. But one summer morning my father sat down beside me wanting to talk about his grandmother—little Mary’s mother.
“I recollect that many times I woke up in Grandmother Fannie’s bed trying to figure out how I got there beside her. My grandmother and step-grandfather, I’ve been told, loved me very much, and they would come to our house and while I was asleep, would take me in their loving arms, and take me home with them.
“Their daughter, Billie, my aunt, would have been little Mary’s half-sister. Billie was a teenager whom I remember as a beautiful girl, who showed me a lot of love and care. It was Billie’s job to take care of me while I was staying with my grandparents. She was as firm as she was beautiful. To her I was a small brother. At lunch time, I was given the choice of a sandwich or soup. Billie would allow me to have mustard on my sandwich and to this day each time I eat a sandwich with mustard on it, I think of Billie.
“Grandfather Coleman had a small country store with a gas pump, and one of my greatest pleasures was when I was turned loose in that treasure house and was allowed to have anything that I wanted. What treasures I saw in that country store! It can only be appreciated by another child. What to choose was the biggest problem I had to face in those early years, and sometimes I would spend a whole minute, which to me was a lifetime. Grandfather Coleman was always there to guide me and help me in making my choice. Over fifty years have passed but those days are vivid to me now as they were then.
“Grandmother Fannie was a very special person to me. I remember her talking to me about her daughter, little Mary. I could never understand why there were tears in her eyes when she talked about little Mary.
“It’s very hard on a small child to watch one’s grandmother cry and not being able to understand what’s really going on. I took what I felt was the only course open to me: I put my arms around her and told her that I loved her. Then, more tears flowed and she hugged me even harder.”
My father stopped and sat, his chin in his hand, looking out the window. I could hear the calls of the birds clearly.
“Daddy,” I said, “if you want to stop—”
“No,” he said, “I don’t want to stop.” He went on.
“In 1937 my parents bought their first home in Atlanta, 760 Primrose Street Southwest. It had three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and dining room connected to it and one bathroom with no shower. My dad worked in the cotton mills as a weaver and my mother opened a hamburger, hot dog, and sandwich stand on the corner of Hunter and Butler Street which was only a half of a block from the ‘big rock jail.’ This was the same jail that Leo Frank was held in, known as ‘The Tower.’ I was a student at Slaton Grammar School, which was named after the father of the governor who had commuted Leo Frank’s sentence to life imprisonment.
“Grandmother Fannie meant more and more to me as I was starting to understand what life is about. After all,” his eyes twinkled, “it had to happen sometime! And the question was starting to come up, no matter where I was: ‘Are you, by any chance, kin to little Mary Phagan?’
“’Of course,’ I replied everytime, ‘she was my aunt.’ This generally resulted in more questions about little Mary. I would answer those questions the best I could from what I could remember from stories that I’d heard from members of my family. People would then relate them to me on what they had heard from their pasts. The one question they always asked was ‘How did little Mary’s mother take her daughter’s death?’ And this invariably brought a silence in the group of people around me. I came to understand that this question would cause adults to hang onto every word I said. And just as invariably I’d feel humongously sad as I tried to put into words how my grandmother felt. Time had not healed the loss of her daughter. And maybe it never would.
“Little Mary, you understand, was the youngest of five and because she was the last child, she was doted on by all, even her grandfather, W. J.
“Grandmother Fannie would describe to me how she would comb little Mary’s hair and put it up in pigtails, dress her up in her finest clothes to go to church. A small child is always beautiful to its parents, but little Mary was really beautiful—and she was going to be a real beauty when she grew up. As she approached her teenage years, there was no doubt that she was going to be a beautiful young woman.”
My father looked at me intently. “As I’ve said—and others have said—lots of times before: just like you.”
A strange feeling began to rise inside me: a mixture of gratification—I’m as lovely as she was—pride—this is my inheritance—and apprehension. Not that I thought I’d meet the same fate as my namesake, of course, but I did wonder what reverberations there would be from our bond. The vow of silence notwithstanding, my name—and appearance—were already causing these reverberations.
I smiled at my father. “Whatever it is, I believe I can deal with it.” He patted my shoulder and continued his memories.
“School was not mandatory back then, and all members of a family that were old enough to work in factories would do so. Money was not easy to come by. Little Mary did attend school and was a good student, according to my grandmother. She had a lively imagination and wanted all the things that any young girl
