A Chance Encounter by Morgan Page

Darris Dwayne Page, better known as DD, was born March 24, 1937 in a tiny town inside the Highland Rim region of Tennessee called Bumpus Mills. It has a population of approximately 700 and is about 90 minutes outside of Nashville. By the time he was a teenager, he was sure his destiny was in Texas. He left home around 1954 and told his sisters he was going to get a job working in construction on the new highways in Dallas and Houston. He first landed in Dallas where he met my grandmother, Beatrice Cerda. Fast forward 15 years and they had settled in Humble, just north of Houston, where my father and three uncles were raised. 

My earliest memory of my grandpa is walking through his garden and finding a fat green snake slithering up and down each row over and over. I ran to him yelling, “Grandpa, kill the snake!” He scooped me up and walked me back to the garden where he explained that the snake was our friend and he was doing us a favor by eating all the bugs that were attacking his vegetables. He nicknamed each of us by the time we were six months old. I was Bocephus; others were Little Mama, Butterball, Cricket, Peanut, and Shamu. He was soft spoken and gentle, and always trying to make his grandchildren laugh which is why one particular event etched my memory of him.

In the fall, he would come to my parents’ house to pick up my dad for hunting trips during deer season. On one occasion, a new neighbor of ours walked over and struck up a conversation with my dad. I don’t remember the context of the exchange, but I will never forget my grandpa turning to the neighbor and saying in his quiet, but stern voice, “You use the N-word in front of my granddaughter one more time and I won’t hesitate to shoot you right between the eyes, boy.” I didn’t know if, perhaps in his youth in Tennessee, he saw the kind of injustices that can open someone’s eyes to the inhumanity of racism. I do know, now, that day wasn’t the first time he’d sheltered someone from it.

As one leaves Lovelady, heading east on FM 1280, they pass a community that is now long gone. Its remains—a cemetery, school, and church—are a few miles off the road in a thicket of piney woods. Fodice, Texas, was once a self-sustaining Black community. One of hundreds of communities of its kind, it was full of successful families with large spreads of land, generations of college graduates, and a history of military service that includes a Tuskegee Airman. 

Fodice was founded in 1869 by John O’Neil, a formerly enslaved man who made his way to Texas from Georgia. O’Neil married into one of the many Black families in the surrounding area, and they all grew, both in number and on the map. By the time the second generation matured into a third, their success was undeniable. Fodice residents served their country proudly in non-combat roles during World War I. Following the war, several of the men who returned went to college, received degrees, and returned home to prosper. 

 John Wooten was a private in sanitation who came home and immediately enrolled at Prairie View College. Upon graduating, he married Sadie Berry and the couple set about making their own place in the world. By the time John passed away in 1957, they had over 1,000 acres. John and Sadie’s nephew, Howard, became a staff sergeant in the Army Artillery, and then in 1944 started training as a pilot with the famed Tuskegee Airmen. Though he did not see combat, he was among the best pilots in his class. After his service, he moved northwest to escape the Jim Crow South, but died at 28 in a fall working on a bridge. Years later, his picture was selected from the many who served to become the face of the Tuskegee Airmen Foundation in advertising and remembrances.

Despite their prosperity and generations of national service, the Wootens knew that, even in 1970, when Sadie Wooten’s car slid into a ditch coming home from town, violent racism remained prevalent in East Texas. She hoped a friendly face would arrive before a unkind one. When DD Page, my grandpa, pulled over she thought she was in trouble. Instead, he drove her home. He went back for her car, never asking for anything in return. His kindness struck Ms. Sadie. She welcomed him back whenever he wanted. He took her up on the invitation and over time, they became close friends. He brought her vegetables from his garden and checked on her when he came to hunt on the lease she asked him manage. She allowed his family to hunt on the property for free. Sadie’s grandchildren spent many fall nights with DD’s children; generations of friendship resulting from one chance meeting.

 Many years later, in 1992, DD was diagnosed with stomach cancer and he passed away within six months. It was my first experience with death. I had just turned 11 years old. I don’t remember much of that time, but I have one memory of the gathering at my grandparents’ house following the funeral. I hadn’t cried yet, but wandering around my grandparents’ home it hit me and I erupted in tears. Ms. Sadie was sitting on the couch in their living room and she told me, “Come here, Morgan, sit on my lap.” She rocked me back and forth and whispered in my ear, “Your grandpa will always be with you. Don’t you worry about that. I miss him too, but I know he’s around us and he still loves us.” She let me cry in her arms for a few minutes and then she hugged me very tightly. It was the greatest comfort I got from anyone that day. 

Born in 1900, Ms. Sadie undoubtedly witnessed hatred but she was full of love. She’d spoil me with a table full of sweets, all homemade, every time we visited. She’d spoil me with attention too. I believe my grandpa also saw his share of racial hatred. Whatever their previous entanglements with prejudice may have been, DD and Sadie’s friendship was an inspiration for their families. As a result of a chance encounter, the Page family and the Wooten family are friends to this day. Ms. Sadie died at the age of 101. She is still dearly missed.