With Beulah by our side

Beulah Sudderth’s (1922-2011) epitaph reads: “Following in her Savior’s footsteps, she lived a life of service for others.” As anyone who knew this remarkable woman would attest, that poignant inscription is completely accurate and if anything understated.

For decades this soft-spoken African-American woman served her family, church and community (black and white) in a fashion that brought admiration and even adoration from all who knew her. She possessed a sparkling demeanor that shone brightly in her caring attitude, endless appetite for hard work, cheerful willingness to listen to others while lightening their burdens, and rare unselfishness.

As a Swain County, North Carolina, native who grew up not a quarter of a mile from where Beulah lived, I was to some degree always aware of her impact on those around her. She was the pillar of Morningstar Baptist Church virtually all of her adulthood, and fittingly that church was a short walk from her home. As Swain County’s black population dwindled, part of what author Ann Woodford describes as “a steady out-migration” of African-Americans in far Western North Carolina, Beulah struggled to keep her beloved church going even as its congregation declined to only five members.

The youngest member of a large family, over the later decades of her life Beulah provided several siblings unstinting care encompassing everything from hands-on nursing to furnishing them living quarters. All her siblings reached nonagenarian or centenarians status and demanded considerable attention.

In her approach to life and by training, Beulah was ideally suited to provide such care. For decades she was a nurse’s aide at Swain County Hospital while cheerfully holding second jobs — often as not unpaid — offering friendship, housework and basic health care for the elderly and home bound.

Somehow she also found time to oversee the nursery at the Presbyterian Church; raise a fine garden; freeze, dry or can great quantities of produce; and share her extraordinary cooking skills with someone on an almost daily basis.

In her final 15 years or so, my friendship with Beulah ripened and deepened. During that period she cleaned house, ironed, and performed other chores for my aging parents. More than that though, after Mom died she invariably found time to sit down, chat and keep at bay the howling hounds of loneliness that haunted my father.

She meant so much to Daddy, a white man who spent most of his life in a segregated society, that he frequently reminded his children, “When I die be sure Beulah sits with the family at my service.”

That wasn’t to be — she died less than three weeks after him — but she was one of 100 guests who helped celebrated his 100th birthday. Her presence meant as much to Daddy as that of any of his family, longtime friends or fellow church members. There were numerous other families — black and white — to whom she meant just as much. In her unassuming, giving fashion as a sort of perpetual Good Samaritan, Beulah had an impact on the community at large which endeared her to all of Swain County.

My brother, Don, spoke briefly at her funeral service, and in his comments he noted that one of Beulah’s favorite phrases was “I know.” She offered it as a quiet yet emphatic statement of awareness and steadfast certainty about her earthly role, not in the irritating “you know” fashion which seems to constitute half the vocabulary of some professional athletes.

Beulah DID know, thanks to being gifted with an abundance of common sense and spiritual serenity far transcending the norm. The assembled mourners realized as much, as my brother’s remarks garnered heartfelt “Amen, tell it” comments.

Beulah was a living history book when it came to the African-American community in Swain County and beyond. She could readily recall names, occupations, events, family connections and the like stretching over her entire life span. While I probed that knowledge to a small degree, sadly much of her accumulated oral history now belongs to a world we have lost.

There’s a lesson there for anyone with reverence for the past.

During the times I was staying in Bryson City caring for my father, a glad duty shared with my siblings, I would visit Beulah every few days. More often than not it was to give her a mess of trout I had caught or perhaps share an overabundance of garden produce.

I always phoned in advance, not because I thought for a moment she would reject my offer. Rather, I just loved to hear her response when I asked: “Beulah, would you like a mess of trout?”

Her invariable answer, tendered with infectious enthusiasm, was “Oh, Yes!”

Beulah was as fine an example of the old mountain adage, “waste not, want not,” as it has been my privilege to meet. She ate like a bird but cooked like a five-star chef. Nothing, absolutely nothing, went to waste.

“There will always be someone needing some food,” she would remark, “and I can’t stand to see it thrown away.”

A black walnut cake was my personal favorite among her many specialties, and therein lies a tale. Dad loved her walnut cakes, as did most anyone who tasted that wonderful delicacy. When there had been a death or some serious problem in the community, you could count on Beulah showing up bringing care, concern and a cake.

Dad went through scores of Beulah’s cakes over the years, and he wouldn’t have thought of heading to a family reunion without one. Just a couple of years before he died, I asked him what he was paying for cakes. He responded: “$10, but it’s worth every penny.”

When I commented that the ingredients alone probably cost more than that and that a comparable bakery cake would fetch $40 to $50, his reaction came straight from memories of the Depression: “If I paid that much for a cake it would give me indigestion.”

My brother and I secretly made up the difference from that point onward, but when I first broached the subject with Beulah, her response was predictable. “Why, I’d gladly make him cakes for nothing.” She was a helper and a friend to all, and the color of one’s skin made absolutely no difference whatsoever. She saw you for what you were.

Her kindness and devotion reached beyond her own family, neighbors and community. For years she held board membership with Four Square Community Action, an outreach organization serving the needy in Cherokee, Clay, Graham and Swain counties of North Carolina’s far western corner.

She walked life’s road helping others. Few can say as much. At her funeral service I stated, “I’ve never known a finer woman” and meant every word of it. Every time I look at the Christmas cactus she rooted for me, this angelic mother figure to an entire community comes to mind. As surely as she was gifted with a green thumb letting her grow things of beauty, she was a flower on earth. Her given name was an apt one, for now she resides in Beulah Land (Isaiah 62:4).