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Growing up on the roughest block in Harlem in the early
1960s, Paula Williams Madison knew her family was unusual,
starting with her Chinese-Jamaican mother. Nell Vera Lowe
Williams was fierce and fearless – she once held a meat
cleaver to a man who’d threatened her son – but she was also
quietly sentimental. To Nell, nothing was more important
than family and she insisted that her three children remain
close, maybe because Nell had no parents or known siblings
of her own.
Though they were estranged, Madison knew her mother and dad
loved her. That, in fact, was a repeated theme she heard as
a child: Nell often said that Madison was lucky to know a
father’s love. On that, Nell didn’t elaborate much and she
rarely discussed her childhood, leading Madison to wonder
about her mother’s father…
Over time, she learned that Samuel Lowe had left China for
Jamaica in the early 1900s and later became a shopkeeper,
having little-to-no contact with his “outside child” before
returning to China in 1933, when Nell was 15. This, perhaps,
caused the “persistent and painful sense of loss” Madison
felt her entire life: her mother’s hurt had become hers. She
imagined finding her grandfather.
In late 2011, she finally seized the chance.
“Samuel Lowe” was too common a name for online searches, but
querying elderly relatives offered clues and a long-lost
cousin who informed Madison about an “alumni reunion” in
Toronto. Someone else led her to a contact who knew some
Lowes in China.
One of them was Samuel Lowe’s son.
There’s a lot to like about Finding Samuel Lowe.
There’s a lot to learn here, too, but first, you’ll have to
ready yourself.
Be prepared, for example, not to fret over things that are
hard to follow in this book. Author Paula Williams Martin
includes a lengthy and highly-convoluted family tree that’s
often “duppyproofed” with false names and birthdates.
Seriously, the Book of Genesis is easier to follow than
those sections; you’re best off just accepting that it
mightn’t make sense.
Get past that, though, ignore the repetition, and you’ll
find a fascinating family memoir that peeks inside the life
of a 1960s Harlem kid, takes readers back a century to
Jamaica, and then reads like a detective story. In those
parts, pay attention: Martin writes with such passion that
it’s a treat to see how finding her grandfather means
finding herself.
Historians and genealogists will love this book but for
everyone else, it’ll take some getting used to. You’ll enjoy
Finding Samuel Lowe, but you may also find it
confusing. |
