Pride of Family: Four Generations of American Women of Color

From Publishers Weekly
In a moving, resonant self-portrait of growing up black and female in America, Ione focuses on the three very different women who raised her. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1937, her childhood and youth were divided between a breezy grandmother, a chorus-line dancer who ran a soul food restaurant catering to the racing set in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; a dignified great-aunt, one of the first black women doctors in Washington; and a tough, tenacious mother who carved out a career as a journalist and writer of murder mysteries in New York City after divorcing her husband, a sociologist. Ione, a psychotherapist in upstate New York, writes of her two failed marriages--the first to a quasi-noble Frenchman, the second to "a gay man living a heterosexual life"--which taught her hard lessons of motherhood. Her discovery of the diary of her great-grandmother, an abolitionist and feminist in 19th-century Boston, helped Ione unearth family secrets and finally achieve a sense of rootedness. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In this history of her remarkable family, Ione provides an insightful look at black culture. Ione's great-grandmother, Frances Anne Rollin, a free southern black woman in the 19th century, kept a diary which aided Ione in understanding her complex mother, her grandmother, a former vaudeville dancer who owned a popular restaurant in Saratoga Springs, and her great-aunt, one of the first black women doctors in Washington, D.C. In tracing four generations of African American women, Ione conjures up a world of of free mulattoes and privileged middle-class blacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in locales as diverse as South Carolina, Boston, Washington, D.C., Spain, and France. This book is slightly reminiscent of Dorothy Spruill Redford and Michael D'Orso's Somerset Homecoming ( LJ 10/1/88) in which Redford also searched for her family heritage, her roots. Both books belong in history collections.- Angela Washington-Blair, Brookhaven Coll. Learning Resource Ctr., Farmers Branch, Tex.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Psychotherapist Ione's emotional family history focuses on the legacy of three generations of her African-American foremothers, exploring the roots of her own upbringing in a fragmented nuclear family. As a child, Ione, like her mother before her, was often deposited in the house of her great-aunt Sistone, one of the first black women doctors in Washington, D.C. But when Ione's grandmother, Be-Be, retired from her vaudeville career to establish a successful home-based soul-food restaurant in Saratoga Springs- -one whose patrons included Andy Warhol and New York State Governor Hugh Carey--Be-Be's house became Ione's new home--a happy event for Ione, but one arriving too late to placate her mother, whose smoldering resentment of Be-Be was mirrored in her often stormy relationship with Ione. Ione's struggle to understand this family strife began to resolve only when, as an adult, she learned that her paternal great-grandmother, Frances ``Frank'' Rollin Whipper, once married to a South Carolina judge, had in fact earlier been a renowned intellectual, activist, and biographer in Boston. Reading Frank's diary, Ione discovered that ``my great-grandmother was a woman who went to art galleries and quoted poetry.'' Although the diary ends with Frank's marriage, Ione, using public archives, continued to uncover Frank's life, finding in her grandmother the superwoman whose high achievements subsequent generations of women could never match. An unsparing, honest, and courageous family document. (Eight pages of b&w photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith
Carole Ione was in her thirties when she decided to write an article about the women in her family. One of a third generation of only daughters, she grew up in the homes of her mother, grandmother, and great-aunt, all of whom were very quiet on the subject of family history. What little she learned was from the men of her family, people she rarely saw and barely knew. When she remembers that her other grandmother kept a diary and asks to see it, new doors open. For the next eighteen years she researches her family and uncovers much about herself in the process. She finds out her ancestors were not only African, but European and Caribbean, suffragettes and slave owners. She learns about the family prejudices of preferring fair skin over dark and those with good hair over those without, and of the repetition of secrets hidden for generations. Her writing invites the reader to accompany her as she reaches an understanding of the women who raised her and comes to terms with her life. Pride of Family may leave you with questions about your own background and cultural assumptions: all may not be what it seems. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.


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In this history of her remarkable family, Ione provides an insightful look at black culture. Ione's great-grandmother, Frances Anne Rollin, a free southern black woman in the 19th century, kept a diary which aided Ione in understanding her complex mother, her grandmother, a former vaudeville dancer who owned a popular restaurant in Saratoga Springs, and her great-aunt, one of the first black women doctors in Washington, D.C. In tracing four generations of African American women, Ione conjures up a world of of free mulattoes and privileged middle-class blacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in locales as diverse as South Carolina, Boston, Washington, D.C., Spain, and France. This book is slightly reminiscent of Dorothy Spruill Redford and Michael D'Orso's Somerset Homecoming ( LJ 10/1/88) in which Redford also searched for her family heritage, her roots. Both books belong in history collections.-- Angela Washington-Blair, Brookhaven Coll. Learning Resource Ctr., Farmers Branch, Tex.


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