Document text
Project #-165.5
Muriel A. Mann
Charleston, S. C.
December 21, 1938.
No. of Words 2650
LIFE HISTORY
THE COFFEE GRUNDS WOAN
"Turn the cup three times and make a wish* Your
last days are your best."
My fortune in a coffee cup! It seamed incredible how much this
little woman could see in a few coffee grounds. How had it started?
What had been her story? Impatiently I waited for her to finish,
for it was really her life in which I was interested not my own
and she had readily agreed to satisfy my curiosity.
mrs* Banks, more frequently called the Coffee Grounds Woman,
lives in one of those high two -storied unpainted frame houses, about
one block from the railroad tracks, in a drab part of the city.
Through the front door, three steps up from the sidewalk, you enter
the hall Whioll is narrow and dark, and completely bare and cold*
Steep steps ascend to the up,)er floor.
Opening from this hallway is the room which she uses for her
patrons, garishly furnished with a tan and pink flowered rug and a
set of heavy overstuffed furniture, proud purchases of money earned
from telling fortunes* There is a small oak table in the centre of
the rug, with a few odds and ends on it and heavy dark red cur-
tains draped over coarse lace ones effectively cut out any extra
light which might otherwise penetrate the room* A two -burner oil
stove stands in front of the fire -place, over which hangs a large
bright blue calendar advertising a brand of meat.
StandinL near the window is another small table on which sits
the red and white banded cup and saucer containing the coffee grounds,
Project #-1665
Muriel A. Mann
Charleston, S. C.
December 21, 1938
Page 2 sa
and guarded by a stand lamp which is topped by a gawdy Chinese
pagoda -shaped shade, fringed with varicolored glass beads. Natural..
ly this table is the chief attraction in the room, and you are in-
vited to be seated at one side of the table, while Mrs, Banks seats
herself on the other.
There is a certain procedure, almost a ritual, in the manner in
which Mrs. Banks handles the cup. On several visits she has scarcely
varied a movement, Picking up the cup, she stirs the contents, just
plain water containing a few coffee grounds, perhaps a teaspocnfulo
and stirs tem with one finger. Then she sets the cup in the saucer
and carefully wipes her finger on a paper napkin provided for that
purpose. Again she picks up the cup, jiggles it a few tines, and
pusses it to her customer with the instructions to empty the oeffee
grounds into the saucer, "turr the cup tires times, and make g wish,"
all the w;Ale carrying on a rapid flow of chatter. This chatter,
ycli feel, is part of her act her time to size you up before
telling what she sees in the cup. I fancy those penetrating blue
eyes miss very little.
My fortune ended, she paused for a moment, and it was in this
setting that she told me her story, whteh I shall tell to you very
much as she told it to me.
RT
we born in ?oston, "she began, "My mother was a Georgia
cracker and my father was from .2oston. He met her when she was work-
ing ri a laundry and ho was a street car Jerry. A Jerry is a conduc-
tor, you know. My reat uncle ran the Smithson laundry which used
to her here, and my mother worked for him. Do ycu remember it?
Projeot #-165
Muriel A. Mann
Charleston, 8, C.
December 21, 1938
Page 3
I shook my head, so she continued, "They were married here
and then wont north to live, to Boston, but returned to the south
when I was two. My father died when he was real yotings of typhoid
fever, and mother married again this time to a railroad man.
"Altogether my mother had fourteen children. She is only six•
ty-two now and has lost track of the number oftheir grandchildren,
because there are so many. Four great grans" she added proudly.
"I was a grandmother myself when I was only thirty•four. I
have nine living children, but there would have been twelve if they
all had lived, and four living grans. Two more are expected soon,
and I am inly forty•two now."
It didn't seem possible that this little plump woman (she is
only four feet two) with the light brown frizzled bobbed hair, not
even sl.ghtly touched by grey, and the keen blue eyes, could pos-
sibly be the mother of twelve ohlArene
"With so nany children in the family, "Airs. Bank* continued
rapidly, "I was sent to the Orphan House to be raised. I didn't
have very much education besause I was
oulosis of the *nes and eleven doctors
help me and save up.
"When I we fourteen,
sick so much. I had tuber
treated it, but they couldn't
I went to work in the cigar factory, and
worked there 11,ntil I was seventeen. Then I got married, My husband
was a brakeman an the railroad and was seven years older than me.
"Of course 1 told him about my knee before we got married, but
he said that it didn't matter, he would marry me anyway. Would you
like to see my knee?" And, without further ado, the Calif°. Grounds
Woman hroceeded to show me this badly deformed, but now completely
Project 1655
Muriel A. Hann
Charleston, S. C.
December 21, 1938
Page 4
cured knee, and to explain, in detail, just how this had been accoms.
plished. There were four deep holes, two in each side of the knee
joint. I shuddered at the sight. "I always kept it very clean and
well bandaged," she declared and went an with her story.
"I was a mother at eighteen, but it was shortly before my second
child Was born that I got a recipe of an ointment from an old colored
lady ,and this ointment, together with having all my upper teeth pulled
out, healed my knee and the min stopped too, and I have never been
bothered with it since. When it was healing, I pulled a small bone
out of my knee it was about two inches long but I was so excited
that I threw it into the fire. I forgot that the doctors would have
wanted to examine it."
The room was growing dim in the late afternom, and she paused
lone enough to turn on a light uneer the Chinese shade. 'ehind the
sliding doors which led into the dining -room, 'vices of children of
all ages could be heard, and every now and then the doors would be
pulled slightly apart, wide eneugh to permit one of the youk.eters
to put in her head and oake some demand, only to he promptly ordered
to "run along".
"They are playing school, Bankz informed no. "They love
to play school it is their favorite ooenpatIon. This is one of
their father's afternoor at home, and he is in the woodshed making
doll furniture for their Christmas. us has just finished making a
cabinet. Good work too.
The doors were closed again and it was surprisinely quiet con-
sidering the number of yeung children in the house, i felt that hrs.
Project #s.1655
Muriel A. Mann
Charleston, S. C.
December 22, 193
Banks was pleased to tell me about her family life.
"I bean readng cups when I was twenty-three, but just for
fun. Some of my friends worl%ed tn the telephone exchange and I
would read for them. And then I began to do ej-arity work, reading
for churches and schools, but I never thought of charging anybody
not until my husband ras laid off for nine months in the depression.
Then I had a vision tel7ing me to charge for "Ty readings, so I did,
and supported sixteen during those nine months, including my child-
ren, grandehildren and my mother."
"You want to no about the vision? Well, I wil tell you a.
bout it."
"It was two or three months before my last child, 7enry, was
born. He is the one who is five years old now, and I was very des.
pondent because my 7ounband had been laid off his work. You remember
there were sixteen of us to feed. On the night I had the vision I
could not sleep and had made oo my mind to end It all by taking a
poison tablet, when, about five o'clock in the morning, a vision in
the form of a white cloud appeared before my eyes, and a voice seem-
ed to tell me that I 000ld care for my family by Charging for :Tv
readings. So that is how I began my business of being
a fortone.tener. You 'now, I am a woman born with a veil over my
eyes," she added, people are born with two veils over their
eyes. It means that you have second sight, you know what I mean?"
And, after aseuring her that I did, she went on.
"Al]. my children save one, my eighteen year old son, who, Is
married now and on his own, live with me. My mother .-ioved ou',: not
Project #-1655
Muriel A. Mann
Charleston, S. C.
December 21, 1938
Page 6
long ago and has gone to board because she couldn't stand the noise
any longer. She works in the W.P.A. sewing room. My stepfather was
killed by a train which ran over him and out him to bits. That was
several years ago, so I have looked out for my mother ever since.
Sometimes I made as much as fifty or sixty dollars a week, but I am
not doing so well now. Perhaps it it because I have moved so many
times and people don't know where to find me. So many used to come
that they had to wait for their turns.
"I had to move into a bigger house to have r am for all my
family. Now I have eight roams, this whole house, with two en-
trances," And pride of possession shone in her eyes.
"My oldest daughter, Erline, is twenty-three, and she has three
children. my second daughter, Ethel, is twenty...one. She was di-
vorced and then married again, and has had two children. One is liv-
ing, the other was stillborn. I even help the doctor deliver their
babies.
"The t-l.rd daughter is Virginia, and she is twenty, and then
comes my oldeet boy, Tom, who is eighteen and married to a girl who
is seventeen. He works in a bakery and at a fountain at a drug store
and is very independent. In the spring he will be a daddy. Martha,
who is sixteen, comes next. She is married too, but she only lived
with her husband for two months. I hope they will make up before
long perhaps before Christmas. Her husband wants to, but she wont.
am trying to hring them together again," And she shook her head
over the difficulty of trying to readjust the lives of others.
"Then Mary is fourteen, Vera is ten, Rosalie is eiht, and the
baby, Henry, is five." Mrs. Banks paused a moment. "Seven girls
Project ,:-165f
:\wiel L. afri
Dec oi 21, 1:3C
e en
and two boys. Only one of ij _rans is a boy. 7hey keep :fie busy,
but I love my home and work."
latve yoL any particular plans for r family? I ventured to
h.othinz; particular she answered, "but, because I did not
ave much schoolin6, I have tried to make .r.y children take an educa.
Von. I e love in to And tcley i.;to to church reculnrly, too. Four
of my children have !men confizned.
"Tom, my husDand„ has always been a &clod provider. e i3 six
fcct two inches tar. and ..7;eih,T; 220 pounds. 'icing so much taller
1.e„ we lo k sort of funny when we are toaether. at s an ex-
tra conductor v.s well as bean nor. AltoLether e has worked
tiArty-two fears on the railroa. Tom i forty-nine years old and
aar; ;;aLits. :evcr lad any, Loesn't smcke or chew, and
k;o0s to church ro,u1c.rly. .vlice a wit he doee like to ,;c, to the
pif-,;tures."
ft
vP m7h ilThess in uch a la ly? I asked.
"Very lefldoms Mrs. :anks replied, "We !mop regu/ar hours and
it is cars since we had to call a doctor for sickness, except last
year wren one of the cllildren zot knocked down by an automobile.
-1-5ut that wasn't serious," she adied4 after a vioment's pause.
":very one of r.s drink coffee for breakfast too, even the
littlest ones, but not at nLht becnuse it might keep uS from
sloepin6.4, It takes four pcylids of meat for a meals and we use
eleit loaves of bread a day. We never eat vegetables except sa,..
lads. Potatoes, rice and macaroni with our meat, is what we like.
Project. 16.K
Muriel A. ani,
Charleston, S.
December 21, 1038
We like saueahee particularly."
"When I bean to read coffee hrounds for money, we lived on
Meetinh fAreet and there were only four roams. It was a little
crowded. So then I moved to a house with six :;:'oams, rih:ht on the
railroad track. That was a nice ilGU68 LUt it WaSilft si4;.
onouI-
either, and beinh so near the tracks wasn't hood for the children,
so I moved ahain to this house, and now have plenty of roem. It
isn't as nice a house as the ii room house, but there is so much
more room." And the thoueht passed throuhh my mind of sixteen
people havinh plenty of room in an elhht roam houses
The Coffee :rounds Woman believes, most eaklhatioally, that
a woman's place is in the home. She is not Interested in pplitica,
but votes because it pleases her other, who is somethJ.nh of a
politician.
"I really love work", she coatli,ued, "efteh „)eeple =lc to
me to ,:ive them eelp e saiaeties from a lee, distance off. .eolo
know me all ove tne state, and often'el p tAem to L -t t eir
problems st.Aihhtened out. Only a few lays a,o, came to
thanic me for arL is wife yith fi,d 7
am alweys ,;led
I.
over lave allj enun-eal e:eeerLehces? T don't :lay° nuch
trouble, A0.9r, deoplo
very well. Only three men have
tried to „et fresh with me, but i slapped their ft.‘,ms. And, do you
know, every one of them apologized to Ae afterwards, One of these
was at a dance where they had asiced me to read for thele. I was co
mad that 1 ealled a taxi and came home. Mine is a rs
tit ,,n 7 7
:..71714 1.•
C-J-Arlesnio
feoenoer 21„ 1X")8
Pa
4111.
business, and I won't stand for any rou6h stuff. When I o out to
read at niOlt, 1 always ask for transportation, because I have no
ear to .flt arot,nd in, and j am afrvid to L -,o out alone at ni4)1t.
They ,.lave to send tor me and rth ie Lome aftcr the entertaiment.
ToniLnt
joini to read for a eirl's school, I read for al
kinds of people, you see."
)041.ewniat in a dame, I .found mynelf once more in the cold,
cheerless hall. There wasn't even a plant to jve it some life.
it uaci ser wal,1 in tne room, and as I buttoned my coat, tmi.
;janks oxlaained t a ws another reason for their 600d nealth.-
never to ..Ave any beat in tit° aroma, and apparentlzr siLe included
the 1.aL1,ton.. :lit she had been -onerous wit her tIvie, so, gy
miAd filled with ttle story of he cud uy fortunr, 1 took leave
of this stronc:; and vtvic irvnt1 ity, kr1Jiwn to so many an the Cots.
fat: Oro..Inds
f-*
-101 La:an
Charleston,
December 21, 1938
_ C
:aric
°1cE; Lrs. 2.anks.
Mary Louise) (White)
49 pring Street,
Charleston, S. C.
LIC
EWE: krs Aoklini; is called the "Coffee Grounds Woman" in
Charlestor.