Lela Houston

Lela Houston

This subject is very close and dear to me because this is the person who raised me and my brother like she was our mom. After my mom and dad got A divorce, I was around 5 years old, and to be honest it was not a good place for any child to be. Needless to say, things were tough for us.  We stayed with our mom from time to time, but she was never really stable.  We often never stayed in any place longer than a few months. My sister, Sand, helped to watch over us along with her son while we stayed in Matthew Lane.  For the most part, those were good days, even though we got by on the bare minimum, but I was a child who kept company with myself. My imagination just blossomed in those harvested fields that surrounded our home. I don’t know why exactly, but my dad took us to A’ Lela’s house.  We would go there often to visit, but never stayed more than a few hours at a time, then one day we packed our clothes and was told that we would be staying with A’ Lela for the time being. In all it was a period of three years we called 1723 Vine Street our home.

Sharecropper

Lela Houston was the third child of Mattie and Napoleon Edwards. She was born in, January 21, 1900, in Perry County Alabama to share croppers. Lela, like her sisters, was very attractive and had the attention of many boys back in that time, which led her to having her only child at the age of 20. Her dad, Napoleon, was very leary of young men keeping company with his girls and some would say he was very heavy handed in his treatment towards his daughters, which led them to all run away from home and elope. Lela only had one child, her name was Irene.  Lela’s husband, Julius Houston, was a World War One vet who left the war with life long injuries which kept them from growing their family, but it did not keep them from being pioneers in Selma, Alabama.

Lela Houston had 3 grandsons, David, Eugene, and June LeSure, who in turn gave her many great grandchildren. Lela was a life-long member of Beach Island Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama, a place where I spent many a Sunday. Lela was very devout.  She provided me and my brother children bibles so we could learn how to read and understand God and Jesus. She would often talk about theology and the subject of baptism with us. Julius, her husband, was a sharp shooter.  A skill he used to hunt small game to sell in the fur market.  Lela, whom I think is one of the most extraordinary people I ever known, was a farmer, entrepreneur, and skilled fisherman not to mention a great nurse because if any of us got sick we would go to Lela’s house to get treated. Lela plowed and planted and harvested crop well into her eighties and when she wasn’t farming, she was selling goat cheese and other homemade products to the VA hospital in Montgomery, Alabama. Lela and her daughter, Irene, favorite past time was fishing and I can bear witness they were great anglers.  It would not be a stretch to say that they fished everybody of water in Dallas County.

Lela Houston, lived a hundred years on this earth and she had dealt with abject poverty, Jim Crow, two world wars, the great depression, and segregation along with the Civil rights movement. Lela was one of the first, if not the first, black woman to own and drive a car in Dallas County.  She drove well into her eighties, until she was forced to give up driving due to an auto accident, likely caused by her cataracts. She had these cataracts removed shortly after her accident but still not was not able to drive again. Lela’s husband, Julius, was a World War One veteran that was only able to consume eggs due to his injury during the war. These events such as the Great Depression sharpened Lela’s ability to be able to deal with the government and gave her and amazing work ethic that is still found in her lineage even till this day. It was impossible to be around Lela and you not be affected by her in some way, though she was by no means perfect she was somewhat of a leader within the family my dad spent many days with his aunts and uncles meeting at Lela’s home.

Lela lived across the street from the Torch Motel, which was the only black hotel in Selma during the Civil Rights Movement.  I could remember Aunt Julia working there and enjoying the swimming pool, needless to say the Torch Motel benefited greatly due to segregation but didn’t fare to well after desegregation.  It showed what our people were capable of doing if left to our own devices. Lela grew up when black people had to be industrious and entrepreneurial because there was no other option, we either make it our-selves or we don’t have it. Needless to say, they did it. Selma at its best was a beautiful place that showcased black excellence but that time begin to fade as rampant crime and job loss begin to upend all the progress that Lela and her generation had made prior to then.  What we have now is a city that is a shell of what it once was.

Torch Hotel   Selma's only Black hotel

God’s plan is not necessarily our plan as we don’t know the when and why but maybe we are the people we are told we are.  We’re the kings and queens of this earth, but our path to the throne is one of broken roads and roadblocks. Lela was our sanctuary because she had room for everyone and not only did she shelter my brother and I, she sheltered aunt Matt, and my granddad, and that’s all I know from my personal experience. Lela made sure all of her guests were well fed.  This is something I notice is rare today, but like her brother Thomas, family was very important to her.  She knew the value of family exceeded the value of money in the long run though again a principle that is not common today. Lela was a methodical thinker. A person whom understood how to build, even though you may have very little material to work with.  To begin with she taught that you start where you are, and continue to build on from there, and in time you will have that house or that farm and in my case that business.