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My paternal grandparents are from Oakland. Both still alive, my paternal grandmother has been in Sacramento since the late 70s but she was born in Oakland in '53 to a white mother (who was ironically from Sacramento) and a black father who grew up in both the Alabama and Tennessee boonies. Both her parents been dead since the 80s...
My paternal grandfather was born in Oakland in '52, is in an old folks home now in Sac, and spent most of his life on hard drugs and burnt out. But apparently his family is old black money in Oakland, both his parents were from Oakland and his roots trace back to the 1920s and some if the first black families in Oakland period, and first families with money (his family I guess initially made they money illegally running liquor and weed houses, then flipped into legitimate businesses)...
Both his parents been dead forever...and my grandparents were only 17 and 16 when they had my biological father in Oakland in '69...
Never met either of my biological grandfather's, and both are still alive. My maternal grandfather allegedly is in Lansing, Michigan, my mom swears he still alive, and he been there since at least the late 80s. But I guess he originally grew up between Houston and Little Rock, don't know anything else about him...
My maternal grandma been in Sac since '72, she was born ('49) and raised in Little Rock til she was 22, then followed her sisters to Sacramento and never left. She's Creole of color, she from Arkansas but her dad was from somewhere near Baton Rouge, she can't remember the name of the town or Parish but said as a kid they'd go see his siblings who were scattered around Louisiana...
Her mom was from Arkansas; both her parents been dead forever...
.............
My non-biological family, obviously these aren't genetic or blood roots, but I got to know parts of this family at different parts of my life and consider them part of my larger family...
My paternal grandfather was from Chicago (born in 1928 or '29), died in Little Rock in '01, and I guess loved most of his adult years in Little Rock because his parents, were from Arkansas and were Chicago transplants, so he kinda returned south to his roots...
My paternal grandma still alive in a old folks home in Little Rock, born in 1937. She's from a small town called Cotton Plant, Arkansas, and moved to Little Rock when she was 16. Grew up working cotton fields and her parents were both allegedly children of emancipated slaves, so she only two generations removed from slavery and it's crazy to think how close we are to that time...
My maternal grandfather died back in February in Elmira NY, where he'd been since late '68. He was born in Walls, Mississippi in '47, never knew who his father was and that family suspects his oldest brother, who was 20 years older than him, coulda been his dad (his mom was 35+ years older than him, died in 2010, and she was also from the Mississippi Delta)...
He lived in Memphis as a young adult but told me they left Memphis a few months after Dr King's assaination, following some of his brother's who were already in Western NY...
My maternal grandmother died in Memphis in 2017, she was born in Walls in '48 and kinda like my paternal biological grandparents in Oakland, my maternal stepgrandparents were high school sweethearts, only 19 and 20 when my stepmother was born. Born and raised in Walls, knew my grandfather's whole family, but her parents were from Illnois and Missouri, and her mom was from some Native tribe in Missouri; her mom was Native on both sides...
My grandma left my grandfather in '81, after living in Elmira since '68, and being with him since high school and knowing him his whole life, and moved to Memphis with her kids where her siblings had migrated from The Delta. My granny never left Memphis after going back in '81, until the day she died in '17...
not giving you my security question answers
