Thirteen kids. One table. Hardly anything to go around. And according to Uncle Herb, it was wonderful.
How well do you know Uncle Herb?
Five questions. Everything you need is in the clip.
1 of 5
Where does Uncle Herb come in Isaac and Annie's 13 children?
Third. Auntie Barb is number one; Herb came two after her.
2 of 5
Who was he named after?
Herbert, his father's best friend. They played football together, and Herbert had no children of his own.
3 of 5
What was he the first of the 13 to do?
Graduate from high school. He was also the first to be drafted into the military.
4 of 5
When he came home from the military, what had changed most?
"Most of them had become young adults."
5 of 5
What rule did Isaac and Annie raise them on?
"And I guess that's why we're here today, carrying on that tradition."
The story behind the answers
We didn't have a lot of things. We had to share a lot.
Hand-me-downs. Shared beds. Some nights, very little to eat, "but we made it through with the grace of God." What a big family figures out at the table, most people only learn later: one small share is not much, but small shares together carry everyone.
Who came up with that idea?Tap to find out
Black families, long before banks would help them. In 1787 Richard Allen and Absalom Jones started the Free African Society in Philadelphia: members paid in so the sick, the widowed and the orphaned were cared for. Then came burial societies, church collections, and the savings circle many families still call a susu.
Swipe through how Uncle Herb went first.
The third of Isaac and Annie's 13 children
Named for his father's best friend
The first of the 13 to graduate from high school
The first to be drafted into the military
Home again, to brothers and sisters who had grown up
At 76, telling his story so the family keeps it
What do sociologists call a friend who becomes family, like the Herbert he was named for?Tap to find out
Fictive kin. Most families just call them family.
Your turn: set the table
Thirteen kids made one table work with almost nothing. Let's set one for all of us.
Say a family reunion weekend, food, a hall and a few rooms, runs $3,000. At $15 a month each, how many of us cover it in a year?
The goal: the reunion, $3,000
5 of us at $15 a month: $900 in 12 months.
$2,100 to go.
Now the real one. If 15 of us give $25 a month, how many months until the fund's floor is rebuilt?
The goal: the fund's floor, $5,000
15 of us at $25 a month, for 3 months: $1,125.
$3,875 to go.
Pass it on
This week, ask an elder one thing about the house they grew up in. Then tell the fund managers what they said. It might be the next one here.
