By Johnna Pinholster
VALDOSTA — An elegant afternoon interspersed with fits of laughter and reflection filled the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts Saturday.
Reflections on the Generations: A Ladies’ Afternoon Tea is just one of many events planned this year in honor of Valdosta’s sesquicentennial celebration.
The women who have shaped Valdosta’s past and are molding Valdosta’s future were honored at the event.
Robin Fretti, first lady of Valdosta, opened the ceremony. She was joined by her two daughters as a representation of the future of the community.
“We are here to celebrate the many contributions women have made in building our community,” Fretti said. “Women in our city lead with passion.”
The women in the community are doctors, lawyers, nurses, judges, educators, councilwomen and commissioners, she said.
They also play the role of mothers, sisters, daughters, granddaughters and wives, Fretti said.
Dr. Shirley Hardin, Valdosta State University’s academic director of African-American studies and a professor of English, then shared inspiring poems representing the different generations of women in the Valdosta community.
Hardin, brought a portrait of her grandmother “Little Mama,” a woman who lived to be 102 and was always willing to share wisdom with her grandchildren, she said.
“Us black women something special,’ she would say,” Hardin said. “Us something special.”
Hardin shared “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes and “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou.
Her mother, Hardin said, always refers to herself as a “nice girl.”
“I was a nice girl, Shirley, when your daddy and I got married he didn’t know if he was getting a man or woman, I was a nice girl,” Hardin recounted.
The women who came before pushed hard for the rights and freedoms that women now enjoy, Hardin said.
They pushed for opportunities they never dreamed could be possible, she said.
They battered down doors and iron-starched white shirts, Hardin said.
Roberta George then shared a poem she had specially written for the gathering.
“It’s difficult to write a poem on demand,” George said.
Women do a lot of work in the shadows, she said, taking care of sick children, picking up after everyone and like her grandmother, harvesting crops to ensure her children could eat in the winter months.
“There is a huge number of women that preceded us that lived here that we will never now,” George said. “This poem is dedicated to all the women we will never know.”
The poem is called “Shadows” and reflects on the women that walk before, the women here now and the women of the future that will look back and wonder about those that came before.
“Look around you ladies, we are old now as they were once old,” George read. “The few we know and the lonely neighbor down the street go before us, we take their places ladies.”
She went on to say, “Think of their children of which you are one.”
Lucy Greene, Dale Crane and Emily Anderson then shared with the audience the variety of women who have helped shape Valdosta.
Greene said while doing research on the women of Valdosta they found certain characteristics that seem to permeate all of the women. They were creativity, courage, vision, devotion, compassion and dedication.
Nikki Forman, closed out the afternoon with a song from Roger and Hammerstein’s musical “Flower Drum Song” entitled “I Enjoy Being a Girl.”
