Obituary of Lucy M. Roberson Turk

Lucy Mae Roberson was born October 20, 1920, the second child and first daughter of 11 children born to Dennie Roberson and Flora Melvin Roberson in Pitt, GA. When the family grew to include her younger siblings, Willie Frank, and Florence, they moved to Eastman, Ga where brother and sister Ernest and Thelma were born. With the family now numbering 6 they moved briefly to Fairview, GA living with her grandparents Will and Mary Eliza Roberson, and then to Fitzgerald where Evelyn, Lola, Alice Beatrice and twins Dennie and Glennie were born. Lucy recalled the time living with her grandparents with great fondness and often told stories about helping her grandmother, a midwife, pack her midwife bag with tea cakes and a change of clothes when she was off to assist in a delivery. She grew up surrounded by a large extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins that were more like siblings than cousins in Fitzgerald’s tightly knit Black community during a period of complete racial segregation of the Deep South. She was part of a community of friends that would endure throughout her lifetime. Lucy attended public school and graduated from Fitzgerald Monitor Colored High School. Her father, a veteran of World War 1 died in 1939 after prolonged illness when he was just 47 years old leaving her mother to raise her and her siblings alone. With her father gone and her mother in need of help both she and her older brother Emmet worked daily to earn money to help her mother support her large family throughout her high school years. She was always a highly skilled seamstress, like her mother and maternal grandmother and namesake Lucy. She observed that on graduating high school she had the opportunity to further her education and get a teaching certificate that would have permitted her to teach in rural schools. She said that she rejected that option as it would have required her to leave home and earn less than what she felt she was earning as a seamstress. Lucy was resolute in her feeling that it was important for her to be at home to help her mother with the raising of her younger siblings. Despite having to delay going to school daily until noon recess when she was in high school, missing the mornings classes, she never missed a term on the honor roll. Graduating from high school in 1939, with honors, she spent the next two years working as a seamstress at home to continue helping her mother raise her younger brothers and sisters. In a theme that would follow her throughout her life, she was always there to help her siblings, their children and other family members through whatever they struggled with. During this time period millions of African Americans moved out of the deep South and into Northern cities to escape southern Jim Crow racism in what is known as the Great Northern Migration. She was a part of that migration. Many of her childhood chums and friends urged her to come and join them in Newark NJ, which she did in July of 1941. She quickly found employment with the Margon Corporation in Bayonne NJ making dolls eyes for .37 an hour. There she met Odessa Greene Wells and their families became friends regularly socializing together. In 1947 when her younger sister Thelma graduated from high school and came to join Lucy in Newark, originally to work at Margon for just the summer, she introduced her to Odessias younger brother Sam. Sam and Thelma, Lucy and her future husband Otis Turk would eventually marry within days of each other. Lucy worked at Margon for the next 33 years, leaving in 1974 to find employment at Bell Laboratories until her retirement in 1985. Wherever she went she made many friends. In 1946 she met Otis Turk and after what in those days was a lengthy courtship, they married in June of 1949. They were happily married until his passing in 1999, a month shy of 50 years. Always a devoted wife, Lucy was a tireless caretaker for her husband in the last 5 years of his life in his battle with Alzheimer’s disease even after his care required his move to a nursing home. She was unfailing in her visits to him and in making arrangements to have him home for visits whenever possible. During their marriage they lived for the most part in Newark, NJ first on Johnson, then on Lehigh Ave. relocating to Bainbridge, GA in 1985 where she became part of a thriving community there. After her husbands death she returned to New Jersey in 2001 where she connected with the senior citizens community of East Orange and has lived at the Pavillion on Prospect Street ever since. Her younger sister Florence now 96 would join her some years later residing on the same floor where they were known to look after one another. Lucy was a friendly person who loved socializing and was well liked and well known to people around her. Always generous she was eager to feed anyone and was known for baking, for her cakes, pies and other culinary delights. Her coconut sweet potato pies were a special treat! In turn she was known for her sweet tooth, with Snickers bars being her particular guilty pleasure. But her passion was shopping. She loved bargain hunting, the supermarket, dollar stores, little shops, nothing could please her more, except time with her family. She would spend many happy hours looking for bargains with her late sister Thelma. Despite having no children of her own she was our family’s matriarch presiding over four generations. She was always helping to raise and support her nieces and nephews and recently welcomed another great grand niece into her fold. Many nieces and nephews benefitted from her generosity with money for tuition, books, linens, housewares and other staples during college or times when funds ran low and often ran out. Unconcerned about being repaid she would often say, ‘just do well! That’s all the payback I need”. Her life paralleled the history of our country. Lucy was born the year women got the right to vote, albeit not Black women. She grew up in the midst of horrible poverty of the Great Depression, racism and discrimination and was treated in ways that could well have left her bitter, resentful and selfish. Despite that hardship she lived a full and rich life that was marked by her love of life, her openness and generosity to others. She remarked prior to the 2016 presidential election that she was so excited about being able to vote for someone who might be the first woman president. In the elections aftermath she emphatically declared that while it did not happen this time, that a woman was going to be elected eventually because you can’t hold back progress forever. She wistfully observed that she never thought she would live to vote for a Black president and recalled being taken by her father to the train depot in Georgia to hear Franklin Roosevelt during his campaign for the presidency. She expressed sheer delight that she not only voted for but lived through the administration of the nations first black leader. There will always be progress, she would say, they will try but they can’t stop it! She could not have been more excited and also expressed delight and exuberance that she lived to see her grand niece Gabrielle perform in a major Broadway production and that it was the first time in her life she had seen a Broadway show. She carried videos of Gabby’s performances around with her on her grandpad and would show them to whoever she corralled. Look, she would say with excitement, listen to my niece sing, you have to see this, you have to hear this child! She often said, “Look how far our family has come, our people have come! And I lived to see it!” While she was given 99 years we of course wish there would be more. After nearly 100 years of life she suffered a stroke on March 19, the effects of which she could not overcome and departed this life April 2, 2020 at the Winchester Rehabilitation Center, in South Orange, NJ. Lucy was a woman of great gifts and intelligence and despite her advanced age, an incredible memory. Who knows what she might have achieved if the world had been different. Those of us who she leaves behind were blessed that she was a part of the village that raised us and that we benefitted from her incredible gifts. Our lives are all the better because she was a part of that village that shaped, nurtured and supported us, and whose backs were our bridges. It is with great sadness that we lay her to rest and say a final goodbye. We thank God for the gift that her life was to us and hope that her memory may be for a blessing. She leaves to mourn her passing, her beloved sister Florence “Liz” Brown, her nephews James and Jerome Cook, Samuel(Carla) and Lawrence Greene, Ira (Deborah) Roberson, Jonathan Abel, Arthur Roberson, Oliver Winkfield; her nieces, Sandra Greene Pasley, Dr Beverly Greene(Dr Margaret Charmoli), Flora Roberson Collins, Goldie Roberson Davis, Emily Jayne Roberson, cousin Carolyn (James) Pressley and legions of grand and great grand nieces, nephews, cousins and a host of neighbors and friends.