Hasha Boosha, Nana!

June 4, 1985 – (Left to Right ) Alice Smith, Mary Wright and Minnie Johnston

On June 4, 1985, we celebrated Nana’s 93rd boosha. Auntie Al was 66, and Mommy was 62. (I cropped my uncles Willie, Henry, John and Frank out because men do not matter.)

Nana, at 93, was in excellent health. She bragged, “I am a Viking!” She attributed her excellent health and youthful looks to her Viking heritage.

Nana was independent and healthy right up until her 96th year when she fell and broke her hip. She never recovered. Not even her Viking heritage could save her. She went from flesh to spirit on November 15, 1991. She was 99.

Nana was born Mary Henriksen in Oslo, Norway, on June 4, 1892. She came to Canada in 1912 and married William Henry Wright, who was from Wilmington, North Carolina.

My father’s mother was black, so I had a black nana and a white nana. But I never realized that their skin colour was different until I was older and people asked, “Didn’t you find it confusing having a white grandmother?” Of course, I did not find it confusing. She was “Nana,” and skin colour was not an issue.

I have heard people say, “The races should not mix because the children will not know what they are.”

Being the children of a black father and a white mother, I never heard my mother, aunt, and uncles express confusion about what race they were. I heard them talk about the racism they experienced, but never confusion over their identity as human beings.

Nana told me that there were lots of mixed marriages in Oslo when she was growing up in the 1890s. She said she had a black school teacher from a mixed marriage. He was dark skinned with one brown eye and one blue eye. She said no one made a big deal over a mixed marriage. That is why she was confused over the big deal people made in Toronto when she married my grandfather on September 20, 1914.

Today, Nana is celebrating her 133rd boosha somewhere where skin colour is not an issue.

Hasha Boosha, Nana!

I was not sure what to buy you, so I got you the same thing I bought you last year, only bigger.

Love,
Your favourite grandson named Gary.

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