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Showing posts from December, 2016

Everything and Nothing: The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy (Part 3) A Wondering Kid

'You ain't going to work in Mister Charley's kitchen like me. I don't want you to go into service. You are not going to be a scullery maid. We're going to fix it so you be something else than that.' - Ruby to Dorothy Ruby had three brothers.  Her father was a musical and religious West Indian known as George Frank or George Butler.  George was born in Jamaica and he married a Mexican girl (which means Maternal Grandmother 1/2 Spanish and 1/2 West Indian).  Ruby's dad George had a winning West Indian accent.  Dorothy never met him or her uncles.  He ran a local grocery store and later a local Negro school in Kansas, as a principal. I had been raised with no man around the house; I had never seen a man shaving; I had never seen a man in his shorts. ~ Dorothy The marriage to Harold almost did not happen.  Dorothy had an interim small romance with a saxophone player named Joe.  Dorothy was at one point hesitant about Harold,  Joe gave Dor