A New Beginning: My Journey with Addy
Philadelphia, PA – 1864When Addy’s letter is finished, she reads it back to me so we can check every word.
Dear Friends,
Please help me find my beloved family. I am looking for my father, Ben Walker, and my brother, Sam. Sam is around seventeen years old. Both of them were sold from the Stevens Plantation, some twenty miles north of Raleigh, North Carolina. I would much appreciate any word on the two of them. I miss them very, very much.
Yours truly, Addy Walker
Hearing it out loud gives me chills, even though I helped write the words myself.
Addy blows across the page until the ink dries, then we wash our hands at the washstand. As we wash, I tell Addy that the words are all hers. Next time, she’ll be the one writing them.
Once our hands are dry, we carry the letter back to the dress shop to return Mrs. Ford’s pen and ink. Addy reads it aloud again, and I catch tears in Mrs. Walker’s eyes as she tells Addy how proud she is. Mrs. Ford agrees the letter is fine work.
We ask if we can take it straight to the Quaker Aid Society right now, but Mrs. Walker hesitates, still rattled by the slave catcher who chased Addy and me through the alleys yesterday.
Mrs. Ford’s face goes red when we tell her what happened, her scissors trembling in her hand as she declares that slavery should be illegal everywhere, not just in Pennsylvania, and that Addy deserves to walk any street in the country without fear.
Out on the sidewalk, I can’t stop thinking about Mrs. Ford’s words, so I ask Addy if freedom turned out to be what she imagined. She admits she once pictured it as something close to magic, with her whole family together in their own house, coming and going as they please, and making tons of money. They’d have everything they ever wanted. Addy explains that real freedom isn’t like that at all. It’s a lot of work.
I think of Grandpa telling me I have to work hard to earn my own freedom, and for the first time I realize how much of mine I already have compared with Addy.