Helen Caldwell Day Riley | |
---|---|
Born | December 3, 1926 |
Died | December 15, 2013 |
Occupation | Nurse, author, hospitality house founder |
Period | 1951-1956 |
Subject | Black Catholic autobiography |
Notable works | Books: Color Ebony (1951); Not Without Tears (1954); All the Way to Heaven (1956), all from Sheed & Ward |
Helen Caldwell Day Riley (1926-2013) was a nurse, author, and hospitality house founder in the United States. Her two autobiographies and one book about the Catholic Union of the Sick, were all published between 1951 and 1956. She was African American.
Birth and education
Born Helen Emmilyne Caldwell in Marshall, Texas, to Velma and George (G. O.) Caldwell.[1] At the time of her birth her mother was a kindergarten teacher, and her father was a professor of music at Bishop College. The family moved around to his various positions at HBCUs until he settled at Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi.[2][1] The family included her aunt of the same name, "Big Helen," an older half-sister, Clara, from her father's previous marriage, an older brother, George Jr., and a younger brother, William. Her father also trained as a pharmacist, so while the family was of modest income it was never destitute.[1] Of the money situation, Catholic Worker Amanda Daloisio wrote, "He believed that his gifts and talents as a musician and as a professor should be of service to the southern Black community, despite never being paid much more than a laborer’s salary."[3] Her parents divorced and remarried other people.
A Memphis paper claimed she was from Memphis, but the city only had a partial claim on her given how much the family moved around.[4] She said they lived in Missouri, Iowa, Mississippi, and Tennesee.[5] She began grade school in Iowa City, Iowa and recalled that she did not experience racial discrimination there.[1] She loved the public library and began to use it and check out books when she was six.[5] It was a traumatic shock when the family moved to Mississippi and she encountered more racially charged schools in the heavily segregated deep south. She started college early, at age 16, attending Rust College, the HBCU where her father taught music. In 1944 she enrolled in its military cadet nurse corps program that was still operating toward the end of WWII.[6] In February of 1945 she entered the nursing training program at Harlem Hospital in New York.[4]
Tuberculosis interrupted her studies during her senior year at the former Cumberland Hospital, around the same time her son Butch was diagnosed with polio. She wrote her first autobiography during 19 months in a tuberculosis sanatorium first in Memphis and then at Stony Wold, New York.[7] She was able to work as a nurse after her recovery, but only as a practical nurse (RPN), since illness had interrupted her RN training.
Conversion to Catholicism
When she was a student nurse, she encountered the Catholic faith when trained to baptize dead and dying babies born to Catholic parents.[6] When she was briefly hospitalized with appendicitis, a hospital chaplain, Fr. Francis Meenan, asked if she wanted to become Catholic, and she said yes.[5][3] After the birth of her son, whom she left with her mother while she finished school, she moved back to New York and volunteered at the Mott Street house of hospitality, sponsored by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin via the Catholic Worker.[4][6]
Hospitality house founder
She established Blessed Martin de Porres House on January 6, 1952 (the feast of the Epiphany) in Memphis, Tennessee, in the tradition of Catholic Worker houses.[1] Dorothy Day attended the opening, breaking segregation laws by staying at the house itself.[3] It was intended to provide shelter for the poor, particularly women and their children. She received anonymous letters challenging her authority, but Father Coyne of the Josephites, a congregation organized specifically to work among African-Americans, supported her and rallied the group around her.[1] In 1950 they got approval for the house from Bishop William Adrian, and the house opened on January 6, 1952, in a run-down store property near Beale Street.[1] They soon had 15-16 children whom they cared for while their mothers worked. Dorothy Day helped them purchase a house in 1954, and Day printed a fundraising appeal in The Catholic Worker. Although Bishop Adrian initially did approve the house, he also became one of many white voices asking her to be less political and not try to go so quickly or be so outspoken.[3]
Author
While recuperating in Memphis, she contributed an occasional column called "Looking Things Over" to the Memphis World, an African-American newspaper.[4] A letter she wrote to friends about being turned away from the segregated Holly Springs church where she used to worship was published in The Catholic Worker, bringing her to the attention of Catholics who began an interracial study group with her in Memphis.[7][8] The reception of the first book seemed cautious, and few Catholic periodicals reviewed it, but the second and third gradually drew more acclaim.[4] The New York Times noted Color, Ebony, but said little other than it had appeared.[9] The Durham Herald-Sun (North Carolina) said Color, Ebony is "not intended to inflame, but to light a darkened pathway."[10] Day Riley also went on speaking engagements as she was able, throughout the south. Publisher Maisie Ward wrote about Day Riley in her autobiography Unfinished Business.[11] "How profound is Helen Day’s prayer about the problems of being a negro in the deep South. 'Not just a plain old wooden cross,' she prays — Yes, she will carry a cross, but it must be more clearly a cross, heavier perhaps, certainly of her own choosing. 'I’ll send you a specification' she hears herself saying to God." From 1963 to 1970 she was listed on the masthead of The Catholic Worker as one of its editors.[3]
Books as Helen Caldwell Day
Color, Ebony (Sheed & Ward, 1951)
Not Without Tears (Sheed & Ward, 1954)
All the Way to Heaven (Sheed & Ward, 1956)
Personal life
Circa 1946 she met a Navy sailor named George Day, with whom she shared what she called "a grand passion," and they were secretly married and she became pregnant.[2] Her husband was arrested by the Navy for desertion, and she obtained a quick divorce before their son, MacDonald Francis Day (known as Butch), was born.[6] The Associated Negro Press included a photo of her and Butch in some newspapers.[12] Butch had polio while she was recovering from tuberculosis.[1] While in the hospital she encountered Catholic nurses and a priest, and decided to enter the Catholic church.[1] Her mother raised her son while she finished nursing school. In 1955 she married a man from the hospitality house community Jesse Riley, whom she said was a fervent Catholic, and she took his surname.[5] The couple tried to keep the Blessed Martin House open, but they were forced to close it in 1956, and they moved to California in 1957. In addition to Butch from her previous relationship, they had four children together.
She died December 15, 2013 in Barstow, California.[3]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Johns, Robert L. "Helen Caldwell Day Riley," in Contemporary Black Biography. Volume 13: Profiles from the International Black Community (Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1997), 158-162.
- ^ a b Boyd, Henry S. (10 May 1947). "Holly Springs". New Pittsburgh Courier (African-American newspaper). p. 10.
Mrs. Helen Caldwell Day and son of New York were guests of Mrs. Day's father, prof. G. O. Caldwell, recently...
- ^ a b c d e f Daloisio, Amanda W. (29 November 2020). "Remembering Helen Caldwell Day Riley". Black Catholic Messenger. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
- ^ a b c d e "Book of Memphian on Sale Tomorrow". The Memphis Press-Scimitar. 11 September 1951. p. 9.
- ^ a b c d Day Riley, Helen Caldwell. "Helen Caldwell Day (Mrs. Jesse Riley)". www.catholicauthors.com. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
- ^ a b c d Mulhearn, Ann Youngblood; Freeman, Sarah Wilkerson (2015). "'Southern Graces': Catholic Women, Faith, and Social Justice in Memphis,1950-1968". In Bond, Beverly Greene; Freeman, Sarah Wilkerson (eds.). Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times. University of Georgia Press. pp. 360–387. ISBN 978-0-8203-3743-2.
- ^ a b "Negro Convert, 23, Writes Life Story". The Tablet. 1 September 1951. p. 4.
- ^ Caldwell, Helen (1 July 1950). "From the Mail Bag, Down South". The Catholic Worker. Vol. XVII, no. 2. p. 7. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
- ^ Murphy, Beatrice M. (13 January 1952). "A Road To Hope; COLOR, EBONY. By Helen Caldwell Day. 182 pp. New York: Sheed & Ward. $2.25". The New York Times. pp. B22. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
- ^ H., F. (16 September 1951). "Light to Path". The Durham Herald-Sun (North Carolina). p. 41.
- ^ Ward, Maisie (1964). Unfinished Business. New York: Sheed & Ward. p. 345. ISBN 978-0-7220-0231-5.
- ^ See, for example, The Call (African-American newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri), Friday, September 21, 1951, page 2.