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“Uhhh, Dad ... this might seem like an odd question, but where did Hannah and Palm go to the bathroom? I mean, did they go in the main house or did they have a special bathroom of their own?”

I know this was a really odd question to spring on my father, particularly out of the blue like this, but my wife and I had just seen the movie “The Help,” and it raised some questions from my childhood that had never occurred to me before.

If you haven’t seen it or read the book, “The Help” is about an aspiring journalist from a privileged white family who gets her eyes opened when she decides to chronicle the lives of the black domestic helpers in Jackson, Miss., during the early 1960s.

A key theme in the movie, and the reason for my oddball question to my father, is: Where does the black help go to the bathroom while working inside a white home?

For me, this movie hits close to home. Really close. You see, Foy and Big Boy, my father’s parents, had domestic help just like in the movie.

Hannah and Palm Brinsfield, a mother and son, lived on my grandparents’ estate in Burlington. Hannah moved in around 1943, Palm about 10 years later, and they were full-time residents until well into the 1980s.

I was a child when I knew Hannah and Palm, so I wasn’t certain exactly where they used the bathroom.

I also could never recall anyone ever showing Hannah and Palm anything but love and affection.

I also knew for certain that Hannah and Palm loved me and I loved them back.

As soon as I would arrive at the house to visit, Hannah would spread her arms wide, call me her Little Mister Sugar Pie Dumpling Doll and grab me up off the floor in a bear hug that smelled like flour, soap and the Tube Rose tobacco snuff she dipped.

My fondest memory of Palm is sitting with my butt perched on a wooden slat, gripping the worn hemp of the rope swing that hung from the giant oak tree in the side yard. Palm was actually about 6 feet 2 inches tall, which is big, but from my young vantage point he seemed positively colossal. I can clearly remember how his enormous hands grabbed me about the waist and lifted me into the air. With a lifetime spent mowing, raking and chopping wood, Palm’s arm’s were as hard as iron and were the strongest of anyone I’d ever seen.

My middle name is MacArthur, and I can recall how Palm pronounced, “Hole tight Mister Mac-ahh-thaaa,” as he lifted me higher, then still higher, before launching me skyward.

My father remembers it much the same way.

To this day, he credits Hannah, and not my grandmother, with raising him.

I credit Hannah as being the best cook who has ever lived on this planet. In my 44 years, I have never tasted a yeast roll, a biscuit or a piece of fried chicken that can top Hannah’s. Never.

“They had a private bathroom in the apartment above the garage,” my father said. He’s read the book already. “And there were never any restrictions. When they were in the house, they could use any bathroom they wanted to ... and they ate from the same plates and drank from the same glasses as everyone else did.”
I was relieved.

I was glad to learn they weren’t shamed for being black like in the movie. I never would have wanted that to happen to two people whom I loved as much as I loved Hannah and Palm.

Contact Mac Lane at maclane@northstate.net