Karen Harmon: Pianist, scientific editor. Proud to descend from bold women.

Karen talks about great aunt Bernice Gaines Hughes, the first black female Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Armed Forces, serving in the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in England and France WWII, aviation cadet; maternal 2nd great grandmother arriving in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1862 as a fugitive slave, a nurse in the Battle of Glorieta Pass, casting her first vote in 1929, fluent in Spanish and honored on a plaque; visiting relatives passing for white in Oakley, Kansas with her maternal great grandmother Allena Barker Cary who stressed  "the children may not know and it is not your place for you to say anything", being introduced as her friend and having to be quiet to not destroy the life of a young man living there while studying his features, wanting to say “I am your cousin!”; Allena writing down family oral histories, being interviewed by the Amistad Research Center and newspapers in Topeka, Kansas and Canada; her 5th great grandmother Lamoneha, lured upon a ship in Africa then enslaved in Kentucky and daughter Almeda and granddaughter Linny going to Canada on the Underground Railroad; Linny marrying John Langston Buckner, the great grandson of  European descent Revolutionary War patriot William Buckner; William's son, John having two sons with enslaved Mary "Polly"; John freeing their two sons in his will and wanting them to be educated to become farmers and cordwainers; sons moving to Malden, Amherstburg Canada, holding land; their son Thomas, fighting in the Rebellion Patriot’s War on the Canadian border from 1837-1839 and being a spokesperson for free people of color, starting schools, settling in Kansas; William’s civil service as a magistrate in Caroline County VA, the first county to cut ties with the Royal Government, calling court together with fellow patriot Edmund Pendleton after a messenger on horseback carried the news from Philadelphia; William being married to a relative of President James Madison but her application to James Madison society denied because John was not married to "Poly"; Almeda interviewed at 106 as oldest person in Topeka; ancestors listed as white on marriage records but black in later census in Colorado where small population of blacks weren't perceived as an economic threat, Ku Klux Klan instead against Asians in laundry industry; adjusting to Washington D.C., in stark contrast to the haven of Wiesbaden, Germany where she attended high school, to attend Howard University, having never seen the campus, and matriculate at her parents’ beloved alma mater, driven by their fervent and spectacular memories; being a passionate pianist, but her father, retired Air Force Colonel and pathologist, insisting she pursue a more practical career; studying nursing for a year then switching to Broadcast Journalism; losing her eight year old daughter Lauren in a tragic car accident, separated from her husband at the time; organizing a family band each Christmas with others playing flute, violin, clarinet, drums; working as managing editor for journal Investigative Radiology, for over twenty years and on Smithsonian’s early phase of the National Museum of African American History and Culture; being uncomfortable when a white DAR member talked about being in Confederacy lineage society and how Union soldiers destroyed their family's records and plantations; serving on chapter lineage committee; surprised at a DAR meeting when great aunt Bernice appeared in chapter's program; about Marian Anderson, "almost all organizations and institutions have this history ", her mother feeling more positive after seeing other women of color in DAR, "sometimes people get stuck on one incident although the person it directly affected did move forward".

 Read Karen's biography at www.daughterdialogues.com/daughters

Subscribe to the newsletter at www.daughterdialogues.com