Crafting Our Legacies with Passion and Pride

What if the simplest moments in our lives hold the key to true happiness? As I take you through a personal journey of discovering joy, you'll hear stories of my life, like the early days of mastering couponing to keep my family well-fed or the passion I have for unveiling the rich histories of families. Through these experiences, I invite you to explore how connections with loved ones and the pursuit of passions can illuminate our lives. From the enduring love story of my parents to my enthusiasm for pottery and travel, these tales remind us of the profound joy found in the everyday.

Join me, Carmen Cauthen, as we savor the nostalgia of family traditions with a slice of my Aunt Arnett's legendary German chocolate cake—so cherished that it would travel across states as a special gift. I will share my aspirations to help others document and share their family stories, ensuring these treasured legacies are celebrated and passed on. As we embrace the warmth of our past, we look forward to capturing and sharing these histories with pride, creating a vibrant connection between our ancestors and the future. Let's celebrate these shared stories and the joy they bring, ensuring they're never left quiet.

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Carmen Wimberley Cauthen is an author, speaker, and lover of history, Black history in particular. As a truth teller, she delights in finding the hidden truths about the lives of people who made a difference - whether they were unknown icons or regular everyday people.

To Learn more of Carmen:
www.carmencauthen.com
www.researchandresource.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
unseen, unheard.
We've lived like that far toolong.
I'm carmen coffin and this isquiet, no more.
What gives you life?
I mean, what makes you so happythat your face and yourself

(00:27):
just lights up.
It could be a people.
It could be a people.
Yeah right, it could be people.
It could be places, it could bethings, but what is it for you?
It's whatever I'm into,whatever my passion is at the
time.
There was a time when talking topeople about how to shop using

(00:51):
coupons and saving 50% of yourgrocery bill used to just make
me so excited, because I didn'tknow, I didn't grow up knowing I
could do that my mama mightclip a coupon here and there and
she'd either forget to take itwith her to the grocery store or
whatever.
But when I was struggling,while I was married, there would

(01:14):
just be times when money wastight.
But when money was good, ifsomebody needed some food other
than us, I was happy to just goto the store and buy them
groceries.
But when I came home, orshortly before I came home, I
realized I couldn't do thatanymore.
I just couldn't afford it.
And so there was a lady at ournewspaper who actually would

(01:42):
send out an email everyWednesday and it had all of the
grocery stores, what was on saleand what coupons were in the
newspaper that when you combinedwith what was on sale you could
get for really dirt cheap.
And I started following her andrealizing that I didn't have to

(02:04):
pay full price for groceries.
In fact I didn't have to payfull price for a lot of stuff.
And so during uncertain timeswith money at our house we
always had food.
We never went without food.
In fact I bought a huge freezerbecause I had, up to that point
, never really thought aboutbuying meat when it was being

(02:25):
marked down.
But what do I do with my meatanyway?
I take it and put it in thefreezer.
I don't go to the store everyday to buy whatever meat we're
going to have for dinner.
So I used to light up when Icould teach people about using
coupons and how to buy things onsale to make them cheaper

(02:47):
months and how to buy things onsale to make them cheaper,
because when you need to beeating things like vegetables
and fruits, those are seasonal.
Or you know, my mama used tobuy the frozen vegetables in the
little box and they wouldalways be boxes of frozen
vegetables in the freezer and Ididn't realize that those were
frozen without being processed.

(03:09):
So they're flash frozen, sothey're just like you get your
vegetables out of the farm, youget them at the farm and you go
home and you clean them and youfreeze them.
That's how they were frozen.
I didn't realize that she wasdoing that from a point of view
of making life easier forherself.

(03:30):
She was cooking the same kindof food that she would normally
cook, but because she worked allday, this would make it easier
for her.
So the first thing that used tolight me up was couponing.
So the first thing that used tolight me up was couponing,
talking to other people about it.
But do you know what lights meup today?
It's talking to people aboutthe history, the history and

(03:52):
legacy of their family, thehistory and the memories that
come along with making lifespecial for us.
And even when we've had hardtimes in life lots of them there
is still something special insomeone's memory bank.
It might have been somethingfor 20, 30 years ago, or it

(04:14):
might have been something fromyesterday, but I've realized
that I can attach so many of thethings that I do to things that
I grew up doing or learned howto do that were special, that
were attached to people, thatwere attached to folks that I
love in ways that I can honorthem.

(04:35):
So who are some of the peoplethat you can make you light up?
I know when I talk about mygirls, I light up.
When I talk about my grandkids,I light up.
When I talk about my mom and mydad, because you know I'm a
dad's girl, I light up.

(04:56):
I love my daddy and even thoughhe's been gone almost five
years, he was just special forme.
In fact, I'm recording thistoday, on November 29th, and on
November 28th was my parents'wedding anniversary.
They got married aroundThanksgiving and the 28th when

(05:19):
they got married was the Fridayafter Thanksgiving.
So they always celebrated onthe Friday after Thanksgiving,
not necessarily the 28th, but Iremember what the day was, so
thinking about them and the lovethat they had for each other,
even when they were old andfrustrated and and angry with

(05:53):
each other, when they werelovey-dovey and would hold hands
when they would talk aboutthings, when they would fuss
about things.
They are special and it makesme light up because I realized
how fortunate I was to have theparents that I had.
There were things that theymight not have done the way I
thought they should have donethem, but a lot of those things
were the way that they learnedand the things that frightened

(06:15):
them, that they didn't know thatthey could deal with.
Because, you know, a lot of usgo to therapy now we go to talk
therapy and we talk about thethings that upset us or that
have caused issues for us.
But that wasn't somethingpeople did in the 30s and the
40s and 50s so, and 60s and 70sactually.
So they just went with whatthey knew to do, and sometimes

(06:41):
we think that they didn't dotheir best, but sometimes I
think they did their best.
They did the best they knew howto do with what they knew to do
.
So those are things that lightme up.
Other things that light me upare pottery.
I love some pottery.
I love to travel.
I love to go to new places andexplore and see what's out there

(07:06):
that I haven't alreadywitnessed.
And I love, when I think abouttraveling, to think about the
rich life that I grew up with,because we traveled a lot.
My mom made sure that we wentsomewhere on vacation every year
and my dad would close thedrugstore for a year Now, mind

(07:27):
you, when I consider what he didhad to do to close the store
for a week to choose the rightweek to do it.
His drugstore was a block awayfrom a college, from Shaw
University, and he was one ofthe few black pharmacists in

(07:48):
town and he was an independent,so he had to choose carefully a
time to close for a week.
It had to be while the studentswere not in session and it
needed to be when mama was notteaching.
So that made it be the summerand generally it was the last
week of July.

(08:08):
Sometimes it was the first weekof August and my birthday is
that week.
So sometimes it was a specialbirthday vacation for us.
But we would go and we would dofun things.
But we also learned things andwe also went shopping when we
went.
So those were big parts of mylife that still make me light up

(08:34):
today.
And the other things that makeme light up are I like a good
cookie, a good German chocolatecake, and most people cannot
make one.
That makes me happy.

(08:55):
I do have my aunt's recipe andthe secret that she put in it,
so eating that makes me happy.
It takes me back to collegeactually because she would make
these German chocolate cakes andwe would fight over them.
So for her son and her niecesand nephews here in the area, we

(09:18):
loved it and she would make ifyou wanted that for your
birthday present, she would makeit birthday present.
She would make it, and Iremember her making one here in
North Carolina and boxing it upand shipping it to her son who
was in school at MorehouseCollege, and I always wondered
you put it on a bus and youexpect it to get there safely.

(09:39):
But she did, and we wouldliterally fight at family
reunions or at family eventsover making sure we got a piece
of Aunt Arnett's Germanchocolate cake.
And so that's something thatmakes me light up.
Learning and history make melight up.
Learning the value of what mypeople did in America makes me

(10:06):
light up and it makes me want toshare it with everybody.
And so the other piece of thatis teaching other people how to
write down what their familiesdid, the important things that
their families contributed toour society, and so I'll be
talking more about that andsharing that in the new year,

(10:27):
because I'll be teaching thoselessons and I'm going to help
you to not be quiet about thethings that help you light up.
Anymore.
You've been listening to Quietno More where I share my journey
.
So you can be quiet, let'sconnect at wwwcarmencawthoncom.