What we know
1864 - 1930
Charity's parents were freed after the Civil War and moved to Kansas to start a homestead. She married Kevin Paine in 1881, and they went West to follow the silver. Kevin found work in the town's lumber yard, and later bought the yard. In 1908, the yard went bankrupt. Penniless, they went to live in on the Western slope in Grand Junction, Colorado and work for their son, Jonah's lumber yard. Three children, Jonah, Micah, and Ezekial.
His Hands
His hands lingered on afterwards,
a translucent counterpoint
over her work-blue veins.
They intertwined themselves
into her memory
while she churned
butter for hours,
kneaded1
and rekneaded
the bread and wove and spun
until in darkness
in sleep
their hands became
the same.
Connections

Portal
Sources
We are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. Edited by Dorothy Sterling. New York: W.W. Norton, 1984.
Portal caption and links
Drawing of a woman working an old butter churn or similar shaped appliance.
Missy Vernon
Ingrid Jenson
Billie Rose Cattering