Category Archives: Women

My Leadership Shero

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My Aunt Alfredine

It was the summer of 1984, a sunny day filled with hope for what the fall would bring as a ninth grader at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School. Excited to be joining my sister, Sharon, and cousin Lillian, I still had some angst about being a “Freshie.” “Be careful of upperclassmen trying to sell you elevator passes; hide your Men and Nations book; and don’t look scared or lost,” they warned. Though I knew I wouldn’t be a sucker and buy a pass and was confident that I could keep my freshmen government book in my bag, I wasn’t so sure about not looking lost in this school of a few thousand. So on this sunny day, Cass’ guidance department head at the time, Mrs. Wiley as she was known to most—but my Aunt Alfredine because she was my mom’s best friend from college—invited me and another nervous would-be freshman to tour the halls of the eight-floor magnet school for the academically gifted. Because each floor’s design was basically the same, I was able to make mental notes of paths to the easy to find rooms and those in the dark, dreaded back hallways. I don’t remember having any anxiety the first day of school and I wasn’t targeted as a Freshie. My freshman experience was pleasant, and this was due in large part to the opportunity Auntie gave me that summer day in 1984. My continued confidence in life, especially in the area of leadership, comes from several opportunities from my awesome auntie, Alfredine Jordan Wiley.

Those who know Aunt Alfredine know that you truly believe you can fly when she talks to you. Always speaking in terms of “we,” you know she will have your back in whatever joint endeavor. But the event doesn’t have to be joint; if she knows she can help you and is available, she’s there, with a word, an action or a referral. In high school, she gave me my leadership start by allowing me to be an office aide and encouraging me to run for senior class secretary and president of AKA Teens (which I won), but she also encouraged me to try out for cheerleading and to run for Pep Club president (which I didn’t make). Whether good or bad she’s always made me feel I could achieve. As she moved her pointer finger slow like a gavel and her head shaking the same way with one eye closed and telling you her truth through pursed lips, she would always say something like, “You can’t win them all, but you know you’re good, Rhonda. You know you’re good.” And because she believed I was a good leader, as president of our sorority’s chapter she appointed me as co-chair and then chair of our founders’ day celebration, encouraged me twice to run for our chapter’s executive and foundation boards (which I won) and had me serve on a bunch of other committees. Often we were roommates (sometimes without my mother) at sorority conferences. We talked, shopped and dined together during these times and outside of them because our love for one another extended beyond leadership. She just knows how to make people feel special, and this she has done for me.

I thank her for teaching me how to mobilize and motivate people and love them unconditionally. And she taught her daughters to love that way, too. Never once did Lillian or Jennifer, my cousins and my sisterfriends, make me feel that I didn’t belong to their mother. They always called me the third daughter. I love Lillian and Jennifer because of our own bond but I appreciate them for sharing their mother with me and always knowing she had enough love for us all. Their capacity to love and share comes from a mother who has always wanted the best for all, even if that meant her going without. This educator, friend and leader is my Aunt Alfredine and I am proud to call her my shero.

Copyright by Rhonda J. Smith

Your Sweetness

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Granny hosting a birthday party for a relative

For Brunice Lewis, Granny, on her 78th birthday
December 12, 2004

She is high and lifted up
Because she looks down, picks others up
You know who I’m talking about
Granny, Bern, Sybil, Ma, Auntie
No matter what the name
They are all the same
We talkin’ ‘bout Brunice Lewis
Cooking pies and cakes
Making dinners
Keeping dates
For Rob and Holmes
Whatever event
Call her home
She is there to make others happy and f(ph)at
Fortune and far-reaching fame
Aren’t her claims
Though money could be
If she didn’t share it with you and me.
She’s a saint
A local queen
Sits enthroned on Marlborough street
reigns supreme to meet your needs
You know who I’m talking about
She is your sweetness
The neighborhood piper
The wet eye wiper
You need a place to stay
You need an ear to hear
You need a voice to speak
You need a word to keep
You need cash in hand
You need a ride to get there
You go to the throne of sweetness
My sweetness
Your sweetness
She is royalty
Queenly inside and out
A heart overflowing
Hands and feet showing lots of love
She is your sweetness
My granny, your granny
Everyone’s sweetness
And we praise her
Your sweetness.

Copyright 2004-2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

My Hustler Granny

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We’ve all heard the saying, “They don’t make them like that anymore,” talking about some appliance or person whose value is great because of perfection or endurance. This is what I can say about Granny, formally known as Brunice Lewis. I wrote about her when I started this blog in 2008. Granny was my husband’s grandmother but she was my granny too.

Granny, Andrina and Me, 1998


Granny liked me from the start, offering me her bed the first time we met, which was during the hour of my afternoon nap. I liked her, too, lying on her linen with little fear of saliva-scented and otherwise soiled sheets. From the beginning, being with Granny felt like home, and she taught me how to make a better one.

She came to Michigan from Alabama when she was 15, finding day work with a rich family in the old money city of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Her day work often turned into night work, cleaning, cooking and caring for her employer’s business and children. She wasn’t ashamed of her work but let it work to her advantage. Though she was hired to cook, she learned additional culinary skills and put them to use as a caterer. Granny learned how to invest her money and used it and her time to invest in people. She taught me how to garden; I know when to plant what, how to dead head and pull weeds, and how to separate overgrown plants and transplant them and other plants. And because of Granny, I know how to make homemade sausage and Red Velvet cake. I met Granny because of my husband, but our relationship went beyond him.

Like with her daughter, Andrina, my mother-in-love, Granny and I shopped, talked on the phone and dined together. Most times it was Granny, Andrina and me. And sometimes they would call me on the three-way and say they wanted to buy me an outfit, just because. Other times Granny would just make me some beans and cornbread or a Red Velvet cake, just because. But I know her service wasn’t just because, it was because she loved me. And, oh, how I loved her.

I admired her for her grit and her wit and for just being an all around hustler. She knew how to make a dollar because she couldn’t depend on any industry. She was her own industry, making and selling pies, cakes, single dishes and whole dinners, and cleaning homes. Even with her busyness until her ailing days, Granny had a tremendous capacity to love. Her memory challenges me to step it up, keep it up and never forget about people. And for that she was truly my shero.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

The Greatest Mother-in-Love

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My mother-in-love, Andrina, and me

She cooks and cleans for him, calling him daily to make sure things are going okay. She helps with his bills and cares for his children. He’s spoiled. And each calculated act is meant to show him how much he needs her. This is not the woman of a single dad’s dreams, but the woman in a wife’s nightmares: the mother-in-law from the crucible below. I have heard this story about the antagonistic mother-in-law and the outraged daughter-in-law and the clueless son who just wants peace. I thank God that my mother-in-law is not my nightmare but indeed one of my really good friends. Andrina Smith, my mother-in-love, has been a good friend of mine for a while, but in the beginning I had my concerns.

The first time we met was at her church. She was in the choir so I would meet her after the service. She and her girlfriends seemed to be in a competition about who would meet me first so a few ran to introduce themselves and then with satisfying smirks turned to the choir to chide Andrina, who frowned back at them. All the jockeying seemed to be more about them and less about me. During our second encounter, she continually spoke to me about this Christian conference she intended and focused heavily on the evangelistic information. She didn’t catch my ‘don’t bother me’ cues so she kept sharing and sharing even though I wasn’t looking at her, my body was turned away from her, and I was trying to listen to the host who was beginning the program we were attending; she carried on, only stopping when someone needed her. And another close encounter was her trying to convince me of theological views regarding women that I believed to be untrue. All this was before I married her son. And I still did because I knew God sent him to me and I eventually figured Andrina was just being Andrina.

More talks, prayer and grace got us past these tough spots. I realized Andrina and her friends were happy to meet someone her son thought was worth meeting and she wanted to make sure that I wasn’t a heathen who would try to run him. I don’t know what made her believe I was okay, but when she invited me to a conference with her and her friends and to share a room with all of them, she won me over. I wasn’t even married to her son but with three days and two nights with her, there was no doubt that her expression toward me was real.

She is a take charge kind of woman, my kind of woman, and I love her so dearly. My mother-in-love is a fun-loving, soul-caring, powerhouse of a Christian woman who loves me like I came from her womb. We’ve traveled together, shopped together, prayed together, warfared together, cried together, laughed together and have totally disagreed. She is definitely someone that I would have chosen as my friend. I’m so glad God sent her to me, giving me another mother and another shero.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Honoring a Spiritual Giant

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Over the weekend I took my friend, Kim, to see A Song for Coretta by Pearl Cleage. We agreed that the play, about the convergence of the lives of five women paying their respects to the deceased civil rights leader, was wonderfully complex, funny and thought-provoking. Kim thought, however, that a part that highlighted rapes in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina may have been exaggerated. I wondered the same, but I had another exception to the play: the deification of Coretta Scott King.

The goddess talk, though little, bothered me. As the women discussed unresolved issues in their lives, one woman would say something like, “Ask Coretta. Maybe she can tell you what to do.” And I’m thinking, “But she’s dead. She ain’t saying nothing to you.” As I think about it, what they said, their attitude toward King, was more than deification but also suggested divination. I never mentioned this to Kim and am only saying it now because as I pay tribute to the women in my life this month, I recognize how easy it is to give God-status to someone who has inspired your life and not be able to let them go when they die. This my entire family did for my maternal grandmother, Verlenia Thomas.

My Sister Sharon & Grandma Thomas


The youngest of seven children, all her siblings looked to her for direction. She was the one who kept and nursed their mother in her home. She was the one they called for advice, prayer, money and meals. She was the strong one for them, her husband, my mama, aunts and uncles, me and the other grandchildren, her neighbors, church members and friends. Since she has died, some family members seem to be lost. We all know Verlenia: she may be your Grandma, Granny, Grammy, Big Ma, Big Mama or Nana. We delight at sitting at her feet, feeling her arms surround us, benefitting from the creation of her hands, and receiving wisdom from her mind. I know I did. But as I have reflected on my grandma’s life since her death in 2005, I recognize that she may have operated in her own strength at times, but I believe those times were few.

Yes, she was on her church’s steward board and missionary society and taught Sunday school, was her block club secretary, kept in touch with everybody, cooked meals for the needy and visited the sick. But these weren’t things she did to look good. She felt them her Christian duty. And I knew this because her 80-year-old knees would hit the floor every night and her shaky hand would hold a stubby pencil to write the notes throughout the pages of her Bible what the Lord spoke to her. She was in God’s presence, not just around His people. My grandma communed with God, not just fellowshipped with His people. She had a great reputation among people because of how she lived her life in public. She had a great reputation with me because how she lived in public was also how she lived in private. Verlenia Thomas was a holy woman and my great example of a model Christian.

Her life reflected “follow me as I follow Christ,” and as I remember her life I will indeed remember that she could love me because she first loved Jesus Christ and obeyed Him. Her life always pointed everyone to God. We often missed her direction because once we got to her, we felt like we were in heaven; everything seemed like it would be all right for eternity. But I know she wouldn’t want me to glorify her, just the one who she worked so hard to glorify. We must give honor to whom honor is due but always recognize that God is the reason anybody can do anything good.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith