So you know all about Morgan Freeman driving Miss Daisy.
But I bet you don’t know a thing about Alonza Redd driving Miss Blanche all the way to California.
Alonza Redd of Salisbury was chauffeur, handyman, gardener, cook and friend of the late Julian Robertson, who was president of North Carolina Finishing Co., and his wife, Blanche. He was also a “third parent” to the Robertsons’ three children.
That’s what Julian Jr. said Tuesday. He seemed suddenly surprised when the words came out of his mouth and tears followed.
Not that anyone else was surprised, because tears were here, there, everywhere, tears and laughter, love and old friends, oft-told tales of days gone by, bright balloons, deviled eggs, two birthday cakes — and a beautiful day at Hurley Park.
A day, fit for a surprise birthday party for Alonza Redd who turned 90. And for the dedication of the Alonza Redd Gardens with “special appreciation from three generations of Blanche and Julian Robertson’s descendants.”
Their son, Julian Jr., served as spokesman Tuesday. He found his fortune in New York, earning titles like “the Wizard of Wall Street” and establishing Salisbury’s highly valued Robertson Foundation, along with his sisters, Blanche Robertson Bacon of Raleigh and Wyndham Robertson of Chapel Hill.
Standing in the gazebo for the ceremony, Julian said, “You have to stop talking now,” because old friends chatter when they get together.
“This is a very special day, the official opening day of the Alonza Redd Gardens. These gardens were given by three generations of Robertsons and would have been given by four generations if they were alive.”
And suddenly his eyes were full of tears.
He tried to will them away but couldn’t. “My mother would have said don’t worry about the tears but ... ”
But he wanted to say what he had to say, and if the tears persisted, well, what did it matter?He said it.
“Alonza,” he said, “is a real genius.”
He could cook anything. Fix a lawn mower. Fix things that couldn’t be fixed. Dream up an idea. Make things grow where nothing would grow. He could make a rose out of butter.
And more.
“But we really honor him,” Julian said, “for being our third parent.”
And that probably brought tears to all the eyes, but nobody cared. What they cared about was hugging Alonza and shaking his hand and talking to Mary Jane, his wife, who was as much a part of the Robertson family as Alonza. They whispered to each other about how happy Alonza and Mary Jane looked when their son, Richard, brought her in from the nursing home in a wheelchair.
Did you notice, they asked each other, that Alonza leaned over and kissed her hello, like they hadn’t seen each other for a long time?
And did you see how he took hold of the wheelchair like he wanted to keep her close, and how she looked him over and told him how good he looked?
Richard, who takes his dad to see his mother every morning, whispered to someone that Alonza hasn’t slept in his bed since she got sick and had to go to the nursing home about seven months ago. He sleeps in his chair.
But she’s better now, Richard said, and they’re hoping she’s going to get home soon.
Everybody is.
Holtie Woodson, who is Mama Blanche Robertson’s niece, said Mary Jane’s the saint in the family. She did all the ironing and the cooking.
And she never fussed, Richard said, when she stayed home to take care of their family alone while Alonza drove the Robertsons all over everywhere.
Alonza knows all that.
If he could have one wish for his birthday, he didn’t hesitate: “I’d wish my wife could could walk again.”
Someone cut both cakes — the big one trimmed with roses and azalea bushes and a pair of gardener’s gloves and pruning shears and the special rum cake made by Julian’s boys, Alex and Spencer.
Everybody admired the Alonza Redd Gardens that flank the Annandale-Hobson Road entrance to the park.
Julian used to walk there on his way home from Frank B. John Elementary School, before it was a park. Alonza walked by there on his way to the Robertson home on Confederate Avenue every morning for about 65 years.
Well, not every morning.
Summers he went with the Robertsons to Myrtle Beach, and there was that trip to California during World War II, when daddy Julian was in the Army at Banning, Calif., and wanted to see his family.
Young Julian was in the fifth grade; Blanche, the second; Wyndham, kindergarten.
Alonza drove them all the way out there and stayed with them. Was it two years? That’s what someone said. Someone else said four. Without coming home.
None of the Robertson children will ever forget that California trip.
It was a different day, said Blanche.
“It took us five days,” she said. “Maybe seven, and we had to get hotel rooms. It was hard to find them then, and harder for Alonza than us” because he was black, and back then, blacks couldn’t stay ....
“He always said he’d found a wonderful place to stay, but it wouldn’t have surprised us if he sometimes stayed in the car and didn’t tell us.”
“He was fabulous,” Julian said. “I’d get scared going over those big mountain passes. And I don’t know how he was able to drive and keep me from being scared.”
The memories flowed.
Alonza remembered how Blanche Robertson called her mother up in Martinsville, Va., and said she needed Alonza to help her. Would her mother ask him if he’d come to Salisbury?
That was 1931, and he came. And stayed with the mama and daddy Robertson as long as they lived.
And was that third parent.
“He knew everything we did wrong,” Blanche said. And helped them keep it a secret if they behaved.
He taught them everything.
“The best thing he ever taught me,” she said, “ was how to clean fish. That’s my greatest claim to fame. I can clean fish. Men think that’s fabulous.”
He found everything that was ever lost, Wyndham remembered, and made them laugh and was always a friend.
Old friends move from one to the other and chatted with Julian and his wife, Josie, and Blanche and her children, and Wyndham and each other, and admired the flowers and the balloons and the tables Clyde Overcash helped Wyndham arrange.
Elizabeth Taylor who lives across from the new Alonza Redd Gardens promised to keep a close eye on them for him.
“Every time I see a weed, I’m going to fuss at it,” she said, “and pull it out.”
Lunch was good, and old friend Annette Matterson led a “Happy Birthday” chorus with a beautiful voice.
And Alonza admitted he knew something was going on that he couldn’t understand, but he was really surprised that it was a birthday party and a garden for him.
“I didn’t have any idea it was something like this,” he said, and that made everybody happy, especially Alonza.
“I enjoyed every minute,” he said, of all those years with the Robertsons. “I just felt like I was one of the family. And I wouldn’t take nothing for this celebration.”
Nobody wanted it to be over.
But of course it was — in a way.
The Robertsons who no longer live in Salisbury had to get on the road, and Mary Jane was probably tired, and it was hot.
But the truth is, it won’t ever be over, because that garden is there.
It was yesterday and is this morning and will be tomorrow and for years to come people will stroll through the park and cross the creek Julian and Alonza used to cross and pass the garden and nod to the black-eyed Susans and smile at the purple coneflowers that will bloom all summer and have seeds goldfinches love and read the sign and know a little about Alonza Redd who was always driving Miss Blanche — and her children.
Contact Rose Post at 704-797-4251 or rpost@salisburypost.com
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