[Footnotes belong to the writer’s recollections.]

When Alice, my grandmother passed away I got her box of photos. There were people in photos I did not recognize. For instance there was an Aunt May, that was not our Aunt May, your grandmother’s sister. This made me curious and I went down various rabbit holes.

In 2017, seven years ago, I opened an Ancestry.com account. It’s owned by the Mormons, and you may know that they are obsessed with genealogy. It was kind of a light interest for a while. Then I hit a reference to my grandfather Robert Pitt, had his father listed as black. This one in the Boston area. My grandfather was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just across the river. It’s pretty much the same city now.

I’ve been up there for work and I have a friend who lives there in Cambridge. I was there a few weeks ago and we went by the house at 18 Jackson street where my great grandfather lived with his second wife, Helen. In the 1930 census they’re listed as Negro. My great grandfather was at this point saying he was from Spain. In 1940 they were white and passing, census wise; just ten years later but still in the same area. By 1950 my grandfather was then in Baltimore and they were living in Stony Creek at Joe and Helen’s house. Obviously, if he was marrying with my grandmother he was passing white. Although Maryland did not have mescegenation laws.

The first record I have of my grandfather being black is that record. I rightly or wrongly thought, “Aha, that is why my grandparents got married in New York City,” in Grenich Village at a Methodist church, which I have since visited. I assumed it was because New York did not have mescegination laws, but Maryland still did. That may or may not be true. My grandfather was stationed in New York with the Merchant Marine at the time. After that, as more and more documents became available on ancestry, more and more examples of the family’s ancestry, and the true story became available.

The story I was raised being told was that my great grandfather, Robert L. Pitt, was from Spain and was half Spanish and half quote unquote Hindu and had been an orphan who was taken off the streets of a Spanish port by an American ship captain. The truth is he was the son of freed slaves in North Carolina, Ephraim Pitt and Gracie Walston, who got their last names from the neighboring plantations from which they were presumable enslaved in Edgcombe County, North Carolina. He was born in 1883.

My great grandfather was first married to Nancy Pryce, a black woman, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He then appears in 1912 in Boston, married to Julia Helen Proskurniak. He puts on that marriage certificate that he is from Havana Cuba. However, in the 1920 census he does indicate that he is from North Carolina with his parents being born in North Carolina. So he wasn’t always good about keeping to his story. [His goal seems to have been] To pass and get in, and it doesn’t always work.

The next reference to Robert L. Pitt was in 1913 in the Boston Globe. He was arrested and charged with assault with intent to kill a peddler, Harry Rosenblatt. He was using a knife and he also assaulted Albert Davis who attempted to step in and stop the assault. He was indicted, he plead guilty and was fined $50 each for the peddler and the concerned citizen. Obviously the archivist for Massachusetts Judicial System had nothing to do that day, so I thank them. We do not have any pictures of Robert L. So I wrote to the Archivist for the two arrests he had. They didn’t have the pictures but did have documents on how the arrests turned out.

Before Robert divorced Helen—Julia Helen went by Helen—Robert got together with Annie, my great Grandmother and they had my grandfather Robert and his brother Joseph, which resulted in them being arrested for adultery and fornication in 1920 and being jailed until the trial, and this was put into the newspaper. This was in Lyn, Massachusetts—all the places they lived were within a stone’s throw of each other.

The interesting thing about this, one of the news articles—there were seven news articles about this, clearly nothing going on in Lyn, Massachusetts. In one of them they mention Robert being colored. Annie is Lithuanian. [Helen was listed as Austrian or Hungarian, from the empire, recently defunct.]

She, Annie, anglicized her name to Annie Morris. But her birth name was Ona Marija Murausks. She is the mother of all of Robert’s children that we know exist. There were nine children, my Grandfather Robert and his siblings. My grandfather was the oldest. He either chose names that were distinctively Latino, like Alphonso, [0] or Emmanuel, or he chose two names that were siblings from North Carolina, like Joseph Elijah or Laura. There was also a Marita. There was an Annie Junior and an Albina named after Annie’s sister. They got screwed a lot in Lithuania. The village she was from was wiped off the map in WWI and is now part of Poland. [1]

He is a fascinating character. He also appeared in the Boston Globe for winning AKC dog shows on the regional level. So he had to pass [racially]. He didn’t keep at it for very long. He sold a lot of dogs, before and after. He had a prize winning bitch and a prize winning stud, they were bull terriers the ancestors of pit bulls, how appropriate for a criminal. He also dabbled in real estate. He bought property through bankruptcy auctions I found records of. He bread and sold other types of livestock, I found adds for baby pigs.

He owned a cafe in Augusta Maine after he and Annie split—after he left them basically, the Marvel Cafe. I know that my Grandparents together, Alice and Robert visited him, because I found two photographs that say: “Pa’s Pigs” and “Pa’s Farm,” from when my grandparents went on a late honey moon road trip through Maine and Canada, but no picture of him for some reason. Did they just drive by and didn’t stop and talk to him?

She, Annie filed for divorce on the grounds of abuse, from which I understand is putting it mildly. He abused her, abused the kids, horrible, horrible person. Then there is a whole bunch of adds in Maine from newspapers, he is trying to recruit ex-servicemen to sell something for him, perhaps an early multi-level marketing scheme:

“Wanted X-servicemen with car to handle my new silver emplating liquid, sells on demonstration $10 up made per day if you are a salesman. Right Robert Pitt, Gardiner, Maine.”

There are multiple such adds. He was entrepreneurial, always on the make—he had hustle.

Then in 1952, he changed his name to Robert Brissette and soon after moved to California. My mother told me he had some legal trouble, but that might not be a reliable source—but, considering his background that could be accurate. He’s 61 in 1955. the first thing I find on him in California, I find in the Pomona Progress Bulletin, 21st, June, 1955, Robert Brissette, 61 of 835 Mission Boulevard was picked up by Sheriff’s officers at a residence on south Fern Street, north of Walnut Street and booked at chino police headquarters at 7:07.

Then in December of 1955:

“Ontario man at home following operation—this is him, the kind of shit they published—Robert Brissette, 61, 1300 east [?] Street, Ontario is recuperating at home following an operation recently at San Bernadino, County Hospital. He will not be able to return to his work as a junk dealer for the next three months. He required a blood transfusion during surgery for stomach ulcers. Two pints are needed at the blood bank of San Bernadino and Riverside County, National Orange Show, to replace this blood.”

Then, finally, he dies and the last thing I found is he dies in September 1962. Laura’s daughter Diane sent me—she has, his death certificate. What happened then is he had gone to the hospital and when he was released he had a heart attack while he was driving and crashed into a tree and that killed him. By then he was spelling his last name with a z instead of the s’s in the middle.

We are sure it is him because my grandfather signed his death certificate. It is his name and I recognize the signature anywhere.

I called the cemetery listed in the death certificate and asked if they could send a picture of his marker and it turned out that he does not have a marker. So the nice lady went out to where he is buried, which is just an unmarked plot in the cemetery and took a picture of the grass and sent me a picture and a few clipping from the obituary and this news article they had from way back when which was very nice for them to do.

Someday I will apply to have a marker put there. I don’t think anyone should be put in the ground without a marker, for historical purposes and respect.

…

Notes

-0. My mother told me when I was a youth that Alphonso was as handsome as Robert Junior was athletic.

-1. The Crusades against Lithuania lasted from the 1100s thru the 1400s, possibly impressing some Latin names in the area.