Celebrating 70 Years Of Wedded Bliss Despite Racism & Other Adversities

OneEyedDiva

OneEyedDiva

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A friend of mine posted this on Facebook. I think it's a heartwarming story about true love conquering all, even racism.
"SHE WAS KICKED OUT BY HER FAMILY FOR MARRYING A BLACK MAN, NOW THEY ARE CELEBRATING 70 YEARS TOGETHER......Last year Jake and Mary Jacobs celebrated 70 years of wedded bliss but this couple have overcome all the obstacles to reach such a marriage milestone.
When Mary, who is White, met Jake, who is Black, it was 1940s Britain and although they were living in a city, Jake was one of very few black men.
It would have been easy for Mary to walk away but she had fallen in love and would do anything she could to stay with her love, even after her father told her to leave.
“When I told my father I was going to marry Jake he said, ‘If you marry that man you will never set foot in this house again.'”
Jake and Mary JacobsApril 1948
Posted by The Homemade Home on Monday, September 30, 2019
The couple had met when Jake came over from Trinidad during the war and they had attended the same technical college where Mary was having typing and shorthand lessons and he was training with the Air Force.
Mary, who lived in Lancashire at the time, and Jake got chatting and he impressed Mary with his knowledge of Shakespeare.
He and his friend invited Mary and her friend out for a picnic and they were spotted by a lady cycling past who was shocked to see two English girls chatting with black men so she reported Mary to her father. Her father was shocked and banned Mary from seeing him again.
When Jake returned to Trinidad they wrote to each other and a few years later he returned to the U.K. to get better paid work.
What was it like to be in a mixed race relationship in the 1940s and 50s? We meet Jake and Mary Jacobs who got married in 1948 pic.twitter.com/E56ZP6QLbs
— BBC Radio 2 (@BBCRadio2) October 13, 2016
Jake surprised Mary by asking her to marry him; she was 19 years old and accepted but when she told her family they threw her out.
“I left with only one small suitcase to my name. No family came to our registry office wedding in 1948.”
Mary said while her father was ‘horrified’ that she could contemplate marrying a black man she didn’t realize that the rest of society felt the same way.
“The first years of our marriage living in Birmingham were hell — I cried every day, and barely ate. No one would speak to us, we couldn’t find anywhere to live because no one would rent to a black man, and we had no money.”
Even walking down the street together was difficult as people would point at them
Mary fell pregnant and the couple enjoyed the excitement of knowing they would soon become parents but at 8 months she gave birth to a stillborn child.
“It wasn’t related to the stress I was under but it broke my heart, and we never had any more children,” she said.
Their lives did get easier with Mary working as a teacher and rising to assistant principle of a British school and Jake securing a job with the Post Office. They made new friends but Mary said she felt the need to explain to people that her husband was black before she introduced them to him.
“My father died when I was 30 and although we were reconciled by then, he never did approve of Jake,” she said.
Today 84-year-old Mary and Jake who is 89 years old live in the town of Solihull just south of Birmingham and recently celebrated 70 years of marriage.
Jake says he has no regrets but tells young black people today they have no idea what it used to be like for him in 1940s Britain.
‘Subjected to abuse every day’
“When I arrived in the U.K. I was subjected to abuse every day. Once I was on a bus and a man rubbed his hands on my neck and said: ‘I wanted to see if the dirt would come off.
“And back then you couldn’t work in an office — because a black man in an office with all the white girls wasn’t thought to be safe.”
Despite all the hardships, prejudice and abuse the couple are still very much in love and have no regrets about marrying, enjoying over 70 years of wedded bliss.
The love these two have for each other really has conquered all; they are a true inspiration and I wish them many more years of happiness."

May God continue to bless them and give them many more years together. @Pecos @SmoothSeas @dseag2 @Pinky @Alligatorob @Medusa @Shalimar

279007106_5171221052938414_3096880916137838788_n.jpg
 

The story is sad, but with a happy ending OneEyedDiva.

Unfortunately the attitude of the day was like that, the
adverts for flats to rent always said, "No Black, No Irish".

I drove trucks throughout the 70s, sometimes when I
phoned for a room for the night, I was asked if I was
Irish, or Black, because of my Scottish accent, English
people weren't sure, so they asked, Oxford was the
worst place, for this practice.

Mike.
 

Mike said:
The story is sad, but with a happy ending OneEyedDiva.

Unfortunately the attitude of the day was like that, the
adverts for flats to rent always said, "No Black, No Irish".
Mike.
Click to expand...
That last remark was used on the popular sit-com: "Steptoe & Son." They were looking at ways of increasing their income and had decided to let one of their rooms. When old man Steptoe uttered the line it drew a huge laugh from the studio audience.

Mary & Jake's story is heartwarming indeed, it needs to be shared, we are all human, all feel pain, all feel the cold hand of prejudice. When I was 14, I spent time in hospital recovering from a traffic accident, there I saw the prejudice of able bodied people towards those less able, those born with brain injury that causes Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy, more commonly known as spastic.

In my early years I worked for a Jewish family in East London, the shameful remarks that I heard whenever I recounted the fact was just shocking. Six million murdered in the holocaust, you might think there would be some sense of sympathy.

A little later in life I traded with three brothers, refugees from The Sudan. Their crime? They were Coptic, it's a very early Christian religion, The Sudan is an Islamic country, Christians beware. And so it goes on. Mary & Jake's relationship has made my weekend, how I love it.
 
Pinky said:
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story with us @OneEyedDiva
Why is it so difficult for some to understand that love transcends colour?
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You're welcome, of course. I'm glad you enjoyed it Pinky. @horseless carriage ...I'm glad it made your weekend. You're right, it deserves to be shared which is why I decided to post it here. @Mike a happy ending indeed. We could use more of those.
 
My unofficially adopted father was a black Jamaican who was a well known singer who had chart hits ... ( he adopted me as his unofficial daughter when I was in my 50's and he in his 80's ) ..I won't mention his name , but he told me that when he came to London in the 40's aged just 17 on a boat from Jamaica, he and the rest of the Jamaican people on board were so excited, because they were coming to the mother land.. . They'd always known that Britain was their protection, growing up they'd learned this in school, so they had no fears about coming to England and indeed the whole of the British Isles...

He said the shock of finding that they were extremely unwelcome by the average joe in the street was extremely upsetting.

He explained about the No Blacks No Irish , No dogs.. signs on the boarding houses... and how difficult it was to get something less than a slum to live in and how they were charged much more than anyone else for the privilege..

he told the story, and many more, without bitterness, because ultimately he worked hard here in spite of the racism there was then.. and became successful.. and for that he loves Britain.. he felt that it wasn't that the British were inherently racist, they were just scared of the unknown..


However he also told me the story of when he and his band were famous, and had , had a couple of chart hits.. they were invited to play at the London Palladium... Sammy Davis was topping the Bill.. .. and a massive star who my AF was in awe of... and of course feeling that they didn't deserve to be sharing a stage with the great Sammy Davis Jnr

At the palladium they were given the worst dressing room to get changed in.. no more than a corner of the backstage , unlike everyone else's dressing rooms which had lighting, and dressing tables and chairs..
When Sammy Davis jnr discovered this he created such a fuss with the backstage management , and demanded a dressing room for AF and his group.. or Sammy was not going to go on stage.. .. Ever after that.. AF and the band were treated with the respect they deserved ..and never had a problem getting decent dressing rooms either here or in the States..
 
Thank you Diva for sharing that bittersweet story. Times are improving somewhat. But...

This is my daughter's bittersweet story...My daughter married a Filipino/Black man and our whole family never gave color a thought. My mother was especially fond of her new grand son-in-law which I mention because my mother grew up in the south, born 98 years ago.

Neither I nor his family were rich but I threw them a full on outdoor wedding and indoor reception with his whole family and friends. They were so kind and a complete joy. We all worked together on the reception and became fast friends. I did all the flowers, music, ordered the cake...and they did all this amazing dinner buffet which I displayed as if it were the Hilton. My son and his buddies were the clean-up crew. That was interesting lol.

I hired the airport's black pastor where my daughter worked to officiate the wedding. He had been to the Holy Lands and brought me silver candle holders with the city of Jerusalem artistically carved in. What Pastor gives a gift to the mother of the bride? We became close friends. He was good-looking too I might add. But...

My daughter also delivered a stillborn and never wanted children after that as her heart was broken too. And black girls would stare and yell things at my daughter because they didn't like that a black had married a white woman instead of them. She experienced racism personally for the first time in her life. Sadly, it ended in divorced. But my daughter and I still cherish the sweet beginning and we still love his family. The mother absolutely adores my daughter.
 
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hollydolly said:
My unofficially adopted father was a black Jamaican who was a well known singer who had chart hits ... ( he adopted me as his unofficial daughter when I was in my 50's and he in his 80's ) ..I won't mention his name , but he told me that when he came to London in the 40's aged just 17 on a boat from Jamaica, he and the rest of the Jamaican people on board were so excited, because they were coming to the mother land.. . They'd always known that Britain was their protection, growing up they'd learned this in school, so they had no fears about coming to England and indeed the whole of the British Isles...

He said the shock of finding that they were extremely unwelcome by the average joe in the street was extremely upsetting.

He explained about the No Blacks No Irish , No dogs.. signs on the boarding houses... and how difficult it was to get something less than a slum to live in and how they were charged much more than anyone else for the privilege..

he told the story, and many more, without bitterness, because ultimately he worked hard here in spite of the racism there was then.. and became successful.. and for that he loves Britain.. he felt that it wasn't that the British were inherently racist, they were just scared of the unknown..


However he also told me the story of when he and his band were famous, and had , had a couple of chart hits.. they were invited to play at the London Palladium... Sammy Davis was topping the Bill.. .. and a massive star who my AF was in awe of... and of course feeling that they didn't deserve to be sharing a stage with the great Sammy Davis Jnr

At the palladium they were given the worst dressing room to get changed in.. no more than a corner of the backstage , unlike everyone else's dressing rooms which had lighting, and dressing tables and chairs..
When Sammy Davis jnr discovered this he created such a fuss with the backstage management , and demanded a dressing room for AF and his group.. or Sammy was not going to go on stage.. .. Ever after that.. AF and the band were treated with the respect they deserved ..and never had a problem getting decent dressing rooms either here or in the States..
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Well now you've piqued my interest!! Inquiring minds want to know HD. :ROFLMAO: I could probably figure out who he is on my own. My career was as an investigator, after all. 😜
 
@OneEyedDiva thanks for the story, it is a good read.

As you know bad as things were for them in the UK, it would have been worse where I grew up. Maybe true where you grew up also.

First of all such a marriage would have been illegal, and in the 40s or 50s there is no way a black man would have gotten any decent paying job, certainly not one at the Post Office.

I used to work with a white woman who was married to a black man. That was in the 90s but she still had some interesting stories to tell. For example in public often people to assumed they were not together. Little things were common, like restaurants trying to seat them separately and checkout clerks separating their purchase items. We once had some problems of theft at the office and her husband immediately became suspect, for no good reason. In the end they found the culprit, someone on the janitorial staff, not black. Not so hard as in your story, but still awkward.
 
very nice.

I dated an African-American woman for a couple of years.


Shocker - we are all people and there is exactly zero difference between African-American folks and anyone else.

Of course, that means they nag ya as much as any other girlfriend...but whaddya gonna do? :):):)
 
@OneEyedDiva what a beautiful story! So sad to read the stories from the beginning of their romance but so happy to see they have managed to build a wonderful life together. Thank you so much for sharing! ❤️
 

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