Emma's Hats, from The Help of Destin, Emma Irby

Emma’s Hats
Emma was a woman of many hats. And when she didn’t actually have a store bought one, she created her own patented models. Here are just a sampling:
She wore a white or black Turban, covered with baubles, brooches and pins.
She had several beige knitted “newsboy” caps. Very fuzzy and pilled from wear. One had a long string and a big pompom in the back.
Someone made her a beer can hat as a gift. The fronts of Bud beer cans were cut out and perforated around the edges, then crocheted together with mauve yarn into a ski hat. “It keep my head warm,” she said.
A hat was needed to help hold her wig on right, she said. She never left the house without her head coverings.
When she was out of hats, she would take a brown paper sack from the supermarket and roll the edges down until it fit the circumference of her head. Of course it was tall like a Top Hat, like Abraham Lincoln's Stovepipe, but it cast a lot of cool shade on a hot day!
If it rained, she had folding umbrella in her huge purse, but she also fashioned a rain bonnet (like those nifty refoldable purse ones ladie’s carried from the 1960’s) out of a grocery bag, the kind you get if you say “plastic.” She’d pull one handle under her chin and tuck the edges under around her face and in the back. Funny thing though, if it was windy it would bag out like a balloon behind her. I told her she reminded me of Sally Field in the Flying Nun. To this she would give a “hoo, hoo!”
Or maybe unlike Sister Bertrille, she was a black Mary Poppins. Maybe she really can use that umbrella to fly around over the treetops of Destin. She got to so many destinations in record time. I watched her leave my garage with her “bags” and wearing a trench raincoat. I blinked too long, and she was “Gone with the Wind.”
©2012 Athena Marler Creamer. All Rights Reserved.

1993, in the City of Destin, from The Help of Destin, Emma Irby, by Athena Marler Creamer

1993, in the City of Destin


Emma stopped wear uniforms and started dressing more bizarrely. Folks weren’t using her much as before. She could be seen walking everywhere, and had a crocheted hat made of beer cans that was given to her as a gift. There was talk that she’d gone crazy. It keeps my head warm, she said with a laugh.” She’d carry her “pus” with her everywhere on one arm and usually a plastic bag of clothing or a pack of hotdogs in the other hand. The women who did employ her sometimes put her up in the Village Inn, or Destination motel for a few nights, until the proprietors called them up for extra money. And then Emma would have to hit the road, knocking on doors and asking for “rides.” One winter in 1992, when I got into my car I notice that some of the silver change in my ashtray was missing. I thought it strange, but I was not in the habit of always locking my car overnight as it sat in the driveway. My two year old, Christina, was probably not one to pick up coins yet, but I looked in her mouth, and made a mental note to watch her better.The morning after the next freezing night, I got into my 1983 Mercury Cougar and noticed a faint scent, kind of like a sickly sweet musk, like honeysuckle and human sweat. I fastened my seatbelt of the silver car and went to Winn Dixie with Christina in her car seat buckled up in the back seat. More change was missing, too. In fact, it was all gone. Suddenly it dawned on me. Some homeless person had been sleeping in my car! I decided to leave my car unlocked again, and put a warm blanket in the back seat. There couldn’t be any harm in that. My husband was working offshore and so he didn’t know what I’d done. In fact he was annoyed and alarmed when I told him and told me to lock the car from then on. I’d been praying for company and even for someone to help me with the house. Could it be Emma? I prayed. The next morning there was a faint knock at my door. It was Emma, the same Emma I remembered from before, but out of uniform. She looked very cold and was all bundled up in a baggy trench coat, burgundy knit pants, socks, tennis shoes, a long sleeve polyester blouse, and a stringy black wig wrapped in a stained scarf, covered by a brown loosely woven beret. I invited her in for a cup of hot tea. Later, she admitted she had spent those two nights in my car and I told her about the blanket. “I appreshiate it,” she quietly said, looking away. Why didn’t you knock on the door? “I didn’t want to wake ya’ll.”She asked many questions to update her knowledge about the family, my baby, and my husband, and when our tea and pumpkin bread was finished, I had enjoyed the conversation. Especially about the families she had worked for, and she seemed to know everyone. She took our cups to the kitchen and hand washed them and put them in the dishwasher. I knew she must need money, and I really didn’t have any. She asked me if I had any “wuk” she could do. I said yes, but I can’t pay you anything. “Do you got $20?” I didn’t even have that in the house. That’s ok, she said, afterwards you can just give me a ride. I agreed, and she began to sweep the kitchen. Suddenly elated, I ran to my bedroom and did a little joy dance. “I have my own maid!” It was a bit of a thrill. But then the Lord reminded me of something about my French ancestors, something about them owning slaves in Georgia. I decided right then and there that I would treat her as my friend, and never lord it over her. I’d atone for the sin of my forefathers.After dropping her off at the motel, I didn’t see her again for six months.…..
(c) 2012 Athena Marler Creamer. All Rights Reserved.

Do You Remember Emma? (Reposted from the Destin Log, June 11, 2012)

I am writing a book about a Destin personality I met at age 6 and bade farewell to some 30 years later.

Emma Irby first came from Alabama to Destin to work in the new Silver Beach Cottages development. She also worked at the Florida Girl motel and for a long string of Destin families, even helping to raise their children.

While other black folks may have also worked in Destin, Emma actually lived here, as a live-in domestic servant and traveling maid, mainly for Mattie Kelly — all this in a time when segregation was still very much alive in Okaloosa County and "Whites Only" signs were displayed in some businesses.

When some of her original employers passed away, and Emma grew old (but not too old to work, she insisted), she became known as the homeless black lady who wore wonderful hats and collected cans by the bagful.

I invited her to a house blessing in 1986 and we became fast friends.

I became interested in Emma's life and her experiences. Emma was full of advice on countless subjects, from how a lady should dress, who should be allowed to see your home, and how to clean and decorate her way (very unorthodox and amusing at times.)

There was more than wisdom in her words. There was pride and self-respect. Her laughing brown eyes were loving and hopeful. She was very faithful to her employers and listened to gossip, but would never share it.

She ended up being sent away to live in a Montgomery, Ala., adult foster home.

With only a single photo and letters exchanged with her since her days in Destin, I am writing a biography, including genealogical research on roots dating to slavery and emancipation, and a descriptive snapshot of Destin in the early 1960s.

For months I worried that Emma had passed away, but I recently received a letter from her and know that she is alive and well!

I am sending royalties from the book to Emma so that it will give her spending money for things she would like to buy for herself. She is very modest. But I think she will appreciate it and the money.

The book will be called “The Help of Destin, Emma Irby.” It will be the story of a young black woman who came from Alabama to clean beach cottages, and stayed to help millionaires keep house and raise their children.

Emma, a beloved and quirky eccentric, spent over 30 years working, living and walking from job to job, in Destin. From the 1960s through the 1990s, a time of great change in American politics, she shared both her wisdom and decline in later years. It will be a story by those who knew and loved her best.

But I need your help.

Does anyone know Emma? Or someone I should talk to about Emma? Sadly, many of her original benefactors and employers have passed away.

I need your help chronicling an unforgettable character, who has led an unforgettable life.

Athena Marler Creamer is a published author and Destin resident. Contact her at heiressarts@gmail.com