The Wisdom Of Their Years -- The Delany Sisters - Sadie And Bessie - Continue To Share Their Secrets To A Happy (And Long) Life

If you read their first book, "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years," you probably have a pretty good idea of what you're about to read today.

And you probably have a pretty good idea of Sarah's (Sadie) and A. Elizabeth's (Bessie) ages - 105 and 103, respectively. Their first book was a big bestseller. This one, "The Delany Sisters' Book of Everyday Wisdom," promises to be the same.

The duo still live in their hometown of Mount Vernon, N.Y. They still practice what they preach. And we can think of few better ways to launch Black History Month than these bits of their "Wisdom."

Today, in excerpts in The Seattle Times, they'll tell you about their lives and offer their perspective on money, kids and how to lead a good life.

Tomorrow, they'll tell you how they've made it through so many years.

By Sadie and Bessie Delany with Amy Hill Hearth Special to The Seattle Times

We are the children of a slave. There aren't too many of us left these days.

We were born more than 100 years ago and have lived together all of our lives. Our father, Henry B. Delany, was born a slave on a plantation in Georgia in the year 1858. He met our mama, Miss Nanny Logan, while they were attending Saint Augustine's, a school for Negroes in Raleigh, N.C. Mama was an issue-free Negro, which meant she was born free.

Mama and Papa were married at the chapel at Saint Aug's back in 1886 and brought up all 10 of us children right on the campus. Papa was an Episcopal priest who served as vice principal of the school (they wouldn't let him be principal because he was a Negro). Mama taught cooking and served as the matron of the school - she ran the day-to-day operations. Papa eventually became the first elected Negro bishop of the Episcopal Church in America.

We didn't have one penny - not one penny - when we were growing up, but we had a blessed childhood. We had a good time, though we were very sheltered. In those days, colored girls couldn't go anywhere without a chaperone. Something bad could happen to you and there wasn't a thing your papa could do about it.

We remember life before the Jim Crow Laws were passed in Raleigh in the 1890s. White folks and Negroes mixed together kind of naturally before that. But some nasty white folks - we used to call them "rebby boys," which is probably short for "rebel" - managed to get these Jim Crow Laws passed that set colored folks back a million years. You couldn't use the white folks' library. You had to sit in the back of the trolley. You couldn't use the white folks' restroom, which was the one that was kept clean.

After religion and family life, the most important thing in our lives was education. Back in the 1890s, colored children did not get much chance for an education. Since we grew up on the campus of Saint Aug's, we had a big advantage.

When we graduated from Saint Aug's (Sadie in 1910 and Bessie in 1911), our degree was the equivalent of two years of college today. Both of us worked as teachers down South for eight years until we had enough money to move to New York City and enroll at Columbia University. We each earned advanced degrees (Sadie in education and Bessie in dental surgery).

Like a lot of Negroes around the time of the First World War, we were moving north in search of opportunity. There was so much racial prejudice in the South that we could not advance ourselves the way we wished. New York was far from perfect, but it was better.

We settled in Harlem, which was a beehive of activity. During the 1920s and early 1930s, it was the home of what they called the Harlem Renaissance. There were famous writers like Langston Hughes and musicians like Duke Ellington. The movers and shakers of Negro America, like Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, the great Negro intellectual, all walked the streets of Harlem.

You couldn't help but mingle with these folks. And in the middle of it all were the Delanys!

Neither of us ever married and the reason is that we picked careers over men. You see, in our day it didn't occur to anyone that you could be married and have a career. It was one or the other. And the further along we got in our careers, the more we realized we did not want to give them up.

People always ask us, "Are things better or worse today?" Well, some things are better and some things are worse. Doctors have more ways to help sick patients today. There's more opportunity for colored folks. But there are a lot of problems in the world today that no one ever dreamed of when we were young. For instance, this business about the environment. Why, clean water was just something you took for granted.

Sadie Delany: A lot of folks today are not in touch with the past, and I think that's a shame. Why, upstairs in our house we have a whole wall of family photographs that we've collected over the years. We feel so lucky that we have them. There aren't that many families that can show how they looked more than 100 years ago.

So when our young relatives would come to visit, they'd always want to go upstairs to see the pictures. There was one day that our young nephew came downstairs all upset. He'd just noticed that some of the pictures on the wall were of white men!

"Well," I said, "one of them is your great-grandfather James Miliam, and the other is your great-great-grandfather Jordan Motley."

But our nephew kept on fussing - about slavery and what happened between white men and colored women and oppression and what-have-you, as if it was news to us. How, he wondered, could we justify giving their pictures a place of honor? It's not that his ideas were entirely wrong, but they started to get Bessie riled up.

She said, "Those people are your ancestors, white or not, and so they're entitled to be up on that wall. You can't pick your relatives - that's the first thing. And the second thing is, those two men left us their land. If they thought enough of their colored relatives to do that, then they're OK by me!"

You can't change the past, and too many folks spend their whole lives trying to fix things that happened before their time. You're better off using your time to improve yourself.

Sadie Delany: People ask us how we've lived so long, how we got where we did. Well, the key is leading a disciplined life. If you're young, that means working or studying hard. When you're our age, it means exercising every day whether you feel like it or not. A lot of people cringe when they hear the word "discipline." They think it means having no fun. Well, that ain't true, and we're living proof! We have a good time.

Some folks today want to do things the easy way. We have a saying, "They want to get there - without going!" And there isn't any such thing. You've got to pay your dues. You've got to work for it.

Sometimes folks ask us how we put up with the racism and sexism to get our advanced college degrees. How could we stand it? Well, what choice did we have? What choice does anyone have? Life's not easy for anyone, despite how it may look. Sometimes you just have to put up with a lot to get the little bit you need.

Now, it's true that you hear of basketball stars and entertainers making it big with no education. But that's only a tiny, tiny number of people. And it's sad, because a lot of them are too ignorant to know how to live well with their money.

If you are not educated - if you can't write clearly, speak articulately, think logically - you have lost control of your own life.

Bessie Delany: When I was young, I told my papa that I wanted to be a nurse. He said, "Bessie, nursing is a fine profession, but why not try to be a doctor? Reach high!"

Well, I was short a few credits for medical school and I was running out of time, so I became a dentist - only the second colored woman ever licensed to practice in New York state. And I was a good one, I'll tell you! Why, just recently I heard from one of my old dental patients. I did a crown for her back in '29, and you know what? She still had it, more than 60 years later! That makes me so proud.

How to lead a good life

1. Never lose your sense of humor. The happiest people are the ones who are able to laugh at themselves.

2. Pay attention to the little things. One of the best qualities a person can have is to be observant. Some people have eyes but they don't see.

3. Think carefully before you promise to do something. Once you say you'll do it, you'll have to do it.

4. Know when to keep quiet. When we decide that something is private, we'll say it's "graveyard talk." That means it's between you and me and the tombstone, honey.

5. When somebody's nice to you, don't take advantage of it. You don't ride a free horse to death.

6. Put your faith in the Lord, and you'll never be alone.

Saving and spending

Bessie: Money is the root of every mess you can think of. There's some folks who would kill you for a nickel. Those are the sorriest folks of all.

Anyone who lives for money is surely missing the best things in life. There's satisfaction in doing, in helping. There's an old saying, "Money is useful, but don't let it use you."

How to handle money

1. When it comes to money, keep your mouth shut.

2. Cut back on your possessions. The more you own, the more time you waste taking care of things.

3. Don't spend what you don't have. Forget credit cards - they are the devil's work!

4. Don't lie about your income. If your income goes down, your spending must go down.

5. Out of every dollar, give the first 10 cents to the Lord, the second 10 cents to the bank for hard times, and keep the rest - but you'd better spend it wisely.

6. Once you put your hard-earned money in the bank, leave it there! Smart people invest it, and then they'll always have some to fool with.

7. Teach your children to save money from day one. Give your child an allowance so she can practice responsibility. A child who doesn't learn thrift at home will have money trouble all her life.

When it comes to children

Sadie: I was always a softie when it came to children. But being kind doesn't mean being permissive. Children need to learn discipline and responsibility.

If you live right, chances are your children will, too. But teach them everything. What you don't teach them, someone else will - and you may not like those lessons!

Bessie: Negro parents should be careful not to fill their children's hearts with anger. If your child runs into prejudice, just tell 'em, "The world can be a mighty mean place sometimes," and give 'em a big hug and just go on.

It's understandable that colored folks are bitter. The only problem is, their bitterness won't change a thing. It will ruin their lives. If we'd been bitter and full of hate, we'd never have lived the pleasant life we've lived.

People who intermarry tend to worry a lot about their children. They're afraid their children will have to choose between the races, that they'll have what they call an "identity crisis."

Well, we're part white and part Negro - our mama was mostly white - but we don't have any identity crisis. We're just ourselves, that's all! We're proud of who we are. We think of ourselves as colored people.

So we don't see anything wrong with interracial relationships. If two people can find happiness in this world, who cares what color they are?

Our advice to parents raising children of mixed race: Don't let your children get the idea from you that it's a problem. Our parents didn't fret about it, at least in front of us. Maybe that's why we don't worry about it, either.

Excerpted from "The Delany Sisters' Book of Everyday Wisdom," by Sarah and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth. Copyright 1995, Having Our Say Again Inc. Published by Kodansha America Inc. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.