Daisy Turner’s Kin: An African American Family Saga by Jane C. Beck (review)

If you are interested in learning how oral history can lead to discovery and help chronicle a family legacy, then you will find Daisy Turner’s Kin: An African American Family Saga a necessary guidebook. Folklorist Jane C. Beck, of the Vermont Arts Council in Montpelier, began interviewing Daisy Turner in 1983. Beck spent three years recording Daisy’s stories, researching and documenting life experiences that spanned 178 years, from her grandfather’s birth around 1810 until Daisy’s own death in 1988. With materials that cover over three generations of family, Beck defines the Turner narrative as a “complex African American oral epic that underscores the significance and validity of oral tradition” (3). Alexander “Alec” Turner, who was born a slave in 1845 on the Jack Gouldin plantation along the Rappahannock River near Port Royal, Virginia, passed on the stories of his family’s heritage to his daughter, Daisy (1883-1988), who became the family griot. In this family oral history, Daisy’s narrative is inclusive of stories of her African roots, life on the plantation, life before, during, and after the Civil War, life in Vermont, and her last years. Daisy’s story sent Beck on an “exploratory journey” (10) for over thirty years.

As Beck recounts the Turner family legacy, she emphasizes that the central thread of this family narrative is Alec’s own story, rooted in his experiences and shaped by his retelling over a lifetime; Beck classifies him as a “reliable chronicler of the events he experienced” (3). Beck’s dedication to the Turner family saga for over thirty years helps to illustrate how Alec’s story is also Daisy’s story. Daisy absorbed her father’s stories for over forty years and added her own touches and experiences to make those stories her own. But Beck also wanted to verify the information she obtained during Daisy’s interview process with other documentation and interviews with relatives, in order to show that Daisy was a reliable narrator. Daisy’s oral narratives led Beck to discover archival sources, property and land taxes, and land records and wills; she also interviewed Alec’s grandsons, granddaughters, and others beyond the family to determine the factuality of Daisy’s accounts. The book includes interview transcripts as well as photographs that give “visual credence” to Daisy’s stories (6). While Beck admits that researching and verifying all of Daisy’s information took a great deal of time, she did it because she realized that, for example, the dates and locations Daisy had given, particularly the exact years something happened, were often unreliable. Occasionally Daisy would change the details of where an event took place because, Beck assumed, it occurred before she was born, but during the course of the interview, Daisy expressed certainty about an exact location for the event. Beck concludes that these minor details do not distract from the larger story.

Throughout the book, Beck emphasizes her role as a folklorist and cultural interpreter who focuses on individuals and the community in which they exist. She admits that during the oral history process, she had to be completely open and transparent about her intentions and had to share bits and pieces of her own story and background with Daisy and her family. She is interested in what the Turner narrative communicates about the cultural history and everyday life of a family that lived through two centuries and experienced many issues that still haunt us today. With this focus, Beck concludes that Daisy’s narrative, while sounding good and believable, is also consistent. Daisy tries to retell her father’s stories in the same manner in which he told them by holding true to telling these stories from his point of view while maintaining his narrative and even his bias. Beck found it necessary to comment in those places where it appears that Daisy added or omitted details.

Throughout the book, Beck discusses her oral...