Who is Mae, Alice, Sarah and Winnie? Sorry, long read
The most common question I get asked about the name of my business, is who is Mae, Alice, Sarah and Winnie? A one woman digital project freelance consultancy firm that sounds a bit more like a law office, why would I choose such a long name?
Well, this isn’t my first business - I’ve actually tried it three times before. The first time was a primary care administration business - coding, bookkeeping and the like. It didn’t last 6 months and made £100 and was called Mae’s Notes. My second business was a collaboration into the world of filmmaking. My brother is a film editor and my mother writes plays so it seemed to be a match made in heaven. We failed to generate capital for our first venture, and more unsuccessful than the first, we were left in the negative -£1,500. That business was called Right Limb Films (which, I still absolutely adore as a film company’s name!).
The third, an online journal and publishing company - which I’m still involved in, but can’t say it turns a profit; Femficatio (the name of our online journal) has over 3,900 subscribers. It has also showcased some great writers and artists - award winning poets Elizabeth Marino and Bethany White, Christopher Barnes, Nikita Parik, Juned Subhan, Nana Nyarko Boateng and the late Pavel Rogov. We also featured artists Michael Marisi Ornstein from “Son’s of Anarchy”, and the late Aldo Tambelini, a pioneer and one of the greatest electromedia artists of the 20th century. But it is a frustrating, soul destroying affair, where gathering, editing and fulfilling the deadlines for content is isolated to just myself and my mother, making it almost impossible. One day we’ll get more people to help, but literature and art, unsurprisingly isn’t the sort of thing that makes you rich.
Femficatio is a completely made up moniker - fem in latin meaning “woman” and “not masculine”, and ficatio - “a making or causing”, “forming”. It is very heady.
So we’ve gone from “Mae’s Notes”, to “Right Limb Films” then “Femficatio” and now, “Mae, Alice, Sarah, and Winnie”. One word, two words, three words - and now four. If we were just going to look at the pattern; it seems that for the fourth business you need four words! But that’s not what I was thinking (actually, I just noticed that now …) So out of the four we’ve manage to salvage two! Femficatio and Mae, Alice, Sarah and Winnie. And of that; we are quite proud! For Mae, Alice, Sarah and Winnie; I wanted the business to reflect the reason I start businesses - because I often here people say “there’s already so much great stuff out there” To which I reply “Oh, but you’re not out there. We all have something unique to add to the conversation.
Mae Elizabeth Kennedy, Alice Wilson, Sarah Parker and Winney Cannady (realised the name was misspelled after business incorporation), represent four generations of my family.
Winney was born is 1835 and was married to William Cannady - both listed as “free” in the 1850s, and one doesn’t know if that was always the case, or had they accomplished this sometime in their adulthood. They weren’t rich people, or formally educated; they just went on to have a son that had 8 children. Whether they were born into their freedom or earned it, to be a descendant of formerly enslaved Africans in America and see your ancestors name on a census form, safe, and healthy, in the mid 1850s is an amazing feeling.
Patrilineal - Sarah Jane Parker was born in 1858 and died in 1896, only 38 years old. We know very little of her life. She had fair skin, and her husband remarried a year before she died - a common practice if there was longstanding illness. The year of her death is when my mother, her great-granddaughter was diagnosed with cancer - such a strange coincidence.
Matrilineal - Alice Wilson born in 1867 was Mae’s mother - who died when Mae was very young. Mae remembered how in Baltimore, Maryland, the place of her birth, families got dressed up in their finest on Sundays to walk in the park - just stroll and enjoy the morning air. She also remembers Alice’s hair being long enough “to sit on”.
And then there is Mae Elizabeth Kennedy, nee Wilson born in 1901, and passed in 1988. Kennedy taken as her husband, a Cannady, decided he liked Kennedy better. Apparently ( according to my mom) I’m just like her. Owing more to genetics than reincarnation - I have her same bawdy humour, her same dedication to family, her same love for a party, and her same worry about everything and everyone. Mae, apparently would give the shirt off her back for anyone in need. She judged no-one unless they were bad, and would lend a listening ear to anyone in need of support. Practical and passionate, Mae and I, I’m told, would have gotten along like a house on fire.
My favourite Mae story is how she double-booked herself on a date. Of course before she was married, she had been gifted a fur-stole from one suiter and agreed to see The Nat King Cole Trio with another. As Baltimore’s music scene was a small one, of course fur-stole guy would arrive to the club as she was being seated with her date. A quick thinker, she ducked under the tables and snuck out through the back! She dumped both, but still had the fur-stole to show her granddaughter after she found the love of her life, a World War I veteran who was part of a staged protest at his barracks because the coloured soldiers didn’t have the same access to reverends and showers as the white soldiers.
I don’t know if all of that explains why my consultancy is called Mae, Alice, Sarah and Winnie…. But I know what’s key is after learning about my past, the full stories and fragments of stories, is that I learned. I learned how to be patient, I learned how to be brave, I learned how to think my way out of tricky situations, and I learned that life goes on. And if you’re managing a project, a programme, coaching or mentoring someone - you need to remember all of that.
And they make me remember.
Click here for my 10min podcast on how to chase your family tree.
