By Christine M. Looby, national communications manager, Trinity Health Senior Communities
In writing remarks for his mother’s celebration of life in January 2017, Kenneth Brandy – her youngest son – prefaced them with a direct address to Barbara V. Brandy. He began: “You are an intelligent, beautiful and wonderfully strong woman, Mom. You have weathered your storms well and have come out better because of them. Many have benefited from the gift of who you are. And you will follow God's mandate when you leave this world. You will leave it better than you found it so many years ago through us. May every seed of love that you planted in our lives be returned to you in multiplied ways in heaven.”
For Kenneth, that wasn’t a wish; it was a promise. And it would manifest not only in heaven, but also on Earth. On Thursday, January 28, 2021, Kenneth and other representatives of the Ripples in the Water - The Barbara V. Brandy Foundations established to continue Barbara V. Brandy’s remarkable legacy arrived at Sanctuary at Holy Cross in South Bend with 100 bouquets of flowers. Paying tribute to Barbara’s frequent saying – “Give me my flowers while I’m still here!” – the Foundation planned and carried out a campaign using its daily mantra as its name: “Show Some Love.”
As Kenneth explains, the Foundation designed the campaign as a means of reaching out to “all the senior residents who are separated from their families and the essential workers that care for them daily during this pandemic. We want to expand these efforts by having the entire city showing love and feeling loved!”
Bringing the campaign to the Sanctuary at Holy Cross community, however, was deeply personal for Kenneth. “Mother was a resident there until her passing,” he shares. After a brief illness, Barbara went to Sanctuary at Holy Cross for rehabilitation. Ultimately, she began to experience the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and required a higher level of care, so Kenneth and his family explored whether Sanctuary at Holy Cross might be a fit for his mother in the long term. As he looks back, Kenneth recalls how emotional it was to make the choice, even though they were pleased with the physical therapy she was receiving.
“My family and I decided to choose Sanctuary at Holy Cross to be the place to care for Mother,” he says. “Her experience at Sanctuary at Holy Cross caused everyone involved to grow, me, my family, and I believe the staff also. There was a level of care expected, needed and wanted for Mother. When you are active in an elderly parent’s daily routine, decision making, and care prior to choosing a long-term care facility, there is a lot to hold on to and a lot to let go of. What was most important to me was that the staff regarded her with love, respect, dignity and honor in her possible final years. There was some comfort in the decision because several staff members were from our old neighborhood or attended Kaley/Kennedy Elementary school when mother was the secretary in the 1970s. The most difficult part was trusting that the staff will do that…love, respect, treat her with dignity and honor. Mother, my family and I were able to garner a good relationship with the administration and patient level staff. Love, respect and honorable dignity was given. Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease, but with scheduled care plan meetings we were able to address any issues that would arise.”
Returning to Sanctuary at Holy Cross in January was bittersweet for Kenneth only in the sense it made him miss the woman he affectionately refers to as “Mother dear.” He associates happy memories with her life at Holy Cross. An executive, producer, and entrepreneur in the entertainment industry and a devoted husband and father of three, Kenneth prioritized caring for and being a loving companion to his mother. He remembers: “I would visit mother multiple days weekly. I would travel into South Bend from Illinois and spend 2-3 days out of the week at Holy Cross. Our day would start depending on if I arrived at breakfast or with me bringing her favorite meal: lunch! With my cell phone and laptop in tow, I’d conduct business as she watched TV or listen to the classic oldies on the radio. If one of her favorites came on, we’d sing along. But all extra activities stopped when it was time for Steve Harvey’s “Family Feud”…we’d enjoy shouting out the answers and laughing at the bad answer. Or sometimes, we’d just get in the car and go to the park to have lunch.” According to Kenneth, these moments captured the special bond they had always shared and allowed him more experiences to treasure with his mother.
In fact, Barbara Brandy was herself a treasure to South Bend. She easily could have held a place in its history as an anecdote – a mirror pointing at the worst in our history – but instead, she rose out of her own story and championed its moral for the rest of her life. And it changed South Bend. It made a ripple.
In the late 1930s, young Barbara’s grandmother made her a bathing suit from a resplendent red material bought at the dry goods store. On a hot summer day, her grandmother took Barbara –wearing her new swimsuit – and others from their neighborhood on a short walk from Birdsell Street to Washington Street, arriving at the Engman Public Natatorium. As they approached the guard's gate, the attendant stepped out and said, “You can't swim today.” Barbara’s grandmother asked the guard why. At that time, people of color were only permitted to swim in the Natatorium on Mondays. The guard snapped: “It’s not your day to swim!” Barbara’s grandmother, indicating the children, insisted: “You can let them swim.” He replied: “Come back on your day!” In a 2009 interview with the South Bend Tribune, Barbara recalled: “He turned us all away, and I just held onto my grandmother’s hand as she led me away, still wearing the red bathing suit.” According to Kenneth, “That red bathing suit was never seen again, and my mother didn't wear the color red during her adult life.”
Today, Kenneth muses: “I wonder what the color red really meant to her? Not just the emotion that came through telling her story, but what it really defined throughout her life. Dial in on this…if you are hated because of the color of your skin, wouldn't you begin to hate the thing that others hate you for – your skin and others who look like you? This is an issue of self-hate that affects African American communities daily, but I know that the impact motivated her to put education first and never let anything stop her from moving forward. Mother’s attitude was: ‘You may be able to slow me down, but you're not gonna stop me.’”
That guard, that day, that experience certainly did not stop Barbara. She was the first black secretary to be hired at Robertson Department Store and went on to hold administrative positions at Bendix Corporation, and Kaley/J.F. Kennedy Elementary School. Ultimately, Barbara retired as executive secretary of the Saint Joseph County Engineering Department. She was passionate about literature, history, the arts, and she closely followed current events in government and politics. Barbara took immense pride in sharing what she learned and what she loved with her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and even children in and around her neighborhood.
The Engman Natatorium finally become fully integrated in 1950, but then closed its doors in 1978. On May 23, 2010, Barbara received a spoken apology from the city of South Bend during the ceremony when the Natatorium reopened as Indiana University of South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center. Barbara’s childhood experience of segregation was highlighted on a banner presented by Mayor Luecke and remains on display in this historic landmark. It galvanized her image as well as her transcendence from the iconic “Little Girl in the red Bathing Suit.” The ripples were now moving an entire community.
The current is not as swift as we might hope. When Kenneth would ask his mother if she felt that the world she lived in as an adult was vastly different from the one that she experienced as a child, she spoke plainly about the fact that she still saw and felt discrimination, injustice, violence toward people of color, and a great deal of inequality between races. Kenneth himself reflects: “If you look at the cover of a newspaper from the 1960s that discussed or showed an image on the topic of race relations in America in comparison to today's newspaper, have those headlines or images changed much? The narrative of the content may show some outrage, but the injustice of the brutality hasn’t, and the outcome of the perpetrators remain the same in most cases.”
Kenneth was inspired by his mother’s activism. He remembers: “Mother never allowed any injustice slide by. She would write to the South Bend Tribune, Mayor, Senator, Governor, and – I think – even the President on whatever topic she had issues with. She instilled in us that the way to make a change in any situation is to make contact with whomever is at the top controlling policy and continue making contact until you get results or bother them into results.”
It is in that way that Barbara inspired the Ripples in the Water – The Barbara V. Brandy Foundations. A social enterprise organization, Ripples in the Water exists to continue Barbara’s legacy through philanthropy, social well-being, fundraising, arts and entertainment, and educational activities. Says Kenneth: “Her example encouraged our incentive called Policy, Practice & Power - The 3 P's are paramount to the upward & forward movement in our communities. Our objective is to define, engage and hold accountable those who are in power that practice, change and control policy that could positively or negatively influence the common good. We’ve developed educational workshops in civics and governmental functionality to inform the community of policy & practice that affects them.” In 2020, after the onset of the global pandemic, the Foundation introduced the “Show Some Love” campaign.
Ripples in the Water – The Barbara V. Brandy Foundations is in large part a family affair. Kenneth serves as Founder/Executive Director and is joined by an advisory board consisting of his daughter, Arielle M. Brandy; his niece, Jennifer V. Liddell, who was Barbara’s eldest grandchild; his best friend, who Kenneth calls his brother, Reverend Eugene C. Staples; his sister-in-law, Retired Air Force Captain LaDonna Miller; and close family friend Dr. Mark Smith. “Our mission and programs are in direct correlation to her fundamentals translated through us,” Kenneth proudly says. “If you didn’t get a chance to interact with Mother Dear, let us share with you what she poured into us, and you’ll see her through our work here at Ripples in the Water – The Barbara V. Brandy Foundations.”
To participate in the campaign and “Show Some Love” to family, friends, essential front-line workers and colleagues by sending them a “Show Some Love” bouquet, go to www.RipplesintheWater.org.