Mayleatha LesenseShe was born in 1914. March 6th 1914. Her father was George and her mother Clara. Mr.George and Miss Clara to the locals. She was the first born. Lynchburg was at the economic botton in South Carolina in 1914. South Carolina was close to being the poorest state in the US in those days and years. But the Lesense girls were not poor. Thanks to the skills and the entrepreneurial drive of their father, Mr. George, they lived a life of luxury. Mr. George was a building contractor, a farmer, a grocery store keeper and an undertaker. He had a good number of employees. The Lesense girls were the royalty of impoverished Lynchburg, South Carolina. Mayleatha was born Mary Aleatha, but in South Carolina, words and names tend to become constricted. For example, Mayleatha’s first born, a girl, Clara Edna (November 1937) was called ClaEdna). She was vivacious and fun-loving, Mayleatha. She had a good voice and was the first alto in the Mt.Zion AME choir in Florence, SC after she married Roscoe and moved away from the farm and settled in the “Big City”. (Florence was twenty miles east of Lynchburg.) Mayleatha loved to laugh, sing and dance in that order. She was a sharp dresser and she kept her body and her apparel clean. Besides Clara Edna, she had two boys: George Felix and Roscoe. George Felix was born on March 1, 1939 and Roscoe was born on July 30, 1940. Mayleatha Lesense died in Florence on May 18, 1992. Honored by Felix Justice |
