Heart is the prompt for Februllage Day #14. My collage is entitled ” The Heart of Father + Daughter Love.” It celebrates the love shared by my grandfather, Robert Warren Gartin, Sr. and my mother, Theresa B. Gartin Leeke.
I used a photo from my mother Theresa’s wedding day on November 25, 1961, at St. Rita Catholic Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. The photo features my mother and grandfather walking down the aisle to meet my father, John F. Leeke at the altar.
St. Rita Catholic Church was established in 1919 as the first African-American parish in Indianapolis. It was her family’s parish. She and her siblings attended elementary school at St. Rita Catholic School. When she was in junior and senior high school, she served as a pianist and organist at the church.
I used Canva to change the background of the photo to an AI-generated blue pattern. Gold Ghanaian Adinkra symbols that represent love were added to my mother’s dress and the blue background: Akoma, Odo Nnyew Fie Kwan, and Akoma Ntoso. The name and meaning for each symbol is contained below.
The colors blue and gold pay homage to my mother’s love for and membership in Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., an African American sorority established by seven educators on the campus of Butler University on November 12, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana. My mother joined the Alpha Chapter at Butler in 1959. I joined the Beta Tau Chapter at Morgan State University in Baltimore in 1983.
YOUR INVITATION
Click on the video below and listen to my song, “Ancestral Medicine” that is featured on my debut album, Thriving Mindfully As Theresa’s Daughter as you reflect on the question below.
1) What ancestral relationships remind me you of the love shared by a father and daughter?
Ananda Leeke 