The Breeze Magazine of the Lowcountry, MARCH 2019

Gullah Gamaliel
by
John Samuel Graves, III
Art by R. S. Perry
Maum Celie
(Celia Cheney Ferguson Carroll)
Born on Christmas Day in 1867 and
raised on Palmetto Bluff. She was
a hard working, spirit-filled Gullah
woman who lived for one hundred and
two years, most of them in Blufton.
She died on March 21, 1970 and was
buried in Rephraim Cemetery on
Palmetto Bluff. Her tombstone reads
“Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.”
Wlliam Faulkner once said, “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” Our personal and communal histories, and
memories of things past, are what define us. The Bluffton composer and poet, Luke Peeples, knew that. Luke left
quite a few artistic records – songs, poems and piano pieces. One of his most significant compositions was based on his
interaction with Maum Celie, his favorite Gullah friend. She taught him that dreams, visions, and ordinary life experiences
are views into the spirit world. She called her explanations “terpretations.” Luke called her his “Gullah Gamaliel,”
referencing St. Paul’s teacher in the Bible.
Maum Celie (Celia Cheney Ferguson Carroll) was born on Christmas Day in 1867 and raised on Palmetto Bluff. She was
a hard working, spirit-filled Gullah woman who lived for one hundred and two years, most of them in Bluffton. She died
on March 21, 1970 and was buried in Rephraim Cemetery on Palmetto Bluff. Her tombstone reads “Jesus Keep Me Near
the Cross.”
My cousin Luke (we called him “Uncle Luke”) told me that when Maum Celie was a very small child, she could recall seeing
a fire across the waters from Palmetto Bluff. She thought it was Savannah burning in the distance. She also related this
story to my mother, Florence Rubert Graves, who herself had been partially raised on Palmetto Bluff. Those who heard
the story, before they knew exactly when Maum Celie was born, thought it might be a fire during the American Civil War.
However, there are some obvious problems with this story.
For one thing, Maum Celie was not yet born when Major General William T. Sherman entered Savannah in 1864. In later
years I examined the “burning of Savannah story” and found that General Sherman did not actually burn Savannah during
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