The following edited collection of articles portrays the life and times of the late Bertha Clara Heath, R.N., the Continuing Legacy of The Heath Family, and the Moses D. Heath Farm.
HER ROOTS:
Middletown, New Jersey
HER PRIORITIES:
To leave a legacy for all people through the Heath Center and to dedicate this legacy to the crop farmers who were the developers of Monmouth County, New Jersey
HER HOBBIES:
Flowers and Gardening, and Nature Study
HER ONE WISH:
"My hope is that one day, Jews will celebrate a holiday at the Heath Center, and that Italians, Irishmen and all other ethnic groups will celebrate at the center
also".--
The Middletown that the late Bertha Clara Heath remembered as a child would not be recognizable to many current Middletown, New Jersey residents.
HER
BIOGRAPHY
Bertha Clara Heath grew up on a farm covering less than 100 acres on land where the Shop Rite Shopping Center now stands at Route 35 and Harmony Road. She was born in the farm homestead on July 22, 1909 and, during her active life, remembered early mornings when she raced two miles for a trolley to take her to school. A Middletown Township High School Class of 1926 graduate, Bertha often remarked that she was one of 64 students who graduated the school that year, which was then located on Leonardville Road in Leonardo, New Jersey.
Route 35 did not exist, and a tollgate stretched across what is now Harmony Road, the major thoroughfare, with the tolls paying for the maintenance of the roadway. Peach orchards covered the land upon which Sears, Roebuck and Company now occupies, and shopping was done at a small market that now stands idle on Red Hill Road.
Among her childhood memories, she once recalled with greatest warmth, was the sense of community that existed among the tenant farmers who worked the land of a very rural Middletown Township.
Her father, a former slave named Clinton P. Heath, left North Carolina around 1865, when the end of the Civil War freed him from his servitude. Arriving in Middletown sometime before 1870 with his brother Calvin, Clinton secured work as a crop farmer and upon establishing himself, sent for his wife, Mary. Eventually, the Heaths raised 13 children, with Bertha being the youngest of 6 girls and her brother Walter, with whom she shared the present Moses D. Heath Farm on Harmony Road. Walter was the youngest of 7 boys.
Calvin became the first preacher at the Clinton Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church on Red Hill Road, which was founded in 1870 and established in 1890 with a congregation of about nine people. It was Calvin, whose ability to read and write was a greatly coveted talent among a population of many former slaves.
During slavery, using ones ability to read and write was punishable by death. Calvin had been taught by the sister of a plantation owner, and he, in turn, taught Clinton and some of the other slaves. Because of the risk involved, Calvin had given lessons surreptitiously by writing in sand on the ground. If a plantation master approached on horseback, the slaves would erase the words with their feet, using a shuffling action which looked like a form of dancing to the overseer.
Bertha, many times, repeated the following account:
--My father was born the son of slaves in North Carolina. He settled us here in 1885 and became a tenant farmer. I remember him telling us how his father became a slave. My great grandfather was accompanying his two sons on thei way to London to study when they were hijacked at an African seaport. They all landed over here as slaves. The two brothers were separated. My grandfather landed in North Carolina. His brother landed in the oyster beds of Maryland.--
In addition, the Heath family included three foster children, because there were no orphanges or social welfare agencies at that time. If a child lost his or her parents, he or she would be welcomed into a neighboring family.
The Heath homstead was the seventh in a row of houses, in one of five Black neighborhoods in Middletown in the early 1900s. Most of the families consisted of farmers, but Bertha remembered her father as the finest among the harvesters. Clinton P. Heath was known as a man who could get two crops for every one another produced. In addition to farming, Clinton Heath worked on the railroad to supplement his seasonal income.
It is very important to note that Bertha C. Heath, after graduating from Middletown Township High School, spent 44 years in Upper Manhattan, New York City, working in the field of Nursing. After graduating from the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing in 1930, she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health from New York University and in 1958, received a Master of Science degree from Columbia University. She worked as a registered nurse until retiring in 1974, from the Columbia Medical Center School of Cancer Research.
Bertha had also earned credits toward her Doctorate.
One of her favorite New York City activities was enjoying the musical talents of Big Band era entertainers such as Count Basie, Cab Calloway and Billie Holliday.
In 1974, Bertha Clara Heath added her own permanent tribute to her Middletown family legacy when she dedicated the Heath Wing of the Tatum Park Activity Center to the memory of her parents, Clinton P. and Mary E. Heath.
Bertha had remarked:
"The Bible tells us to honor our parents. By creating the Heath Center, this is a way to honor them, as well as thank my community for a beautiful
life."
Activities at the center since its dedication have included a permanent exhibit of African American history and year round art exhibits, ceramics classes and theater productions for all ages.
Bertha Heath, aided by her devoted nephew Walter Spradley, his wife Susie Spradley, Jane Clark, (then) the Monmouth County Park System Project Director and a band of devoted volunteers which comprised the Heath Center Black History Committee, organized Black History Month celebrations which have been held each February at the Heath Center.
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