Margaret Hancock, 90; Memoir Tells of Her Mixed-Race Family

Margaret Taylor Hancock, whose life as part of a family that lived on both sides of the racial divide known as the color line was chronicled in the biography “The Sweeter the Juice,” has died. She was 90.

Hancock died Dec. 24 at a hospice in Branford, Conn., according to her daughter, the writer Shirlee Taylor Haizlip, who wrote the biography.

In telling the story of her mother and a family estranged by the harsh realities of racism, Haizlip examines the facile labels of race and identity in 20th century America.

Haizlip notes that in the census of 1900, her mother’s family had been classified as mulatto, but by 1910, with racism rising, the family was classified as black. In subsequent censuses, however, part of the family was noted as white.

This cross-racial categorization made for some difficult economic circumstances for those declared black, and forced some of the fairer-skin members of the family to resort to the practice of “passing” -- taking on a new racial identity, generally that of a white person.

Published in 1994 by Simon & Schuster, Haizlip’s book was a hit. She went on a national book tour -- her mother in tow -- and appeared on “Oprah” and “Larry King Live.” Her mother was popular at book signings and readings, and generally took all the notoriety in stride, kiddingly asking her daughter “who was going to play her in the movie.”

Hancock was born the fifth child of a family of six children. Her mother died when she was 4, an event that broke up the family. The supervision of most of the children fell to the eldest child, an 18-year-old male who raised his sister, twin brother and another brother as white.

Hancock, who was quite fair-skinned herself, and her younger brother were given over to a series of black caretakers -- one a first cousin, and then families who raised the children as black. The brother who stayed with her died at a young age. Her siblings who were raised as white and eventually learned of their black heritage never told those they married or their offspring of their racial heritage.

Hancock grew up in Washington, D.C., the city of her birth, and trained to be a teacher. She later married a black Baptist minister, Julian A. Taylor, and moved to Connecticut, where they lived an upper-class life.

Active in community affairs, Hancock was a founder of the NAACP chapter in Ansonia and was active in Democratic politics. She was also a force in the community’s foster children program -- parenting six girls herself and placing several others with families.

But over the years, Hancock’s attempts to reconnect with her estranged siblings met with rejection.

On one occasion in the 1930s, she received notification of an inheritance. When the family gathered at a lawyer’s office in Washington to deal with the legal matters, Hancock asked her estranged kin to meet with her. They refused and left the meeting before she arrived.

In Haizlip’s view, this was less about resentment or disdain for her mother but spoke volumes about the racial climate of the day when those passing as white were in constant fear that their secret would be discovered.

Haizlip’s recounting of her mother’s story started modestly as a personal “This Is Your Life”-type of manuscript for her mother’s 80th birthday, Haizlip told The Times some years ago. “Then I saw the drama of all the things that had happened to her. I thought, ‘This could be a book,’ ” Haizlip said.

She used all available resources to trace her family ancestry, finding strands of Africans, American Indians and Scots. The book took 13 years to research and two to write.

In 1992, Haizlip found her mother’s only sister, Grace Morris Cramer, who was eight years her mother’s senior, living a quiet life as a white woman in Orange County.

Haizlip made a surprise visit to her aunt at an upscale mobile home park and found a woman who looked like her mother and talked like her mother. And like her mother, they both had children named Patricia and grandchildren named Geoffrey or Jeffrey.

But in Haizlip’s view, the lives of the two sisters turned some American stereotypes on their heads. Her aunt was fragile and alone after the deaths of her husband and her only child. Haizlip’s mother had lost two husbands, but was living in far better means in Connecticut, surrounded by family and grandchildren.

Haizlip said that when she brought her mother out from Connecticut to meet the sister she hadn’t seen in 76 years, her mother was nervous as an 8-year-old.

“She kept saying that she hoped her sister would like her,” Haizlip told The Times Sunday.

The meeting lasted the afternoon. Both women -- who loved cats -- started petting Cramer’s cat and began to establish a relationship that grew in strength and lasted for the next six years, until Cramer’s death in 1998.

Haizlip recalled that her mother asked why she had been left behind. Cramer could only respond: “You know, I was a little girl too, and I was taken by my older brother.”

“At that time, she had no choice, either,” Haizlip said.

Hancock’s first husband died in 1981. Her second husband, Graham Hancock, died in 1987.

In addition to Haizlip, who lives in Los Angeles, Hancock is survived by two other daughters, Dr. Jewelle Taylor Gibbs of Palo Alto and Patricia Taylor Brown of North Haven, Conn.; two stepdaughters, Mauryne Taylor Brent and Doris Keith, both of Washington; a stepson, Robert Hancock of New Haven, Conn.; three foster daughters; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Hancock will be buried today in New Haven, with members from both sides of her family’s color line in attendance.