friends forever
Eight women reunite to celebrate decades of connection, shared history and the legacy of a dear friend WO R DS AN D PHOTO B Y AN N A- RHESA VERSOLA
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ost first crossed paths in kindergarten or later in TH E CIRCLE junior high, but by 1967, a band of friends proudly Minnie met Alice in the first grade at W.G. Pearson Elementary graduated together from Hillside High School. School and Bonnie in their neighborhood – which lay between North This summer, these women gathered in Durham Carolina Central University and what is now Lincoln Community for their 57th class reunion, reconnecting to Health Center – and at White Rock Baptist Church. Minnie then commemorate their latest accomplishments and met Betty Jo Street (now Betty Jo Street Gilmore) at Chamberlain the lifelong bonds they forged during their youth Studios, where several more girls in the friend group took piano in the Jim lessons and played duets Crow era. together. She finally met the “Most of us are [or] will be other “ride or die” girlfriends in 75 this year,” Alice L. Sharpe, seventh grade at Fayetteville an Urban Durham Realty agent Street Elementary School. and active community volunteer, They stayed connected says of her inner circle. “The during the pandemic through majority of us met before we calls, emails and a group were 6 years old – a few, literally thread with those who live since birth. We have a few ‘stars’ out of state, including Jeanya in the group, like Minnie [M. Cobb McMillan in Vancouver, Forte-Brown] and Bonnie [D. Washington, plus three others in Logan], who was inducted into Maryland and the Washington, the North Carolina Tennis Hall D.C., metro area. of Fame – she was a tennis “The sisters in Durham get prodigy from a young age, right together at one another’s homes,” here in Durham, and was a true Minnie says. “We love to go to trailblazer. People are always the roof [at Alice’s] and on the amazed that we [all] have been deck [at my home and at Brenda friends, more like sisters, “Bren” Toomer’s] for libations.” Thomasine Bass Perry, 4, (standing) was head majorette at Scarborough Nursery for all these years.” Doris E. Howard, who was School in Durham when she met Jeanya Cobb McMillan, 4, (second from the left) in the school’s marching band in 1954. They sadly lost a dear born in Durham, now lives member of their sisterhood, in Washington, D.C., where Ora Geraldine “Gerri” Horton, she retired from a career in to brain cancer this past November. “Gerri was our glue,” Minnie, a government work focused on justice issues. She says it was inevitable retired educator and former elected official, says. “She was always so that she would befriend Jeanya, Patricia “Pat” Ricks Williams and calm, mature, steady and positive. Her beauty was not only physical, Thomasine Bass Perry in kindergarten because their parents had but also spiritual. I claimed her as my best friend, but she was grown up together and were friends. Doris met Gerri, Minnie everybody’s best friend.” and Bonnie in the aforementioned junior high school classroom
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