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A Tyrone area family's roots run deep in the region, its name and legacy etched in Blair County's Black history.
The Hewitt family has made its mark in the region, ever since its patriarch, Coley, and his wife, Annie, moved to the area in the early 1900s from Florida, where they were sharecroppers.
Coley served in various capacities, including as vice president, with the Blair County NAACP's Tyrone division.
"Grandpa was a trailblazer," said grandson Charles Jamison. "He was a great man, and he was a very well-known and respected man no matter where he would go."
Yvonne Campbell, Jamison's cousin and another of Coley and Annie's grandchildren, always admired her grandfather's commitment to equality.
"He believed very much in the NAACP and what it stood for and that if we were to get ahead as Black people, we needed an organization where everyone could stand together."
Jamison and Campbell, who credit their grandparents for raising them, said they spent summers visiting the Hewitts' Grazierville home.
Jamison, who has since relocated to Pittsburgh, has a peony from the Hewitts' Grazierville home planted in his yard; it's a poignant reminder of his family's history, he said.
"Grandma had a flower garden in the 1960s and '70s -- a big, huge flower garden," Jamison said. "People going through Tyrone always stopped and looked at it because they heard about it and it was a beautiful garden. There was one flower left after the house was sold, and I took it and brought it home and replanted it. It blooms every spring and it's just beautiful, so whenever I leave this world, my granddaughter will plant it wherever she lives. This plant, still living today, is like a memorial that I have in my front yard."
Although he lives hours away and wasn't born in Blair County, Jamison considers the area home.
"I was born in Chicago, but my roots are all there in Tyrone; that's where my roots are at."
Coley and Annie, and three of their nine children, including Jamison's mother, are buried at the Charlottesville Cemetery in Tipton. Their last surviving child, Mozelle Hewitt Gaines, died in December in New Jersey at 97.
According to Jamison, the Hewitts were the first Black family in the Tyrone area, which welcomed them.
"It shows Blacks and whites were able to get along and live in peace," Campbell said.
Campbell remembers her grandfather fondly.
"I didn't realize how rich our history was until I sat down and put things together," Campbell said. "Grandpa encouraged us to always try and do better and emphasized that there was no excuse for failure; he wouldn't accept failure. My grandparents couldn't read or write when they first got to Tyrone, but when their grandchildren sat at the table at night to do their homework, they sat down and did theirs, too. Then, they got to where they could both read and write with anybody."
Campbell remembers Coley as a man of faith who had a vision for his family.
"He felt his children could do better than what he did," Campbell said. "He was a Christian; he believed in God in everyday life and he walked with the Holy Spirit, and that was the one value he taught us all."
"My grandfather meant everything to me; even though he wasn't my father, my parents gave me to my grandparents for them to raise me because they felt he had the moral values I needed instilled in me," Campbell said. "We never had a meal we didn't bless the Lord to. We weren't rich, but we were rich in love. If one person had a penny, everyone had a piece."
At one point, Coley was the oldest licensed and ordained deacon in Pennsylvania. He was involved with various churches, including the Church of God in Christ and Mother Gethsemane Church of God, and organized what is now known as the Union of Churches Annual Picnic, which led to the start of the African American Heritage Festival of Central Pennsylvania.
"He must have had a profound impact in the community, because white reporters were constantly covering him," said Blair County NAACP President Andrae Holsey. "He was well-respected by the community and across the state and was a key player in maintaining African American history and culture across Pennsylvania."
Campbell said her grandfather's legacy lives on locally, as people respect Coley now as they did years ago.
"They still talk about him," Campbell said. "He was very, very much a Christian, and he believed in families and family values. In Tyrone, there were not a lot of Blacks, but the ones there respected him. He believed in the Black family and that we could do anything we wanted to do as long as we stood together."
Mirror Staff Writer Andrew Mollenauer is at 814-946-7428.