Joseph and Katherine
Joseph Walter Jackson was born on 26 July 1929, to Samuel and Chrystal Jackson in Fountain Hill, Arkansas. He is the eldest of five children; a sister, Verna, died when she was seven. Samuel, a high school teacher, was a strict, unyielding man who raised his children with an iron fist. They were not allowed to socialize with friends outside the home. ‘The Bible says that bad associations spoil youthful habits,’ Chrystal explained to them.
‘Samuel Jackson loved his family, but he was distant and hard to reach,’ remembered a relative. ‘He rarely showed his family any affection, so he was misunderstood. People thought he had no feelings, but he did. He was sensitive but didn't know what to do with his sensitivities. Joseph would take after his father in so many ways.’
Samuel and Chrystal divorced when Joseph was a teenager. Sam moved to Oakland, taking Joseph with him, while Chrystal took Joseph's brother and sisters to East Chicago. When Samuel married a third time, Joseph decided to join his mother and siblings in Indiana. He dropped out of school in the eleventh grade and became a boxer in the Golden Gloves. Shortly thereafter, he met Katherine Esther Scruse at a neighbourhood party. She was a pretty and petite woman, and Joseph was attracted to her affable personality and warm smile.
Katherine was born on 4 May 1930, and christened Kattie B. Scruse, after an aunt on her father's side. (She was called Kate or Katie as a child, and those closest to her today still call her that.) Kattie was born to Prince Albert Screws and Martha Upshaw in Barbour County, a few miles from Russell County, Alabama, a rural farming area that had been home to her family for generations. Her parents had been married for a year. They would have another child, Hattie, in 1931.
Prince Scruse worked for the Seminole Railroad and also as a tenant cotton farmer, as did Katherine's grandfather and great-grandfather, Kendall Brown. Brown, who sang every Sunday in a Russell County church and was renowned for his voice, had once been a slave for an Alabama family named Scruse, whose name he eventually adopted as his own.
‘People told me that when the church windows were opened, you could hear my great-grandfather's voice ringing out all over the valley,’ Katherine would recall. ‘It would just ring out over everybody else's. And when I heard this, I said to myself, “Well, maybe it is in the blood.”’
At the age of eighteen months, Katherine was stricken with polio, at the time often called infantile paralysis because it struck so many children. There was no vaccine in those days, and many children – like Joseph's sister Verna – either died from it or were severely crippled.
In 1934, Prince Scruse moved his family to East Chicago, Indiana, in search of a steady job. He was employed in the steel mills before finding work as a Pullman porter with the Illinois Central Railroad. In less than a year, Prince and Martha divorced; Martha remained in East Chicago with her young daughters.
Because of her polio, Katherine became a shy, introverted child who was often taunted by her schoolmates. She was always in and out of hospitals. Unable to graduate from high school, she would take equivalency courses as an adult and get her diploma in that way. Until she was sixteen, she wore a brace, or used crutches. Today, she walks with a limp.
Her positive childhood memories have always been about music. She and her sister, Hattie, grew up listening to country-western radio programmes and admiring such stars as Hank Williams and Ernest Tubbs. They were members of the high school orchestra, the church junior band and the school choir. Katherine, who also sang in the local Baptist church, dreamed of a career in show business, first as an actress and then as a vocalist.
When she met Joseph, Katherine fell for him, immediately. Though he had married someone else, it lasted only about a year. After his divorce, Katherine began dating Joseph, and the couple soon became engaged. She was under his spell, gripped by his charisma, seduced by his charm, his looks, his power. He was a commanding man who took control, and she sensed she would always feel safe with him. She found herself enjoying his stories, laughing at his jokes. His eyes were large, set wide apart and a colour of hazel she had never before seen, almost emerald. Whenever she looked into them, as she would tell it, she knew she was being swept away, and it was what she wanted for herself. Or, as she put it, ‘I fell crazy in love.’
They were opposites in many ways. She was soft. Joseph was hard. She was reasonable. Joseph was explosive. She was romantic. Joseph was pragmatic. However, the chemistry was there for them.
Both were musical: he was a bluesman who played guitar; she was a country-western fan who played clarinet and piano. When they were courting, the two would snuggle up together on cold winter nights and sing Christmas carols. Sometimes they would harmonize, and the blend was a good one, thanks to Katherine's beautiful soprano voice. Michael Jackson feels he inherited his singing ability from his mother. He has recalled that in his earliest memory of Katherine, she is holding him in her arms and singing songs such as ‘You Are My Sunshine’ and ‘Cotton Fields’.
Joseph, twenty, and Katherine, nineteen, were married by a justice of the peace on 5 November 1949, in Crown Point, Indiana, after a six-month engagement.
Katherine has said that she was so affected by her parents' divorce, and the fact that she was raised in a broken home, she promised herself once she found a husband, she would stay married to him, no matter what circumstances may come their way. It didn't seem that she had much to worry about with Joseph, though. He treated her respectfully and showed her every consideration. She enjoyed his company; he made her laugh like no one ever had in the past. Importantly, there was a tremendous sexual bonding between them. Joseph was a passionate man; Katherine, less so a woman. However, they were in love; they were compatible and they made it work.
The newlyweds settled in Gary, Indiana. Their first child, Maureen, nicknamed Rebbie (pronounced R
ee
bie), was born on 29 May 1950. The rest of the brood followed in quick succession. On 4 May 1951, Katherine's twenty-first birthday, she gave birth to Sigmund Esco, nicknamed Jackie. Two years later, on 15 October 1953, Tariano Adaryl was born; he was called Tito. Jermaine LaJuane followed on 11 December 1954; LaToya Yvonne on 29 May 1956; Marlon David on 12 March 1957 (one of a set of premature twins; the other, Brandon, died within twenty-four hours of birth); Michael Joseph on 29 August 1958 (‘with a funny-looking head, big brown eyes, and long hands,’ said his mother); Steven Randall on 29 October 1961, and then Janet Dameta on 16 May 1966.