Marian Olivia Heath Grifffin

Mama Fannie Marian Olivia Heath Grifffin

Mama Fannie was found in a sugarcane field in central Louisiana by slave women who came out to work one early fall morning in 1853. She was about two and a half years old with no shoes or coat on. She was very tiny, white, and beautiful. Her fourteen-year-old pregnant slave mother arrived on a ship in New Orleans and was sold immediately to a plantation owner in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. Martha attempted to save her child from the hurt and shame she was experiencing by leaving her in the field for a surrogate mother to raise. Mama Fannie grew up to be a Christian woman of character, raised her many biracial children in a loving manner, and was allowed to marry three of the fathers of her many children and became the root of her family-the Griffins.