My great great great great aunt Mathilde Morier, a white French Canadian, married a black man, Martin Stevens in Boston, Massachusetts in 1875 (anti-miscegenation laws were repealed in Massachusetts in 1843). Their son Walter Stevens discussed her, as well as his own race-related experiences in his autobiography:
My mother was a white woman but I didn't discover this until I had grown almost to manhood. The strange part of it was that nothing was ever said about it to me by anyone. There was no furtive whispering, gossip, or innuendo, for she was simply taken for granted. In those days there was not as much prejudice between colored and white as there is today [1946] in Boston. Life was entirely different in many ways.
Mother, although being of an entirely different color than the rest of our family, fitted into the home picture fairly well. She was born in Canada and was a French-Canadian. She went about her business calmly, presided over her simple domain with a certain amount of assurance, but had absolutely no imagination. She was so unlike father, for he was strong, dominating, personable and vibrant. Hers was a placid, docile nature.
The thing that endeared her to all of us children, my two sisters and myself, was the fact that she saved us from the strict discipline and beatings which we would have received from my father, who was a man quick to anger, though once his rage was over, considerate and gentle with his children. Another of the things that I remember most about her was her fastidious nature. She was very particular indeed about my personal appearance, and instilled in me the importance and need for cleanliness. If I say very little about mother, it is because there is nothing much to say.
