Barbara Siggers Franklin

Barbara Vernice Siggers Franklin (born June 29, 1917 in Shelby, Mississippi; died in 1952 in Buffalo, New York) was the mother of the legendary soul and gospel singer Aretha Franklin and wife of C. L. Franklin, the famous Black Baptist preacher. She married C. L. on June 3, 1936, and the marriage produced four children: Erma, Cecil, Aretha, and Carolyn. Prior to the marriage, Barbara had given birth earlier that year to her son, Vaughn, by a previous relationship. Barbara was a pianist and, according to Mahalia Jackson, one of the finest singers in the country. A few years after Barbara and C. L. had moved to Detroit, marital trouble (probably stemming from C. L.'s infidelities including a daughter he had fathered (named Carl Ellan Kelley) by a 13-year-old congregant in Memphis in 1940) caused Barbara to leave the Reverend in 1948, and she moved to Buffalo, New York with her son, Vaughn. [Though it has been widely reported that Barbara Franklin 'deserted' her children, Aretha Franklin has vociferously disputed that rumor, and C. L. Franklin's biographer, Prof. Nick Salvatore of Cornell University, takes pains to discredit it. According to Salvatore, Barbara Franklin made regular visits to Detroit to see her children, and during their summer vacations they travelled to Buffalo for extended stays with their mother.] She returned to Detroit periodically to visit her children, and died in 1952 of heart trouble.

References

Further reading

* Salvatore, Nick, "Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America", Little Brown, 2005, Hardcover ISBN 0-316-16037-7.
* Schwerin, Jules, "Got to Tell It: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel", Oxford University Press, 1992, Paperback ISBN 0-19-509050-0.