'The Story of Biddy Mason'

Biddy MASON didn't stop taking care of people; she did more of it. In an 1884 rainstorm, the Los Angeles River turned into a raging torrent. Homes were swept away, and many people had nothing left. Biddy immediately told the local grocer that she would pay the bill at his store for anyone -- black or white -- who needed food.

Ten years before, Biddy and some friends started the First African Methodist Episcopal church in Los Angeles. If the church couldn't pay the minister, or its bills, Biddy paid them herself. Now she also paid the bills for other churches in need. It didn't matter who went to the church; what mattered was that they needed help.

She kept on nursing -- free -- and taught other women how to use a gentle touch and calming voice to help patients feel better.

She packed food baskets and took them to the jail behind the courthouse. She prayed and talked with the prisoners about a better way to live.

She started a school and day-care center in her neighborhood for black children and for any child who had nowhere else to go. Some grown-ups had nowhere to go either. Biddy, who always greeted the world with open hands, took people into her home, gave them food and let them rest.

Biddy Mason died Jan. 15, 1891, and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles (now Boyle Heights). Because she had done her work and given her gifts quietly, many people did not know of her goodness.

In 1988, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and others placed a beautiful marble tombstone over her grave. In 1989, the Biddy Mason Memorial Wall was unveiled on her former property at 3rd and Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles (behind the Bradbury Building).

Biddy's descendants proudly maintain her legacy. They remember the lesson she passed down: "The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives."

Biddy Mason, once a slave, gave with open hands and an open heart to any person in need -- regardless of color. Her life is a gift to us all.

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This is a Kids' Reading Room Classic that first appeared Feb. 9, 2001. It will be on The Times' website at latimes.com/kids. Monday story: "Valentines of Many Kinds."