Geneva Calcier Townes Turner married Lorenzo Dow Turner, a pioneering African American linguist and celebrated father of Gullah studies, who conducted groundbreaking research in the Sea Islands off the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. Geneva worked as an unofficial research associate and scribe for her husband’s projects in the early years of his research. She participated in creating recordings of the Gullah people’s songs and dialect, and studied the international phonetic system at Brown University in order to better identify and transcribe Gullah speech. While her contributions to the formative years of Dr. Turner’s Gullah research were never fully acknowledged, she took pride in “sharing in his accomplishments.”
The couple separated after nineteen years of marriage, and Geneva went on to enjoy a successful career as an elementary school educator in Washington, DC. She also collaboratively published and distributed two children’s books.
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KatieGrovener [Grovernor] Brown, Gullah Informant, Sapelo Island, Georgia, 1933 |
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Parris and Rosa Capers, Gullah Informants, St. Helena
Island, South Carolina, 1932 |
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SamPolite, Gullah Informant, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1932 |
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