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Gabion “Gabby” Foss/Robby Weathers
Rill Foss’s biological mother. Queenie ran away with Briny Foss when she was just a teenager and the two are deeply in love. Queenie loves being a mother to Rill, Camellia, Lark, Fern, and Gabion, and living on the family’s shanty boat on the Mississippi River. She is Polish and Catholic, although her family does not share her beliefs and she is the only one of them who speaks Polish. Although Queenie has no trouble delivering her first five children, when she goes into labor with twins it’s discovered that they are breech. This forces Briny to take Queenie to the hospital to deliver the babies. Queenie delivers a boy and a girl, but nurses tell her and Briny that they were stillborn. This is, of course, devastating to Queenie, and her heartbreak is compounded by the discovery that her first five children were kidnapped while she was in the hospital. As Rill and Fern discover later, just weeks after they were kidnapped, Queenie became ill with blood poisoning and died. Old Zede, a neighbor on the river, theorizes that she actually died of a broken heart. Briny buries Queenie on the banks of the Mississippi River and refuses to sail south without her. In the end of the story, it’s revealed that Queenie’s twins were not stillborn, but were sold by Georgia Tann. The baby girl grows up to be Judy Stafford, whose granddaughter Avery is one of the story’s main protagonists. The other baby was named Shad Arthur Foss but is never found.
Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony Quotes in Before We Were Yours
The Before We Were Yours quotes below are all either spoken by Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony or refer to Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 12
Quotes
“Poor little waifs,” she says to the man. “We take them in when they are unwanted and unloved. We provide them with all that their parents cannot or will not give them.”
I bolt my eyes to the ground and make fists behind my back. It’s a lie, I wish I could scream at the man. My mama and daddy want us. They love us. So did the father who came to see his little boy, Lonnie, and ended up broke down on the porch crying like a baby when they said Lonnie’d been adopted.
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Chapter 23
Quotes
“I only took it fo’ safekeepin’,” the woman says. She hands me the tin piece and the papers separately. “That cross been Queenie’s, long time ago. Miss Judy write the other. It’s her story, but she never write the rest. They decide they all gon’ carry it to they graves, I guess. But I figure somebody might come askin’ one day. Secrets ain’t a healthy thang. Secrets ain’t a healthy thang, no matter how old they is. Sometimes the oldest secrets is the worst of all. You take yo’ grandmother to see Miss May. The heart still knows. It still know who it loves.”
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Get the entire Before We Were Yours LitChart as a printable PDF.
Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony Quotes in Before We Were Yours
The Before We Were Yours quotes below are all either spoken by Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony or refer to Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 12
Quotes
“Poor little waifs,” she says to the man. “We take them in when they are unwanted and unloved. We provide them with all that their parents cannot or will not give them.”
I bolt my eyes to the ground and make fists behind my back. It’s a lie, I wish I could scream at the man. My mama and daddy want us. They love us. So did the father who came to see his little boy, Lonnie, and ended up broke down on the porch crying like a baby when they said Lonnie’d been adopted.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23
Quotes
“I only took it fo’ safekeepin’,” the woman says. She hands me the tin piece and the papers separately. “That cross been Queenie’s, long time ago. Miss Judy write the other. It’s her story, but she never write the rest. They decide they all gon’ carry it to they graves, I guess. But I figure somebody might come askin’ one day. Secrets ain’t a healthy thang. Secrets ain’t a healthy thang, no matter how old they is. Sometimes the oldest secrets is the worst of all. You take yo’ grandmother to see Miss May. The heart still knows. It still know who it loves.”
Related Characters:
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