Chapter 1
“Rachael’s First Family Calendar”
The Wallace Townhouse
Wednesday January 1, 1986
From the time she was four years old, Rachael Lee Wallace-DeVille displayed an insatiable curiosity about her family’s history.
She loved listening to her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and the Elders tell stories about their childhoods, courtships, adventures, and mistakes. Unlike many children her age, Rachael rarely interrupted. She listened intently, storing away names, dates, and details that fascinated her.
Long before she kept journals, she became known as the family’s youngest historian.
The First Calendar
At four years old, Rachael decided her family needed a calendar of important dates.
On New Year’s Day 1986, Rachael pulled out her Kuumba gifts given to her by her parents: 1,000 multicolored sheets of construction paper, left-handed child-safe scissors, a dozen bottles of glue and glitter, and a colorful bedsheet to “create past the edges” as her father Eric Jr encouraged.
Bianca spread a well-loved thrift store bedsheet across the living room floor before Rachael opened her art supplies.
The sheet wasn’t precious.
It was meant to catch glue drips, glitter, crayon marks, and paint splatters.
Its purpose was simple: to give the Wallace children permission to make a mess in the service of creating.
Whenever one of his children was in a creative mood, Eric Jr. cleared time and space to make sure they had everything they needed. He met each child in a quiet, personal moment before they began creating.
Smiling, he leaned down and whispered to Rachael:
“Create past the edges.”
It’s not a lecture.
It’s not framed on a wall.
It’s whispered.
Almost like a blessing.
Rachael smiled back.
As she spread the construction paper across the bedsheet, she whispered the words to herself.
“Create past the edges.”
Rachael counted out twelve sheets of construction paper, one for each month of the year, and carefully wrote the name of each month across the top using her favorite crayons.
Then she gathered her family with one very important question:
“When is your birthday?”
As each relative answered with a month and day, Rachael waited patiently.
If no one included the year, she immediately followed up with another question:
“In what year was that?!”
To four-year-old Rachael, an incomplete answer wasn’t the truth.
She wanted the whole answer.
Her family laughed, but they answered every question.
By the end of the afternoon, her handmade calendar was filled with birthdays and anniversaries, becoming the first organized record of her branch of the CQREW family.
Teaching Instead of Doing
When other relatives heard about Rachael’s colorful birthday calendar, several jokingly asked if she would make one for them, too.
Instead of making everyone’s calendar herself, Rachael gathered construction paper and crayons and patiently showed each person how to create their own.
Even at four years old, she believed knowledge was meant to be shared.
Rather than doing the work for others, she preferred teaching them how to do it themselves.
The Beginning of a Family Historian
As she grew older, Rachael’s calendar evolved into journals filled with family birthdays, milestones, stories, traditions, and memories she recorded after listening to the Elders reminisce.
Her notebooks eventually became one of the most complete personal records of the Wallace–DeVille branch of the CQREW family.
A Defining Character Trait
From early childhood onward, Rachael developed a reputation for wanting complete and truthful answers.
If someone left out an important detail, she noticed.
If a date seemed inconsistent, she asked about it.
If two stories didn’t match, she respectfully sought clarification.
Her curiosity never came from suspicion.
It came from a lifelong belief that family history deserved to be remembered accurately and truthfully.
To Rachael, an incomplete answer wasn’t the truth. She wanted the whole answer.
The Village of Honeycomb
Wisdom in Honeycomb isn’t inherited through genetics.
It’s inherited through conversation.
We didn’t learn transparency from books.
We learned it at tables where nobody whispered.
In Honeycomb, you say the thing before it hardens into a secret.
Doors stay open here. Not because we don’t lock them—
because we don’t need to.
My grandmother used to say, If you have to hide it, it doesn’t belong to you.
Love doesn’t surprise us.
Lies do.
We don’t ask who you’re allowed to love.
We ask if you told the truth about it.
CQREW built this place with five houses and one rule:
what happens here must be able to sit in the light.
We raise children who know names, not rumors.
We don’t confuse silence with peace.
If something breaks, we fix it in the open.
If someone leaves, we know why.
Honeycomb doesn’t make you brave.
It makes you honest.
And honesty, once learned, doesn’t stay put.
A place where children aren’t abandoned.
Where adults tell the truth.
Where families choose each other.
Where love expands without requiring deception.
- Rachael Wallace, age 14
