Nina Graves Summers (1887–1956)

Born on April 30, 1887, in the rural farming community of Rockingham County, North Carolina, Nina Graves came from a hardworking, deeply rooted African American family. She was one of nine children raised by Joe Thomas and Gillie Pickard Graves in Reidsville, where she began her life as a farm laborer by the age of 13. Though she did not attend school at this age, Nina could read and write—skills that would serve her well as she eventually became the matriarch of her own sprawling household.

In 1913, Nina married John A. Summers, a man from a well-established Guilford County family. Together, they built a life of faith, labor, and sacrifice on their farm in Madison, North Carolina. Over the next two decades, Nina gave birth to twelve children—Wilbur, Waverley, Jaffa, Gladys, Jasper, Walter, Hessie, Herbert, Hallie, and Larry, among others—each of whom would grow up under her quiet strength and moral guidance.

The Summers household was always full, multigenerational, and industrious. By 1920, Nina was already managing the needs of multiple young children while living with her in-laws, including the family patriarch Henry Summers, then 87 years old. As she nurtured her family through the Great Depression and the agricultural challenges of the era, Nina became the central organizing force in a home defined by self-reliance and faith.

In 1937, Nina’s life changed forever when her husband John passed away. She was just 50 years old and left to raise the remaining minor children on her own. Yet she did not falter. By the time of the 1940 Census, Nina was the head of a household on a working farm in Madison, valued at $1,500. Despite having only completed the 7th grade and earning no reported income, she held the family together—raising sons who would serve in World War II and daughters who would go on to raise children of their own, many of them under her roof.

Nina’s strength did not diminish with age. By 1950, at 62 years old, she was still the head of a 12-person household, which included grandchildren, a daughter-in-law, and adult children. Her home on Osceola Road was a living example of generational continuity—built on land, love, and leadership. Though she never worked outside the home in a formal sense, Nina’s labor was ceaseless, her legacy vast.

She passed away on December 9, 1956, in Greensboro, North Carolina, and was buried in Browns Summit in Guilford County. Her life spanned Reconstruction’s aftermath, two world wars, and the early stirrings of the Civil Rights Movement. She was a woman of quiet resolve, one who carried the weight of family legacy after her husband's death and shepherded her children and grandchildren through eras of both change and challenge.

Nina Graves Summers remains a symbol of endurance, maternal strength, and generational love—an anchor in the ancestral story of the Jones-Carter family.

“She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.”

— Proverbs 31:25 (NIV)