Revision as of 05:52, 11 April 2012

Corrine A. Huff lived an extraordinary life of triumphs and disasters. She was a beauty with an outgoing personality and early achievements. These were followed by what appeared to be glamorous opportunities, but were in fact entanglements that spiraled ever downward. She died lonely and in need, expressing regrets for causing her family pain.
Corrine's mother Dorothy was orphaned at a young age, seeing both her parents, her only brother, and an uncle die before she was ten years old. Dorothy was shuffled from through the homes of various relatives, and began a unfortunate list of three failed marriages by age sixteen. Between Dorothy's first and second marriage, daughter Corrine was born, the child of a liaison with a Mr. Huff, a man whose heritage included Scottish, Black, and possibly American Indian strains. In America of the forties and fifties, this would have meant that the Huff family were automatically regarded as of the Black race; Corrine was possibly 1/12 Black.
Corrine was not raised by either of her parents, but by Mr. & Mrs. Russell Huff, he being an attorney and the brother of her father. Corrine lived with the Huff family in New Castle PA where she graduated from high school. The family, or perhaps only Corrine, then lived in Youngstown, OH where she enrolled at Youngstown University, studying to be a teacher. At age 19 she became Miss Ohio, the first Black woman to compete in a major national pageant.
She had been initially the runner-up in this contest until the first place contestant was disqualified and Corrine was promoted to first place. In the spirit of the times, she received hate messages in connection with this title and her race. The effect of this early life mixture of achievement and denunciation on her later path can only be guessed at. She fulfilled the expectations of her Miss Ohio title by entering the Miss U.S.A. contest, where she was a semi-finalist.
She became a secretary to high-living Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who represented Harlem, NYC, from 1945 through 1971,and was the first Black from NY elected to the U. S. Congress. As chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, Powell was instrumental in passing social legislation during the administrations of presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Despite his three marriages, Corrine became his living companion, enjoying with him jaunts to Europe and elsewhere. Powell eventually faced more than one investigation on various charges of corruption and money-laundering practices based in the Bahamas.
Corinne at age 28 married Powell's Bimini-based fishing-boat captain, 25 year old Patrick Brown, but the marriage was brief.
Apparently, some of the money investment in the Bahamas was done in Corrine's name or through a company supposedly owned by her. In her final years however, the funds were reclaimed by others. She died in 2006 bereft of funds. She was unknown to her mother's side of the family until some years after her death.
Her early beauty can be seen in the Aug. 4 1960 issue of JET magazine, where she appears in a swimsuit pose typical of the era's contest entrants. In online photographs she looks very much like her maternal grandmother Beulah Gladys Kline. See http://www.geocities.com/missusamagica2/MU1960Delegates.html

Ancestry chart segment

 "Generation 1"          "Generation 2"                "Generation 3"            
 
                                                         
                                                         
                                               +-- Beulah Gladys Kline   
                                               |   (1890-1925)                 
                   +-- Dorothy Kline Sheffer --+                             
                   |   (1918 - ????)            |                                   
                   |                           +-- William Otis Branfield Sheffer
 Corrine A. Huff --+                               (1887-1922)
                   |
                   |
                   +-- unknown Huff

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