Performing artist Annette Daniels Taylor had planned to review the life that Adeline “Addy” Barbara most likely endured for her 46 years in captivity as a slave in Batavia, but that wasn’t the focus of Monday morning's Juneteenth memorial service, so she turned to a poem titled “Dreaming.”

Addy’s last name was Barbara, though she belonged to the Rev. Lucius Smith, an Episcopal priest who owned her as a member of his family. She was a slave from the tender age of four until she died in 1957 at age 50. The memorial service was to honor and dignify her life for those 46 years in between.

When the Rev. Shiela Campbell McCullough, pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church, learned of Batavia’s cultural history, she was surprised, to say the least, about one particular person who lived and died here.

Her name was Adeline “Addy” Barbara, as listed in the 1850 census. Her gravestone, weathered and worn, bears the etching of her burden from age 4 until she died at 50: “faithful colored servant.”

"I just could not even imagine someone treating her like that. And the mere thought that just a four-year-old child was snatched from her mother, and I put my daughter (who has a four-year-old child) in the place of her mother. I mean, in my mind, it was just, that was painful. And the only thing I could do is to lay some flowers at her marker.”

Turns out that’s not the only thing she could do. McCullough and members of Batavia First Presbyterian Church, including the Rev. Roula Alkhouri and her husband Mike Stuart, and Batavia Cemetery Association will not only remember Addy and celebrate her life during Juneteenth’s Freedom Day at 10 a.m. Monday at Batavia Cemetery, 65 Harvester Ave., Batavia.