Great Aunt Tolliver

A historically antecedent member of the Tolliver family, Great Aunt Tolliver functions as a cultural touchstone rather than an active participant. Morris Tolliver invokes her as the source of his grandmother's name and, by extension, his daughter Corey's name — perpetuating a naming chain that traces back to "the first free woman" his great aunt encountered. Her presence in the story supplies familial continuity, embodies intergenerational memory, and anchors the Tolliver line to a specific, orally transmitted legacy of freedom and female kinship.