Tina Knowles Lawson

choi

Alex Hawgood, She’s the Mother of All Pop Mothers; Tina Knowles Lawson continues as the inspiration for her chart-popping daughters. New York Times, Jan 22, 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/ ... ange-matriarch.html

Quote:

"For sisters in the public eye, Beyoncé [elder sister] and Solange Knowles have managed to resist the siren call to overshare the minutiae of their personal lives. But there is one topic they are happy to gush about: their mother, Tina Knowles Lawson [63 years old].

"The matriarch of pop music's reigning family resides * * * in a gated, castlelike home atop the winding Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles.

"Ms Lawson, nee Celestine Ann Beyincé [it is said Beyincé is a form of Boyancé, the latter being a French surname of unknown origin], grew up in the 1950s in 'a real small town' in Galveston, Tex. The last of seven siblings, her father was a longshoreman and her mother was a seamstress. She picked up dressmaking at a young age [from Lawson's mother] * * * With help from her then-husband, Matthew Knowles [their marriage 1980-2011, per Wikipedia], a former Xerox executive, she opened a 12-seat hair salon in Houston called Headliners. The salon, which had more than a two-decade run, helped the Knowles family afford an upper-class lifestyle. * * * After 33 years of marriage, she filed for divorce from Mr Knowles, who had been a talent manager for their daughters. Citing a 'conflict of personalities' in court papers, the divorce was made final in 2011.

Lawson "at 59, left Houston for Los Angeles * * * In 2013, she reconnected with an old friend, Richard Lawson, a TV actor known for his roles in 'Dynasty' and 'All My Children.' The couple tied the knot two years later [2015].

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest. This is the first time I learn where the name Beyoncé came from. I asked and nobody in Boston seemed to know.
(b) The en.wikipedia.org page for "Tina Knowles" says, "Her ancestry is Louisiana Creole."

Louisiana Creole  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Creole