McLean County Museum of History

Keep the Heritage Alive!

Lue Anna Brown Sanders Clark - Tape 2


Narrator: Lue Anna Brown Sanders Clark
Interviewer: Mildred Pratt
Date: November 13, 1986 (this is a follow-up interview)

Side A

MP	This is November 13, 1986, and I'm interviewing Mrs. Anna Clark. I'm going to talk now about the first house that you lived in when you were born. If you would describe what you remember of that house. What did it look like?

AC	It was a two-room house with a big hall between them.

MP	How many people were in the family at that time?

AC	Just four.

MP	Your mother and father...

AC	Yeah, my mother and father and brother and sister.

MP	How many brothers and sisters-were you the last child?

AC	No, I had a younger brother.

MP	So when you were born, there were just two children in the house?

AC	There were three. There was two in the house, and when I was born, that made three.

MP	Would you describe how those two rooms were used?

AC	One room was used for the bedroom. The hall was used as a dining room, and the kitchen.

MP	The other room was the kitchen.

AC	Un-huh. We had an upstairs. It wasn't used. It was only just storage.

MP	Did the children sleep in the kitchen?

AC	Yes. After we grew up, some of us slept in the kitchen. We had a bed in the kitchen, and two beds in the other room.

MP	Did you have indoor water?

AC	No.

MP	Do you remember where you got your water?

AC	We had a well.

MP	It was on your premises? And you would draw water from the well?

AC	Yes, we had a long bucket, and it would go down. We had a good well.

MP	Who was responsible for drawing the water? Did the parents or the children do that?

AC	Anybody who was large enough.

MP	I'll bet you didn't have indoor toilets?

AC	Oh, no.

MP	Tell me about that.

AC	We had to go out behind sheds. We had a woods lot. We went out in there.

MP	Did you have an outdoor toilet facility built?

AC	Yes, we did have one. I forgot that. We had a little outdoor toilet.

AC	Did you have something called a slop jar?

AC	Yes. We had slop jars.

MP	What did you cook on?

AC	We had a cook stove that used wood. We had plenty of wood.

MP	Who owned the house?

AC	My father.

MP	Did he build it?

AC	He had it built.

MP	Did you have any relatives that lived with you at any time?

AC	No.

MP	Were you born in a hospital or at home?

AC	At home. My sister said I was.

MP	By a mid-wife? Did they have mid-wives?

AC	I guess. She said she went to school and when she come back, I was there.

MP	Did both of your parents work?

AC	No, my mother didn't work out. She worked at home. My father farmed. He had a little farm out from town. He had a big garden there. I guess about a couple of acres or something. Then he had about ten acres out in the country that he farmed. And he worked out for people.

MP	What did he do?

AC	He hoed tobacco. Stuff like that.

MP	That was in Kentucky, right?

AC	Un-huh. He was good at hoeing. Everybody wanted him. He could hoe two rows while another man could only do one.

MP	Oh, is that right? (laughs)

AC	That way he always had work. He made lard for people. Cooked the lard.

MP	He would go to their houses then, and when they killed the hogs he would do that for them.

AC	Un-huh. He could do most anything.

MP	Any other things that you remember he did to make money?

AC	He always had money. It wasn't much, but he had money.

MP	But he always managed to do some kind of work to get money, right? Did he teach his children to do work?

AC	Oh, yes.

MP	What did he teach the children to do?

AC	What ever he did, he taught us to do. He always said he'd teach us to do work whether we liked it or not. He said it would come in handy after we growed up.

MP	How did he come to own so much land?

AC	Well, he just worked and saved his money.

MP	I thought maybe he inherited land. Oh, he worked and bought his land.

AC	He was ten years old when slavery was over. They told him when he was ten years old. From then on he was on his own.

MP	Did he tell you-as a ten year old his parents weren't around-who were his parents?

AC	He didn't know his mother. The only thing he knew was they sold his mother. He thought he had a sister, but he wasn't sure. His father was a slave owner. I told you that.

MP	Yes, you told me that.

AC	He came in the house as a slave. At ten years old, I don't know what he could do, but his father kept him. When war broke out, his father told him (inaudible).

MP	Oh, his father told him. I'm going to pull this up to be sure we're getting everything. His father told him-he lived in the house with his father as a slave.

AC	He lived in the house as a houseboy. That's what he was, a houseboy. The people he lived with was his father, but it wasn't his mother. His mother was sold.

MP	Did he talk to you about how they treated him?

AC	He never did talk too much about it. I know he said that he used to go down to where the slaves lived sometimes, and he'd carry them sugar down there. They weren't supposed to use white sugar. And they had barrels and barrels of white sugar and brown sugar. The slaves could get brown sugar and molasses, but they couldn't use white sugar. He would take some of the white sugar to them, and they found out that the sugar was missing in the barrels. So they wrote S-U-G-A-R on it, and he couldn't get it because he couldn't read it. But how they treated him I never heard him say. I guess they treated him all right. I told you about the old lady.

MP	Yes, I think that's fascinating.

AC	You don't want that today.

MP	Well, tell it again so I'll be sure and have it because it's interesting. This is your father's father's wife. She was the one that had your father take the stuff out of her hair?

AC	Yes.

MP	Who was she?

AC	She was his father's wife. He was a houseboy, and when she'd have company, she had a big rocking chair, and she'd sit in that rocking chair and have him to sit behind the rocking chair. She'd be entertaining her guest, and every once and awhile she'd reach up and take a louse out of her hair. She'd put it back there for him to kill. So that was one of his jobs.

MP	Did she know that he was the son of her husband's?

AC	I suppose she did. The women knew it, but they couldn't protect themselves. They didn't know nothing to do and nowhere to go. Just the same as we are today. The women thought they had to stay there and take whatever the man put on them. Most of them men was mean to them women.

MP	Your father thought he had a sister?

AC	He thought he had a sister, but he wasn't sure.

MP	How did he know that he was free?

AC	His father told him.

MP	What did his father tell him to do?

AC	I don't know.

MP	Did he continue living there?

AC	He didn't say. I imagine he did. At ten years old, I don't know what he could do at ten years old. I imagine he stayed around there.

MP	What was his father's last name?

AC	My father's?

MP	Yes.

AC	William Brown.

MP	William Brown. And his father's last name was Brown?

AC	Yes.

MP	He never talked with you about whether his father taught him a skill or willed him land or anything?

AC	No.

MP	So then your father married. When did your father marry?

AC	He married my mother in Missouri.

MP	You don't know when he left Kentucky, do you?

AC	I think he was in-I think he lived in Tennessee. And I guess he moved from Tennessee to Missouri.

MP	Before he met your mother, did he own the land?

AC	I don't know. I knew he had a house built before any of us was born.

MP	He really had no idea about his relatives?

AC	No.

MP	Did he ever express sadness about that?

AC	No. He didn't seem to care.

MP	It didn't bother him one bit. Do you want to say something?

AC	No.

MP	What place in Missouri were you born?

AC	I was born in Kentucky.

MP	After your father went to Missouri...

AC	He married in Missouri and moved back to Kentucky.

MP	He moved back to where he was born in Kentucky? Was your father born in Kentucky or Tennessee?

AC	I think he was born in Tennessee because he talked about Tennessee. He must of left Tennessee and went to Missouri and met my mother. Then they moved to Kentucky.

MP	So you were born in Kentucky then? Was this in a rural town?

AC	A little town, Bandana.

MP	How is that spelled?

AC	B-A-N-D-A-N-A.

MP	Would you describe that little town?

AC	It had four streets. The center of the town had stores and shops. They had a street that go west, and a street that'd go north and go south. All the Colored people lived on the street that went south-most of them. But the schoolteachers lived on the street that went east. They all had little acres-some had small places. My father had a big place. Next door, they were small. Just a house on this side and a house on the other side, like that.

MP	Was there a lot of visiting between the neighbors?

AC	Just church and school. Of course, the kids would get together and play.

MP	Did you every play with the white kids?

AC	No. But before I was born there was a rich white family that used to send her little boy down for my mother to keep and to play with my older brother. I heard them say that he grew up with my brother.

MP	What kind of work did the other Black people in the community do?

AC	They did about the same thing my father did. Farmed, worked on farms and day work. Stuff like that. Most of them had gardens, and they'd go out and work for people for a day.

MP	Do you ever remember if there were any riots between Blacks and whites?

AC	No.

MP	Everybody knew their place and they stayed there, right? I want to ask.

AC	I know when they'd go to vote, the Black people-the men. The women didn't vote. The men would all get together and go to vote early so they wouldn't be there because when they had an election, they was always fighting and killing. You know the white people. Not the Colored people; the white people. Somebody would get killed during the election.

MP	You mean, the white would kill white people?

AC	Yeah.

MP	Do you know why that would happen?

AC	They'd just get in an argument.

MP	Over who they would vote for?

AC	Over who they would vote for

MP	And so the Black people would all get together and go early.

AC	And there wouldn't be any. Every election somebody would killed, get shot.

MP	In your town, were most of the people Democratic or Republican, or you don't know?

AC	No, I don't.

MP	Around what year was this? What year were you born?

AC	1892.

MP	We'd be talking about around 1910 when they were voting?

AC	Yes.

MP	Did any Black people ever run for office?

AC	No, not around there.

MP	So they then voted for whites. Did most of the Black people vote?

AC	Well, most of the people that had families voted.

MP	They didn't have any trouble with white people telling them they couldn't vote?

AC	No. But they had to pay a dollar. Everybody paid a dollar. They called it poll tax.

MP	How did your mother feel about not being able to vote?

AC	I don't know.

MP	She never talked with you about it?

AC	Well, I didn't know too much about my mother. I was five years old when she died.

MP	Did your sister ever tell you anything about your mother?

AC	Not too much.

MP	Did you have an older sister?

AC	An older sister. She didn't tell me too much.

MP	So you don't know where your mother was born?

AC	She was born in Missouri. Bird's Point, I think.

MP	What's it called?

AC	Bird's Point.

MP	Bird's Point, Missouri. .She had sisters and brothers there at Bird's Point.

MP	Did you ever talk with them?

AC	Well, I met one of her sisters after I was grown.

MP	Did she tell you anything about their family?

AC	Not too much.

MP	She didn't talk about where the family came from to Missouri?

AC	No. She had kids, and after I met them, I was mostly with the kids.

MP	So you really never had relatives you could talk to. How old was your oldest sister or brother when your mother died?

AC	Yes. She helped raise me.

MP	About old was she when your mother died?

AC	She was fourteen when my mother died.

MP	So she would remember some things about your mother, but she didn't tell you anything.

AC	Well, she talked some, but not too much.

MP	You weren't too curious to know. All right. Are you active in the church?

AC	Not too active.

MP	Were your parents? Was your father?

AC	No, he joined the Methodist church quite a ways from there, and there's only the Baptist church there because that was the only church. And he never did join the Baptist church. He always said he was a Methodist. He always went to the Baptist church. The Methodist church was so far away, he never did go there, but he never did join the Baptist church. He didn't want to be baptized.

MP	Did your father get married again?

AC	Yeah. He got married. He married a woman, and they lived together, I guess, about a year and they separated. She had three boys and one girl. They were all practically grown.

MP	Is that right? So they didn't quite hit it off too well. Do you remember anything about her?

AC	Well, I remember that she was nice to us. I think it was the children. He wanted the children to be like his children. When he said "go," you go. And when he says "come," he wanted them to come. But they were kinda slow about doing that. So he didn't like it too well.

MP	Was he a pretty strict father?

AC	Yes.

MP	Was he as strict with the boys as with the girls? Is it your impression that most fathers were kind of like that?

AC	Yes. He always had something for us to do, if it wasn't nothing but shelling corn in the wintertime.

MP	Why do you think he wanted you working all the time?

AC	He just wanted to learn us to work. We always had something to do.

MP	You were the baby in the family, weren't you?

AC	No, I had a brother, younger brother. His name is Dallas. He lives in Peoria.

MP	As a baby sister, did you have a lot to do, too?

AC	Not too much. I wasn't too healthy. I'd have the chills and fever and stuff like that. When I didn't want to do anything, I'd just sit out in the sun until I had a chill.

MP	I like that. (laughs)

AC	I'd sit out in the sun, and pretty soon I'd have a chill.

MP	You attended a school then in your hometown in Kentucky? Could you describe that school?

AC	It was just a one-room school. Everybody went there. Young kids and older kids up to the eighth grade. We had one teacher there that was there for years and years. White people hired the teacher. He was a man that liked music, but outside of that, he didn't care whether you learned or not.

MP	I wonder why he wasn't interested in your learning. Did your parents-was your father concerned about that?

AC	My father would go there and talk sometimes because he didn't know whether we were learning anything or not. A lot of times he'd go there when he'd (inaudible). And he'd talk about how you should learn and what you should learn.

MP	Was he the only teacher you ever had?

AC	After he left, we had a woman teacher, and she stayed about a year. Then there was two women.

MP	Were they any better than the man?

AC	Yes, they were better teachers.

MP	And you did learn from them. Do you remember what things you liked studying best?

AC	I don't know. I always wanted to be a designer. A hat designer.

MP	How did you develop an interest in designing hats?

AC	I don't know.

MP	When did you develop that interest?

AC	I guess I must have been about five or six years old. That was what I wanted-sewing. I didn't know much about hats. I did take it up here in Bloomington.

MP	Did you ever sell hats? Did you ever make money from it?

AC	I think I did.

MP	How far in school did you go?

AC	I went to the eighth grade.

MP	So you graduated from that school then?

AC	No, I didn't graduate. I just went to the eighth grade.

MP	The most important thing you remember about the school is that you didn't have a very good teacher. Was your teacher an old man?

AC	He was middle aged. But he was crazy about music. He'd just sing. He had a little chorus after school. He'd just sing all day.

MP	Did you join that chorus?

AC	No, I didn't join.

MP	Any of your brothers and sisters?

AC	My sister did. He learned them music and all that-notes.

MP	I guess he wanted to be a musician, perhaps.

AC	I guess he did.

MP	As a child, you had some recreational activities in Kentucky? Some fun activities as a child?

AC	Yeah.

MP	What kind of fun things did you do?

AC	We just played ball. And we played marbles. And we played with dolls. I had ten dolls at one time.

MP	Your father bought the dolls?

AC	Yes. He'd buy me a doll every Christmas, and I saved them and made clothes for them. I kept them nice.

MP	Who taught you how to sew?

AC	I taught myself.

MP	You don't have any of those dolls now, do you?

AC	No.

MP	What did your family do at Christmas time?

AC	We used to have ham more, you know. They'd cook up a lot of ham and pies and cakes and things. And the neighbors would all get together and they'd go from house to house. They'd eat here and then they'd go to the next house and eat. Apples and oranges and stuff like that, you know. Then they had Roman cannons and fire crackers. The kids had that to shoot.

MP	Do you remember if your family ever celebrated a holiday called June nineteenth or Juneteenth?

AC	I don't know. They celebrated the Eighth of August.

MP	What was that?

AC	That was something about the history of the Negroes. We'd all go to Paducah, Kentucky. On the Eighth of August people came from everywhere-the Eighth of August. They'd have a big celebration there.

MP	That's very interesting. Do you know if it had anything to do with when Black people got freedom? That this was a time that Black people learned that they were free, maybe?

AC	It was something. I don't remember now, but it was a celebration. Now, the white people they celebrated the Fourth of July, and the Black people celebrated the Eighth of August, but I think they've changed that to-it seems like they changed that to September or something they're using now.

MP	Is there anybody you can talk to to find out what that was? Relatives that might know?

AC	No, there aren't. The Eighth of August was a celebration of freedom in some way. But the Fourth of July they didn't celebrate.

MP	Black people didn't celebrate. They said our day is the Eighth of August.

AC	People would come in from Memphis and everywhere to Paducah. They had a big day.

MP	We'll talk more about that on the sixth.

AC	I don't when I learned. I know one thing. Many people talked so much about how mean the white people were. I'd go to church and the minister would talk about heaven and hell. I thought all white people went to hell, and all Colored people went to heaven. That was my thoughts because they said they were so mean, and that's all I could hear is meanness. When the church said-when they'd preach, I thought all Colored people went to heaven and all the white people went to hell.

MP	Because the preacher preached about how mean white people were?

AC	No. The parents would talk about how mean-not the preacher.

MP	Oh, adults would talk about how mean white people were? Did your father talk about that?

AC	Oh, yes. That's all I could hear.

MP	What kinds of things would he say about white people?

AC	Well, they'd just talk about slavery and how they came up. And how mean they were. I never did hear about how good they were. But they all worked and got along together. Then the neighbors would come around, and they would talk the same thing. So that was my thoughts-the first thing I thought like this.

MP	Did they describe what white people did to Black people?

AC	No, I don't remember. It was always something that they did way back-not then.

MP	They were probably talking about slavery, right. Did they ever talk about lynchings?

AC	Not too much. I don't think I heard too much about lynching.

MP	When did you have your first contact with a white person?

AC	I don't remember.

MP	Did your father ever teach you how you should behave toward white people?

AC	No, he just taught us to treat everybody nice. He didn't say white or Colored.

MP	Did he ever tell you that you shouldn't go in certain stores or certain movie houses or neighborhoods where white people lived?

AC	No.

MP	But did you know you weren't supposed to do those things?

AC	No. We could go anywhere we wanted to in town.

MP	What about the movie houses? Could you go to movie houses?

AC	They didn't have none.

MP	But you could go to the stores?

AC	Oh, yes.

MP	Could you try on clothes?

AC	Yes.

MP	You could? That's interesting. But you couldn't go to their schools though?

AC	That's the only thing.

MP	Did that ever concern you? Did you ever ask questions about that?

AC	No. I just thought it was supposed to be. But the schools now-they have mixed schools [in Kentucky] in the same place where I left.

MP	Do you go down there very often?

AC	No.

MP	Do you think these stories that you heard adults talk about the white people being mean had any effect on you as an adult?

AC	Yes. Oh, yeah. I just got that feeling. I'd rather be with my own people.

MP	Have you ever had any white person who was a friend of yours?

AC	Not too-no. Not as a special friend, no. I've had people that were nice to talk to and things like that, but I still when it comes to friends, I guess, I'm kind of-I shy back. I don't-I can't see it. I'm not too close to any of them.

MP	I understand what you're saying. I'm going to ask some general things now about your life. What has been the best part of your life?

AC	I guess when I retired.

MP	Why?

AC	I had a chance to go a lot of places and to see a lot of things. I've been to almost every state in the union.

MP	A kind of independence, right?

AC	Un-huh.

End Side A

Side B

AC	I had some friends from Chattanooga, Tennessee that lived with me about four years ago. And they keep up with me. Every year, when they have their family reunion, they invite me.

MP	Now, were these students who used to live with you?

AC	No, he was a student. He was learning the brick mason, but he wasn't in the general school. They lived with me, and they keep up with me and they invite me to their home and everything. So I went this year to Chattanooga, Tennessee-that's where they live-and stayed there about three days. I went to Atlanta, Georgia. That's where the family reunion was. They had a nice family reunion. We stayed in a big motel and everything. Then she has a son-they have a son that's a judge. (inaudible sentence) He and his wife, she's a lawyer and he's a judge. So they had made arrangements in place of going back to Chattanooga, we went out to they house. We stayed three days. They both were working, but we were in the house there. Then they take me to Tuskegee. They take me to Tuskegee. (at this point Anna Clark describes a visit to a big church in Atlanta, a trip to a waterfalls and cave near Chattanooga, a tour of big homes in Chattanooga, and the family's kindness. Tape is turned off for awhile)

MP	And enjoy it. That's what's great. I just want to ask you one other thing. What things have helped you the most in your life? Some people may say a certain individual helped them or inspired them, the church or school, your family. What has helped you the most with your life would you say?

AC	I think my first husband. He taught me a lot about life, saving. He always said, "I'll teach you all I know." He knew a lot. He taught me about people.

MP	He was in business?

AC	Yes. He taught me about people. He could look at a person and tell more about them than most people could. He taught me a lot of things like that.

MP	And he taught you about saving your money?

AC	Un-huh. Well, I knew that too before I married him, but he taught me more how to plan and save.

MP	Did you learn about the value of saving money from your father?

AC	No. He always kept his own money. He had money, but he never distributed it around with it. (laughter)

MP	What has been the most difficult part of your life?

AC	I've had a pretty good life all along.

MP	You've had good health, right?

AC	Un-huh. I haven't had too much...

MP	And you were the baby girl in the family.

AC	Yeah. I can't say I had too-everything's been easy for me, practically.

MP	One of the reasons why we're doing this is so that young people, particularly young Black people, can learn what life was like for older Blacks and how they managed. If you had one thing to say to young people, particularly young Black people, what would you say to them now that might help them?

AC	The first thing I would say is to stay off of drugs. Get a good job and make some money. And save a little of it because you'll never know when you're going to need some of it and not spend to all. Just stay off of drugs and treat people like you'd like to be treated. That's been my motto "treat people like you'd like to be treated." I've had no trouble with people. Never did.

MP	You did a lot for young people when you kept some of the young students at Illinois State University in your home. You gave them a home and treated them like your children.

AC	I was telling the minister down at church-he's a teacher out to the school. He's a teacher and a student. I don't remember his name. He has a lot of gray mustache, and he's from Chicago. And I was telling him how hard it was for the students years ago. I told him that I had eight boys to stay with me. And they all made good, but they had it hard. They couldn't eat in the cafeteria. Couldn't stay in the dormitory. That's why I had them and different people had them because they had to stay in homes. Like a house here. Maybe I'd have one, and somebody else might have had two. If you had a big house, you had four (inaudible). But them boys I had, they all made good. Elroy Young he's a bone specialist in Baltimore. I helped him a lot because his mother wasn't able to send him. I was in southern Illinois. They told me he was an excellent student, and that he wanted to be a doctor when he was five years old. Didn't know any thing about a doctor. He wanted to be a doctor. That's the reason, I think, that people at a young age know what they want to do and use it, they do it if they really want to do it. So then I had another boy from southern Illinois. I had three boys. George Cross. He's a principal of a school in East Saint Louis. Richard Ruffin is a doctor in Cleveland, Ohio. Elroy and he were good friends. They went to the army together and stayed together. Elon de Bois from Clinton. He's a doctor in Gary, Indians. I can't think of the artist's name in St. Louis. A man from here, Aubrey Hursey, went to his home, and his home is all made up of junk. All kind of junk that he has collected and made it into something.

MP	You said some man from here visited his home. What was his name?

AC	Rev. Hursey. He's dead now.

MP	So all these young people turned out very well. I think that's remarkable. How would you say Bloomington-Normal has changed from the time you came here in 1916?

AC	It's built out. They used to have a big business downtown. Everything was right down on the square, but here's nothing down there any more. It's all went out to the malls. All the business is out there, practically all of it.

MP	How many Black businesses were here when you came?

AC	They had a barbershop, pool hall, restaurant. I think they had two barbershops. One barbershop in Normal, and two in Bloomington. They had-I can't think what they're called. They take your stuff.

MP	Cleaners?

AC	Yeah. They had cleaners.

MP	Repair shop?

AC	Pawn shop. They had a pawn shop here for years. Mr. Rush run that pawn shop on Center Street. He was right downtown. That's about all they had, I think.

MP	Now there's only one Black business downtown, isn't that right? Mr. Gaston's barbershop.

AC	Gaston's barbershop And I heard that there's a restaurant down there, but I don't know.

MP	I think it's closed now. So that's one change. Any other changes?

AC	The town has growed. It was just four miles square when I came. That's what they said, it was four miles square-Bloomington. So it's really growed. Then we had a doctor here, Dr. Covington. Then after I was here awhile, they had two [Black] undertakers here and two [Black] doctors and a [Black] dentist. They came here along during the Depression, and the Depression caught them here. After the Depression you know, they left.

MP	Do you remember any inventors? People who have invented things? Developed things like the Oil of Gladness? I know people have talked about that. Any others that you remember?

AC	Yeah. Let's see. We had a painter here named Revy Rhoades. I don't know if you call him an inventor. He painted most all those signs around.

MP	Oh, he was sign painter. He had his own business.

AC	Outside of that I don't know of anybody.

MP	Was there anybody here that discovered a soap.

AC	Not that I know of. Only me. (laughs)

MP	Oh yes, you make your own soap, I know. Who taught you how to make your soap?

AC	That girl in Chattanooga.

MP	Oh, your friend. She taught you how to make soap.

AC	She worked out in service when she was here, for a woman who paid twenty-five dollars for this recipe, soap recipe. She give it to her and told her she paid twenty-five dollars for the recipe.

MP	Did she get it from a Black person or a white person?

AC	I don't know where she got it, but she was a white woman.

MP	Yes. Do you know anything about 1921, I think, when women were permitted to vote? Do you remember that incident at all?

AC	No. I don't remember. I can't remember that. I know about when, but I.

MP	I see. You don't remember what was important about it. Do you know anything about Prohibition? People weren't supposed to drink whiskey.

AC	I don't remember too much. I know they had it, but I don't remember too much about it.

MP	What about-you wouldn't remember anything about World War I, would you?

AC	I remember all the Black soldiers leaving, going to World War I-Howard Brent, the Stearles.

MP	Spell that.

AC	S-T-E-A-R-L-E-S. And the two Skinner boys, Herbert and Torrence. I remember them all going on the same train. They all went together.

MP	Did you see them getting on the train?

AC	Un-huh.

MP	Tell something about that incident. Did several people go down to the station? A lot of people gathered around the station to see them go?

AC	Yes. Their people. You know, their mothers and fathers.

MP	Did you go down?

AC	Yes. I was there because our place was right there. Everybody teased my husband, you know, and he teased everybody. He was waving at them and telling them "goodbye." They was laughing. He used to sell pig's feet. So he wrote a letter over there to Homer Skinner. "You owe me for such and such how many pig feet." And Homer said he passed it all up and down the trenches. "Here, Ike Sanders is wanting me to send him money for pig's feet." He used to tease people. He was quite a cutup. He liked to tease people.

MP	Do you remember what you thought when these people were going to the war?

AC	I don't know. I didn't think they was going to be back. I just thought they were going to war.

MP	How many of them did come back?

AC	Practically all of them except one. His name was Redd Williams. [Johnny Redd and Gus Williams]

MP	Redd Williams?

AC	Un-huh. He was-he's out there in the cemetery, Redd Williams.

MP	Do you remember when they returned? What was it like?

AC	Well everyone was happy. They had a big dance.

MP	Where did they have the big dance?

AC	At the Chatterton Theater.

MP	The white people and the Black people had their separate dance?

AC	Well Black people had it. I guess there was a lot of white people there, too, 'cause it was a big place. I remember wives and daughters dancing. Willie Sellers and Howard Brent. Howard Brent sang a solo. And Lucinda [Miller] was there. She thought if [she] could just marry a man who had a voice like that, she'd be happy. Finally she married him.

MP	Were you at the dance? You and your husband?

AC	Yes.

MP	So that was really a happy time, right? Did they ever talk about what being in the war was like? You don't remember.

AC	A lot of them talked about it.

MP	Do you remember what things they said?

AC	They said they had to dig trenches, and they was down in those trenches most of the time.

MP	The Blacks had their separate regiments, right?

AC	I think they did.

MP	What things did women do to help with the war effort?

AC	A lot of them worked with the Red Cross. Now Mrs. Henderson she worked for the Red Cross. Mabel Henderson.

MP	Is she dead now?

AC	Yes, she's dead.

MP	She was a Black person?

AC	Yes. She worked for them, and after the war, she still worked for the Red Cross.

MP	As a volunteer? Any others that you remember that worked with the Red Cross.

AC	She went abroad with them after it was over.

MP	With the Red Cross?

AC	With the Red Cross. She went to France and Germany.

MP	What did she do there? She was helping the men.?

AC	She'd go down to the station and give them coffee and doughnuts and whatever they had, you know.

MP	In France?

AC	No, in Bloomington. Then she worked with the blood unit after [the war].

MP	Were there any efforts to collect things to send the men overseas?

AC	We had a little club, and we'd write letters to the boys over there. I've forgot the name of the club now. Anyway, I was in there. You picked out a name, and I picked out John White. He's dead now, too. He was in Africa. I used to write letters to him. He was just a youngster, you know. So when he'd write back, he'd say "Dear Anna." (laughs) He'd tell me how beautiful the flowers was there and how everything was.

MP	Do you have any of those letters?

AC	Then we'd have a club meeting. We'd read our letters. We had a lot of fun.

MP	That must have been great. How often did you meet?

AC	About once a month.

MP	Who were some of the other people who were in the club?

AC	Golda Manuel. She lives in Gary, Indiana. And Ella Lee Stokes. There must have been about twelve of us.

MP	Do you have any copies of the letters?

AC	No.

MP	Any other things that you did to help them?

AC	We used to send boxes of candy and Christmas things. We'd get together and send a box of candy and a box of cookies.

MP	Do you see all the things that I didn't get on the other tape?

AC	Seems to me like that was in the Second World War.

MP	So everything we were talking about was World War II, right?

AC	The first was World War I.

MP	The first part of your discussion up when they went down, that was World War I-the Brents and everything. World War II was when the club was organized to help?

AC	We didn't organize during World War I, but World War II we did. That's why he was in Africa.

MP	That's what I thought. Did he come back?

AC	Yes.

MP	Was there a big celebration when men came home from World War II?

AC	I think they had a street parade.

MP	Do you remember if there were any men from Bloomington-Normal who went to either World War I or World War II who received any special kinds of awards for their service?

AC	Mr. Stearles. They called him "Loach" Stearles.

MP	They called him Mr. Loach. L-O-A-C-H?

AC	But that wasn't his name. That was his nickname. Stearles? I can't think of his first name. Anyway he was made a lieutenant or captain or something. He was over the men, over the Bloomington men. He was from Bloomington.

MP	Any others?

AC	That's all I know of.

MP	Do you remember when you had your first radio?

AC	Yeah. My first husband's sister's husband made a little radio and sent it to us.

MP	From where?

AC	From Boston, Massachusetts. That's the first one I ever heard.

MP	About what year was that?

AC	That must have been 1926 or [19]27.

MP	That's your first experience with a radio. What kind of light did you use in your home when you were a child when you grew up in Kentucky?

AC	We just had lamp light.

MP	Kerosene light?

AC	Un-huh.

MP	And when did you stop using kerosene?

AC	Down there? We never did have electricity there.

MP	When did you first use electricity?

AC	Here in Bloomington.

MP	When you came to Bloomington was your first experience with electricity? How old were you then?

AC	I must have been twenty-three when I came to Bloomington.

MP	So this would have been around nineteen what? 1930?

AC`	1916.

MP	1916 when you came to Bloomington? Oh, all right. And so you had electricity then in your-you lived with your sister in southern Illinois when you first came to Illinois, didn't you? And she didn't have electricity?

MP	You lived in southern Illinois with your sister and you didn't have electricity?

AC	No.

MP	When you came here you started to work for some white family, and you lived with them. And that was your first experience with-they had electricity at that time?

AC	Yes.

MP	How did you react to your first time with electricity?

AC	I acted all right. I didn't act no different.

MP	I just wondered if you found it kind of strange. You don't remember.

AC	No.

MP	What about your first telephone?

AC	We had telephones down in Kentucky when I was a kid. White people had it. We didn't. But you could use their phone.

MP	You could go to the family's home and use their phone?

AC	Un-huh. You could use their phones.

MP	You didn't have pay telephones?

AC	No.

MP	Of course, automobiles. When did you have your first experience with an automobile?

AC	I don't remember.

MP	In Kentucky as a child?

AC	I guess it was.

MP	Any other first experiences that you had? Toilet? When did you go to your first indoor toilet?

AC	I guess it was here in Bloomington.

MP	Did your sister have an indoor toilet?

AC	No.

MP	When you came to Bloomington, the family you began to work for had indoor toilets?

AC	Un-huh. That was in 1916.

MP	In your first home-when did you move into your own home?

AC	After I got married.

MP	You lived in service until you got married?

AC	I married in 1917 to Ike Sanders.

MP	Did he own his home then?

AC	He was renting. He had a business down on West Washington Street. So he didn't own. He just rented.

MP	And he lived in that in the upstairs?

AC	Un-huh, upstairs.

MP	Yes. Did you have indoor facilities there?

AC	Yes. Un-huh.

MP	So you didn't have to experience any outdoor toilets any more.

AC	No. (laughter)

MP	Well, I think I've got everything else I wanted. You must be tired now.

AC	No.

MP	You have a fantastic memory.

AC	Well, a lot of things I should remember I don't remember.

MP	I think it's remarkable your memory, and that's why I wanted to be able to come back and get it from you because most other people won't be able to remember these things.

AC	I'd like to show you some of my pictures.

End Side B

Additional Information:

Clark
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