Keep the Heritage Alive!

Caribel Washington

July 31, 1990 - Part 1
Narrator: Caribel Webster Washington
Interviewer: Paul Bushnell
Date: July 31, 1990
Transcribed: Pamela B. Muirhead. August 1990
Side A; Tape One
PB This is Paul Bushnell, and it is July 31, 1990. I am talking with Caribel Washington at her home on [address omitted]. Let's talk about the neighborhood in which you grew up, Caribel.
CW Well, from 1919 to 1957 I lived at 511 South Wright. That was our childhood home, a huge house that kind of sat on a hill that had a lot of outside doors and great big rooms, which was just wonderful to roam around in. 511 South Wright was in the neighborhood of what was known as "the line." This was the "red-light district" of Bloomington, which was just across the street from where we lived, which consisted of probably five houses on MacArthur, which was then Moulton Street, and four houses on Wright Street. Of course, we lived across the street. We knew what was happening, but we went about our own business anyway.
[text omitted]
PB Was there a neighborhood store near there?
CW Well, yes. We had two stores at Main Street. One was the Feicke Brothers, Feicke's Grocery Store, which was in the five hundred block. And then there was Kumle's Grocery Store, next to the poultry house, which was on the corner of Main and Oakland Avenue. Next to it was Kumle's Grocery Store. And this was a very elite grocery store, which had quite an extensive meat market, and all the groceries that could be. This was the time when you went into the store and clerks waited on you. You didn't go pick up things and put them in a basket and go to the cashier. A clerk would wait on you for everything, and you could buy the crackers loose and the rice. And everything was in bins, and buckets, and barrels. And it was kind of fun.
PB So even in a grocery store you didn't go around picking things up for yourself?
CW Oh, no. Oh, no. You walked in.. If you were going to buy meat you told the butcher what you wanted, and he would throw that big chunk of meat on the big block and cut off what you wanted if you didn't see it in. So it was a very-it was a service to into a store. Someone waited on you for everything you wanted, and they counted it up. And if you were charging it, they put it on a bill, and if you were going to pay for it, they would tear the bill off and mark it "cash."
PB There was a fair amount of charging in those days at the grocery store?
CW Oh, yes, yes. A fair amount because the big organization was the shops, and it paid once a month, you know. So you had money at the first of the month, and you settled your bills, and then you charged until the end of the month.
PB You mean the railroad workers and people of that sort?
CW Oh, yes, yes. And there were many men on the railroad and they were called the section hands, and that sort of thing, you see. And then people just simply-there was not weekly wages, I think, in many things in those days. There were times when it was pay time, and those were times when the bills got paid.
PB Your family had a charge account there too?
CW Oh, yes. We had a charge account at the Feicke Store, I believe. But our dad always traded uptown at a store that was at the corner of Main and Market Street named Utesch. That was U-T-E-S-C-H. Charlie Utesch was our father's very good friend. My father had some very, very good friends among the business people. If he really want something, he would go to Utesch's to buy it.
PB Perhaps he was buying wholesale.
CW I don't know that there was an account there. We were pretty much a cash family, for the most part. There might be a bill for a little while, but not very much. I don't recall much charging in our family.
PB Well you father may have bought wholesale from Utesch, I suppose.
CW Could very well have. I really... I was too young to know how all that went about. We never had any creditors hounding, so I expect he paid his bills.
PB Do you know anything about the family that owned the store, Kumle's?
CW Not really. I knew John Kumle all of my life, since 1919. And they lived in the neighborhood, and all I know was just that Mr. Kumle was the grocer. The Feickes-there were two brothers called John and Fred. And that was spelled F-E-I-C-K. It was a strange spelling of the name. And they lived a block and a half west and a block south of us. They lived in two houses, and the houses are still there, beautifully kept houses. Robert-no, I guess their names were Rudolph and Robert-because Robert lived in one house, and Rudy lived in the other.
PB What street did they live on?
CW This was East. South East Street. And I believe that was south of Woods Street, so it might have been... We lived five hundred, which was Moulton. Six hundred would have been down... It was probably eight hundred south. The houses are still there. They were shopkeepers for all of our young life.
PB You mentioned the poultry house? What was that?
CW Well, the poultry was a huge building, a big white building that was a poultry house. It dealt in chickens. It might have dealt in other things, but all that I can recall are the chickens. And this was a business that hired the Black folks, because they killed the chickens, dressed the chickens, and did all of the work that one would do. I can recall-sometime you'll have to have Rose Anna Bell tell you because she worked in the poultry house. But this business was one of the going businesses for Black people. I supposed that maybe ten or twelve at a time would be working there in the poultry house. Now I can't tell you who had it or anything like that.
PB It sounds like a business a little like Lakin's.
CW Well, yes, but this was huge building with a back dock on it where the trucks would bring in the chickens in coops-live chickens I'm talking about-in coops. And the people would take those chickens, and I don't know how they kept them in the house, but the ultimate result was that those chickens would go out to the markets ready for resale.
PB A major supplier then for all the area stores.
CW It was called the Poultry House.
PB Do you know what family owned that?
CW I have no idea. Probably could pick it up from the...
PB But there must have been a lot of people working there?
CW Oh, there were. There were. I can remember part of the Stoner family worked there. I can just remember that because one of the children that I used to know well, his father worked there. The Stoners. And then one of my friends told me one time that she worked at the Poultry House. I don't know what she did there. But that was work for Black people.
PB What street was that on again?
CW It was at the northeast corner of Main and Oakland Avenue.
PB Main and Oakland, yes.
CW What's now the bus station. Now, that was the Poultry House. And just north of that was Kumle's store. There were those only two things that were on that side of the street leading down to the railroad.
PB So there was some really important business within the neighborhood.
CW Well, yes. You see at one time, but I can't remember that... At one time just as Wright Street ran into Oakland there was a huge building there which was a brewery at one time. But when we were children the brewery had closed, and it turned out to be a horse barn, where they had all types of horses there. I don't know what the purpose of them was. But the one man that I can remember operated that was named Stevenson. L... L.--either L. G. or L. T. Stevenson. I can just remember that. I can remember my father walking down to visit at... What did we call it? Maybe it was just the barn. I don't remember. But there was always something in the area.
PB Were there other businesses in the area?
CW Just offhand I can't think of anything.
PB Were there any doctors or lawyers in the area?
CW Well that didn't come until the Depression. That would be the late thirties. And we had a Black doctor. His name was W. B. Hatcher, who came into town. And of course, they, like all other Black people, fell on hard times. He had a wife named Estherlena and a daughter named Wilma. They ended up like everybody else, I think, on the relief and needing assistance. And for one while they lived with my mother. And he had a practice. Of course after the project started and that sort of thing, they had a couple of Black fellows who worked for the government in this relief effort. The one was named Edelbert Rogers and the other one was named... I ran across his name a little bit ago. But there were two of them, and they would write work orders for people and grocery orders. And even for the doctor I can remember I saw one of his orders once where he delivered a baby for thirty dollars. And so the government, of course, paid for that. They finally left Bloomington when the World War I soldiers' pensions were paid off in the forties. I don't think they were called... I don't guess they were called pensions, but those soldiers received a sum of money in some way. I was not involved with it any further than knowing that Dr. Hatcher and his family left when they paid that money. It had a particular name, but I can't even think of that name now.
PB You once said, I think, in one of the earlier conversations that you had a girlfriend that lived across the street from you when you were growing up. I think a white girl that you got to know pretty well.
CW Oh, yes. Her name was Ethel Lambke. That was L-A-M-B-K-E. And her father and her stepmother worked at Campbell Holton's. I forgot that Campbell Holton's was the one big business in the area. This was wholesale grocers, which took up the whole block from MacArthur Street to the railroad really, which is now Home Sweet Home. But it was huge thing then. Since then much of it has been torn down. But Campbell Holton had the big wholesale grocery of the area. And then of course Humphrey had the other one. I forgot. As I go along-Humphrey had his grocery at the viaduct, what is now, I believe, is part of the storage-the moving company people's. So there were those two things, but no Blacks were hired in those places.
PB In the wholesale grocers?
CW No. No. But Ethel's family... Her mother and father were speaking people, but Ethel was a lone girl, and she and I have been friends all our lives. All our lives. She came to see me last year. She finally left here and went to Albuquerque, New Mexico. And she and her daughter came back last month, and I saw her. But we grew up together, went to school together. At least to high school. I don't think she finished high school. But she would come to our house, and we'd braid her hair and smooth out her dress and see that her face was clean. But we were just really good friends.
PB Her parents both worked?
CW Both worked all the time.
PB Do you know where they worked?
CW They worked for Campbell Holton. That's how I happened to remember. They worked at the wholesale grocers. And her father... Well, of course, she married and left the neighborhood. But after her father died she came back into the neighborhood and that was one of the houses that-her house was at 502, I guess. No, 602 South East Street-which was part of the neighborhood that went. The housing-the urban renewal took all of that property for the housing, for government housing.
PB In a sense your family helped to raise her.
CW Well, yes. Ethel and I did all of the little devilish things together. If one of us got in trouble, the other got in trouble because we were together.
PB Do your Halloween pranks together?
CW Yeah. Well, we didn't do much visiting when mom and dad were home. They felt that she should be at home. But when she was alone all day long, then we went to school together and did everything together.
PB Do you think her parents disapproved of her playing with you?
CW I don't know that they disapproved. I think they... I think it would have been foolish to disapprove in the daytime when they were at work and they didn't know what was happening anyway. But we just didn't do a great deal of associating, but she didn't associate with anybody else either, you know. When her parents were home, they insisted on her being at home.
PB You needed each other during the daytime.
CW Yes. And she admitted the one little dark spot in our whole lives were when she took her-when my mother died in 1945, she had a two-year old son and Harvey my younger was two years old, and she kept him for... She kept him. She said, "I have a baby and you bring him." And every morning he went across the street and stayed with Ethel until I got home, and then he would come home. And she would just take him everywhere together, you know. She was just that kind of girl. She didn't think of me, I think, anymore of being Black than I thought of her as being white. And she did not think of the children that way. But her husband always did some kind of work. They were farmers... They were involved in building elevators for farmers, so he was not in Bloomington very much. But in the late years he came home. I say late years because the boys were teenagers by that time. And he came home. I think maybe they were sixteen-maybe not quite that old. But anyway, they went everywhere together. [text omitted] And when I see him now... I don't see him very often. But when I see him now he'll put his arms around me and say, "Carrie, I'm so glad..." He's the only person I let call me Carrie. "Carrie, I'm so glad to see you." But I don't what there was about him that-but he never did. I know he wanted to be married, and he came to me and said, "Carrie, I want to be married. [text omitted]" I can't remember the dates of all this. But anyway I went with him up to Holy Trinity Church and vouched for him to the Father who was there, and they were married. I don't know if that marriage is-I think it is still in existence. And I believe-he works for an automobile parts company. I don't know. But Harvey knows where he is and where he works. And I don't see him very often, but it just shows you how lives go.
PB A very strong bond.
CW Yes. They were. They were really... They were like Ethel and I. Only I just, you know... It puts a bitter taste in your mouth. But it changes. It changes.
PB It must have come at a very bad time in his life.
CW Because when her husband died... When Father Eikenberry died, I thought well Ethel was my friend and I must go. And so I went and you would have thought I was one of the family. The children have always treated me like that. All of them are grown now. All of them are older. They are late forties and fifties just like my children. But I went. I thought, "No, she was my friend. She's still my friend regardless of." and we became very thick again then, after that. Until she left-she even told me when she was leaving. She wrote to me for a long time, and now we're down to periodic letters. But she did come to see me last summer, and it made me very happy. It made me very happy.
PB Yes, I can imagine it did. Well, in that neighborhood there were then quite a fair number of Black families within those two or three blocks and perhaps some others spread out too. Were there?
CW Well, yes. It was always a mixed neighborhood. There were always. On East Street the white people lived and maybe on the cross streets to Wood, but there were always just across the street there were Black families. And we all went to school together, and we all played together. I don't know that families associated much with one another, but then Black families didn't do a great deal of associating. They were working people. And when they were home there were all of the home chores to do. So. But it was an amiable association. People recognized the fact that they were in the neighborhood and that sort of thing. So I don't think... I think the East Street people probably resented the fact that right down the street from them for many years was "the line," but you couldn't wipe it out. It sort of died, "the line" itself died of its own volition when in the war a soldier was found-an airman from Rantoul was found dead in one of the houses, and then they closed.
PB Was that during World War II?
CW Yes. And they closed the whole bit down then. That was the whole end of the whole business.
PB So it survived the thirties then, did it?
CW Well, off and on. Off and on. It had always been there in some forms or others. Once it started to go to a Black neighborhood then there were not so many houses because at the time that they cleared that neighborhood there were very few white people in that area. The area which was known as "the line." All of that was Black people. See in the Depression then it all kind of went down. And that's when Black people begun to acquire the houses. I don't know how, because we'd always lived in ours. We'd always had it, so you don't think about those things.
PB In a way the Blacks acquired the houses just as it was going down.
CW Yes. Yes, that's right. Rentals... I guess some of them owned them. I don't really know how it went. But you see in the Depression then they lost their houses. I can remember east of the railroad, along Gridley and Oakland Avenue, that was all a Black neighborhood. When the Depression hit, the only family that ended up there, in that 400 block of Oakland, were the Waltons, who-well, you see, he had been a policeman for years, you know, and had a livelihood which meant security. And so all the other people were gone, and that never became a Black neighborhood again.
PB Never recovered.
CW Never, never. Because I think as the economy began to change again, those houses were bought by white people and it's always been that way.
PB So the Blacks were just getting a really secure foothold in the late twenties only to have their hopes dashed in the impact of the Depression.
CW That's true. That's true. I can remember... Of course, our dad died in [19]29, and that was kind of like the beginning of it. By [19]30 and [19]31 there were just nothing, and that's when people lost everything. I see part of the banker's family now that my mother had some money in, but they never paid it.
PB They didn't?
CW I think I said part of that in this so I don't want to repeat all of that. But you see they did not pay the money back, you know.
PB There was nothing like the present savings and loan situation where everyone gets their money back.
CW No, no. See Roosevelt-what did they call it? The Bank Moratorium. Some of that's here, so I don't want to include it. But you see that was the point. There might have some banks that did pay off, but American State, and that was-of course my father-those people lived right on Main Street before they built the viaduct. Beautiful homes there. And then of course they built the viaduct and they moved out. But my father was acquainted with all of those people, and so naturally you do business with those that you know and trust. But at that time they did not pay.
PB So your mother lost everything?
CW Yes. She lost the cash, her bank account. It was always a little money.
PB Her property she still had.
CW Yes. And that sort of thing. You keep roomers, and you do all the things you have to do. We always had a big house. That's why I'm uncomfortable in a little house.
PB You're used to the big house.
CW It really makes a difference.
PB It does, yes. I grew up in a big house too.
CW My sister in Springfield has got the most beautiful little house you ever saw. And I just-I can hardly stay inside. But it's a lovely place. It's just like a box.
PB In this neighborhood, was there a church in that neighborhood that you attended, or did you have to leave the neighborhood?
CW No. No. No. There were no churches. We would leave the neighborhood. We always went to Wayman A.M.E., which is 804-806 North Center, and we walked from the neighborhood. Those were walking days, although there were streetcars and there were buses. We would walk through town although we had a car. Our father had a car. He never, never drove it. He always had somebody that drove for us and that sort of thing. But we would walk for the most part. Walk. To and from school. I see the buses now pick up everybody. But we walked. There were not those kind of accommodations in those days. But there were no churches in our neighborhood at all. The closest one was that one there that used to be down on this corner. We would... We would be Methodist on Sunday morning, and then we'd be Baptists in the evening. That way you could go and be with all the kids.
PB That's right.
CW Because-there've always, I guess, been more Baptists than Methodists.
PB So there was a Baptist church closer to home?
CW Yes. Right down at the corner of Jackson and Oak there was a Baptist. And there's always been the big church at Oakland and Lee. And so we would... And the people in our neighborhood went to night church, so we could go.
PB That was the pattern. More than morning church maybe?
CW Oh, yes. You went to night church. You went to the young people's group, and then you'd go to night church. Maybe you wouldn't stay inside from that church, but you'd go.
PB But you went to the vicinity. That's where you met everybody.
CW Yes, yes. That's where the kids would kind of-in the daytime you could find them all up to Wayman because we always had more girls than anybody else. And where you find the girls you find the boys. And so we always-until four o'clock or five o'clock on Sundays we had what we called Lyceum, which was a late afternoon get-together for young people. And then after that you'd come home and maybe have lunch, and then you'd go to the Baptist church.
PB How early did your Sunday start?
CW Oh, well, we'd get up and always have a glorious breakfast. Breakfast at our house on Sunday morning was always something real great. We'd have all this big breakfast, and then we'd go to church. And then you were in Sunday school by nine o'clock. So you got up, and dressed, and ate, and went to church. Maybe you'd be home by 1:30. And our dinner would always be done because our mother was always there. Always there. That was the one thing I remember about my childhood, you-she was always there. That really means something. We would have delicious cookies and real good pots of stew and all those good things.
PB Did she stay home from church in order cook?
CW Mother stayed home. She didn't go to church. She stayed home. The only way we knew she would go out-she had a beautiful blue serge skirt, and she always wore a cotton dress. But she would put on this blue serge skirt, and then she would powder her face. She was a beautiful woman. The only thing she detested was the fact that she had short hair. And we could tell when we got home that Mama had had make-up on her face, and we'd know she'd been out-been to town for something.
PB Been to town.
CW But that's all she did. She'd go to town, or she'd be home. Or she would be helping somewhere in the neighborhood. Everybody would come. Most people called her "Tine." Those who got really got perfect would say "Tiny." And why they ever called her Tiny because she was a big woman. But she would help in the neighborhood. Anywhere there was to help with sickness or anything like that. Other than that she was home.
PB Did she cook when your father was the cook?
CW Well, she was the cook. Papa could do a lot of things, but Mama was the cook. Was the cook. I can recall they used to do... I've seen them cook lobsters in twenty-five gallon lard cans. Everything was in bulk those days. And when they'd have a lobster dinner, men would come from uptown, you know, down for lobster dinner, you know. And they'd cook those...
PB Where'd they have that dinner usually?
CW In our dining room.
PB In your dining room.
CW There was always a dining room there. People could come in and eat. And anybody could come in and eat. They'd come eat in the dining room because there were small tables and chairs.
PB How many could they accommodate there would you say?
CW I don't know. If I remember correctly there might have been four tables with little ice-cream chairs. And I don't know that that's correct. I was pretty young then, too.
PB You were young.
CW And didn't pay too much attention other than we always had to wash the dishes.
PB That would get your attention.
CW I still have one old platter from the time they did that.
PB Oh that's nice. They don't make platters today like that.
CW It's not any bigger than that. And I have my father's spatula which is of such thin steel you can almost bend it together. And we use it for everything. We pick up water even with it. When this goes I don't know what I'm going to do.
PB That's right. That's right. Well, I think working in the home like that was a real advantage for people at that point.
CW Well, yes. Yes. Of course, our mother never went out even after that was over with. I think she probably... After my son Harvey I think she went out for just a little while and did some day work or something. But she never did. She never did go out of the home to work.
PB What school did you attend?
CW We attended Lincoln School. And that was at Miller Street, considered West Miller Street because it was west of Main, and I believe at Cook. Miller and Cook Street. When we went to school, the school was on the southeast side of the block, and now it-when they built the new school, they put it on the northwest side of the same block. But it's still there. Lincoln School.
PB So you surely walked to school.
CW Oh, indeed you walked to school. You had so much time to walk to school and then you had so much time to come home, and then you had your lunch and did the dishes and then you walked back to school. And you were not allowed to be late. Do not be late. They knew exactly. And then when we got out of school, we had so many minutes to get home because you had to change you clothes and do the work. Before furnaces, it was chop the wood and haul the water and bring in the coal and empty the ashes. There were no boys at our house. We were the helpers.
PB You had equal opportunity.
CW Yes we had. Everybody did the things that was necessary to keep the house. Our daddy loved service, and he didn't do anything for himself that his girls could do for him.
PB He knew how to get the best out of everything.
CW He was so kind, though. I think the nicest thing that was said about me-I can remember-our old house had two areas of steps, and we were sitting down on the sidewalk, and this was in the days when Gypsies came around. We would always say "Mama's baking today." If we saw Gypsies we'd say, "Mama's baking today." And it seemed like when we got home there were fresh cookies. I don't know if the Gypsies had a thing to do with it, but we would always say, "We're going to have cookies today." Well, anyway, my dad was sitting down at the sidewalk end of the house, and I was just sort of standing on the sidewalk and leaning back, and he had his arms around me.And this Gypsy came along, and she said to him, "Can I tell your fortune?" And he said, "No daughter, I have my fortune in my arms." I never forgot that. And when I begin to feel sorry for myself I always, "My daddy said I was his fortune." And so that's wonderful.
PB It is a beautiful statement.
CW Yes, he did.
PB Well, what were your best times in the family?
CW I think our best times were-our best childhood times. Our dad was a grown-up boy. He had been involved with one of the World's Fair. He loved the circuses. He loved the carnivals. He loved parades. He loved anything that was going on. I can even remember we went to Pontiac to a Chautauqua once, and that was in the time when Black folks didn't go around. And we washed our faces in the water fountain in order to be clean. There wasn't any place to wash your face. But...
End Side A; Tape One
Side B; Tape One
CW We would go to the carnivals and invariably Papa knew somebody. If he didn't know somebody, he would become acquainted with somebody. And if the carnival was in town for a week, why some of those men and women who were in the minstrel shows they would end up at our house for a meal and to visit, and that sort of thing. We really had a good time. But we would go fishing. And after we got up a ways, we would go to the dances, but Papa would take us.
PB He made sure.
PB They'd better play checkers or they wouldn't.
CW They would come in the yard, you know, and one could play checkers while another visited a little bit. But we never let on that that was the reason. I'm sure he knew. But all the visiting that we did was in our yard.
PB That's where the checker matches [took place].
CW Yes.
PB Were there any other neighborhood places that you gathered for fun?
CW Yes. We always had... There was always a vacant lot somewhere. We always played ball. And we always had swings. We played night games in the streets-kick the can and hide and seek and. I can't think of any others right now, but there was always bunches of children. Bunches of children.
PB Were these always mixed bunches of children?
CW Oh, yes. Mixed bunches of kids for the most part. More Black than white I would say, but they were always mixed. Always mixed.
PB Because that part of the neighborhood was more Black than white, wasn't it?
CW Yes, yes. But whoever was there mixed together. And so there never any feeling of being outside or left out or anything like that.
PB Where were the dances held when they were held?
CW Oh, there were some of finest dance halls everywhere. I guess they did not dance at the Consistory. But at the American Legion Hall, which is now McBarnes where the Historical Society is had one of the finest dance floors in town. We danced summer times at O'Neil's Park. They had dances. We danced at what was called the Coliseum, which was at the corner of Roosevelt and Front. That had a good dance floor.
PB That's not far to go.
CW We danced at-no, those were about the-before WJBC was up on Washington, that used to be a dance floor. And we danced there. Of course, you had to rent the floor. There was no place where you could go every night or every week and dance. I can remember once there was one of the prominent orchestras playing at what was Houghton's Lake-Bon-Go's Park I guess. It had been changed from Houghton's Lake to Bon-Go Park, which is now State Farm Park. But that used to be a dance floor. And we went out there one night because... We knew we couldn't dance, but we were just silly enough to go. (laughs) So we went out there, and we asked if we could dance. He said, "Yes, you can dance at the tune of a forty-five." (laughs) It was really funny, but it was gutsy to do it. We really shouldn't not have done it because we knew we couldn't do it. But we weren't boisterous or militant at all about it. We just turned away and had the biggest laugh about it afterward. It was one of the jokes of the season, you know-"We went to Bon-Go."
PB You could tell that story a lot of times.
CW Oh, yes. It was fun. It was fun, but we knew we couldn't.
PB Well, you walked up to the line and challenged it in a sense, too.
CW Yes. We couldn't dance. We really wanted to look at the orchestra. They used to have some of that finest Black orchestras that would come through here, you know. And then, of course, there was the theatre with live theatre, and the Blacks could not stay in the hotels. So they would stay at the rooming houses along East Street, which are now gone in favor of the city hall and all that sort of thing. So you got to know them and see them, maybe talk to them a little bit. But you felt like you had seen them, and you knew them. That always helped, too.
PB Of the musicians were there any local musicians that played in these bands?
CW Well, not in the-oh yes. See there used to be two or three little orchestras around.
PB Did Blacks play in them?
CW Oh yes, they would be Black orchestras.
PB All-Black?
CW Yes. Wilson Burton, who was a homeboy, and his brother Harold was a drummer. And then men who've come in. Young fellows come in and come out and probably our resident musician was named Orlander Dyer, and he worked for one of the-Jimmy Raschel, I believe. I hope that was the name. There were so many of them. But then he finally left the orchestra and come in. He married a girl here and went to work here.
PB You say his name was Orlando?
CW Orlander Dyer. D-Y-E-R.
PB So he settled down here?
CW He settled down and worked at Woolworth's-F. W. Woolworth Company until he died.
PB Is that right?
CW Yes. And then there were others. Jerry Lynch, Mack Willis, a whole bunch of them. They would come in and they would come out.
PB Were these mainly be in the twenties that these musicians.?
CW The majority of that was probably thirties and on into the forties.
PB Even in the Depression there was employment for musicians?
CW Oh, yes, there was music. There was always music. I can remember there was a group came in called The Four Clefs. These were four boys out of Springfield. They would play... There was kind of a bootleg joint south of town, tavern-like, and they hired them to play there. And they'd play at night, and they rented a room across the street from us. And every morning then they would come and give their tips to my mom, and she would make them a meal, you know. She'd make the best stews in an iron pot and bake big doughnuts. You know it wouldn't take very much money back then. That was in the thirties. The times were still kind of hard. Things did not really open up until they begun to blossom at the beginning of the war, and that was in the forties. See people were still working on the W. P. A. when they opened the war plants here, and that sort of thing. So it was during the thirties.
PB A little money went a long way.
CW Yes. Went a long way. People don't realize it either. Yes, it went a long way.
PB There's a whole segment of the community that could be employed in music and entertainment.
CW Well, yes, there were a lot of them. There were several orchestras. I can't remember any of their names. But they always had little jump-up orchestras. I can't remember anybody that's living now who played in them.
PB Who sponsored the dances usually? Were they social clubs?
CW Well, not really.
PB Other organizations?
CW The Redd-Williams Post of the American Legion would have them. And then we had a fellow here named Revy Rhoades who was sort of an entrepreneur, and he would just decide to give a dance.
PB As a money-making proposition for him?
CW Yes. Yes. There might have been a club or two. A bunch of people would get together and say let's have a dance. But then you could just hire the hall and take care of your orchestra, and whatever. Used to be nice dances. Really nice.
PB Did it cost you to go to the dance?
CW Oh well, yes. It depended. It depended. If you were kind of looking at one of fellows in the orchestra-but then it wasn't very much. Maybe two dollars and a half, you know, a couple. Something like that. When you paid dollars a couple, you were really going to something extra-special.
PB Something grand.
CW Extra-special.
PB Did your father let the young men take you to a dance?
CW Well, now this was after Papa died. This was in the thirties. He died in 1929. No, no, nobody ever came and took us to a dance while he lived. But then we could go. Our mom would let us. In fact we had a preacher came to town and brought a son. Had a young son. Late teens--something like that. Our own ages anyway. He said he walked downtown one day and said, "I'd like to meet some young people." And they said, "Go down to Schields's. That's where everybody is on Sunday." They just sort of congregated at our house because we played cards, and we danced. And just altogether had a good time. They'd just gravitate to our house.
PB And they had daughters.
CW We still had this big room, this big dining room, you know, and a piano, and we could dance. So.
PB And where there are all those things plus daughters it's a good place to gather.
CW I guess that's so. He just died-Herschel Barksdale just died this last year, and he said, "I'll just never forget that I came...". Then of course we were in the church together. We were in social life together, you know, and all that. We stayed good friends until he passed away this past year.
PB Was he the minister's son, did you say?
CW Yes.
PB That you met then? What church was he minister of?
CW Wayman A.M.E. His name was Barksdale, but the minister was King. It was his mother's husband who was the-but Herschel we just called him the minister's son. And he was. (tape is turned off)
PB When we're talking about the churches and some of the gatherings that took place there, I'm not clear which Baptist church it was that you gathered at in the neighborhood.
CW Well, when we would go to night church, we would mostly go to Union Baptist, which was at the corner of Jackson and Oak Street. We went there more because our neighbors went to night church and that was our way of getting to church. There were two Baptist churches. Mt. Pisgah, which was always considered the big Baptist church, which was at the corner of Oakland Avenue and Lee Streets. I can remember the minister who was the pastor there for many, many years. His name was Peter Fields. And when he did leave Bloomington, then he took a church in Decatur, Illinois. But the church we were more associated with-beside our own church. Let me hasten to say we were really good Methodists. But at nights we went to the Baptist church, and that was Union Church.
PB These were all-Black churches?
CW Oh yes. All-Black churches. Black churches have always been a going concern because they were the locations of most of our social functions as we grew up. The things that happened happened in the churches. Union had such wonderful Halloween observances. You would go in all costumed up, and the person who could not be guessed got the prize. I got the prize one year because I had a pair of shoes that looked like boys' shoes. But they did fit me, and I loved those old shoes. So I wore them that night, and everybody wanted to make me out a boy because the shoes looked like a boy. And when they gave up, then... And you always got a big cake. So I got to take the cake home that night, just because of my shoes looking like a boys'.
PB That was a clever ploy. What other kinds of social life centered in the church?
CW We would have study groups. We would have debates. Now, the nicest thing that Wayman used to have were the debates. This is after we got old enough to become associated with the students at the colleges. And for the most part they would come to our church in early afternoons to what was called Lyceum. And we would have debates, and extemporaneous speeches, and sing-a-longs, and all kinds of things. And those were the kind of things we did.
PB I wonder when that Lyceum began. You have any idea?
CW Well, let's see. That had to be... (laughs) Wish I knew.
PB Was it begun during your life?
CW Well, I think it kind of evolved after we become teenagers and found out that the college kids were coming in, too. There was always a group who were congenial with the students, and in those years the students' life was off the campus. There was no place for them on the campus. In fact, they did not even-there were not dormitories. There was only one dormitory for whites, so there were none for Blacks. And they lived in homes of the people. So naturally they gravitated to where things were going on, which was at the church. And that's how we got into the activities that one would get into and that sort of thing. Choral groups. I can remember once we had a play, and we had more fun with that play. We turned our pulpit area into a stage. Of course, some of the older people didn't like that at all, but we did. Put on a play called The Wild Oats Boy, and it was the most hilarious thing you ever saw. But we enjoyed it. And then we decided we were going to make a little money on it. So we contacted the Pontiac church and asked them if we could bring our play to Pontiac. And we did. And so we put on The Wild Oats Boy in Pontiac too. But there was always something you did to make the... Well, you had to make a little money to let the church continue. And then it was a place to congregate. There was always something to have a banquet for. Always something to have a tea for, and those sort of things.
PB Was there a Wednesday evening church too or service of some sort?
CW There was always a prayer meeting. We never ever went until weekend church.
PB I wonder whether children went to such things.
CW But we never ever did. I don't say there wasn't. But I know that we would go when they would have revivals. They used to have nice revivals. And I was looking through our old church records, which I guard very carefully. I don't even let them go to the church because there's no place to really keep them. And I looked in the church [records], and we three girls, I guess, got religion at the revival.
PB At the same time?
CW We were baptized in 1925. And I had a opportunity to tell some of these people in the church, you know, we'd been there a long time, because 1925 is two or three days ago. So we we've always been involved with the church and have always done things that were necessary to it. We had an aunt who her project for the year always culminated in a banquet, and she could get more money out of businesses than I ever saw. And that was one of the ways that we got money for the church, this big effort. I don't even remember if it had a name. But I do know it would culminate in a banquet.
PB What's your aunt's name?
CW Her name was Grace Williams. She was married to my mother's brother Bill Williams. And Grace could move out, and she'd come in with six and seven hundred dollars, which was a lot of money.
PB That was a lot of money.
CW It a lot of money back then. And that money always came in the fall when it was about time for conference, and we were able then to pay our assessments and things like that.
PB Do you have any idea what businesses contributed to that...?
CW Oh, yes. She worked in the home of the Biasis. For many years she worked in the home of the Biasis. But she would ask everybody. She didn't mind who they were. She could go out, and she could really bring in the money. And always we'd say, "Grace'll have it" because Grace could go out there and get it. I always admired that because I can't even ask anybody even to buy a ticket. It embarrasses me. But I guess some people do have that knack. But that was the way we got the money for the church in those days because Black people didn't have very much money. You depended on sustenance from your white friends and white businesses to make things go. I saw in the paper the other day seventy-five years ago. Did you see that little squib "How Time Flies"? It's laying here someplace, and I'll have to find it for you. (tape is turned off)
PB So seventy-five years ago, 1915?
CW In 1915 a group of white women came to the church and assembled a musical in order to pay the debts off in the church. I read this in our paper probably a month of so ago. I have it some place, but as usual I can't put my hands on it right now. So we've always depended on assistance from white people, until late years. But now we're able to have jobs that permit us to keep our churches moving.
PB In those days did people give a little bit each week? If they could afford to in the collection?
CW Yes, if they could. In some of the old records there was a dollar or there was fifty cents. And then they would have a rally where they would assess the people five dollars. Back in that time five dollars was a lot. Now we ask for a hundred just as easily and probably get it by working at it. But yes, there was always some little money in the church. And in the Methodist church then they had classes in the church. You belonged to a class, and you had a leader, and you would pay maybe ten cents a week or something like that. And the class dues then would assist the pastor in his salary. For many years that was done. Many churches still do it. Other churches claim they don't need to or something like that. But basically it's there, and the laws of the church say you should do it. But it's pretty much up to pastor these days whether they do it or not.
PB You said that they used to have revivals. I think there was a revival season, wasn't there?
CW In the spring. In the spring you had revival. It seems that in our church it was probably a spring revival, and...
PB Such as the one when you joined the church?
CW Yes. As I say, we got religion and we were baptized then in 1925, into the church. So we've been in the church all our lives.
PB Were you and Kathryn both baptized at the same time?
CW Oh, yes, and then our other sister too. All three of us. We're all listed in the same little spot in the records as...
PB What's your other sister's name?
CW Geraldine.
PB Geraldine, yes.
CW We were all baptized. Kathryn and I still go to church. Geraldine, of course, married fifty-eight years ago, and she has lived in Springfield. Most people in Springfield think she was born and raised there. She really wasn't.
PB Been there that long.
CW Yes. We've always been active some way or other in the church.
PB Did the church support social programs? I know the Methodists are fairly famous for their social conscience.
CW Not as such I think. Well, in the hierarchy there are colleges that we, as a local church, in our appropriations make possible. There are colleges. There are foreign missionaries. Well, I think the money goes to colleges and missionaries more than anything else. Morris Brown and Wilberforce and some of the schools which are basically A.M.E. maintained are done that way.
PB A.M.E. schools.
CW And that's probably the extent of our social programs.
PB Have they brought speakers to town?
CW Well, yes. I have an article here where they had a speaker out of the colleges or so. They don't do that so much anymore because I think most churches feel like in their programs they would do better by having someone that's known in the area, rather than to bring someone in just because of what they do. I sort of feel that way with the Human Relations too, that there are people right near us that can do us as good a job as some of those people who come in demanding eight or nine hundred dollars or a thousand. And I think that's what it's getting to.
PB That's true.
CW It's getting entirely too expensive, I think, to bring many people in. Somebody told me that Maya Angelou wanted eight thousand dollars, or something like that, you know.
PB That's right.
CW That's a lot of money.
PB And Jessie Jackson doesn't come for that kind of money.
CW Oh, no. At time point Human Relations thought they were going to bring Andrew Young in, but they could never fix the time for it. You just don't get them anymore for. Nobody is that philanthropic anymore that they'll come across country and speak for you for a pittance, see.
PB That's right. That's right. They expect to do well by it.
CW Yes, yes.
PB Did the church enter into the lives of people in the twenties and thirties to a large extent? Or was it just a Sunday thing?
CW No, I think they entered more then than they do now, because there were those clubs in the church that tended the sick, that knew when there was trouble in the home, would send to take care of the children. The family was in a position, if they were part of the church, who could gain services and help in times of need and in times of trouble from the church. The funerals and wakes used to really big things because before they took them into the funeral homes the bodies always came back into the home, and you had a big wake. They were really picnic-like things, you know, party things. Everybody stayed all night, and they ate, and they drank, and they told stories, and all those sort of things, until morning. And then the next day there would be the funeral. And it was all a community, neighborhood, church sort of a thing where everybody just knew that this is part of you now that needs some assistance in some way.
PB So there were a lot of support mechanisms then?
CW Oh yes, more than now, I think. When there's a death, yes, you go. You send a card. You go to the... You sign you name, and you stay a little bit and that's it. But for many things... Even in sickness... And the lodge people, I think, were much more conscientious in those days about their brothers and the brothers' families. They were really sustainers.
PB It was a kind of social security that a person had.
CW Really. You knew that this was going to happen because this was a part of their obligation. I don't think they take it that deeply anymore.
PB They assume that everybody has some kind of support.
CW Yes, they think they have money now.
PB That's an interesting practice you were just describing about funerals and what happens when there was a death in the family. There was really a kind of bonding experience as well, too. Do you remember as a child and some of your first exposures to that sort of thing?
CW Well, we were... Death was a part of life for us. Nobody ever said, "Well, you don't take the children, you know. We have to keep this from the children." If is was death, it was death, and you accepted it as so, and you did what was necessary because a body always came back to the home. I don't know of one that stayed at a funeral home overnight. The body was prepared and brought back to the home. Sometime it would be there two days.
PB Same day?
CW Well, I don't know if it was the same day or the next day. But always you knew that if John died yesterday that tomorrow that body would be at home. And then people would bring in food, and there would always be coffee and tea and spirits if one wanted them. And so you just visited through the night because you stayed with that body, not necessarily right in the room, but with the family, able to visit and offer condolence if necessary. But just to be there, to be there. That's a wonderful thing just to be there, just to know there's somebody there. Just families were not permitted to be left alone. They just were not. And then, of course, after that funeral then they would go back to the homes, you see, and some people would stay maybe until the next day. But it was always you didn't just turn and walk away.
PB It was a shared experience and it also wrote an end to somebody's life that in many ways is more celebrative of the life than anything else you could do.
CW I think that one of our memories of our sister Geraldine-they say she had a goiter. Whether that was true or not I don't know. But somebody told our folks once that if someone had died, and they would take her and rub that hand before if got cold over her neck, the goiter would go away. Well, let me tell you she never got close enough to anybody during those times for them to take her. And it sort of built up a bit of fear in her about it. I don't if that was true or if that wasn't, but we never got to prove it out. She never got that close to anybody.
PB She wouldn't come that soon.
CW No, no, no. But that was just one of the little phobias, I think, that old people had about what would happen. This is probably, they thought, part of folk medicine, which there wasn't a bit of truth in, but we were never able to prove that one out.
PB Were there any wakes or funerals of fairly important people or close people that you remember especially. Of course, our daddy... There was a wake for our dad at home. But we would just go as church members, or as neighbors, or family you would go where the wake was going to be. I don't know of any extra special ones that we ever went to. We just went if there was a connection. We just went.
PB It was simply a common practice.
CW If there was a connection there, you went. And we, of course-my goodness, that's the first time I've seen a Black mailman on this route. I didn't know there were any. (laughs)
PB I haven't seen any in my part of town.
CW Why I'm sure that's what he was. I hope that don't get in there. But I don't know of any special ones. It was just something that you did.
PB The common practice.
CW But with the coming of funeral parlors being places where bodies are kept, and one can go then that has just died out.
II though, wasn't it, that that changed.
CW Oh no. Oh changed? Yes, the change probably came like that, but we've just done it all our lives that I can recall.
PB One of the interesting documents that we ran into was this issue of The Advertiser, the race Advertiser [The Weekly Advertiser, Race Publication]. This is from 1916. And it has advertisements.
CW Oh, Miss Lillie. She lived next door.
PB "Mrs. Lillie Bacon. Hairdresser."
CW Yes. And Josie Johnson, yes. "Dolton, Barnett, and Roselle." Dolton?
PB What's that? "Home made pies."
CW "Dolton, Barnett, and Roselle." Now the Barnetts-he ended up marrying one of Kathryn's husband's sisters, and the Doltons were another part of that family.
PB Well, I noticed there was an advertisement in here for Goodfellow, funeral director.
CW But that's not a Black, no.
PB And I was surprised because I remember from one of the other interviews that there was a Black funeral director who came here for a couple of years who was a Catholic and apparently didn't catch on and went on to St. Louis.
CW I don't think he was Catholic though. He just didn't... I don't know. Here, I told you about our Aunt Grace. This is before she married she married my uncle.
PB "Miss Grace M. Woods is attending the O. R. Skinner School of Dramatic Art and Expression."
CW That was the most beautiful elocutionist you ever heard.
PB Is that right?
CW Oh yes. There you go.
PB And where was that school, the O. R. Skinner School?
CW I think it was in what was now the Eddy Building. I think so. Oh, Aunt Grace. How about that.
PB And did she stay around the community?
CW She stayed here until she died. She had a rather peculiar death. Grace Woods was the editor of it. For heaven's sakes.
PB She's was the editor. You say a peculiar death?
CW Yes. They never ever quite decided what was wrong. She had a breast that just really... Well I don't know. I never quite knew that much about it. But they didn't quite know. It was not cancer or anything like that, but it was just a kind of debilitating... But after the breast was taken off, it was not a cancer because it was-I'm sure even by then they were... But after that that she just sort of deteriorated, you know. But they never ever quite decided what it was.
PB Why I noticed there was a notice there of a girl, "Miss Glendora Patton, who leaves for Chicago..."
CW Now, this is Howard's father, Harry Bell.
PB And there's somebody here who's going to attend Illinois Wesleyan we found out that's mentioned here. "Miss Maud Allen of Jacksonville, Ill. has returned to enter the Wesleyan."
CW Oh, that's Ike Sanders. Now, this was Anna Clark's husband.
PB We have a couple of good pictures of them at the Historical Society in their restaurant and bar. Any other names here that you recognize?
CW Herb Dice-the Dices went to our church.
PB Says here he's the representative of The Chicago Defender. I guess sold he subscriptions to The Defender.
CW Probably, probably.
PB Do you remember ever having seen a copy of this Advertiser before?
CW No. I have never seen a copy of it.
PB Because Mildred apparently found this one somewhere, and the original has been deposited at the Historical Society. But this...
CW I don't think this is the... You know Kathryn had a paper, but I didn't think this was it.
PB Well, this could have taken different forms. But it suggests a number of businesses...
CW Carl Stearles. See Carl was brother to Willis Stearles, and I'm in touch with their nephew now. Their sister was named Edna, and she married a Trent, and they lived in Lincoln. And after he became grown, he went to Springfield, and then the last two months I've been asking him if he will sort of put some meat on the bones about the family for us.
PB It says here that Stearles was... Stearles was...
CW Well see, that's not right. That's not spelled right. See that's Carl Stearles. S-T- E-A-R-L-E-S.
PB So he made a typographical error. It's his paper.
CW Now Sandy Claiborne, he was... I don't know what Sandy did? I remember him as a great Mason. He was one of the most prolific men when it came to the ritual of the Masons.
PB He knew it all
CW Oh, man, if a Mason died, look out. Everybody went. It was just a high moment. He could go through that death thing like you wouldn't believe.
PB Backwards and forwards.
CW Let's see. This is "Newton B. Gaines." That was Walter's father.
PB Do you know what he did?
CW He was a barber.
PB Okay, because he's listed here as the Business Manager for this.
CW I think I can probably find out from those things what Sandy did, too. He was a great, big man with a handlebar mustache.
PB Do you know who this J. Morris is who was Secretary?
CW That I don't know. Morris. No.
PB Now was Stearles then a printer?
CW I don't really know what they did or how they had this printed.
PB Because he's listed Stearles and Company as publishers and printers.
CW I'm sure that was a typographical error. Because Carl was a Stearles.
PB Did you say you knew Mrs. Lillie Bacon, the hairdresser?
CW Yes, she was...
PB What's "Poro" hair dresser mean?
CW Poro was a product like most of the... What do they use now? Ultra Sheen and those. Poro was a product. And "a dealer and all kinds..." But you see Poro was a... Well, what's her name? The woman who they give credit to for all this, for bringing pressing oil? She used the Poro system."George W. Brown." Now this contractor Brown, he used to live right on the alley of Main Street, just south of Olive. They had a home in there. He had a bunch of kids. Yes.
PB As a contractor that's a little more ambitious kind of job. I wonder if he did jobs then for whites?
CW Well, he worked around town. He was always... I'm sure he did it for whites because Blacks didn't have the money.
PB They didn't hire a lot of concrete sidewalks to be built.
CW But I think he just had general work in the town.
PB It says "Coal, Sand and Gravel." Maybe he delivered those things. Do you think he delivered?
CW Well, he probably did deliver them. But he was considered... We always called him Contractor Brown.
PB Oh, you did?
CW Always. He did have... See here, you can find the name spelled correctly here.
PB Yes, "From Stearles, THE ALHAMBRA." What is the Alhambra?
CW Well, the Alhambra was... That's a white organization. The Alhambra was just off the corner of Monroe on Center Street. It was a big men's club...
End Side B; Tape One
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