Keep the Heritage Alive!

Caribel Washington

July 31, 1990 - Part 2
Narrator: Caribel Washington
Interviewer: Paul Bushnell
Date: July 31, 1990
Side A; Tape Two (continuation of discussion about a newspaper they were looking at)
CW The Isenmans were white businessmen. There were three or four of them, and they operated The Alhambra until just recent years.
PB Was it...?
CW They were beer distributors, too.
PB I wondered, the name of it the way it is written there looked as though it may have been a hotel or something.
CW No.
PB It's a store.
CW It's just a... It was more a saloon-like, pub-like, eating-all of that sort of thing. It was one of the big. Well, women didn't go so much. It was a men's thing.
PB Little like a club perhaps. Only public?
CW Club? Yeah. It was a going concern. I never ever heard The Alhambra called a tavern, but that was its basic function. Was to serve whatever.
PB But Black men wouldn't go in there, would they?
CW Well, Black men worked there. One of the ones that worked there for years and years and years was named Woolridge. Jim Woolridge. He had a son named Harry. And in late years some of the Thorntons worked there. You see because that hasn't been gone too long. Probably... What went in there? See it-because the last Isenman only died here within the last four or five years. But they probably sold off that business. See there were four of them. There was Heinie and they had a sister, and the sister was the cook. But that's a white establishment.
PB Well, since the funeral director was white that surprised us, but we found that out. We assumed then...
CW In fact, he didn't even take Black bodies.
PB Well, I was wondering, Why is he advertising in here?
CW They probably got the money. Here's Mount Pisgah Church see. "Makes a loan."
PB Yes, "They made a loan on the new church property sufficient to meet all requirements."
CW There's "Sandy Claiborne who has been seriously ill recently."
PB "Getting along as well as can be expected."
CW Un-huh. I didn't know...
PB Is that Leona Walker or Leora? It says Leora Walker. Wouldn't that be Leona more likely?
CW It probably is Leora. [Leora Walker was a maid for the Florence Bohrer family at 503 East Walnut]
PB Okay. It's interesting then that Goodfellow was probably advertising in here simply to support The Advertiser, but he didn't actually take Black...
CW Oh no. And these are probably people who have just helped Stearles. You know they were great. What? They were the kind of men who could...
PB Community minded?
CW charm you into doing things. Both Carl and Willis. They were tremendous men because they had a whole lot of outgoing....
PB Promoters. That's interesting. Who handled Black funeral arrangements in those days? There were Black undertakers here?
CW No. There was a white undertaker who would bury Black bodies. What was...? Let's see the predecessor to Kilber-Smith was Carl Stamper and his predecessor was...? His wife lives up here on Wood Street now. There was always a white undertaker that would take Black people. Isn't that awful, I can't think of who proceeded Carl Stamper. But it was not the Goodfellows, and it was not the Becks. I'll have to think about it. But that's always the way it was.
PB But the firm that did it was the one that's now Kibler-Smith?
CW I can recall that Kathryn told me some man called and asked her if he could call on her from Beck's. She told him, "Yes." She said, "I'm going to let him come." Of course, they were trying to sell insurance. And she told him that she wouldn't buy it. She said, "You know that there was a time that Beck would not even take Black people." And this man was shocked. He couldn't imagine, you know. At least, he probably just had never thought of it. You see, this is why much happens. People never think. They are never in a position for that situation to cross their minds, and he became very embarrassed about it. But she just told him, "No." And this is why most Black people gravitate toward Kibler-Smith, you see, because he's always been one of the ones who.... I'm going to tell you that man's name in a minute if I keep talking, but there's always been one. Well, Coleman would do it. He had one at... He was in the five hundred block of Main Street. But that's not the name that I want. Of course, Carl. You see, the man who's gone in with the Main Street undertakers now... He was with-what is his name? They were together, and he pulled out because he did want to work on Black people.
PB Is that right?
CW And then he went over to Chestnut Street. Is it Chestnut or where is it over there? What do they call the Main Street one now?
PB I'm trying to think. Should we look it up in the phone book? (tape is shut off)
CW Carmody. Who was with Carmody? He died. He was a real fine looking man. And they were where the dentist is now at Main and Empire. Isn't that funny? I can't think of his name. And then Carl went in with him. When Carmody left here, Carl Stamper came out of Lincoln and went in with... And then the other fellow's health kind of begun to fail. And Carl took the funeral home over all together. I can't think of it, and I'll have to find it to make things right. His widow lives at the corner of Wood and Summit now. That big house there just across from the park. Hold off and let me call Kathryn. (tape is shut off)
CW Because their building was at Washington and Gridley. Fine beautiful building.
PB Well, Goodfellow moved around we discovered. And finally when he reached that location, he took in a partner he was so busy perhaps.
CW Stevenson? What is his name. I'm so ashamed that I don't know this man's name. He was such a fine person and always so conscientious. But you leave that place blank. I'm going to find out that name.
PB But that's the one undertaker who would take Blacks. But Goodfellow would not?
CW No. Nor would Beck, nor ... I've always thought, but I can't be too sure of that that Black people that died in Normal the undertaker there would take them. It believe it is still the same name it's always been. But I'm not at all sure of that. But there always was just one undertaker who would bury Black people. Then, of course, when Black people begun to have a little money like everybody else, then everybody wanted to. People'll go to Metzler now, you know, and I go, "Why are they going there?" I'm still hidebound about it, you know, because I just think that the people who have always befriended the Blacks should be the ones that would have advantage of it. It's just only fair, you know.
PB That's right.
CW I'll haunt anybody that doesn't take me to Kibler. That's awful. But you see at one time, Kibler.... See, there has been a time in through that, you see... Flinspach, that I'm sure did not bury Blacks. But I won't say that-Kibler married one of the Flinspachs. Married the daughter of Flinspach, but I won't say that he did not because I told you just a little bit ago that Flinspach., but they didn't make a big practice of it, you see. But Kibler went in with Flinspach when his health begin to fail because he married the daughter. Then when Carl Stamper's health begin to fail, he went in with Kibler because they did both of them for a long while. Then Kibler decided that they would get rid of that property and move the whole thing. (pause) I haven't said his name yet and that's too bad because he was the one who was really kind about it.
PB Let's go back to the thirties. I think you had an interesting picture here of the NAACP. No, it was the forties. The NAACP that had done so much to help establish a recreation center. We covered a little bit in one of the other interviews. We said something about the recreation center, but we need to get a little clearer picture of how that developed.
CW The recreation center developed initially under the promotion from the NAACP, and it was at a building at Front and Roosevelt Street I believe.
PB We have the newspaper clipping here.
CW The NAACP did operate there. This came out of the old... (tape is turned off) Front and Madison Streets and this was a garage that was given to them, and they moved into it and from all accounts it was fairly successful. However, they branched out, kept on with their project, kept moving forward and advancing until they moved into what was the John Scott Home. I don't know the particulars of that. It seemed that I was involved in the beginning of it because the article says so. But it was probably among so many other things that I did, that I don't remember. I did not work for very much for the one that was in Madison Street. After they moved to Main Street, and Walter Gaines was instrumental in this one, I believe they had received a bit of a stipend from the Community Chest at that time, but Mr. Ulbrich from the clothing store was one of the main promoters of this center after... There was a group of businessmen. Mr. Ulbrich was one of them that were pretty much the board of it and saw that things came because they did have a bank account in the People's Bank, and Chester Wilson who was one of the tellers at that time who has since retired always took care of the recreational business through the bank. So it was a bona fide business... Had some bona fide business purposes about it. But they were always strapped for money. Membership... They would have membership drives in order to get money. I can't even remember what those membership were. Different clubs and organizations would give to them. They were never at anytime a full-fledged part of community services, United Way. They always got a little there, but never a whole lot.
PB They always served people that couldn't afford to support them probably, too.
CW That's right. This again was all before the war.
PB Before World War II.
CW Yes. Before World War II. So naturally people were just beginning to get back to work at that time. Then, I think, it's demise was because the city had finally gotten into that property. Until the last heir of the Scott estate was gone, it just sort of sat dormant, and then finally that woman died someplace in the southern part of the state. And they begun this long, long process of deciding who was going to get that money. And they had two court cases before the city really got it.
PB Well, was it even in its earliest form when it met at the garage. I don't know, whose garage was that?
CW Otto somebody. I've been reaching for that name, too, but I can't...
PB Even at that stage was it an NAACP project?
CW Its beginning was an NAACP project. It grew out of the recreational project of the WPA. You see, that was the beginning of it. In those years when the WPA hired people on the recreation project, that's when the schools were opened nights for recreation purposes. And somehow or other it gravitated to Jefferson School for the Black people. I don't know how that ever happened, but it did. It might have been because John R. Ford who was a Black man was the janitor at that school. And of course, the schools have always in some way not opened their buildings unless there was supervision of some kind because I can remember John Ford always being there. And by him being a part of the NAACP when the recreation project ended, they filled the gap of what would happen to young people in the recreational area after school. And that sort of thing.
PB Were the schools themselves segregated at all?
CW Oh, no. Oh, no. Schools in this town have never been segregated. There have been some schools that more Blacks have gone to than others, but there has always been an open school policy.
PB But in terms of the recreation, that came to be...
CW That... I don't know how that happened.
PB to be somewhat segregated.
CW Yes. I don't know if it was because there were three or four Blacks both men and women that worked for it or what, but it ended up that the Black recreation was at that school.
PB Were there ever any Black teachers at all?
CW No, not really. Not until later years.
PB How did the teachers in the elementary schools and so forth treat Black children in school?
CW Well, of course, I'm speaking from way, way back. (laughs) We were treated like anybody else that I can recall. I never felt like I was being put upon in anyway, but I was always a bit of a fighter, too, so....
PB You wouldn't have made an easy victim either.
CW I sort of stood up for me and everybody else. But I just don't think there was... We never, ever had great number of them like they had in the West Side schools cause there have always been more Blacks living west. But there were always eight or nine or ten or something like that. I don't ever recall... If you got your lessons, I think that was what is was. I had heard that...
PB Was high school?
CW High school was entirely different. When I went back in the very early thirties, Black kids were not encouraged to take gym because swimming was a part of gym, and they didn't want them to swim. But that was broken down through some people who just persisted in their.... This was after I left school because I graduated in [19]33. And many changes came. I hear kids now say that they're not getting fair treatment, but I look at things about them, and I think Black kids are expecting too much to come to them too easily anymore. That might be a selfish statement, but I do feel it. I feel like they don't apply theirselves, and they are looking for the easy way out. And parents are not involved enough with their kids to sort of put them on a (unintelligible) system and get your lessons. We got our lessons. In fact, they didn't settle for anything but the very best that we could do and sometimes they would question if that was best.
PB So you say that in terms of the way you were treated, gym class was primarily the biggest area of obvious...
CW That was the only area probably that young Blacks were encouraged not to take. Otherwise, you could go to school...
PB You could still take a college preparation course?
CW Oh, yes. I did. You could do anything that you were capable of doing. Then it was school back then though. You took your math and history and science and English, which were required things. You took them. Even I can recall that when I went to Bloomington High School after you made your junior year, if you couldn't pass the rhetoric test, you couldn't be a senior. Everybody had to take the rhetoric test. Everybody. Regardless of whether... And that was the only test I ever took in school.
PB Something we are beginning to edge back toward actually.
CW But you had to have that. Always we had a semester of rhetoric and a semester of literature. And we did all of the Shakespeare things, and I don't know how much else because that was just a part of (inaudible). And history all the time.
PB What about the social things about school? Such as school clubs and so forth, were those...?
CW No. I don't know that anybody was kept out. On the other hand, I don't whether anybody went. I can't speak for after I came out of school.
PB But while you were in school, did Blacks and whites belong to clubs together?
CW Well, I don't know that many Black kids belonged. I don't know that any of them were kept out either. I know I never ever belonged to any of them. I think when I went to school, the thinking was don't even try. That might have just been my opinion, too. But there were some unspoken norms that you just sort of observed unquestioned. I don't know that that is true these days in school. I know that I was so surprised three or four weeks ago when I learned that a young Black girl belongs to the Rainbow Girls. I don't believe this. I can remember the time. She was asked. She was asked to join by her friends, her white friends. And I read in the paper the other day where she has become an officer or one of the whatevers, you know. She's become one of those things. And I always thought that the Rainbow Girls were attached somehow to the Masons.
PB I think they are. Yes.
CW Well she's there.
PB The Masons were not an integrated outfit.
CW No. You see the Masons are not integrated now. The Black Masons are AF and AM and the white Masons are F and AM, and they claim the man who organized the white Masons was out of Africa somewhere. I ought to be able to tell you that. I should, being a good Eastern Star. I ought to know it, but I can't dredge it up at the moment. But that is the difference. Although somebody told me not too long that they were trying to bring them together. Whether they ever do or not....
PB In the period that you went to school, it's very likely it seems to me that people didn't try to join activities where they felt they were not going to be accepted...
CW I think that's it.
PB Because there was always the sense that there wasn't a lot of social closeness in the North.
CW Well, none really. No. There never has been. (laughs) There's probably more now than there ever was. But there never was an inter-group relationship among Blacks and whites.
PB I think it was just starting when I was in school.
CW Probably.
PB And there it was rather self-conscious and was promoted by groups like the "Y" or promoted by church groups.
CW But just to say that everybody's welcome because we're all one...
PB But to join a debate society or to join a dramatic society to help put on school plays. Now the musical things might have been earlier integrated than some of the other things.
CW Probably. I know my cousin Bill that I told you was in that 42nd, he belonged the big chorus out to Illinois State where they traveled. All summer they would travel. He was a part of that all the time he was in school, in [19]42 you see. So I think things changed because every generation has its different concepts, too. Nowadays I think they go in with a feeling that they better not tell me I can't belong, you see.
PB That's true.
CW I has just been a growing thing. It always will be a growing thing, I think.
PB It's a very interesting project that the NAACP sponsored. It reflects the fact that if you couldn't belong to social groups in school or weren't likely to that your opportunities for recreation for doing things outside of school were limited and a club of some sort, a recreation facility would be a very nice addition to the community.
CW Yes, and I think that was the thinking of the NAACP. But I do believe that they became... And if I remember correctly they became a charter. Is that what it is? Incorporated. Incorporated with a charter and after they moved to Main Street, they became an incorporated... Because by that time I believe they had a board made up of both Blacks and whites. And money was coming from some areas that were of concern, and they had to. More or less had to keep an accounting of what was happening. I wish I could tell you that whole structure, and probably Elaine Gaines, Elaine Williams, somewhere in the files has much of that because Walter was there for quite a while. And I'm sure that-but it was a bona fide organization which did get some little support.
PB It's interesting to me that you have traced it as growing out of some of the New Deal efforts...
CW Yes. That's what it is. That's what really happened.
PB of the thirties that provided the roots for something that then the NAACP picked up on.
CW Picked up on it.
PB That could be one reason you were involved because you were so involved in the program of the WPA.
CW Yes. Probably was true. Those who worked in the schools with the WPA sort of moved on. But you see when the war came-when Roosevelt came in, everybody, all the Blacks became Democrats. Well, I never did. I never changed because I always remembered that when I was a child my folks instructed people how to vote because many people didn't read and write. They instructed them how to vote. I've seen them come in and sit at our dining room table, and my dad and my mother would tell them that the ballot is going to look like this and even though there is a circle, don't start monkeying with the little blocks, do the circle and showed them how to vote. Just simply because Blacks were Republicans in those days, and I thought, "Well, that's all right I'll stay a Republican."
PB The party of Lincoln.
CW Yeah. But you see after Roosevelt come in, a lot of the people who had been in the government projects sort of moved into Springfield and were given jobs that way and all. So there was an entirely different make-up of the people in recreation, and I believe the last young man who was the director of it was a graduate of Illinois State. He was married to Dorothy Stewart's sister. And they're now in Ohio. But it was just the fact that there was no location for them anymore, nor probably the demand during the wartime. That was just the end of recreation here, as a going thing.
PB Were the Blacks tied in the Republican political structure through their efforts? They must have tried to garner a few votes.
CW I think they did, but it wasn't like big rallies. I can remember they'd move into the neighborhoods. "So and so" is going to come in tonight, and he's running for mayor or this or that. And then they would have little socials. They'd see that there were the doughnuts and the coffee and the hot dogs and the buns and all that sort of thing. And it would be a kind of neighborhood thing. It was not. And the person's whose house it was at would get maybe twenty-five dollars or thirty dollars or something. I don't know what they got, but there was something in it. But not a big thing. Not a big thing. The politicians would come into the neighborhoods and cultivate the people which is different now because they want great numbers and big rallies and a lot of money. So it has taken a whole different turn.
PB They want media events now, but back in the thirties and so forth the local politicians here in Bloomington, the people running for mayor or running for council, would they come in and try to cultivate Black votes?
CW Well, they did. I think they still do. I can remember when Jesse was going to run for mayor, he called me, and he said, "Caribel, I want to run for mayor. Do you think the Black people will accept me?" And I said, "Well, we just have to talk to them. If you feel like you want to run, then I would do what I can?" And anybody who asks me to work for them, I promise I will tell at least a hundred people. And then I really go out and try to tell a hundred or more people about that person so they will know about them. So I think there's always been a sort of a cultivation of neighbors and friends and people that you know as far as that goes, but it's just... The same with Steve Brienen. We worked for Steve Brienen just because we knew Brienen as a (unintelligible), and we supported him. But it's only through just contacting people that you do it.
PB Did your father have political connections?
CW Oh. I don't know that he ever wanted to be in them, but he always had connections with somebody who was influential. He could walk uptown and sort of open the doors.
PB I gathered he could do that part of it very well.
CW I think that was the extent of it. I can remember that even before these programs, these social programs were in now, I can remember the time that he would go to Utesch's Store on a Saturday night and pick up all the bakery goods and the fruits and that sort of thing, and on Sunday morning we would all get in our wagon and horse and drive out to the Home, the Booker Washington Home and give that food to those children because in those days they were not supported by any welfare programs of any kind. There's always been a medium of help, I think.
PB They are all working hand to mouth there.
CW All they got was what people did for them. I can remember a whole lot of things, but they aren't all relevant.
PB Well, they're relevant to other things maybe.
CW Then we get off these little tangents, and I begin to wonder if it is going to make sense.
PB Some of these tangents are good because there are individual topics that we need to plug into. We'll pick them out.
CW I must tell you, though, about my school.
PB We've got the pictures here of your students.
CW And how I happened to...
PB You know what year that is from?
CW I'm reaching for that year. It has to be 1940. No, that's not right.
PB I count seventeen children in the picture. (tape is turned off)
CW Let me think one minute. I want to be sure that I have this.
PB This is probably 1939.
CW [19]39. Un-huh.
PB Your own son is there in the middle.
CW Yes, that's him. Now you can turn it back on. The picture that I have of the children from my little school, and these schools were held under the direction of the recreation project. At that time there were not schools. Not pre-education in the public schools because they were very, very poor. In fact, if I can recall properly there was a time when they were not even eligible to be in the North Central Association. Since then they've come to be very good schools. But under the recreation we would have these little morning schools, and my husband would always pick up all the children that would come to school, and they would come and they would bring maybe a cookie or piece of bread and butter or peanut butter or something like that, and then they'd have some milk. Of course, school was over then at noon because there were no eating facilities, nor I doubt if many of them would have had the money for a daily lunch. But the children in my school and some of them are still around. I looked at this picture, and it saddened me a little because several of them are dead now. Two of the Hursey children were here. That was Bobbie and Shirley Hursey and Arthur Waddell and Albert and Earl Moore and Jonarthur Washington and Carroll Alexander. One little white girl that went to my school was named Treeva Houk. Who the other one was, I can't just recall at the moment. I said Carroll Alexander. There were two children here who were cousins to the Moore children. And I can not think of their name at the moment either. But I always had maybe fifteen or sixteen kids who would come. And I believe we did this maybe four years. Then...
PB Where did the school meet? What was the building?
CW We at one time at Western Avenue Community Center. One year we had a room upstairs. Then the next year they decided they needed the room for something else, and they wanted us to go into the basement. Well, we did for just a little bit, but it was kind of unpleasant there, and so I said, "No. We won't take the children there." So then they made room for us in a building uptown which is now the parking lot of the Pantagraph. There used to be the inter-urban. It was the old inter-urban station. Then they turned it into a building, and I believe the downstairs was an employment office, a government employment office, but the upstairs was a part of the recreation project. So we had school up there on the second floor for probably two years. It was kind of fun because we were able to really give the children a few basics.
PB This was a little like Head Start in a sense. This is pre-school.
CW We didn't try to teach them a great deal. But it was a little more than play because there would be little things that they could do which would further their learning to some extent. In fact, I taught mine to write.
PB I was going to say that I remember your mentioning in an interview that somebody had stopped you on the street.
CW Yes. Nettie is not in this picture, but she was one of the ones in one of my classes. She had told her boss that Caribel Washington had taught her to write.
PB She still appreciates that.
CW Most of them do. Every one of them that I know now when I see them. And you see, they're all past fifty-four years old. And I'm going to try to get all of those names and put them on the back of there because when Jonarthur sees that picture, he will probably be able to tell me all of them.
PB That's a really nice picture. It is very distinct.
CW It is a cute picture of them. This is one of the Dixons. She's dead now. See there are so many of them who are dead. Both the Moore boys are dead. It gets a little sad when you begin to think about them.
PB That's right. You didn't expect to outlive so many of them.
CW No. I'm outliving so many people until sometimes I wonder, you know.
PB Where is the picture of the NAACP members who are having their...
CW They must have had...
PB Was it their annual meeting of 1942?
CW I was trying to recall why all those flags were there, but I don't remember that part. I don't know if that was a part of the recreation because this is at the recreation center. That house was a beautiful, beautiful house.
PB So that's inside...
CW That's inside the John Scott House. It was a very beautiful place. In the picture here are many of the older people.
PB If we start at the left.
CW In the front row, that's John R. Ford. He was the man who was janitor at Jefferson School. Harriett Allen was next. She was a member of Union Church down here and was civic minded in many things. She and I used to attend things, and we'd wonder why others didn't come. This was Joe Henderson. Delores Shavers. Mabel Henderson who was N. J. Henderson's wife. And the Henderson men were very instrumental in the recreation center.
PB What did they do?
CW They were Pullman porters. Both N. J. and A. J. Henderson. No. They were not Pullman porters. They were mail clerks on the train. Both of them. I'm sorry that I made that mistake. They were not Pullman porters. They both worked in the mail service on the trains. Carrie Wakefield was one of our citizens and was one of our leading singers around town.
PB She's the one who was also a member of the Melody Gospel.
CW Melody Gospel Chorus. I must name those people for you. This is Golden Manuel. She
End Side A; Tape Two
Side B; Tape Two
PB This is tape two. Side two. With Caribel Washington.
CW I believe I cut off as I said Beulah Thornton, and that isn't correct because she is now Beulah Kennedy. Next to her is J. Henderson who was N. J. Henderson's son. I believe the next person is a Thomas. I can't just recall his name at the moment.
PB He's the last one in the first row on the right-hand side.
CW Just about him, the first one in the second row on the right-hand side is of the picture is Aubrey Hursey. He was a very prominent Black minister in his older life here in town. He was one of the most well thought of men in Bloomington.
PB Which church?
CW He was the Church of God in Christ. It's down of the corner of Taylor and Mason Streets.
PB You had a couple of his children in your class.
CW He had four children. Shirley, Robert, Aubrey. Those were the three I knew well. Shirley, Robert, and Aubrey were the three older ones, and they were the ones I had in school. Next to him, second from the right, is Carson Terrell.
PB What did he do?
CW I believe he worked uptown for the most part. I'm just not sure what he did. W. S. Caldwell who was a retired railroad man in his later years. Ed Thomas was a chauffeur for one of the families that I don't recall right this minute either. And I'm in the middle of the picture. And I don't know why.
PB Looks like the featured speaker or something. But there is a young woman. Who she is?
CW That's Caribel Washington.
PB All right.
CW I can't even recall why this picture was made.
PB I'm sitting so far from it at the moment that I can't even... Okay, so that's Caribel.
CW A. J. Henderson then who was a brother to N. J. Henderson. Lela Morse Brown.
PB With the hat.
CW Yes. She was Kathryn Dean's, who is standing next to her, play mother. She was our extended family. Just a delightful person. Some of my sister's choice treasures came from her.
PB Did she work somewhere?
CW Yes. She always worked in service. She ended up working at the reformatory for girls in Geneva. That's were she died. She worked in service here for Mrs. Wakely for many years. W-A-K-E-L-Y. Mrs. Wakely was the final owner of the Roland Store. Lela worked for Mrs. Wakely. I wish I could tell you what the event was.
PB Do you know why she left town?
CW Well, I think she had the opportunity to become a housemother at Geneva. At that time they were really in dire straits for housemothers. Three or four of the women from here went up to be housemothers. The person on the left who is sitting facing the people in the picture was Mrs. Louise Calimese. She was N. J. Calimese wife. I can't tell from the back who that one was. I'm sure this is Louise Calimese. She was always such a supporter of good causes.
PB She must have been.
CW That must have been on a Sunday afternoon, I imagine.
PB Do you know what you were speaking about?
CW I have no idea. I've begun to look over programs back then. My goodness, that seems to be all I did back then. This I'm sure is part of the NAACP's effort in the name of recreation. But I just don't recall it.
PB Did the NAACP have other programs? Did they promote? Were they active in any kind of effort to secure better employment for Blacks?
CW I believe that you have something from Merlin Kennedy, don't you?I you don't you will have, and he will be better able to tell you about that than any body else because Merlin has worked harder, and I think taken more abuse....
PB When I came to town, he was doing both. He was working hard and he was taking a lot of abuse in the late sixties. And I met him in connection with some project...
CW With the Black Santa Claus probably.
PB ... or other and I couldn't imagine why he was getting so much abuse because it seemed to me he was doing so many good things.
CW Well, I think just the connotation of NAACP, Merlin Kennedy new in town (laughs), and that sort of thing, and vocal and vocal.
PB And of course all the agitation in the South had taken place by then or was taking place.
CW I'm sure. But I don't think we can sell him short though because of the things he did. A lot of it I didn't agree with, but I gave him his right to do it and say because that was the thing he wanted to do. But I think he kept the NAACP people going in the years when it might have just faltered. And it's now a viable organization again which is good because I thought at one time the NAACP had outlived its usefulness. That shows you how you change your way of thinking (laughs) because it will never outlive its usefulness. You get foolish thoughts, you know. You want to move on to other things.
PB Sometimes it looks like it will be replaced by something, but it still is the organizing center now.
CW I don't think it ever will, and I think Merlin has done a tremendous job in it, but it's just one of the things that you have opinions about. But I've changed some of those. (laughs)
PB After you finished teaching in the WPA program, it must have been shortly after that picture was taken. I suppose that program didn't go on through the wartime.
CW Oh, no. You see, when my husband came up for the draft, he was old enough for the draft, but he was too old to go in service. And it must have been a rule that you had to go to work in the war plant. And Eureka Williams was considered the war plant at that time. So when he went to work, then I, of course, could no longer work in a government program. Then I quit by request, of course. (laughs) Then in 1946 I went to work for State Farm.
PB So that was really your next job, working for State Farm. How did that come about?
CW Well, in those days, 1946, their personnel program was not as sophisticated as it is these days, and my sister-Lela Morris Brown there, had worked for them as a maid and when they decided that they wanted to have a second maid, they asked her and she thought of her precious child, my sister Kathryn Dean, who was working up in the four hundred block of Washington Street for eight dollars a week. Cook, maid, chief bottle washer, and everything else, and so she asked her. She asked the boss if he would hire her, and he did.
PB How much of an improvement in wages would that have meant for Kathryn?
CW Oh my. Double, I guess, and better. While we did not earn so much in those days. We would laugh because in the late years, they would always send you a list of what you earned, and I can remember my first one was forty-six dollars and some cents. I can't tell you for what period of time that was, but anyway she left service.
PB Do you know who she was working for?
CW Yes. She was working for the J. W. Wights. John Wight and that is W-I-G-H-T. She was a Cheney, one of the old-line families of this area. So then she went to work for State Farm in 1940. After my mother died, I just thought, "I've got to get out of here. I've got to do something." So one day she came home with an application in her hand and asked me did I want to go to work. Yes, I did. So the boss hired me. At that time you were just responsible to your boss. You never went in to personnel, or this or that, or anything else. I think shortly after that they become much more sophisticated in their hiring practices. They had a personnel department, but I believe hiring practices especially for the administrative services people was left up to the boss.
PB Who was the boss?
CW My boss was named H. H. Stevenson, Howard Stevenson. He was called the building supervisor or something like that. There are so many departments and sub-departments in it now until it is hard to tell where he stood. He was the big man for the building.
PB For the building downtown.
CW But you see in those days that was the only building there was. That was the State Farm Insurance Company, and it did not become the Fire Company until the big corporate office went in. That was what-[19]66?
PB Relatively recent.
CW Yes. Relatively new. But it was always the home office. In 1946 I went to work for State Farm, and I worked there until 1979.
PB But you didn't work as a maid all that time.
CW Oh, no. (laughs). I was hired as a maid. All of that is in here.
PB Well, some of it is.
CW Most of it is. (laughs)
PB There's mention in there of a traveling maid.
CW That was it. When I went on, it was because there were departments in so many different buildings in town. There was the Beck Building which was no longer a funeral parlor, but there was space there and they had offices there. They had offices in what was the Humphrey Building where you entered from the top of the viaduct. They had offices in what at one time was just a part of the hotel which ended up to be the Mar-Len {Hotel at 302 North Center]. They had offices there. They had offices at the Bloomington Club, and then they took offices in the basement of the Consistory for two years or more. Now these are people ranging from a 100 to 250 in these different places. And the first people that moved out were the people, I believe from the Consistory, who went to Dallas, Texas. At least, the people who were at the Consistory went to Dallas, Texas. They might not have been the first ones. It might have been the people out of the Humphrey Building who moved out first and I can't tell you where they went because State Farm moved people in and out so fast after that. And they are still doing the same thing. I noticed here just yesterday they bought and are building another California office which surprised me. And you see they are going into Georgia now. They are transferring a great many people into Tennessee. And so they are everywhere.
PB Your work took you from building to building.
CW I went from building to building. Yes.
PB How long did you do that?
CW For possibly...
PB Somewhere along there you became a secretary.
CW Yes. The strangest thing about all this was that Kathryn, my sister, was the secretary every time the secretary went. She wore her little gray uniform and everything and took care of the superintendent's business. You know, "Carolyn's gone so Kathryn will work the desk." And we used to laugh about that because she was the maid-secretary for a long time. And then when they begun to say, "We must hire Black people," you had to move up. You had no choice.And I said, "I don't want to go. I'm happy." I'm not of the nature to stand back and take a lot of guff. And knew I wasn't and I knew I wasn't going to so I never ever tried to. And after I became the secretary there, I never even tried to change jobs because I thought, "Well, you know, I'm getting along here." And I probably worked... They've never had a person who worked the shops like I did because I worked with all the men. There were no women there. So you worked... You did the job certificates for the men. You took all of the phone calls. You wrote all of the contracts. You paid all of the bills for that part of the building. For the building service.
PB For the maintenance?
CW We did our own purchasing then which I don't think is being done now. Because the whole thing has just changed entirely. But when I went there, it was to be to secretary for the building superintendent and then I ended up working for the shop supervisor. That's when you scheduled all the work. At one time I could tell you where the corn grew and how much. Where the cherries... You see they had territory in Oregon for years where they produced cherries before they ever built in Salem, you know. And when they had ground, they made it pay. Even though it wasn't insurance, they made it pay. And you see all of that area where they are building now used to be their cornfields. And they produced corn off of it. It didn't go through like State Farm's corn, but you knew that's what it was. Did you ask me another question about that?
PB I just wanted to know the sequence there and what affected that.
CW We moved in under affirmative action.
PB I think the first time I ever met you was at a meeting that State Farm had called to try to do something to promote Black employment.
CW Oh, that was probably under Jerry Strickland.
PB I think so. That was about 1966 or 1967. 1968.
CW Yes. That's when they begun to take in the younger people into the offices really. By that time, I had been in the office work for some time because we were pretty much forced into it, you see. They asked me to do something-I don't know what it was-oh, run the elevator. It was somewhere unwritten that at certain times you ran the elevator. It was one of the things I could not do. It bothered me. And so I came off the elevator one day, and I said to the boss, "Now if running the elevator is part of this job, I want my old job back today. I'm not going to run the elevator. It bothers me." Well, they ended up where I even had to go to medical. A doctor had to sit there and talk to me. I said, "It bothers me and I'm not going to do it." That's when they decided that I didn't have to run the elevator. They said, "You can't go back to being a maid. You can't.""I can't. Why not?" Well, you know how it is. So really the only reason why they started hiring Black people was because of inter-state commerce and that's all in this. I don't know how you are going to inculcate this together.
PB Yes. They were promoting and requiring minority employment in Federal programs.
CW And Jerry Strickland is the one who really decided that he would start this program where they would bring in these people and train them. Because my contemporaries... One of my prayer partners says, "Well, I walked in from high school and walked in and got a job." She said, "When I first saw you I was working in personnel, and I called-His name was Pick Baldwin who was head of personnel-And I said, 'Pick'-No I called him Mr. Baldwin-'What's Caribel Washington doing doing maid work.' She said, 'I went to school with her. I know that she has capabilities,' and he said, 'But Helen you know we can't.'" It was always known. Then when the government said, "You will." And now you see they are attempting to move some of them into managerial because they are wondering why at this point there aren't some in managerial.
PB They've been so long in the lower ranks.
CW Yes. So it's just. I don't think it will evolve to where State Farm will ever have a regional vice-president who is Black. I might be wrong, but I don't think so. If it does, it will be years because they are not training them. When you read in their publication where someone has gone in to the president's office, that means he is in that area where they are getting ready to groom them to go out as regional vice-presidents or assistant regional associates or something like that. And I have never yet heard of them moving a Black into the president's office. You don't really go into the president's office, but you are in that department.
PB That whole higher echelon.
CW Yes. And then maybe it might be two years, but then you'll read where so in so is going to be regional vice-president of something. It might come. We are watching a young girl now who is a very dear, dear girl who came in from Alabama about eight years ago. And she has just gone up, up, up. Well, she is in St. Paul now. Sort of managerial. And they are talking about bringing her in and she's expecting within the next eighteen months or so to come in. Just what they will do with her I'm not sure.
PB It will be an interesting test.
CW You see they are moving the women faster than they are moving the men. Men are a threat to white woman. (laughs). Please don't put that in. I'm just being factious there, but I think this is the reason why women are moving.
PB I always thought that the Black male was at a disadvantage.
CW In anything.
PB Viewed as the greater threat or whatever.
CW I don't say that in a prejudicial way. I say that because I see men who are very, very capable who are not getting those chances. The time might come. It's slow. It's very, very slow in coming.
PB One of the things I realized I didn't know much about in terms of your family to turn back one hundred and eighty degrees from where we've just been, I realized that in terms of your family, I didn't know very much about your mother.
CW Well, our mother was the youngest daughter of the Reverend Jeremiah Williams, who was an A.M.E. preacher. He was only just a little while in the church here. He was always... His last pastorate was in Chester, Illinois. From such records as we have, and I have begun to change my thinking on that since our July meeting. We had always believed that our grandmother came from Du Quoin, Illinois because that's where she and grandfather were married. But I came across a bunch of papers that were done on marriages, and I tried to find out how those papers came into our possession and that day nobody could really tell us why. But it had marriages and in our grandfather's and grandmother's marriage it said Missouri which means we are going to have to go to Du Quoin and then do the trail backwards to really see. But I talked to Alice Schlenker and Jo Munro, and they could not remember how this group of papers had come together. How those papers got where I found them I don't know.
PB Sometimes knowing where they came from is important.
CW I said that I must have at some time taken them out of that box, then put them with whatever it was I found them in. But I took them and gave them back to Mildred Pratt because I knew they should have been there, but I think that might shed a light on more than our family because.... My mother married my father who was named William Houston Webster, and we were born in Streator, Illinois because the Websters were glass workers. And they left the glass factory in Alton and went into Streator to (Unintelligible) Ionize, and I understood there was also a factory in Ohio, but we were born there just because there was work there in the glass factories. But my father left my mother, and she brought us back to the home place at 603 South Main in Normal.
PB That was her home place?
CW Which was the Williams home place. All of them were born there. I can find a listing as far back as 1880 where they lived at 603 South Main, Normal. So that was always their home place. That, of course, ended up being... Well, my husband and I were going to buy it, but we had an aunt who somehow knew a lawyer who ended up getting the place. But it was later sold to Taylor Cisco who in all of his venturings into Africa and around lost all of it. So I think the university got it just in the course of things. But for years... It must have been clear into the forties it was in our family.
PB So your mother came...
CW Mother came back and then...
PB When did you move to Bloomington then?
CW Well, I can recall a time in Canton, Illinois. A very short time. That was during the epidemic, the flu epidemic during the war.
PB 1918.
CW I can recall we were in Canton because our stepfather whom we always called our father, who was named William E. Schields, was a night nurse in Canton. I don't if we went there for that reason or what, but shortly after that we came back to Bloomington. Now, I can't tell you the whole sequence of all of this. But we left Normal and went to Canton and back to Bloomington.
PB And that led to South Wright Street in Bloomington?
CW Where we lived all our lives pretty well. Well, 511 South Wright Street belonged to our stepfather's mother at that time named Josephine Raiford. That's a name that hasn't come to you yet. That was our stepfather's mother's name, but it's in the books.
PB So his mother's name was Raiford. Where did he get the Schields from?
CW He was a Schields. Don't ask me all those things. Both he and his sister were Schields. I don't know how they came to be so. They were people out of Mississippi that came into here. I think I begun to pick up Mrs. Raiford around-when I say "pick up" it is some of the work I've done in the directories-around 1890 or something like that.
PB When your stepfather moved to Bloomington, he must have switched occupations?
CW I guess he did. Papa was one of those chameleon type people who had a great many different abilities who did what I think was necessary at the moment. But I can remember our time in Canton even though I was fairly young, but we did come to Bloomington, and we came in on the train at the Big Four Station [424 South Main]. I can recall that. I believe the first time I ever saw gravel used on a walk I thought it was as white as snow, and that was at the Kumle Store that I told you about as we walked up from the station up to Oakland Avenue because Grandma Raiford lived at 606 Madison Street. We were always right in the area. We walked up, and I saw all of this gravel in front of the store and that was a new experience for me. And I always remember how white that gravel looked as we walked up there.
PB What did your father then set about to do to support himself?
CW Well, I think for all of that time he was a Spanish-American War veteran. He had been a Spanish-American War veteran, and he was wounded, and I think that there was always that pension there as a means of livelihood, but he also always did other things.
PB Was he a cook?
CW Yes. I told you how we had the restaurant, and that was the only thing really I can remember him doing here in Bloomington. Then he died in 1929.
PB Was it he who went to the side show in the circus and was the barker?
CW Yeah. He was the one. He was in the World's Fair when it was in St. Louis because he always talked about it. I think it was a kind of exciting time in his life, you know. Then I'm not sure what he was.
PB He liked a good time. He knew how to celebrate. It's interesting, and yet he had a rather strict notion of what he wanted his daughters to do.
CW Very strict. Very, very strict. Both of them were disciplinarians. There were just things we did, and we used to say, "When either one of them called, start moving. Even if you don't know which direction to go, start moving." But they were very kind to us though. When they thought we needed punishing, they punished us, but they also had many things for us. I can remember if we wanted a new dress, the girls would say, "Babe, tell Papa we need a new dress." Somehow I'd get around him, and we'd all end up with a new dress.
PB That was probably a wise piece of advice to let you work on him.
CW Most anything that I would want, he would kind of see that I got it. But then I kind of knew what the parameters were, too. You didn't ask for too many unreasonable things.
PB You were the apple of his eye.
CW Well, yes. I think I was.
PB What was the relationship between Blacks in Bloomington and Blacks in Normal?
CW Well, I can remember that some of my mother's really fine friends were the Rileys who were out of Normal. And of course, my sister's play mother, Lela Morris Brown, was out of Normal. And the Malone girls and my mother were very good friends because they had been neighbors. So there were some of the Normal people. And then of course during those years my Uncle Bill and Aunt Grace lived at the house in Normal. So it was always just sort of a kind of reciprocal friendship if you knew people, you see. I believe there has always been a friendly attitude because many of the Normal people always came to Bloomington to church, and that sort of thing. The churches in Normal more or less just closed after a time because of the lessening of residents there. And they came to the Bloomington churches. So I think there has always been a close association. Again let me say just like there are so many more Negroes now-Hey, how about that word. I reached right back for it-There are so many more Black people in Normal now, just like there are so many more in Bloomington. Many more different employment jobs and this sort of thing. We find out for the most part that there are many more Black people in Normal associated with the university who do not do any even civic things in Bloomington. They might be doing some things in Normal, but not in Bloomington. Because many of them that we know are there unless there is something involving the two cities then you don't know them.
PB I was wondering. People in Normal have never voted to join Bloomington and become one city again. They have almost considered themselves above some of the problems that face Bloomington.
CW Well, I think Mayor Harmon is kind of perpetuating that attitude, too.
PB But I wondered if there has ever been any feeling among Blacks that there was any difference that you could see. Whether they were holding out...
CW None that I know of. I've never been closely enough involved with people in Normal, even Blacks, to ask what is your attitude about that sort of thing. But as far as the people of the town, especially the Black people of the town, have always moved in and out because it's only been in late years that Normal has had an enterprise outside of the university.
PB Well, as I understand it, there was a pretty strong family of Kentucky blacksmiths that moved there some time ago, but when horses gave way to cars, I think they probably lost most of their livelihood.
CW The Thomases. We knew them, both of them Everett and George Washington, as old men because they always went to our church. We knew them and their wives.
PB There wasn't any aloofness on the part of those who lived in Normal.
CW She's not in this picture. She's here somewhere.
PB That is an interesting picture. What is this church?
CW This is our church that went to the Pontiac Church for something, but the majority of these people are Bloomington. Now that woman there is Mrs. Everett Thomas.
PB The third one in on the first row.
CW That's Mrs. Everett Thomas. That's Mrs. Blanton.
PB Right next to her.
CW Un-huh. I told you Reverend King. Now that's Mrs. King.
PB The second one in on the first row from the right.
CW Mary Roach. There's Delores Shavers. And that's Leona White. Her husband was a policeman here. And Mary Drake, and there is Anna Clark who was probably a Sanders at that time. Our church used to go to the Pontiac Church. We came across the word Dice. This is Mrs. Dice.
PB The third one in from the right on the first row.
CW Most of these I can name. This is Mrs. Ward. I was trying to figure this because I saw Williams there. That's Dorothy Williams's grandfather. Of course, he's a little man. I think between Mrs. King and he I might be able to come close to that date. This is Paul Ward's brother and I think by asking there we might be able to come up with a. If I can (unintelligible) that preacher, who was our preacher, I can tell you what it was and I'm sure Paul Ward is going to be able to tell me that. And then I'll be able to name most of these.
PB Was this picture taken in Pontiac?
CW Well, yes. See this is the church. I can remember the front door of the old church. It's not there any more. If it is there, it has been sold to others, you see. But I can recall the front door of that church, but I'm sure I'm going to be able to date this picture for you.
PB That looks like a picture we'd want to have copied for the archives.
CW You don't have to copy it. I'm going to give it to you because they are really not... And we don't have the safekeeping. I'm sure Paul Ward... This is Elaine Gaines.
PB Third child in from the right.
CW And that is Jesse Henderson.
PB The second one in from the right.
CW And that's Paul Ward's brother, Harold.
PB Standing (inaudible) the left.
CW Here is the Ward girl, Claudia.
PB The third child in from the left.
CW But I can name most of these, you see. And this is Minnie Anson and this is Mrs. Blanton.
PB Oh, Minnie Anson the second one in from the left on the first row. Is she the family of the Chat and Chew?
CW Yes. She's the other side of it. See, there were two brothers, and Luther was the one who had it. And this woman was married to the other one. And after he died, then she married a man named Bailey. I think between me and my sister Kathryn and Rose Anna Bell, we'll name everyone on here who is not out of Pontiac. This woman I know is out of Pontiac, and that man, and where is Jessie Babb. She's out of Pontiac. And this woman's husband was a Pullman porter on the C and A for a long, long time. So we'll get it together for you.
PB Now, what sort of distinctions existed among Blacks in the twenties in terms of. Were there some class differences?
CW There might have been among the women, but I don't think there were with men. (laughs) We used to laugh, you know, because most of the women that worked in the kitchens had Thursday afternoon off and Sunday afternoon, and that was the time they became Mrs. "so and so" and dressed up and went to club and all that sort of thing. But I don't know that for the most part... I think there were women who probably had a high opinion of their self and probably some of their associates, but I believe that's all gone by the... (tape runs out)
End Side B; Tape Two
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