My name is Beatrice Freeman Walker.
Okay. Where were you born?
I was born in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Do you know if you were born at home?
Probably, I was born in a hospital in Roanoke.
In Roanoke? Okay.
Because Blacks could not attend the hospitals in Christiansburg.
So they could go for treatment but they couldn't stay.
[inaudible] hospital, that's what it's called.
There wasn't a midwife.
I think there were but I wouldn't know of any.
I see, okay.
I just learned about that.
Where did your family live?
My family lived at 202 Jackson Street, Blacksburg.
Was there a name for that neighborhood?
Jackson.
Just Jackson Street?
Yeah. The Black's neighborhood was according to Street.
Except Newtown.
Newtown was a black community within itself.
This was Newtown, this was a black community.
Part of Newtown.
None of their business or nothing was there.
They extended all the way up Prices Fork road.
I see. Do you
know how your family came to be in Blacksburg?
Yes, my father was,
lived in Statesville North Carolina.
I originally got here,
do not know because they had
black's come to Jackson Street in 1867,
I think it was and that's when he came in to Blacksburg.
You mean, that's when blacks were
first able to move into Jackson Street?
Right.
Okay.
I think it's 1867.
I know it's 18 something.
I had it written down.
Prior to that, people that were living around here,
we're living on farms or whatever.
Or they just weren't people in the downtown?
Well, there weren't that many blacks here at one time.
Then blacks had on business and
started moving in when they was
able to come in to Blacksburg.
I guess they were slaves, I don't know.
So did your father grow up here too?
No, just like I was saying, He's from Statesville.
That he came from Statesville
and he came over here?
Right.
Okay. Do you have any early recollections of the town?
Plenty.
Would you share a few with us?
Like what?
Well, what was it like when you were growing up?
It's nice. Because at that time,
the children, they was unconscious of segregation.
That's how we were brought up.
There's different in blacks and white,
they make no difference to us because my children,
they were raised with white.
There was blacks on one side of the street.
Whites lived on the other side.
That is so crazy.
Although they lived off inside their house
might be turned a different direction.
It's like on Jackson Street,
the whites that lived on [inaudible] Jackson Street,
their houses faced Penn Street.
Where our black's houses faced Jackson Street.
If you want to figure that out.
I see what you mean. Yeah.
That's the way it was on Bennett Street,
which ran into Jackson,
that was all black,
which was right in the curve and that was another street.
Then like I was saying,
blacks was let in to 18 something is also
Roanoke Street and [inaudible]
Street that blacks was there.
Clay Street too?
Yeah.
Well, so would the children play together?
Blacks and white children play together.
Yeah. [NOISE] Excuse me.
[inaudible] place.
Would you like some water?
[inaudible].
[inaudible] all states or
whenever this unnecessary children.
It's mostly their parents.
Make things harder. When you were growing up,
were you expected to do
chores or to help around the house?
All children, they did
chores and helping their parents and grandparents.
Like what kind of things would you do?
Well, I got paid.
I got an allowance.
Because my father was in the cleaning business.
My mother, she did domestic work and she also
worked for the church for Richardson,
that was pastor of the Episcopal
church right across from where we lived.
She worked with the Red Cross,
the black soldiers that was in service and whatnot.
If they know their parents died,
she will contact the Red Cross and she
was able to get them home for
the family and stuff like that.
Oh, wow.
Well, a few people,
they don't know that now.
But there's so much that they don't know.
So that was how a whole lot of the black soldiers
got home for their families
and brothers or sister's funerals.
She worked for General Devine who was at VPI.
She worked for the Christian church
and fixed communion for them.
She also fixed communion for the gospel in church.
She also worked with the [inaudible].
She was a major in St. Luke's.
They will go around,
travel all over in order to get membership in
because St. Luke's [inaudible].
You see that people coming in from
Richmond and South Boston,
Roanoke and they all get
together and travel to get on a ship.
They traveled to get more people involved?
Yeah.
So somebody had a car and they would drive
together or how would they getting around?
Cars, I guess.
Yeah.
But that's how St. Luke's got started.
[inaudible] when the slaves are free.
Then they were supposed to be given land and jobs.
But that didn't happen when they
came into the city in Richmond,
they would turn away because this people in
Richmond is mad because their city had been burned.
They lost the war.
So there was mad that the slaves had been free too.
They wouldn't give men jobs.
The blacks ended up dying on
the highway in the roads and whatnot.
[inaudible] ,
I don't know what she was?
But she was from Baltimore, Maryland.
She started an organization.
This organization was like a house
where man could come and live.
Then after she did that,
she started this organization where it would
have the blacks to find jobs and stuff like that.
It got so big that it was too much for her to handle.
She would work with the people in Richmond,
but her home was in Maryland.
So that's how [inaudible] took over in Richmond.
That's how they started their doors
[inaudible] I have it written down, something.
Anyway, it was pertaining to St. Louis.
I think I have a picture of the medallion.
Yeah, I gave that to her in St. Louis.
I found that with my other stuff.
I was looking for her picture.
I had a large picture of her and
that must have [inaudible] with some other papers.
I couldn't find it to bring
it to her. [inaudible] it's just a picture of her.
[inaudible] right there.
Looks like it's 3D. Like it's out there.
It's one in the [inaudible]
Yeah.
It's made so funny in the back cover,
it's just like plastic but it's not plastic,
and has grayish color.
Looks very odd. You didn't see that?
No, I have to look at that.
Your mother was involved in the St. Luke's Order?
Right. That's where most of the people in blacks were
[inaudible] and that's where our hall was built.
Was there a women's group and
a men's group or was it
everybody was just involved [NOISE] together?
No. Some people say it was,
but the women was
[inaudible] just like the men were St. Luke's.
I see.
Either way, either one you could join.
Then what kind of activities were
they having here locally, do you think?
Well, locally would be for the people in the community.
You could not go upstairs because
that was the sacred part of this building.
That's why the [inaudible] the St. Luke's,
the Masons, Eastern Star,
they all had made themselves upstairs.
That was sacred to the public,
but they have dancers,
bingo parties dance, and all that here. [inaudible]
I heard they had mock weddings.
Had what?
Mock weddings.
Yeah. That was mostly at the church though,
but we did have a mock wedding
here [OVERLAPPING] manless wedding.
A manless wedding?
There was no women, the men dressed as women.
Okay. [LAUGHTER]
That was fun, trying to see
those men trying to walk in high heel shoes,
[LAUGHTER] and those wigs on and
that make up that they had on, that was hilarious.
It must have been hilarious.
It was. It was so good [inaudible]. They also
had it at the church.
Did people enjoy that?
You made up your own [inaudible] ,
and you made it real funny, and whatnot.
They wouldn't call you your name,
they would have a funny name
to get [inaudible] They don't have it now.
That brings in a whole lot of money.
That brings what?
In a whole lot of money.
I see.
That would be a good fundraiser for you.
Were they fundraisers?
Yeah. We had [inaudible] North Carolina,
or in union enrichment.
They had all kind of fundraisers to raise money.
Had dinners to raise money.
Paid for your bill and funds, stuff like that.
With us, the blacks'
Baptist Church and Methodist Church both worked together.
Center school picnics, we went together,
because it was so few of us.
[NOISE] My mother was
a Baptist and my father was a Methodist.
The Methodist had church in the morning,
the Baptist had church in the evening or night,
so they would visit each other's churches like that.
In the time the program was going on,
one church would join and went for the other church.
When we went on a picnic up to
State Park [inaudible] got
put in jail because this was a State Park,
and at the time I guess,
all the members, they didn't know
anything about all of that.
We were just going on picnic.
Because we used to go to picnics down Stanton.
What's that other [NOISE] one that has
the wall that you can walk through that's so high?
The shaft tower? [OVERLAPPING].
You mean the Natural Bridge?
Yeah, Natural Bridge. We used to go.
Also, I know, so star [inaudible].
Then picnic but not so up [inaudible].
They had the State Park and just open up women up there.
Next time we knew,
we were just having a good time and they
came and told us we had to leave.
They said, why?
They said blacks are supposed to be on
one side and white are supposed to be on the other.
We didn't know that.
A man just say he wasn't moving and none of us was going
going to move on one side or the other
because it was a State Park.
So they put him in jail.
Oh, my goodness.
Here's the write-up right here on about that.
I'll have to be good too,
but it's good to hear you tell the story.
So what happened with that?
But well, he didn't stay overnight because the members
got him out. What happened?
At your picnic.
In a way they may get there too late but.
Okay.
Yeah, knowing he was still in jail.
Yeah.
[NOISE] But my concern is [inaudible] stuff.
Before [NOISE] they have
[inaudible] again at the bus station cost,
blacks couldn't go to the bus station and sit down,
and I couldn't eat there.
I would go to the back door and
get your ticket and wait for the bus and whatnot.
As far as the school segregation he also
helped the students to attend the school.
Now, where was the bus station?
Hokey house.
So that [OVERLAPPING].
Yeah, up the hill from the hokey house.
On the square.
So it's right there.
Right there [inaudible].
Yeah.
Right, close coming this year.
But this price here, building here,
and then the bus station right across from
there, at that time.
The ministers within [inaudible]
there then. What was his name?
Richmond.
Archie Richmond, I think I've read about him, yeah.
Because a white minister
worked
with him.
There's [inaudible].
Because he was a member of the [inaudible].
But he was so good and believe me, he was [inaudible].
Archie Richmond was?
No, the white man.
The white man. [inaudible].
Yeah.
Got it.
Yeah.
He was so sweet.
You went to church in both places.
You went to the Baptist and then?
I was also a member of the Methodist, St. Paul AME.
I was going to ask you that,
because I would have had that
AME was a Methodist.
St. Paul AME.
Yeah. That's out in Clay Street, I guess.
Hint Street.
Okay.
Methodist Church is on Clay street.
Sorry [LAUGHTER] I got mixed up about that.
Of course,
we didn't really finish talking about the Odd Fellows.
So are there other things you'd like
to point out about the Odd Fellows?
One question was it first of all, for insurance?
Was it connected with black people
getting insurance at first?
That part has not been told well enough.
The St. Luke's has not been told enough,
all you hear is Odd Fellows.
You don't hear anything about St. Luke's.
Right. Right.
That's the part that's so interesting, the St. Luke's.
Because they're the one that had
insurance for the blacks.
They the one who went all over state getting membership.
Mayor Walker is the one that had all kinds of
opportunities for the blacks
to learn different trades and jobs and stuff like that.
Because my sister, she went to
Brookfield State College for
two years and she didn't like college.
She liked cosmetology.
So mamma sent her to Richmond,
because they had an Apex cosmetology school there.
That's how so many of
the blacks got opportunities and jobs,
because in Richmond they trained them and
they taught them all kind of trades,
and that was the purpose of the St. Luke's,
was to teach them all kinds of trades.
So it would be the St. Luke's organization
here might help people to go
study for a trade in Richmond then?
They train them there.
They train them there,
and then they could come back.
The purpose of the St. Luke's,
if you get a chance get this book A
Penny Makes A Dollar by Maggie Lena Walker.
I've only found one book,
if I have to go to Christianburg Library,
they have to send a Christian Blacksburg Library
to get it.
They don't have them in
all the libraries like they should.
But it tells us about how the insurance got started,
tells about how St. Luke's got started,
it's all about [inaudible].
It's such an enjoyable book, you would love it.
It sounds really interesting.
It tells about Maggie Walker and how they
got started [BACKGROUND] and everything.
At the Tech library,
I found this book,
and it was completely on Maggie Walker.
Then suddenly the book
disappeared when I went back to get it again.
But it told all about her life and everything.
It told about her funeral,
it told how many cars was in her funeral.
There's a museum in Richmond now.
She is the first black woman to be president of a bank.
That bank is still operating in Richmond.
Wow.
There's so much about St. Luke's,
they've not heard enough about St. Luke's.
With the insurance, you would
join and pay whatever you could.
The members would meet at
the different places like
Blacksburg had their own meeting place.
Roanoke had their own meeting place,
wherever they had connected with their St. Luke's.
You paid what you want,
but the minimum was 10 cents.
That money, you could
borrow for your kids to go to college,
you could borrow for death.
If somebody in the family died,
you would get so much from that insurance.
Oh.
This is just so interesting,
but nobody knows about it because it hasn't been
told like it should be told.
If I know it, then others should know it.
Right.
My mother used to have Mr. Carlington, Dorothy Turner,
Ms. Ruth Hilton, and she was one of them,
I can't think of the name they use.
Mr. Carlington, he was from South Boston,
he would come in.
Ms. Dorothy Turner, she ended being
Secretary of St. Luke's after Maya Walker died.
Maya Walker, she is one that you should just idolize
because her mother didn't consider herself a slave,
because the lady that she lived with,
didn't believe in slaves.
But she worked for her.
So she was determined that
her daughter was not going to be a slave.
Her name was Maggie Walker,
that's where the name Maggie Walker came in.
Because Ms. Van Louis she ran an underground railroad,
to get the blacks out of the South to the North.
That was [NOISE] Maggie Walker's mother worked for.
[NOISE] Wow.
You'll have to read that book.
Well, it sounds like your mother
was really busy doing all that.
Yes, she loved it. I guess
maybe that's where I got it from.
Working with [LAUGHTER], yeah. She stayed busy.
Because she was, I imagine taking
care of the family and everything else, too.
Well, most of us was grown at the time, too.
I see.
Because all three of my brothers were in
service and my sister was in Richmond.
Only me was here by myself.
[LAUGHTER].
[NOISE] You think back and you wonder
how Blacksburg got so mixed up like it is now.
Everybody called it best place in town?
What is it? What is Blacksburg?
A special place.
A special place, but it is not a special place,
its a greedy place.
It's a what kind of place?
Greedy.
You got out of side of my hearing a little[LAUGHTER].
Because look at all the apartments.
Yeah.
All you see is apartments everywhere,
and that's where the neighborhoods were.
They just took the land from the blacks.
After one black would leave,
next thing you see is the whites take over,
and having apartments up
and the next year there's apartments there.
You can't even count the blacks that's in Blacksburg now.
It's like when my property was taken,
when my parents died.
The Fire Department decided they wanted that land,
and they said sell or condemned.
That must have been terribly difficult.
Yeah, that's why I'm in Christiansburg.
Because then, where are you going to find
a place to live in Blacksburg?
I wouldn't live in Blacksburg
anyway, after they did that.
Really?
If somebody takes your property,
you want to go back to the same community,
to stay? Would you?
I see your point.
[LAUGHTER] I know I wouldn't.
Yeah.
I mean I didn't. Plus they
didn't give us anything for the land.
They didn't?
No. Not that much.
Not what it was worth.
No, because thousands and thousands
of dollars was given to the whites,
just for land,
and they didn't have as much land as we had
because our properties started
from Jackson Street all the way down to Progress street.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah. Because my father's business
was on Progress street.
So that's why the Fire Department wanted
it because there was so much land there.
The people next door,
I realize our house started running down,
but the people next door had a brick house,
they did the same way saying sell, or we condemn.
The people that lived on [inaudible] street,
their son had gone to
Quantico because he was a [inaudible].
He went up to
the Marine Corps and they would come in on weekends.
So they decided they would build
a little bungalow for when they come in on weekends,
and they told them that the property wasn't large
enough to put a house or bungalow.
Well, what did they do?
The brick house that was next door to us,
they moved it up there on there on their property.
The brick house is still there.
Wow.
Yeah.
So that was very bad treatment.
That's the way it was.
Wow, painful.
Yeah. Sell or condemn.
But what can you do?
They did the same thing in Roanoke.
Well, how did your family
get all that land in the first place?
I don't know.
You don't know.
That is not all the land that they had.
My father was a good businessman.
He had properties in Roanoke,
he had a reparation place down [inaudible] Lane,
where he had his reparation of cabinets.
What was that called?
Down in [inaudible] Lane, near Melie's cave.
Well, it was [inaudible] Lane, but at the time
they didn't call it Cave,
they just called it [inaudible] Lane.
[inaudible] lane? Okay.
We got a big argument that Charleston is
important to me, not as [inaudible].
It has now has been called
Nellies Cave, "now yesterday anything".
But it has not always been called Nellies Cave.
It was called Grissom Lane just like Jackson Street,
on Newtown, or down a country,
most of this is what they call a down country.
This recreation going it had I don't know
how many acres and acres of land.
We could go through his land and end up over
in a black section on Nellies Cave.
You wouldn't even see the day or the sky,
because you just walking through the woods.
That's how far his properties.
You know all those new houses are?
Yeah.
Up in the hill, that was his property.
Wow.
It was called Paradise View
because the view was out there.
I bet it's a great view.
One of the guys was telling me they're mostly male.
He said, "Well the guy that brought that property per se,
he could tell blacks live there."
We did not live there.
They just own it because they had croquet, horseshoe,
badminton, croquet,
bands, and sandwiches, sodas.
They went banner for recreation,
it was open on Saturdays and Sundays.
People as far as Bluefield,
West Virginia would come in, to go down there.
Would the people be
black or white that we're coming there?
Blacks.
So it was like a?
But it was a white family that stayed there.
It was also a house there.
I see.
Most of the white family that stayed there took care of
the property and thank gardener and what not there.
But people might come up for a vacation day or whatever
in and play croquet and things like that?
Right.
Have a day out at beautiful Blacksburg.
Blacksburg, not beautiful no more.
That hurts me too,
it was such a beautiful place.
You see a beautiful green clover
and everything all around.
You have all the people had all kind of flowers.
All had gardens.
I was telling them about greengage.
Have you ever heard of greengage? That's a plum.
Plum. Yeah, I've heard of those.
He's talking about food is so
sweet and everything and had greengage.
Everybody, I don't care who would,
they don't have a fruit tree in New York.
All over Blacksburg and you don't see them,
you don't see beautiful flowers all over her.
We had all different colored lilac, lilac bushes.
I guess you're all wondering why
I'm so down at Blacksburg.
You get used to all that stuff,
but now you don't see them but apartments, banks?
Parking garages?
Why they put out so many banks?
These people writing and must be rich are moving in here.
I don't see so many banks at
Christiansburg and Blacksburg in all my life.
[inaudible] It's just crazy.
These are the things that I know about
that I said is a breeder town,
not a beautiful place anymore,
because I knew what it was before.
As far as certification was concerned that went on,
but it didn't bother us.
My daughter, some of them,
but it didn't bother me
because I would just go into stores,
just to be mean.
Because if you went in,
black women, in a store,
you and I've been following you around and
sometimes I just went in
there just to see how
long this can follow me around and still.
I thought it was funny [LAUGHTER] Yeah,
stupid stuff like that.
But it was silly for people to feel like they've felt.
All parents and teachers like it.
In there, like the black kids.
They degrade our brand of kids in Christiansburg.
They will come to Blacksburg
because they were so together.
The flags in the box?
They have parts together and everything.
The teenagers or so kids in
Christiansburg where they will always
come to Blacksburg for the parties.
Whenever we have new programs
and fundraisers or whatnot, they will be here.
They had one in Christiansburg
[inaudible] All those things changed.
Because I work that day at a doughnut shop.
Remember when it was called Spudnut?
Spudnuts.
I had all three of my kids in college
[NOISE] So I work out two jobs,
and that was fun, and
those kids would come at me and say,
"We only want you to be out, mom.
You start to build it."
They will come in with that problems and whatnot.
But the funniest thing about it
was that parents we're seeing them were saying,
if they doubt that,
in cases of white girl and she's talking to a black guy,
that they say to him to say, no.
So I figure out what was wrong with them.
[inaudible]
That is how stupid an opinion I swear.
I see the parents they ain't thinking a thing about it.
And they will come in and say,
"You are so together,"
and they tell me all the problems and what not and
what the parents were going to do and they would
then send you a write-up say
no because they talked to a black guy.
I think that all the stuff is stupid.
I guess people think I'm stupid too.
No, I don't think that.
Now, where was the Spudnut?
There at the [inaudible] right next to it.
Because then that was for a while it
was Carol Lee Bakeshop.
They had to change the name to Carol Lee,
because Spudnut was using Carol Lee's products,
but they were using products
as Spudnut but using the names, Carol Lee.
Because Spudnuts, I guess it was more expensive.
But they were so proud of [inaudible].
I mean, I got fat working there,
[LAUGHTER] because I mean
I've thought my clothes are growing out.
[LAUGHTER] I'm serious,
I've eaten doughnuts and milk every day.
[LAUGHTER] I enjoyed working
there because my kids were in college and whatnot.
In those cases, we would come in there,
and that manager will make me manager,
and he'd come in and I was be
scrapping the floor and he'd jumped all over,
"Hey, that's not how you're doing that.
What do you think these workers are here for?
You're supposed to be telling them what to do."
That's how I worked out there so we go and find.
I used to tease him,
"You come in to count the money?
As in when was this start to steaming up?"
I say, "Mine's coming up short."
[LAUGHTER] He would just fall out laughing.
I said, "Mr. P., " you've
probably knew him or heard of him.
His wife was a [inaudible] and she was so
sweet, "when does this thing?"
Like that and, "I did.
It didn't bother me at all,"
because I was asked to open anyway.
I think back, young people,
they don't want to work now,
some of them, and
wonder how you hand it to them on a silver platter.
[inaudible] We walked there where we went.
I wondered about that, so you didn't have
a bicycle or anything, you just walked?
I had a bicycle.
You have a bicycle too.
That's how I ride to work here.
[inaudible] that's my granddaughter [LAUGHTER].
Did you have a big garden when you were growing up?
They had a garden, they had chickens.
They had chickens?
They had a cow.
A cow?
That's how large our backyard was. They had a garden.
Okay.
They had [inaudible].
They had a two-car garage.
That's how far extended all the way down.
Wow.
But [inaudible] of people come in [inaudible]
but I guess it would be running [inaudible] whatnot.
[inaudible] a cleaning business,
he didn't have that much cleaning but we finally
gave up the cleaning and went to
work for Sanderson Cleaners,
which was on Main Street.
John Warren owned that business at that time,
which was also a cleaners.
When he had his own cleaners,
was he doing work for Virginia Tech?
[OVERLAPPING] Anybody that came in,
I was looking for his ledger
because I came across his ledger one time.
[OVERLAPPING] I'm trying to think if I
gave [inaudible] the ledger.
But I did see his ledger at one time,
and believe it or not,
a pair of pants was just 40 cents to get
cleaned and a suit was maybe two dollars.
It was weird.
At that time could a loaf of bread for five cents.
Yeah.
Times change. But it was so interesting,
and he did all kinds of [inaudible] had
a hole or anything by the time he finished with you
wouldn't even notice the hole was there.
He was just that good.
He could fix everything.
It's crazy.
Yeah. When he changed the business,
when he sold his business.
He didn't sell it.
Oh, he didn't sell it?
No. Well, I guess he did.
It wasn't there no more,
so I guess he did sell it.
I see.
But I can't understand what happened to the [inaudible].
Because we used to go to Roanoke.
He used to go down there and get suits and
things to sell in the cleaning business.
He was selling clothes and things?
Yeah, he would sell suits.
He would go down to Roanoke,
buy suits, come back and sell them.
Because it used to be harder to get to Roanoke.
No, it was easier.
It was?
Yeah. We used to
have a skating rink
right out there now where it's a business.
Because we use to walk out there to the skating rink.
You all familiar with what the skating rink was?
[OVERLAPPING] The skating rink in Christiansburg?
A seafood place was right off Airport Road.
Oh, no.
Yeah. We used to do business out there.
We used to be skating rink,
we used to have a dance hall,
we used to have the dances out there.
I would l say [inaudible] there no more.
Wow. Were those black-owned businesses out there?
No.
Those were white only?
Black businesses in Blacksburg.
[OVERLAPPING] On College Avenue,
Morgan Street, right over here.
Barger? You mean Barcher?
Barcher?
You're saying Barcher and I'm saying, Barger.
Oh, Barger?
Yeah. Right over here.
There was a business over there?
There was plenty of business over there.
That's where the blacks worked.
They had a shoe shop there,
and they had a cleaner's business there.
The business took care of all the
cadets' uniforms and whatnot.
Then they had the cleaners of shirts and stuff like that.
The shoe shop was [inaudible] and then when he got there,
he also had one on Jackson Street and I still can't
figure out where on Jackson Street he had a shoe shop.
But there's a fan or something
here that has the address of
a shoe shop that was on Jackson Street and I can't
figure out where on Jackson Street it
was unless it was where Dr.
Hoops houses used to be.
Where the bank is now that used to be Dr.
Hoops house. Right across from the post office.
Where post office is, it used to be [OVERLAPPING]
Okay.
Dr. Hoops office and whatnot.
I just lived up the street from all that.
You see Dr. Hoops owned from Main Street all the
way up to where the old town hall is. [inaudible]
Good piece of property, yeah.
Nobody had little piece of property.
Everybody had acres of land.
That's why they were able to have all kind of
gardens and fruit trees and everything.
That's a strange thing about it.
There was so much property,
blacks and whites, they owned plenty of land.
I guess because it wasn't a main residence here,
in town or whatnot.
The school would have been smaller.
Virginia Tech wouldn't have been as big as it is now.
Well, that's down on this end.
Yeah, that's right.
Most of the residents are from that end.
Yeah, I see what you mean.
Although there was plenty of residents that lived on
campus because it used to be,
you know what McDonald's is right down the road here.
Right.
That was all Faculty Row.[OVERLAPPING]
Seeing the Virginia Tech teachers live there.
It was all around us nothing.
Going down Main Street now,
my house is all the way down there.
Oh.
[BACKGROUND] It's still crazy.
If you could foresee the future,
and had taken pictures,
it would be hard to believe
that Blacksburg has changed that much.
Next to the Lyric Theater was the donut shop,
and then there was a black barbershop,
the Cirrus Barbershop.
The Cirrus Barbershop that was on Main Street?
College Avenue.
That was on College? Okay. I didn't realize it was there.
Yeah. It was right down next door to the Lyric Theater.
The Carol Lee are the [OVERLAPPING]
The Carol Lee is more in the old part of the barbershop.
Oh, okay.
He always first said he needed more.
He wanted part of
the barbershop so he could extend his business out.
Then they moved out there to North Main Street.
[NOISE]
That's right.
The Carol Lee.
That's right.
Because they got all kinds of stores
than far down there now.
Then there was Mr.
[inaudible] moved his business
round Jackson Street right up from his house.
He had his own cleaners [NOISE]
and laundry up on Roanoke Street.
Oh, in Roanoke Street,
there were businesses, too.
Right around there? Right around downtown?
Yeah. There used to
be a number of trailers on
the left-hand side of Roanoke Street.
Then they built all those apartments over now.
Right across from there was a Black community.
Across the whites were on one side,
Blacks lived on the other.
The Prices, Paiges, the Warrens,
different sets of Carls,
because it was Carl's house
that they moved the house from
Jackson Street up there
and the Carls had business there too.
And then further down on Roanoke,
there was a Black cemetery there too, right?
Yeah, it's further up.
Further up.
Just right across the White Center.
Right. Okay.
Then back the alley that you go, let me see.
What's the name of this alley?
The Blacks live in that section, there too.
We had Erica Saunders,
Miss Becky Coleman, Mr. [inaudible] Price.
He has his own business.
He had taxi service.
The Paiges, they lived over there too.
But the way the houses were set up
on the Paige's porch had
steps that they went in from this alley,
that come in on Lee Street.
If you're coming down Lee Street, it's coming down.
I can't think of the name of the street now.
Then all of the police street was blacks.
Then around the curve,
there was two black families,
the Carls and the Taylors.
Mr. Taylor, he come here from Tazewell, West Virginia.
He was over the cleaner's house
over there on barber's street.
So for everybody, this was
a gathering place for social activities?
Yes.
Were there other gathering places besides?
There was a place, it was on Clay Street.
What was the name of that place?
I can't even think of the name of it.
It was a dancing place?
Yeah.
Where they have a live band play?
Yeah.
It keeps going and coming.
Yeah, maybe it'll come back.
Anyway, one of the ladies
found a picture of it. Then she lost it.
[LAUGHTER] I teased her today.
She was on the museum committee.
She called me and she says, "Yes, my friend."
She was at that same place and was going through
old pictures, and I said, "What?"
She told me she had found a picture
then when she got to the meeting, she couldn't find it.
She said she looked everywhere and she couldn't find it.
She must have been upset.
It was a funny name. She still hasn't found it.
She doesn't know what happened, what she did with it.
What pictures did you have?
I didn't bring a whole many pictures.
Because I didn't have time to do all that.
This is most of the information.
One of the ladies that lived here,
she lived in Newtown.
She was always sending them about
my accounting, Miss Laura Anderson.
Miss Laura Anderson?
Did you not know that?
No, I didn't know about her.
They took her on a tour.
This is everything.
She wrote in style,
the JC's and everybody. There she is.
Nice.
They're paying for a right, 106?
Wow.
I'm glad she wrote in style.
She deserves it.
Gosh. 1976 is great.
[BACKGROUND]
I read that in the '60s,
things changed here for
the St. Luke to the Odd Fellows Hall.
Now, why was that?
I couldn't find that paper.
I've got papers and stuff all over the place,
all over my house.
You can't even get in it.
Some engineer decided that
there was a whole lot of houses and whatnot.
Could you show it to him? Need to be condemned,
so they took a picture of the whole,
but they only took a picture of where
the students used to live in the back here,
in the corners back here,
in the houses back here.
In that way, they had bagged into the hall
right here on the inn or ran into it or whatnot.
This big place on the end of it on the hall right here,
they just took a picture of that.
Let me see. How they [inaudible] about
the endangered building.
They had already put a sign
up here for it to be condemned.
Somebody saw the sign,
and went to some of the engineers
and told them they could not do that,
and that stopped the progress of that.
[NOISE] After I saw the picture of
endangered building and the picture of Odd Fellows Hall,
I started calling the numbers on the St. Luke
because Ms. Christine Price,
who's living at that time,
Ms. [inaudible] with her at that time,
and we used to meet still for St. Luke.
I called them and told them what was happening.
This guy from Christine's neighbor,
he went to courthouse and found the deed,
there was an old copy of the deed,
and then we started meeting ourselves,
and then this group got together,
and they started meeting
too after they've found out what was going on,
and that's how it all got started.
One [inaudible] was meeting.
This group was meeting,
and the members of
the same group that was meeting but only a few of them,
but nobody called but me, that there was meeting.
So you were able to
stop them from condemning [OVERLAPPING]
No, some white guy [NOISE] that knew all about the hall,
they stopped it because they went
to town council or somebody,
or went to the engineers or something
because they saw the sign on that door.
Because they told me all about it,
but they didn't want to get
involved that much, but they did.
You don't know his name?
No.
The only thing I know is
that he was a good friend of my son,
and they used to have a band together.
[NOISE] His daughter was here for one of the open houses,
and she was doing [inaudible] and she was doing
a thesis on the Odd Fellows Hall. Yeah.
She did a thesis?
Yeah. She was doing a thesis on Odd Fellows Hall.
Did she finish it? [OVERLAPPING]
She was asking me about information. [OVERLAPPING]
I see. Yeah. I see what you mean more recently.
Yeah.
Let's see. All this happened in
1904 because we'd been working ever since then.
We had a celebration was in [inaudible] ,
because the building was 100 years old.
So if the building was 100 years old,
why they don't turn it down now?
See, nothing was done to the floors,
this is the same floor [OVERLAPPING]
that was here 100 years ago.
This is the same bench,
that's why I asked you all, how do you like the bench?
This bench is over 100 years old.
It's the same, 100 years old.
Yeah.
Wow.
It was three benches.
That's what we had. We didn't have chairs.
There was a bench here,
a bench there, a long bench over there.
A bench here and a bench up there.
Well, this looks good for being
100 years old, my goodness. [LAUGHTER]
Yeah. I'm still trying to figure out why they
didn't do the upstairs?
Unless they're planning on tearing it down anyway.
[LAUGHTER] You never know how towns and counties work.
Well, tell the story of how you're one of
the trustees of the St.
Luke's and Odd Fellows with two other,
Walter Lewis and Aubrey Mills.
Well, that's how it all started.
It was from the group's meeting
because of the building
going to be condemned or whatever,
that's when everybody started meeting.
Then after the group started meeting,
then they had the museum committee,
they organized a museum committee.
Then the museum committee, let's see,
Ms. [inaudible] ,
I can't think of
all of the people that was on the committee.
Well, we used to meet here every month,
and then after they got historical ratings and whatnot,
and it just went from there.
The trustees decided to donate
the property to the town so that it would be cared for?
Yeah.
The town?
Because we didn't have a money.
Right. The town's part was to
be seen that it was cared for?
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, was there
a period when people just weren't
using it as much anymore?
That's another thing.
I guess the reason why the building
didn't deteriorate through [inaudible] and what,
they thought it was
because there was always somebody in it.
Like Mr. Price, he was a contractor,
so he used to store his lumber and stuff in here.
Then there was a woodwork guy
that used to do all his woodwork here.
So someone would be maintaining
it because they were here?
Yeah. I see they were supposed to, in turn,
was supposed to give each church
a donation by staying here
each month because we didn't charge them.
They were supposed to upkeep the building also,
but Mr. Price ended up going upstairs,
and the next thing we knew,
everything was all down.
The chairs and pictures and charter and all that stuff,
Ms [inaudible] came out one day and found
all that stuff just thrown
all over the floor and everything.
That would be upsetting.
Yeah. It happen the chairs and stuff,
it was all gone,
they had taken all of that.
As you can imagine,
how old they were and flames and stuff on the wall
where we had a charter and all of that.
That was gone too?
Yeah.
My goodness.
Yeah. It was weird, but
this is one of them that they found.
There must have been another one that they found,
but this was connected with the same hooks.
This table over here had hooks?
Yeah. [NOISE]
The FLT on it,
the FLT on the side,
Fraternal Order of St. Luke's or maybe nuts?
No, that is friendship,
love, and trust, I think it is.
Okay.
That was the symbol for the order.
For the same groups and for the order.
That was the symbol for it.
At that point, were you still
having parties here or social gatherings?
In what time?
Like in the '60s?
Is that when there wasn't so much going on,
like when you said the condemned sign
and they were storing lumber in here?
Was there other places that people were gathering then?
I'm trying to think. The '60s were when
the celebrations were still going on?
Well, '60s like the local high school
got desegregated like in '64, '63.
[OVERLAPPING] was working here.
I mean, things was going on here at the time still.
But when desegregation happened,
that's when it changed it for here?
No. Not really. I got it here.
My goodness, I missed that.
I know, that's the microphone.
[LAUGHTER] I didn't know you hand me up.
[LAUGHTER] He's not listening to me.
I'm listening. The mic should be all right.
[NOISE] Yeah.
Mostly they just built the place in 1905 so this,
I'm trying to figure out when,
this place is 100 years old.
So, I think in the 60s it was still going on.
Well, it's okay, you don't know.
Here's a history a little bit of it and
that's per reference to
that with friendship, love, and truth.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Icon of the Odd Fellows organization.
Now, are you related to Maggie Walker?
No.
No. That's a nice book.
Well, this was a passage that they gave out at
one of the celebrations.
Yeah, very nice.
Are you prepared to scan them?
If you brought it in for a few days and scan them?
Yeah, but [OVERLAPPING].
Well, be careful [OVERLAPPING]
But everything on that one's not right.
Got it.
Okay.
If we could get on to the other half of it,
Terry was supposed to
correct everything that was wrong on there.
There was some information on there that was not true.
Were you the one I talked to over the telephone?
Yes.
Okay, then I was telling you about Hard Times.
Yeah, why don't you tell us about Hard Times?
Okay, then [inaudible] [NOISE]
Can we pause it for a moment while that van passes?
She was in the play.
Oh, so you were in that play,
I saw that play.
You did?
Yeah. This was, wait a second. Yeah.
You were talking about did you know that he got run over,
you'll see on the back of it it will tell you that.
He died at the Jefferson hospital in Roanoke.
An accident near the VPI airport in
which he was run down on the highway by an automobile.
I didn't know.
This was in 41.
It was another interesting thing
that [inaudible] you all,
this was about Richmond.
Well, tell us. [OVERLAPPING]
[inaudible] about Richmond and
how it all got started about
how blacks was treated and everything,
and how the town got burnt.
Oh, interesting. Yeah.
That's real, real interesting.
Do you mind telling the story about Floyd Meade
and how the Hokie's got the Gobbler?
[LAUGHTER]
Did I tell you what I did?
No.
I tried telling her [inaudible]
but you weren't listening to me.
Maybe, what?
[LAUGHTER] One of the guys
that belongs to the museum committee,
if somebody would bring up something
and it would be not right,
I would say, "Oh, that's not right."
You know, I would tell them and I would give
them the information where to go find it and whatever.
So this guy [inaudible] he will always say,
when we go to different lectures and whatnot,
he would pick after me all the time.
Paul Larson.
He's a Professor at PPI and he would say,
"Now don't you get up and correct that
people if they say something wrong."
[LAUGHTER] I said, "Well if it's wrong,
it's wrong," I said, "But I'll
leave it, I will say nothing."
Anyway, sitting there at the house,
minding my business, listening to the news,
this newscaster comes on and he's talking about
the changing of the logo of the Gobblers logo,
they was returning it.
Oh, yeah.
So he says, that's a funny name The Gobbler,
so I guess it got the name from
the football players gobbling up all the food.
What did he want to say that for?
I said, "I know I didn't hear that man right", and,
I said well I'll listen to the next newscast to see if
I think I heard what I thought I heard.
[LAUGHTER] Next newscaster says the same thing,
the logo got the name from
the football players gobbling up all the food.
I got it on that telephone line and I was calling
everybody trying to find out who I had to contact
about telling them that that was not so.
You know. Finally, I called a bookstore and I said,
"Do you know anything about the newscaster,
about the changing of the logo of the Gobblers?"
He says, "No, I just heard that they had done
that and they had retired",
and I said, "Well, do you know who
the newscaster was that was talking about it?"
He said no, he hadn't heard of them.
I said, "Well, he's putting out false information."
I said, "Football players,
they didn't get no name
Gobbler by the football players gobbling up the food."
I said, "Mr. Meade had a Turkey that he
trained at the football games to
gobble whenever Virginia Tech made a touchdown."
Right.
He said, "What?" I said,
"Mr. Meade trained a turkey to
gobble whenever Tech made a touchdown."
He says, "I didn't know that", and he
went crazy over the telephone too.
He said, "Well, that is false
information that he's putting out.
So he gave me the girl's name,
gave me the [inaudible] department to call,
so I called them.
So the girl said, "Well, I knew that."
I said, "Well, Donnelly your newscaster didn't know it."
[LAUGHTER] So she said she was going to contact them.
On the false information being put up.
Well, I mean, if it's wrong, it's wrong.
I mean, don't give out false information
as far as I was concerned.
[LAUGHTER].
But that was so interesting though that they will
retire the logo without the right information.
That's right. You're right.
I never hear anything after,
although I felt that the girl,
this was another coincidence.
The girl that contacted or
worked at the [inaudible] department,
come find out her grandmother was an Odd Fellow.
[LAUGHTER]
Can you believe it? Because I was talking about,
I said we have all kinds of
information at the Odd Fellows Hall.
I was talking about Odd Fellows
Hall and she said, "Odd Fellow?"
I said, "Yeah", and she said,
"My grandmother was an Odd Fellow."
And I said, "Really?"
So we got in a big conversation about that and she
had some jewelries that
her grandmother had left her pertaining to
the Odd Fellows and everything, just coincidence.
I told her, well I was going to contact
[inaudible] up here so she could contact her,
so the could get pictures of it or either loan it to
the Odd Fellows, put it on exhibit.
Yeah.
I talked to her the other day,
when she called me about you all was going to call,
I said I left it on your machine,
she said she didn't get it.
I said, "That happened last year."
[LAUGHTER] She said she never did get
that message off of her machine
about contacting the school.
Well, the girls still [inaudible].
You never know when it.
Do you remember her name?
Huh?
Do you remember her name?
Graham.
First name?
It's in my other book.
Where does she work?
At the [inaudible] department.
When you were a girl, did you
used to go to the Lyric Theater?
Yes, upstairs.
Upstairs?
Yeah. We used to sit downstairs for a while.
Because that was where all the blacks had to go upstairs?
Yes, [inaudible] there.
[inaudible] there, where they sell tickets.
Right there on the side was a
door that you could go up the steps.
Oh, there'd be a separate door and everything?
Yeah.
Oh.
That would take you up to the balcony.
You must be very athletic because
you're still on a bowling team now?
Oh, yeah.
Did you bowl around here when you were growing up?
Yeah, we used to go to Roanoke.
Yeah, we used to go down on Roanoke bowling,
and then they had one out here where the drugstore is.
Right there at the stoplight in
Christiansburg, called Triangle Lane.
Oh. Oh, yeah. I remember that.
Yeah, Walgreen.
Yeah.
Bought that.
Right, I remember that.
Yeah, we used to go out there and bowl a lot of time.
Yeah.
[inaudible] street, that's where I go now.
[inaudible] It's 30 teams on that league.
On that one league, 99 members.
Last year it was 36 teams but it's
about four or five different senior leagues
but ours is the largest one.
And you went to the state champions,
didn't you? State Championships?
I've won some medals.
Yeah?
Yeah. At the Seniors Olympics.
They have Senior Olympics every year,
I just got papers in last week for that.
Were the medals for bowling?
Well, it's for basketball, softball,
Frisbee, riflery, bridge, billiard.
Ping pong does that all kind of activity that's why they
call it Senior Olympics and they have it all week.
It must be fun.
It is. It's whole lot of fun.
I schooled for riflery.
One year, I had perfect.
In riflery?
My brothers and I,
we had BB gun.
They used to practice all the time.
We'd put a match stick across the street and split it.
[LAUGHTER] We used to really practice riflery.
Most people couldn't believe it.
[LAUGHTER] I said, now nobody can mess with me.
[LAUGHTER] People just fall out laughing.
[LAUGHTER] I said don't mess with me.
We always killing each other.
When you were growing up,
did you play sports?
At home or?
[OVERLAPPING] We're trying to play
football and everything?
You did. [LAUGHTER]
I remember my brother,
mama was at work,
daddy was at work.
My brother next to me and then this middle brother,
we're just playing football.
We have this really long hallway.
We was playing football on the hallway.
Last thing I remember was,
you hit a high and I hit a low.
They knocked me out.
[LAUGHTER]
I caught that football and they knocked me out.
[LAUGHTER]
They didn't give you special treatment
for being a girl? [LAUGHTER]
No. I was a very tomboy.
Even playing baseball, I would pitch for boys,
but they would not let the girl pitch.
I was a tomboy.
[OVERLAPPING] I used to climb trees and everything else.
Now, how many children are there in your [OVERLAPPING]
It was five.
They're five?
Three boys and two girls.
Then where are you in the family of the five children?
Are you the youngest? You're the baby?
Yeah. I'm the only one living.
I see. Your one brother,
Alonzo(phon) junior,
he was the principal of the local school?
He was good. [NOISE] Yeah.
He did not attend
Christiansburg School or Blacksburg School.
He attended high school at
Addison High School in Roanoke.
My sister also attended Addison High School in Roanoke.
Well, how would they get back and forth,
or do they stay [OVERLAPPING]
They stayed [inaudible] we had them all.
Okay. I see.
That's why we was always in Roanoke.
On Sundays, we went to visit down.
My sister, she had her own beauty shop
after she had Cosmetology.
Actually, did our arrangement
where the Ice cream parlor was.
Where our house was,
there was another house that was next to it,
and that's where the Ice cream parlor was.
That's how large the land was.
Then after they closed
the Ice cream parlor and she finished a cosmetology,
then that's where her beauty shop was.
Okay, so your parents were
running an Ice cream parlor too?
Yeah. They owned Ice cream parlor.
Homemade ice cream.
They had to crank it up?
Yeah. It was homemade.
Oh, my goodness.
You could tell when it was freezing up because it was
hard to crank, but that was fun.
It must have been delicious.
It was. It was very,
very good and I was very, very tired.
[LAUGHTER]
You probably have to make a lot,
if you have a business with that.
Of course. It was worth it. I got paid for it.
You got paid for helping out?
Yeah.
That would be fair if you
[OVERLAPPING] Where did you go to elementary school?
Up on the hill.
In the Clay Street School?
Yeah. Some of the people
didn't even know that there was a school up there,
until I was talking about it at the museum mirror.
We're talking about school on Clay Street.
Well, that's where we we went and the black school was.
It was at this lecturer at courthouse.
We were next to a building down here.
Someone was talking about their experience in Blacksburg,
and he's talking about the School of Clay Street.
Half the people there,
they're not from Blacksburg.
So they didn't know anything about
different things that's going on.
We've talked about the school.
I was there at the special collection
and I found a picture of it.
[inaudible] That's why I say,
it's a whole lot of stuff at the library[OVERLAPPING]
Oh, at the public library?
Yeah.
Okay. [OVERLAPPING] But not in special collections.
I got a picture that I can show you.
There's a thesis that was
written that has some pictures of it in it.
It was written in 1948.
It said that the parents
really cared about their children in this area,
and that the parents had to pay for the furnace.
But they got the money for the furnace.
I guess the parents had to supply a lot of things.
They didn't supply the furnace though.
Yeah.
It wasn't like a state.
Everything was weird.
The state wasn't providing it.
Now, you expect you'll have
a furnace anyway, if you go to school.
That's why we had family resources left to my care.
Yeah. Was it three rooms in that school?
Two.
[inaudible] and they put the kitchen.
A little kitchen in.
Yeah. The kitchen in the back.
Where it was a two-room and they had a slide.
We still have the other side.
We were at seventh grade.
[OVERLAPPING] two teachers.
You had two teachers?
That's all.
Do you remember who the teachers were?
It went through a whole lot of changes.
That was a long time.
I mean, when you were in school.
Yeah. Then after that,
you went to Christiansburg Institute
because I've got a picture of you from there.
I was going to hope you could show me
which one you are from the picture I
got from Christiansburg Institute patrol girls.
[NOISE]
I'm on here. Got those bangs.
Yeah. Which one is you?
There's some names that were listed with it,
but they didn't say to identify the person with the name.
But I noticed your name was on there.
I see [inaudible].
That's my cousin.
I'm here, behind this girl.
I kept looking at the picture.
That's me peeping out from right there.
[NOISE]
I just get to see a little bit of you right there.
Yeah. [NOISE]
This is [inaudible] Saint Luke.
Independent Order of Saint Luke.
A sudden semiannual tax of 60 cents.
It mentions regalia.
What was regalia like?
It what?
It mentions you should purchase
your regalia within 90 days after joining the order.
I think that's a hat.
A special hat. It's nice.
[inaudible] here.
Was it about the schools?
It was a picture of the school.
Okay. Well, sometime you
could come over to Special Collections
and see that or you got it?
Yeah, that's from that book.
The same one I was looking at.
The school from the South East and the south west?
Yes.
How was it to go to school there?
It was fine.
Then you went to [inaudible] Institute.
How did you like that?
Fine.
Did you have any really good teachers?
Yes, all the teachers.
Still at the time I went it was a boarding school.
It was a boarding school?
Yes.
I was wondering how you would get there everyday.
I wondered if there was a bus or whatever
that you would get their everyday.
We've had buses to take us to school but
all the people didn't have buses
like my sister [inaudible] they didn't have buses.
they had t take a taxi to get to school.
Oh my goodness,.
Where my brother and sister went to [inaudible].
That would be expensive to take a taxi [LAUGHTER].
I don't know if it was that expensive then.
I suppose.
That's why Christiansburg Institute,
that is what it was called.
Christiansburg Industrial Institute.
Right?
They've changed all the names numeric work now but it was
industrial because it was all traits that we had there,
cosmetology, type in shorthand, shop or barbering.
They had all that at Christiansburg Institute.
They had kids from Philadelphia, New York, [inaudible].
It was a boarding school.
As far away as New York,.
Philadelphia.
Yeah.
Then there'd be some people who had come for day school.
They'd come and go home.
Yeah. We would.
That's what you'd do?
Yeah. Let me use case and Christiansburg,
kids from Radford, kids from Pulaski,
they all went there too. [inaudible]
So you went there for,
it's like going for four years,
sort of like a high school.
They had all the superintendent knew they
had a boarding houses for students staying there,
they had home economics building,
they had the train building before they had
a barber shop and it was all kind of buildings all over.
They had a farm too.
They worked in the farm that extended all the way over
to see the Quakers gave them [inaudible].
Yes.
Then it extended all the way
[inaudible] acres and acres that was.
That's a big piece of land.
Yeah, because when you went in campus,
it went all the way back.
That's where the workshop was.
So they have a workshop where you'd learn
how to do wood work.
Yeah.
Then you'd have the academic subjects too.
Right?
Yeah.
You would pick what subject
you wanted, just like college.
Did you go on to college afterwards?
I went to West Virginia state.
That's where my brother went.
West Virginia state but I didn't stay
there for long because they didn't
have a place for me to stay.
They'd accept the application and when you get there,
you had to live off-campus.
I didn't know nobody there.
I called my parents they said, come back home.
Oh gosh.
Well, my brother he had gone
to school there [inaudible].That was one of my brothers.
Which brother went there?
Earnest. Then my other brother the one that was the
principle [inaudible] That's where my sister went,
it's Bluefield State College.
They call it Bluefield College nowadays.
They don't call it Bluefield
State College because there's just something
about Bluefield State College, he said, where is that at?
West Virginia. [LAUGHTER] Well,
now they call it Bluefield College.
So was it disappointing when you got
there and then you couldn't [OVERLAPPING].
Of course. After hearing
all the good times
you are going to
have [OVERLAPPING] to have and everything.
There was no adequate place for you to stay I guess.
[inaudible]
Didn't you go to business school?
[inaudible].
Nothing in DC, didn't you do something in DC?
I worked for the government.
But not school?
No. I worked for the government.
Civil Service, I did that before
I was working in order to save money to go to college.
The civil service came to our school and gave
the students tests for
government work and so that's where if you
passed the test you went to
Washington and worked for the government.
You moved to Washington DC?
Yeah. Right, and that
was fun because seeing that
the Christiansburg went through.
[LAUGHTER] so you had friends that you knew.
I came to the school and [inaudible].
I see.
[inaudible] but they needed
workers and my sister she worked part time too.
She worked at [inaudible] because she
did special coding and
whatnot because she played the piano.
So she was good at with her fingers
cording because she worked [inaudible].
Where did you work?
I worked all over the place.
I worked outside this city for Air Force.
It was outside of this city.
[inaudible] , memory loss.
Well, it's probably in
there it will just come to you later.
No, not being able to think about
or remember the place where I worked.
I see, yeah.
But I bet later on you will say, there it is.
You know that place [inaudible]
That's the name of the place around.
What was it again?
One part of it was globe.
Globe.
Yeah, I can't think of the whole thing.
What was it?
Globe something.
What was the business?
[inaudible]
The Globe, yeah, the one that lady had the photograph of.
Uh-huh. I'm getting old.
My grandson say, "You can see now".
[LAUGHTER]
Probably, have a lot of things in there in your mind.
[LAUGHTER]
That's my grandson that lives with me.
He always picking at,
"I told you, grandmother".
That makes me better. I can't find that picture.
There you are. Did I gave you one?
Yes.
Okay [inaudible]
Another view of the score.
[NOISE]
[inaudible].
It's the same one.
Okay.
Because I looked at this book very recently before.
That is where I want you to read.
That's about my brother.
Oh, this is about your brother?
That's all the stuff that he was.
And all the things that he did.
All the [OVERLAPPING].
He was a principal in Prince George's County.
Right.
Yeah.
He was very impressive that he did something.
I don't know what he was at the campus for them.
Wow.
Yeah. We've got all these [inaudible].
I don't think it even mentions that he was
the principal here [OVERLAPPING] It does?
Yeah.
Its in here?
Yeah. I think at the end, it does.
I don't know.
That was your oldest brother.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
I forget how long he was in
the school business in this thing.
He first start working with the government.
He didn't like that, sitting out.
He went back into the school system there,
after he came out of service.
Even when he retired,
he still was working with
the school because everybody was
calling him to substitute.
That's why he got all these different [inaudible].
I see. Yeah.
After he retired, he still work with different schools.
When he was the principal here,
would he be teaching too?
Your principal taught.
Yeah. I figured there must be.
It was just two teachers.
But there's only two rooms and they probably need it for
students who couldn't just be sitting in your office.
[LAUGHTER]
Then Miss Maryanne(phon) [inaudible] daughter.
[inaudible]
Yeah.
She was a principal also. [inaudible]
She was the principal there too.
I see. I didn't quite get that.
Maybe I need to take a minute and get my questions.
You got more?
Do I have more? Yeah.
We got more. [LAUGHTER] [BACKGROUND]
Are you okay with going on?
Are you tired?
I'm okay.
Okay.
[inaudible].
[BACKGROUND]
Yeah, it's a little bit chilly.
[BACKGROUND] [NOISE] Do
you recall when they installed
lights on main street and street signs?
When they installed lights in
the main street downtown, do you recall that?
It was like 1935.
I just wondered if that would have been a big deal.
What about World War two?
How did that affect Blacksburg?
I don't know.
You don't know? [BACKGROUND]
World War two. Now, what year was that?
[BACKGROUND]
Yeah. Like 40, one,
three, two, three four.
Because I was working for the government, 45.
So you probably won't even here at that point.
I just wondered if there was like
a big war effort or anything.
I was here because [inaudible] 43.
Okay.
We went back to civil service [inaudible] , 44.
Didn't went to civil service in 45.
That was World War two.
That was the end of it then.
Because I was up there at the park,
looking over when it blew up. What was it?
Hiroshima.
Yeah.
What did you come back to Blacksburg?
I was working to go to college.
I was making all way to go to college.
[inaudible] always goes to school
and my goal, it was marketing.
But I didn't get there. [inaudible]
Then when you came back,
did you start your own family then?
No, not really. Not right away.
Not right away?
No.
I don't know if you would be her then.
In 53, the first black student came to Virginia Tech.
[OVERLAPPING] His name was Irving Peddrew.
I was thinking of [inaudible]
Well, Charlie Yates(phon) was the first to graduate.
[OVERLAPPING] No, Peddrew came all by himself.
He said, he never had a bad experience exactly.
But he lived over in Clay Street with the hogs.
[inaudible]
Yeah. I think the hogs, like bordered people.
[OVERLAPPING] But he felt an undercurrent in the town.
He felt uncomfortable and of course,
it could be, he was all alone as well.
The first year he was all alone.
I just wondered if you felt there was like undercurrent,
racism town that would make it harder.
Blacksburg was a racist place.
It was a racist place?
Yeah.
It wasn't even an undercurrent.
Blacks could not even go to war,
could not even in in the restaurants.
They had to go to back door if they want anything.
Blacksburg a really a racist premises. It was crazy.
[inaudible]
you're followed all
over store making you uncomfortable.
If you went in a restaurant,
you have to go to the back door.
Did you ever participate in any demonstrations,
or sittings or anything like that?
No.
But you just did your own thing by doing that.
You discovered the store
and let them know that you're [LAUGHTER] there.
It didn't bother me that much
because the way our parents raised us.
My parents were so involved in business and whatnot,
that stuff like that didn't bother me.
I see. With the community too,
it sounds like, I mean,
you've big community involvement.
Yeah. Furnaces, whites and most blacks.
Really.
How many children did you have?
Three.
Two boys, one girl.
You get your grandchild here today.
What are the children's names?
Dolores, Hall, Leo, and William.
Dolores is with your mom?
Yeah.
Did you know Irving Peddrew?
Uh-uh.
Charlie? [OVERLAPPING]
Yeah, I know him.
I think that Drew was just very,
very isolated. He was very lonely.
I don't remember him. I heard
somebody else who's talking
about him, but I don't remember him.
Do you think Blacksburg
was a good place to raise children?
[inaudible]?
Blacksburg, do you think it's a good place to
raise children in the old days?
Yeah.
If you take in mind.
I guess, but most of them,
maybe they couldn't find jobs, the children could.
That's why some of them left
because they couldn't get jobs here.
Because as far as VPI was concerned,
they only hired like,
you worked at VPI,
if your brother wanted to work,
you got him in, if
your sister wanted to work, you got him in.
It was more of a family thing.
I see.
The only thing that blacks
could do was work in the kitchen,
work in the cafeterias,
cook, stuff like that.
While the younger people,
they just left because they couldn't
find jobs that they wanted.
All that pain in the money,
they put it like that. That's the main thing.
Yeah. It's a problem still.
So I worked in a boarding house,
I did earn for 50 cents an hour.
[inaudible] boarding house?
Well, yeah, I've got paid up,
but how many hour then,
I got paid 50 cents per hour for earning.
Oh my goodness.
Work with Taiwan's FullHouse Rooms,
at Brown, in South Mainstream.
South Main.
I cross from the [inaudible] school.
Those house in there,
I used to [inaudible].
I should work for her.
It was fine. Washing her [inaudible] ,
finish her [inaudible] She has some beautiful hands.
And then you substituted sometimes
at Christiansburg Industrial Institute?
No.
You didn't?
I guess I substituted at
Blacksburg, and I went to school.
Oh, you did?
Yeah, it's where my brother was.
We're going to Sarah's assumptions
in your environment by examination.
Do you like teaching?
It was okay.
Now we're going to do it every day?
No, I don't think so,
not this time, okay? but not now.
You can correct this now.
They won't let you correct them.
You don't have a chores to correct them.
There's feedback. Because they
correct you before you can correct them.
Because they have you in court.
It's a different world.
Different generation.
But what do you think made those changes though,
we got out West by our hands,
has been losing school.
You have been in court.
The players that are being reported?
No. It's true.
Generations has changed.
If you can imagine
all the different generation
that all the different changes that has been.
Did you ever hear about
the Montgomery and Pulaski County Educational
and welfare or association?
That was supposed to be a black organization.
I read about it. Something set in the forty-eight.
It was when I was reading about it.
That was very active organization.
One of the things they did was they got
people to register to vote.
I know what it was called,
but I know Mr. worker,
I should do that.
Same boy, I mean shirt.
So I'll make sure people knew how to vote.
He would take people's to the right to vote,
but not [OVERLAPPING]Currency blocks ago.
It was very good at that.
But I know what it was called.
They said there was an interracial group.
I wondered what that was.
I do not know.
Were they were just giving a list of
the kind of slight group.
So are they said there was a garden club, a social club.
A willingness to them. I still have our glasses.
[inaudible] flower.
I see you brought me to access secret.
I think it would be 12 numbers that would be in
the [OVERLAPPING] 12 glasses.
She will always be known.
They had people come over for a fancy.
They would go to each house.
They probably look at each other's Garner Rice.
They said there was a social club
and the interracial group.
This was his thesis that I saw
sometime he kind of a special collection,
I'll show you show it to you.
How do you find live in Christians Berg these days?
Brian goes on.
You don't know anyone.
I don't go anywhere.
[inaudible] Okay. Nothing special.
Just like anywhere else.
Yeah.
When you're in library you stay all day and whatnot.
[LAUGHTER] We never had no transportation.
[OVERLAPPING] They threw a rod
in my car that why I don't have no transportation.
Oh, so you're still driving?
Oh, yeah. I still can
drive but this big snow that came here last fall,
I think it was and right
across the street where I used to park and
the snowfall had piled up all the snow and I thought I
was going in the driveway where the people lived but it
was really a snowbank and I got stuck.
Oh, no.
My grandson, he was hollering,
"Stop grandmother, stop, stop, stop."
I just kept winding away trying to get
out until the rodding.
Oh, dear.
Yeah. So, I haven't bothered by
getting it fixed because it's too expensive.
Yeah.
Plus that, when I had
the place where you lubricate the cars and everything,
used to go and I had gone there because my water,
no water hose was ready to bust because
they're like came out on my dash.
He say, if I pay for it he'll put one on.
So he did and he said come back in
a couple of days and I'll check it. Which I did.
Okay. It was his wife that also worked there.
So, when she checked and she didn't check my hood back,
and I'm going down 114 just
flying and the hood fell off. Flew back
Oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness, what is this?
This scared me to death.
There I am trying to see where
I'm going because you know how busy 114 is.
Traffic just went that way.
Finally, I was able to pull
over right at the foot of that hill.
[inaudible] pulling over there,
and I couldn't pull it down.
So they promised me,
they told me to go, I took it back.
To show them what had happened.
They told me to go and get two estimates, I did,
and every time I took the estimates back to them,
as of yet, they have not fixed that car.
So, see I would have to pay for all that,
my hood and all that so I'm [inaudible] to fix.
What do you think the current climate
is in this area as far as race goes?
Do you think it's still racist in some ways?
It's going to always be.
In like what ways?
Anyway. Every way. I mean,
I think that's just within people.
You know they can't help themselves.
Because it's not the same people
that was in this community.
People are moving in every day from different states.
If that's what they were used to wherever they come from,
they can still be like that before
the same blacks [inaudible].
If that's what they used to
wherever they come from and still
be like that [inaudible].
I mean, you can't change people.
They got to change themselves and that's hard
for people to have changes.
Especially when it comes to black people
telling white people what to do and
all like that, they don't appreciate that.
That's the same thing with Obama.
They don't want, those white people they don't
want Obama telling them what to do.
That's why there's so much conflict.
So I think it will always be.
Not only in Blacksburg,
everywhere. Don't you think?
Yeah, what's the solution?
That there is none.
I mean, things are better though?
[OVERLAPPING] Don't you think things are better?
Oh, yeah, it's much better but it's not going to
be the best that they can be.
I mean, you know I think, going to
always be able something there
but somebody is not going to like it or whatever.
What do you think? You're just over there looking at me.
Me?
[LAUGHTER] Yeah. What do you think?
I didn't have a lot of hope for it.
I worked for Obama in L.A. in a campaign.
Yeah, it's sad the way they are feuding up there.
It is sad the way they're feuding up there.
I mean, it doesn't make no kind of sense.
Doing everything to make him look bad.
Yeah. It's frustrating. I mean,
some things, it wasn't fixed and when he got
elected in 2008 it was just like.
That was something, wasn't it?
Yeah, [LAUGHTER] that was something.
[LAUGHTER] I know you've
done research in the special collections
and worked on the library over at Virginia Tech,
I just wondered if you had
any ideas or thoughts about the library
you wanted to share or
ways we could be doing stuff better over there?
No, everything was fine.
Was okay.
Yeah, there's first collection [inaudible] are often,
they was really nice.
They helped me a whole lot.
Oh, I'm glad.
Glad that was a good experience.
Is there anything I didn't ask you about that
you'd like to talk about? That you'd like to share?
Not right off. It's just that,
in order to get better information
on how Odd Fellows you see.
Also get involved in St. Lukes.
Don't forget to get that book.
To really see before the sentence play because St.
Lukes play was a bit bigger part
as far as the [inaudible] are concerned.
But we are all it took me the longest time
for them to even add St. Lukes to
any of our meetings and whatnot.
They said the word was too long.
St. Lukes and Odd Fellows,
they said that word, but I said that's what it is.
I said, it took the trustees and other St. Lukes
trustees and Odd Fellows to get this all built.
Didn't know one organization got it built,
they both go it built.
That's why it's supposed to be St.
Lukes and Odd Fellows Hall.
But it took me a long time, Terry,
he's the one [NOISE]
that really started putting the St. Lukes
with archives because Western
said it was too long to put together.
[NOISE] So you really need to get involved with
St. Lukes as far as information
about that and you'll find out more about Odd Fellows.
Because St. Lukes got its name from the bible.
He was a prophet, St.
Lukes and that's how St. Lukes got that name.
[NOISE] It's really a religious organization.
At the [inaudible] St. Lukes or Odd Fellows,
they may have a ceremony held for them.
They'd have a ceremony at the funeral?
Right. [inaudible] was big.
It was so religious organization. [inaudible]
So a lot of foundation in the Bible as far
as the whole organization went.
Yeah. [BACKGROUND]
Well, thank you so much for talking with us today.
No problem. I don't think I've said enough,
I mean.
[inaudible]
Yeah, I like the warm stuff here and museum.
Anything else you wanted to mention?
Anything else that you want to mention today?
No. Main thing is just a really good and Saint Luke's
[OVERLAPPING] They really know
exactly how [inaudible] don't forget to get that book.
You probably have to borrow from one place to the other.
Well, I was thinking we should try to get
that for special collections.
That special collection,
still won't be getting out to the
[inaudible] that's how a lot of
people don't even know about special collection.
That's true.
Because I'll be telling people,
you go to special collection,
where is that? What is that?
Now this is about [OVERLAPPING]
So that's where you find special things.
I say the name speaks for itself.
[LAUGHTER] this is the book "A penny makes a dollar".
Is something like that,
but just ask for Maggie Lena Walker.
How do you spell the last name?
Walker.
Walk?
W-A-L-K-E-R, Walker. Lina.
If they have it in a regular library we could.
Right. Well, they limit
your process where when I went over to Christiansburg,
some information in there that I
wanted in the book
that I couldn't remember and I went to get the book,
and I said well, this was Blacksburg library.
They called me when they got it from Blacksburg library.
So that's ridiculous.
How many people are not going or know anything book?
Well, how are they going to find out
about it if they get turned back and
forth because I tell them that's a book you can read.
They go to the library and they couldn't find it.
But you would enjoy it is pretty good.
It sounds really interesting.
It tells about her, and there's
a whole lot of information over at the office too.
They have made it as Walker's picture and also.
They have all the black homes in Blacksburg.
I took Terry and
the secretary moving all over Blacksburg,
I showed them all the black houses that was
over 100 years old.
I got pictures of all of them over there.
There's a whole lot over there
that you're all missing if you haven't been over.
This is in the town?
Right. The little house here.
This one right here?
Yeah.
I don't understand. There's two,
well, what was that building before?
That was one of the black homes.
One of the homes [OVERLAPPING]
Replica.
One of the homes that was in
the black community we were going to move
up here because the holding
doesn't have bathroom and stuff like that.
So there was going to move
their house up here and put the bathroom in,
because they had the bathroom and all of that in it.
The next thing that we knew,
the people that had bought
the land down there at the house had tore it down.
So they just made the house over
here like the house was that was going to move up here.
So that is our office because it
has the bathrooms up there for you.
Floyd Meade was a musician.
Did you ever hear him play? You did?
No.
We have that picture of him with
the guitar and I just wondered about that.
That's what I was told, I didn't know him personally.
What about that other players?
About Floyd Meade?
No, three,
because he went out there into the wilderness.
That's the centennial. I can't believe you have that.
I don't even have that.
Well, you got to get it. Cross that and I still
have one of you still have yours.
I don't. [inaudible] because I don't remember this.
One was presented for Juneteenth.
You don't say.
[inaudible] but that was Meade.
No, it was Smithfield plantation.
That one. Therefore Juneteenth.
How many grandchildren do you have?
Don't ask.
Don't ask? Okay.
I'll tell you.
You don't know.
Well, Liam has two, three, four.
Victoria and Jamar, Fred,
and there's one more.
Devan.
Devan. Jamar has?
Three.
I can't count anymore.
Well, I don't count period,
because I don't see them that much.
See, most of them are away from here.
Lionel is in Richmond.
LT is in [inaudible] and I don't see them.
But you see Latanya.
I don't see her that much.
She doesn't see me.
I used to see her every week.
Now, I don't see her that much.
At least, my grandson,
he lives with me and his sisters in Ohio.
See, that's why I don't count them
because they're all scattered every which way.
I used to see all of them
because we used to go to dinner on Friday.
Every Friday and then I'll come here bowling.
She'll be out and she'll come out to bowling.
You go bowling with her?
No, I never learned how to bowl.
I've never seen this. You can
come to my house for a weekend.
You wouldn't be there.
What would I come for a weekend for?
[LAUGHTER] She stays gone.
She's busy.
Even when I call her, I can't get her.
She's probably got a lot going on.
Then if I call,
it's the answering machine.
You just get the answering machine.
But I call you back.
Sometimes. So half the time when I think about
calling her and when I call her, I get the machine.
Then she'll think about me,
she'll call me and something
like that but I don't see her that much anymore.
Then she just works her butt
off all the time doing something which is good.
it's good.
It's good that she's able to do it.
So many people are not able to do anything,
but there's a lot to do. I'm proud of her.
Yeah, you should be.
She doesn't realize how proud I am of her.
Don't look at me like that.
Well, I really appreciate you talking with me.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed it.