Church Hill - Baldwin

Virginia Black History Archives

Church Hill Oral History Project

Transcript of Interview with Mrs. Bessie Bailey Baldwin, October 9, 1982.

This is a tape interview with Mrs. Bessie Bailey Baldwin. Mrs. Baldwin grew up in the Church Hill area. She resided in Church Hill from 1907 - 1934, at which time she left the Richmond area to return in 1970. She has agreed to share her remembrances of Church Hill and her impressions of Church Hill as it is today. This interview is being conducted by Akida T. Mensah, October 9, 1982, in the home of Mrs. Baldwin who resides at 2713 Barton Avenue.

I = Interviewer
N - Narrator

I = Mrs. Baldwin, when were you born?

N - April 15, 1907.

I - And where were you born?

N - On Church Hill.

I - What was the address of the place that you lived?

N - 1208 N. 33rd Street.

I - Who were your parents?

N - Anna Williams.

I- And you grew up on 33rd St.?

N - Uh ah.

I - What school did you attend?

N - George Mason, Armstrong High, and Van de Vyver (Catholic School).

I - What was it like at George Mason?

N - Oh, it was very very nice. Nothing unusual, but very very nice.

I - Who were some of your teachers?

N - Ms. Elsie Carter, I can't think of her first name but her last name was Mrs. Yurman, Ms. Addie Gatewood, Mrs. Thompson.

I - Who was the principal of the school?

N - I don't remember who the principal was when I first started, but when I finished it was a Mr. C. C. Crouch was the principal.

I - And then you went on to Armstrong?

N - Yes.

I - How did you get to school at Armstrong?

N -Well, I went by trolley.

I -What was Church Hill like about the time you went to Armstrong? Can you describe it. Who was your best friend?

N - Lillian Lightfoot.

I - Was she related to the gentlemen who owns Lightfoot Funeral Home now?

N - His older sister.

I - What was it like say around that time that you and Lillian Lightfoot were friends in Church Hill. Could you describe Church Hill at that time ?

N - Church Hill was always very very quiet and very clannish. Everybody was kinda close.

I - What kind of things did you do as a child growing? What kinds of games did you play? Or did you have time to play games?

N - Well, I played very few games because most in my time if I wasn't going to school, I was working. I started work when I was about 6 and I never stopped.

I - What kind of work did you do?

N - Well, there wasn't but so much a colored girl could do in those days other than domestic work. Couldn't do but so much of anything else, so I started out carrying papers when I was ten years old.

I - Was that unusual, a young lady carrying papers or did ....

N - Oh, a lot of girls carried papers growing up at that time. Sam Jackson's father and his uncle, they were the biggest dealers in newspapers at that time on Church Hill.

I - So you carried papers. Were there other kinds of jobs that you did?

N - Well, I had a job on Saturday. I always had a job on Saturday. I had, I think I told you, daddy had that restaurant. I would be there.

I - Where was his restaurant located?

N - On the corner of 17th and Fairfield.

I - And you said daddy. Who was daddy?

N - Isaiah Howard.

I - And Isaiah Howard had a restaurant on the corner of 17th and Fairfield. And what did you do at that restaurant? What kinds of things did you do? Before you answer that, what year would this have been about? Can you remember how long he had the restaurant?

N - During World War I.

I - So that would be around 1914?

N - I think the United States got into it in 1917.

I - How long did he keep the restaurant?

N - I guess...I know he had it in 1918 'cause that's the time the school was closed. I was down here during the time the school was closed. School was closed for the influenza.

I - Oh, so there was an influenza epidemic?

N - Yea.

I - In 1918?

N - Yea, that's when the schools was closed?

I - How long did they stay closed?

N - Oh, I don't remember now, but they were closed a good while on account of the influenza.

I - Was it more than a month?

N - Oh yea. It was more than a month.

I - And so during that time you continued to work at the restaurant.

N - Yea, just helping out. I didn't have no special job. My biggest job was to take lunches over the C&O shop which was across the street. He worked in the office of the master mechanic of the Chesapeake - Ohio Railroad so I ...

I - What did he do there? Was he a mechanic, a mechanic's helper or just a laborer or what?

N - I think I would rather say he was a janitor, because he cleaned offices, I know that.

I - But this was in the office of the master mechanic?

N - Uh ah.

I - And he worked for the C&O Railroad?

N - That's right.

I - What was that like? Did you ever get a chance as a child to ride the trains and things like that?

N - No more than where he would take me. When I was 13 years old, he gave me a trip to Charlottesville.

I - Did you enjoy that?

N - Very much. Then in 1915, my mother was away, she came back in 1915 and he gave us both trip to Washington by the way of Charlottesville. I remember we went that C&O route. But we laid over 3 hours in Gordonsville. But I like to say that although they were my parents, I started out in the home of Charles and Martha Bailey.

I - So you actually lived with Charles and Martha Bailey.

N - Yeah.

I - And they were what relationship to you?

N - She was my grandfather's sister, my mother's father's sister. And naturally he was her husband. He passed away on the 28th of February, 1915. Naturally, I was born and raised in her home, and I continued to stay there.

I - And so she reared you after the death of her husband.

N - Yeah.

I - What kind of work did she do? Was she just a housewife or ...

N - Well, I think I told you about that place that used to be over there on 29th St. They tore it down, they used to take in from P to Q on 29th.

I - You're talking about the car barns?

N -Car barns. The Richmond Rappahanock Transit Company. That's where she worked.

I -What did she do there?

N - Oh she was a, what do you call it, a matron. Clean offices. And I would help out there.

I - So, how was that? Can you describe that car barn, I've heard a lot about it but you say you actually went there and helped her. Can you tell us something about the people coming in and out. And where the street car go.

N - Well the street car went down Seven Pines.

I - Which way did it go?

N - It would leave there and go down 29th Street until, I imagine, it struck Nine Mile Road. And then from there it was right on down Nine Mile Road.

I - To Seven Pines.

N - Yeah.

I - And did black and white come in there to catch that car?

N - Yeah, it was segregated in those days. They had the white waiting room they had the colored and they had the white and colored sanitary facilities, one for white and one for colored. Colored men and colored women. Had all of that in those days.

I - What other kinds of things could you do there except wait for the street car. Did they have a lunch counter and all that.

N - No.

I - They did not have a lunch counter.

N - On the corner was Hodes. Hodes had a confectionery on the corner and he had a drugstore at 29th and Q. And, I think I told you, that Mayor Marsh's father-in-law, Dr. Vernon Harris, he worked there. He worked both places, he worked for the confectionery and he worked for the drugstore and after he got married, he lived up over the drugstore on 29th and Q.

I - And this was Hodes?

N - Yeah.

I -That's interesting. Did you know Mr. Hode at all? Did you get to meet him?

N - I knew him but I never had no talk with him.

I - I was wondering, there seemed to be some converse of what extraction he was whether he was a German or whether he was a Frenchman or Jewish or... Do you know?

N - Well I rather say, I believe he was Jewish, I don't know but that's my belief.

I - Did he have children to your knowledge that may be living today?

N - I don't remember his family.

I - And so basically this was just the car barn was a place to wait for the street car.

N - Yeah, they had benches and things you come in there and sit and wait.

I - And the entrance, you say, was not on the point of 29th and P but was the next door to ...

N - No, they had entrances from, you could, they had entrance back and front.

I - So the street car would leave from the back of the building?

N - Yeah, the building didn't go all the way through to 30th Street because they had a big house there Mrs. Susie Dabney Scott. She lived there. She was the first organist of Fourth Baptist Church that I remember. And her husband he was the choir director Mr. Billy Scott.

I - Mrs. Baldwin, earlier you mentioned your great aunt and uncle that you lived with them. Do you have any idea when they were born?

N - Martha Frances Williams, that was her maiden name, Martha Frances Williams, born November 27, 1858.

I - And your uncle?

N - Charles Bailey, born December 1, 1852.

I - And you mentioned that your aunt, you think, in Amelia County and you're not certain where your uncle was born.

N - That's right.

I - We've covered, I think, up to around 1918 thereabout and you would have been about 10, 11 years old.

N - I was 11 in 1918.

I - Getting into the 1920's, what was that like?

N - Well, I started high school around 1920, Armstrong High School, at that time was at the corner of 1st & Leigh Streets.

I - Richmond Opportunities Industrialization Center.

N - Well, it was Armstrong High School, I started there in 1920.

I - And you finished Armstrong?

N - No, I had to stop on account of my mother being sick. In the meantime they built the new school up on the corner of Prentis & Leigh. It was a grade school, I think. To me it was the new real Armstrong. And I went up there. I stop school in 1924 to wait on my mother, my mother was sick 3 years, 1924, '25, and '26. And in 1925, she wasn't sick as she had been in 1924 and we both did what we could for her. Of course I was working in the meantime, I got a job, I went back to school. I stopped in the spring of 1924 to wait on her and I went back in the fall.

I -You said you went to work, what kind of work did you do?

N - I started to work for Rothert's Furniture Company on the corner of 4th and Broad. It eventually became Hammond, Blake, & Kirkland, they were the managers of Rothert's. Kirkland was a salesman and Hammond was the cashier. They were there for a long time. But anyway, I worked for them until Mr. Rotherts, Sr.passed away, I think he passed away in 1927. The sons sold out to Roundtree's. Roundtree's was on West Broad Street and I went up to Roundtree's to work '27 until the spring of '28. That's when I went to Washington. I guess I went to Washington in 1928.

I - You mentioned your father earlier, do you remember his mother and father, and your grandparents, your father's parents?

N - No. I think his name was George Howard and she was Polly Dudley Howard.

I - Can you tell us something about them?

N - I can't tell you anything about him because he was married again.

I - What about her? Could you tell us something about your grandmother?

N - Well, the biggest thing I know about her was that she was a midwife. Well, I was small when I stayed around her. I never stayed up there anymore from 1912 - 1913. In other words, I was between 5 and 6. 1 was about 5 years cause I remember, the last time I stayed there was in Christmas of 1912 turned into 1913.

I - I asked that question, I was thinking that you probably wouldn't remember. Where did they live before they moved to 24th Street 1223 N. 24th.

N - Aunt Polly said they lived on 27th Street.

I - On 27th Street. Do you know what block?

N - From the looks of the house she showed me it was, I think, it was 2718.

I - The Dudleys, do you know any of them other than your grandmother, the fact that she was a Dudley. Did you know her brothers and sisters?

N - Her sister. She was I told you, a very famous hairdresser at the corner of 2nd and Clay. Her husband was one of the deacons at 6th Mount Zion, Harvey Spurlock, and they had two children: Alease and Norman Spurlock. All deceased. And she had a brother by the name of John Dudley. He lived down in Hanover and she had another brother Randall Dudley and he and his wife and children lived ?? each way. When I came back in 1944, she was up on Venable Street. But when I was growing up they were never any farther than a block away. When I first remember them they were living on 1300 block 45th Street. And they moved from there in the 1300 block to 24th Street and from there to the 1200 block 24th Street. That's where the children grew up.

I - And this was John Dudley?

N - Randall Dudley.

I - And you said this was your grandmother's brother?

N - Yeah. She had another brother but I never knew him. His name was, his last name was Smith. I never knew him. He lived in south Richmond. And he had a son by the name of Garland. I knew Garland, but I never knew his father

I - 1930, what were you doing then?

N - Well, I started working at Standard Drug Company. Moma passed on the 17th of December, 1929. And that following Monday I went to work for Standard Drug Company. December 19, 1929.

I - 1929 was also when the stock market crashed.

N - On your birthday.

I - On my birthday?

N - October 29th.

I - What was that like? Did that affect you personally, the stock market crash, or were you, you know the fact that you were young ...

N - Well, I was 22 years old. President Roosevelt became President in March, 1933 and he started what they call the NRA, The National Recovery Act. And it meant that if you had a job it became a part time job. You had to work half the day and somebody else come and work the other half. Where as before, you worked the full time, but you had to work half time but received the same pay. So a lot of employers went along with it, but it meant that you had to work faster. Say for instance, I worked in the morning from 8 until 12, then the girl who got the job after me she would come in, in fact I would work until she would get there. Then she would come in and work the rest of time, but you would receive the same pay. No cut in pay.

I - Just cut in hours.

N - Cut in hours, but it was strenuous because you had to work faster and ...

I - So really they didn't give you any less work. You had to do the same work in shorter hours.

N - Right. So I did the best I could but a lot of times the best is not enough. Especially when you cannot keep up with the other fellow. So that was one of those things. I eventually lost the job in 1933 but I did the best I could with the strength I had cause I had to be going to the doctor to hold the job cause I really didn't have the strength to keep up with it.

I - How did people feel about Hoover? People in Church Hill. Did they talk much about him. Did they curse him out, or ... how did they feel about him?

N - Well, we didn't have the facilities in those days that you have now. Very, very few people had a radio, and the television was unheard of and you didn't have the access to the media to know the things that's going on, like we know now. Course, if there was a radio, chances are you were at somebody's else's house, you'd have one in your house. So the only thing they could go by was what they read in the paper. Because I remember, I won't call the name, but I remember a couple who lived over on 34th Street and people would come on a Sunday morning, people would come from Oakwood Ave., white people, to listen to this couple's radio, and I don't know whether Second Presbyterian Church was the first Church to broadcast over WRVA but it was one of the first. Because Reverend Hill was the Pastor, and that's who they would listen to. They'd come from Oakwood Avenue to listen to the service.

I - Why won't you name the couple?

N - Well, the man is dead, the wife remarried and her husband has passed, so I won't call the name because she is very very active in Fourth Baptist Church and I'd rather not call the name.

[Transcript ends here.]

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