Transcript of an interview with Mr. Welton Jones, October 20, 1982.
I - This is a taped interview with Mr. Welton Jones, of 65 B Dabbs House Road. Mr. Jones came to Richmond in 1945, and has been in some kind of business venture every since. This interview is being conducted , October the 20th, 1982, by Akiday T. Mensah, in the home of Mr. Jones.
I - Mr. Jones where were you born?
N - Charles City County.
I- City County, Virginia. When were you born.
I- 1918, October the 8th.
I - October the 8th 1918. That makes you a Libra. That's astrology stuff, don't pay me any mind. Who were your parents.
N - Willie P. Jones
I - What was his middle name, and your mothers name.
N - Desiree Dixon Jones.
I - And they were originally from Charles City County.
N - Yes.
I -Do you know anything about your grandparents.
N - No.
I - And you lived in Charles City County until what time, what age were you when you left.
N - I left about the age of 21.
I - About 21, and where did you go.
N - First got a job down in Newport News shipbuilding, dry dock company. So I stayed there about a year or maybe 18 months or something like that. Then I had a job there working as a boiler marker. And it was very few negroes working as a boiler maker, or a boiler maker helper. Which I was boliler maker helper. So after working there I could always learn pretty fast, and I was learning, catching on pretty fast, I use to do different things, but I never, never could, was able to get a raise, no more than first class helper. Negroes at that time couldn't get the job of being a mechani. And the whites would come in after two months, three months, they'd get a job as being a third-class mechanic. So at that time, I began to think that this wasn't a job for me, that what I know, I can't get no raises, and I always gone be a helper. You know, so I say about 15 or 18 months. I quit, and I bought me a truck, and I started a trucking business, doing pretty good by the time, I went into the service, so I had to do away with the trucks and things.
I - What were you hauling? Were you hauling something or ...
N - Yeah, I was hauling dirt mostly at the time they were building Oceanna Air Base, that had just slanted on the Norfolk side, going on Hampton into Norfolk. I had two trucks working in there, hauling dirt or what ever to build that Air Base. And then I had to go into the service so I went into the service and came out. When I come out, I stopped in Richmond, and opened up a little service station for myself.
I - And this would have been about when.
N - I opened up the service station in about `45.
I - Where was it located.
N - 27th and Nine Mile Road.
I - Were you married then.
N - Yeah.
I - You were married, how long had you been married.
N - I was married about over four years.
I - And did you have any children at that time.
N - Yeah I had two children in `45. I had two children, open up a service station.
I - So you were married, two children, out of the service, and you decided you wanted to open up a service station.
N - Well I didn't find anything else I could do. Myself. So time the service was vacant, I went on and opened that up. So I stayed in that and the trucking business, couple of trucks while at the service station. I worked the truck and the station me and my wife combined.
I - So your wife worked right along beside you.
N - Right. And after that I saw this vacant corner right there, vacant corner there at 29th and Nine Mile Road. Which was growed up with bushes, at that time. So I decided to buy that property, after buying it a few years I was able to build on it, so I built that up in 1950.
I - And you said you opened tha up, what did you open tip.
N - A restaurant.
I - And the name of it.
N - Kitty's Grill.
I - And Kitty, who was Kitty, was that what relative.
N - That was, Kitty was my wife. Nick name.
I - OK. So you named it after your wife.
N - So I've been in business there 32 years and it will be 33 years. as of January the 16th. And at the same time I kept the trucks, from the 50's to I would say 1970's. At one time I had seven trucks on the street.
I - You've been quite a enterprizing man, you really go after the gold don't you.
N - Yeah, I was once in the Bonding Business. I use to have a bonding business. I stayed in that five or six years. So I kind of getting on my nerves pretty bad so I give that up.
I - What was it about, that got on hour nerves. The people that you had to deal with?
N - Yeah, dealing with people, jumping bonds and things, whatever. This was too much on me. So I just give the bonding business up. So I stuck with the trucks a little while longer, before I gave them up, and now I still got the restaurant at the time being.
I - Where did you live, during this tilme?
N - Well, for fifteen years, I lived right on top of the restaurant at 2828 Nine Mile Road. Then I finally built down on Dabbs House Road, and I been here every since.
I - What made you decide to go into business, where you could maybe, you said you learned quickly, you could have become a preacher, maybe a lawyer, or something else, and insurance salesman, why business.
N - Well I figured business was only thing I could see would be really helpful for me, I didn't see anywhere that on a job that I was going to, I would amount to anything, if I was going to amount to anything. It seemed that regardless to what I learn't looked like to me, that I was still going to be a helpless case. Because they wasn't hiring mechanics at that time, so I didn't see where I was gone be no good for nobody else, so I thought I 'd work for myself.
I - Were your parents business minded people, or independent minded people or do you think you got it from them or just anybody in the family had a business.
N - Well my daddy yeah he had a business of his own and did business through in there and did
I - What kind of business does he have.
N - Trucking business.
I - So you sort of got honestly, the idea of trucking company.
N - Yeah honest, I didn't like the idea of working for other people,
I mean, you know, working for somebody else you always got to take what they give you.
I - Right.
N - Doing for yourself you don't have no limit to what you gone get, you get what you worked for
I - The old American Way. Yeah that's right, get out them and get it for yourself.
N - Get it for yourself. So I decided to get it for myself, looking for some body else hand-me-downs, give me what you want me to have.
I - Could you describe Church Hill as you saw it when you first came to Richmond in 1945, what was it like for you, the people and so on.
N - People was different than it is now. People had much more respect for one another. You could leave things more open than you can now, and when you walk the streets much better than you can now. You weren't afraid to walk the streets. Afraid to sit on you porch at night or what ever, but you don't know what to do now, when you get in your car you've got to lock the door. And scared to carry a hundred dollars in your pockedt, somebody knock you in the head and got in your pocket, scared to pull it out, so lame afraid somebody will take
I - So you, saw Church Hill as a lot more respectful to people and more trusting a feeling more secure.
N - Much more secure than now. You 've got to look all around to come out the door you don't know what might happen.
I - 1945. Now married two children, and a wife who you described as working along side you, is this something you demanded or is this just something she just did. Why did she decide to pitch in, why didn't she go and maybe go to school or why didn't she keep babies or wash clothes, why did she decide she was going to pitch in with you, did she have that much faith in you.
N - Well she, was wife that always went along with me, anything I said let's do she would do. She would get underneath the trucks and try to work alone with me.
I - Apparently then she had a lot of faith in you, that you were going to do what you said you were going to do.
N - Evidently she has been with me for forty years.
I - You've got a start you've got a wife that's willing to work along with you, you've got kids, what kinds of pressures did you face, what kind of situations did you face, young man, ambitious, apparently, and wanting to make your way in the world, and you've got the mind to do it, the will to do it, and the helpmate, what kind of pressure as a whole, oh I'd say dealing with the public you always going to have pressures to a certain extent things never go your way all the time, people come in, somethines and want to take the business over.
I - By taking over you mean just wanna do what they want to do, in your establishment.
N - Yeah right, right. You have problems like that, but otherwise that I think things worked pretty well, these were a few time we had minor disturbances caused by rowdy people but I think things normally went along pretty sooth, I think I handled things for 32 years pretty smoothly.
I - Is there any one person that you would say influenced your life, your father, an uncle, or somebody you met in the service, is there any one person, that you would say had the biggest impression on you.
N - Well, the biggest impression was on me that I remember one time I said, I sat in the ship yard and cried like I say well just to think don't care what I know I'll never get no more or further in the ship yard, than a helper as a boiler maker, and alot of itme they would put me with third-class mechanics they would tell me to show them what to do. But to me like a foreman would tell me if I could give you a raise I would, but I can't get a raise. So that left me with impression that I wasn't going to never get no raise, jsut because I was black, I said this ain't no place for me. So that decided me to go and look for something for myself.
I - Did you have any boyhood heroes, you know like today kids about Reggie Jackson, and different people like that, did you have any heroes like that when you were growing up.
N - No, I never was a heroe of any kind, no more.
I - No, I'm asking not were you a hero, but that you looked up to you know like you look up to your brother, or look up to somebody like that, was ther any particualr person that you looked up toas a young man.
N - No, I think I just looked up to myself, in a sense of speaking well I can gpt the job done myself, you know.
I - So you had alot of faith in yourself.
N - In myself, yeah. I could get the job done, you know, and I could and I proved to myself that I could make a living.
I - What do you think gave you that faith, was it you did a lot of things as a child, you said your father was in the trucking business, did you get to do alot of things that gave you the confidence that you could do alot more things or just how did you come about this sort of confident attitude. What made you feel that I can conquer the world, if I want to, what made you feel like that. Was it religion was it, what was it.
N - No I just had a faith in myself that I could do anything that's commonly done that I could do it. And I always proved to myself that I could do it, I never ask nobody to do much for me, now I stayed in the trucking business for about fifteen years. I don't know too many time I would carry the truck to the shop to have it repaired, I'd do my own repairing and I'd say to myself if the mechanic can do it, I can do it, too. And that's the kind of faith I had of muself, if most things need to be done I could do them, so I always have proved to myself that I coul.ld do it, and up until now, I could still do it, just the age got me a little bit now. But and that way I always made it. I made a success out of life.
I - You mentioned the trucking business, that you were in what did you haul.
N - Well, at one time, I was hauling about 95% of the bricks that came into the city, from other states and was shipped here, for instance, I was the man that handled, hauling the bricks that come in box cars. Like the projects out here, like Gilpin Court, Whitcomb Court, Fairfield Court, all the bricks, pipes, bath tubs, stoves and refrigerators, I was the contractor of all of that. Willow Lawn, at the time Willow Lawn was built I hauled all the bricks, out there.
I - Now I remember Willow Lawn, because I worked out there. I had just graduated from high school in 1956, and I remember them building that and but you mentioned Gilpin Court, when, about did they start building that do you remember. Was it in the forties, you think.
N - I can't remember exactly, but I think it somewhere in the fifities, it was in the fifties when they started building Gilpin Court.
I - Go on I didn't mean to interrupt you, I just wanted, I remember them building Willow Lawn, and I just wanted to mention that.
N - Well, the later fifties, when they built that, every brick and all the installment in E. G. Williams., when they built that, every brick was in E. G. Williams at the time it was built, I put them in there, and all the installation I put that in there, all the tile, everything, so I was one of the main people hauling all the brick out of box cars at that time. That's about the history of my life.
I - Tell me more about the grill, you opened a grill, and you moved your family up over top the grill, and how many, how many people did you have working for you when you started out, was it just you and your wife, or did you have some one else.
N - Well, when we started out, it was just mostly me and her, she ran it at night, I mean at day, for 11:00 until I get home in the afternoon, and then I would help her, from that time until 12:00. During that time we were closing at eleven o'clock, and I'd go to work the next morning, with the trucks, and come back and help her agian.
I - So you were scrambling all day,
N - All day and half of the night, yeah.
I - And you did that and I assume that gradually built your business up and begin to hire more people, did you.
N - That's right, after the business built up, I hired more people. That place has been inlarged three times as business grew, I enlarged it, when it first opened, only had four booths, and a couple of tables, so now it's about fiftenn booths, well when first opened up we could handled about 25 or 30 people, now we can serve about hundred people, or 115 so that's how it grew.
I - How many people, what is it the largest number of people you've ever employed at one time, including your trucks.
N - Oh, well I'd say I have employed as many as 20 people at one time.
I - What was your relationship to the people around you and when I say that I mean how were your neighbors, how did, you get along with your neighbors, did they sort of look up to you, and come to your for advise, and this kind of thing, you a man in business, and doing , scrambling out here, and get you know, how did they treat you, did they, were they jealous, you know.
N - I always got along pretty good with socialzing with people and they always come to me for different advise, different times, you know, how did you do this, how did you do that. So I explained to them the best way I could.
I - So would you say then that they sort of looked to you for uidance and you know sort of help them along, show them how to be successful would you say that.
N - Yeah, it always make me feel good to know to myself, particular, make myself feel good, knowing that I'm doing something that alot of other people try to do and couldn't do it.
I - So basically you felt that you were respected in the community and like in the community and as well as doing something for the community, you had a restaurant and people could come, and eat and listen to music and just sort of relax, so you were, not only being looked up to because you had accomplished something, you were giving something to the community providing a service.
N - Providing a service, and I always thought people liked me because, liked what I was doing because I always had a lot, I never had no problems, in the thirty two years. Opened up during the business, I think my wife was in the hospital and we closed down about six months, no sooner I opened the doors back up, had no problem with the people coming back. You know, everybody was happy to see you open, reopen, back up. So, it proved to me that they liked me, because they come back all the time.
I - Over thirty years, of running a business, you must have seen a lot of changes, people come and go.
N - Yeah, a lot of changes.
I - You probably seen parents and their children, does that make you feel that you are wise sage that you sit back and tell the world what it is all about, seeing so many people, seeing so many different kinds of things happening does that make you feel specially wise, or how does that make you feel.
N - Well, I can't explain it very good, but it makes you feel real proud for myself that I accomplished what I decided to accomplish.
I - We didn't talk about education and we didn't talk about formal kinds of training like going to business school and so on, did you have a lot of education, or did you have a lot of training other wise to help you get where you got.
N - Very little education that I have, but I always thought I had a lot of mother wit.
I - And by mother wit, you mean common sense, or knowing how to get things done.
N - Yeah, knowing how to get things done.
I - Where do you think you got that, do you think you were born with it or you picked it up or how did you come about that.
N - Well , the way I can see it, I was born with it.
I - Do you think this also helped you to get along with people and get people to patronized you business, this mother wit.
N - Well it didn't come from education, it had to be, I would say it was mother wit.
If you were talking to a young man who had his eye on conquering the world, like you did when you were a young man, what would you say to him today, how would you try to advise him about going into business.
N - Well I think a man going into business have to have alot of confidence in himself, and you got to try hard, to get in the business you going to have a lot of ups and downs, but I think if a man try harder enough he can make it, that's what I did, I tried hard and I amde it.
I - What about saving, and rising early, and beating competion, and all these little things, how important is that, is it important to get up early in the morning or can you get up about twelve, and people just come any way.
N - No, you got to be, interested in you work, if you interested in your work when you are interested in your work, it's makes no difference time you get up, sometimes, you have to work all night, but it don't worry you as long as you are accomplishing something, you can't sleep all day, and expect to accomplish anything.
I - So you're saying you've got to love what you are doing, loving what you do.
N - You got to put all efforts into it.
I - What else do you think makes a success businessman, loving what you do, we got that, how important is it to have a wife, that will stick her nose right in there with you, how important is that to you.
N - Well my wife is 100 percent important people can't have a wife that everthing you bring in, she throwing it away, got to have somebody to pull along with you.
I - So you're saying that not only having a wife who pulls with you, she has to be the kind of person who knows the value of money.
N - Right.
I - And is willing to stick in there, and as you said early, get under the truck if necesary. You had the gutts, the mother witts, the love, the wife, what else does it take, anything.
N - No, I think you (end of side one-tape)
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