Church Hill - Lively
Virginia Black History Archives
Church Hill Oral History Project
Transcript of interview with Mr. Jack W. Lively, September 1, 1982.
This is a tape interview with Mr. Jack W. Lively of 4208 Allenshow Drive. This interview is being conducted in the home of Mr. Lively. The interviewer is Mr. Akida Mensah.
I = Interviewer
N = Narrator
I - Mr. Lively, where were you born?
N - Born at 305 N. 22nd, Dec. 7, 1925.
I - And this of course was in Church Hill?
N - Yes it was.
I - And who were your parents?
N - Harry and Thelma Lively.
I - And were they native Richmonders?
N - No they came here in 1917 from Waynesboro, VA. My father came here and went to work as a barber in what was then known as the Old Star Barbershop in the 400 block of East Broad Street. My mother was strictly a housewife.
I - And you grew up in what is known as the historical section of Church Hill?
N - That's right.
I - The historic section of Church Hill.
N - My first remembrance of living in Church Hill was at 2206 E. Broad Street. We moved from that property. It was 1931 to 2617 E. Franklin Street. The year that I started school at Bellevue, at 23rd Grace Street. I went to Bellevue from the 3rd through the 6th grade and transferred to East End to junior high school. For the next two years there I went to, my mother was then remarried, to Washington, D.C. Came back to Richmond. The year was 1942. Went to Smithdeal Massey Business School. In 1944 got out of school and worked the railroad and got here and have been here ever since. It was home and it always will be.
I - Very good. You mentioned going to Bellevue and then to East End. That's interesting because at one time I understand that Bellevue was a junior high school.
N - Bellevue was a junior high school and when they closed down the old Bellevue School where condos are located at the 2200 block of Broad Street the Bellevue Junior High School was made into Bellevue Elementary School. That was the year that East End Junior High was built but I don't recall the year that change came in there.
I - What was it like going to Bellevue? Were there... I understand that the Van Lew Mansion stood on that site. At the time you were in school were there many stories about the Van Lew family or was that sort of a thing of the past?
N - Mostly what you read on the Van Lew was in your history class. We were well aware of the fact that the school was built on the ground of the site and the only pictures that I ever saw of the home were pictures in our history book so even the pictures that we saw at the Valentine Museum. In those days going to the Valentine Museum was a must for history classes. It was to educate you of the history of the city that was part of our history classes at that time that he John Marshall House, the Poe Shrine, these are the things that were a must at schools though I don't believe they require them now, but it was a must in those days.
I - At the time you attended East End I would figure it was a relatively new shool.
N - Comparatively new, yes.
I - What was that like?
N - Well, it was different, the fact that it was more or less out in the boon- docks and those days we didn't have school buses and we didn't have what was known.as the bus fare or school ticket, you walked rain or shine. Most of the time we would meet on the corner with the classmates at 27th and Broad and walk straight down Broad out to 34th to 35th on down to school. Probably walked 20 minutes in those days.
I - And you mentioned the boondocks. Was that area thought of as being rural?
N - Comparatively new housing section in that area at that tim . It was not too heavily populated and behind the school there it was mostly woods.
I - And this would be 37th
N - As a matter of fact I think that's where I learned to smoke cigarettes.
I - And this would be 37th Street.
N - 37th Street, yes.
I - OK. And you went to East End through what grades?
N - Well we went to the 6th grade at Bellevue and then you completed your 7th and 8th grades at East End, then your senior high was John Marshall. Your 9th, 10th and llth grades as I mentioned earlier, my high school days were in Washington. I left here in 1939.
I - Well tell us some more about your school days and what the neighborhood was like during that time.
N -Well, mostly at Bellevue when I went there I can recall that Mr. Harris was the principal. We had what was known as kindergarten in those days and Mrs. Agnes Welch's niece was the kindergarten teacher. I recall her quite well.
I - Do you recall her?
N - Yes sir, I don't recall her first name, but we always called her Mrs. Welch. And you went on through, you'd had Mrs. Goodman over there in those days it was a very fine instructor and your 6th grade class was always taught by Miss Goldman. And during the time that we were there you had your playground mostly there on thefront of the school on Grace Street with the street blocked off as they are today. The school yard in those days was also segregated, the boys played on one side and the girls played on the other and the ball games were mostly there in the front of the school or either on 24th Street. The girls played on the 23rd Street side.. There was not too much activity in so far as school goes. We had the school plays and the school outings which could maybe be a box lunch of some type and they'd be long expeditions over to Chimborazo Park once or twice a year during the school term. The school days at that time was September 10 through June 10. The summertime was mostly spent pretty much the same way browsing the parks, playgrounds. We had 29th Street blocked off for our skating rink and we had activity at Shields Lake or Byrd Park.
I - Excuse me, you mentioned blocking off 29th Street as a skating rink. What block was that?
N - Between Broad and Franklin. Those two blocks were blocked off each night during the summer months for skating and in later years we had playground up from the old Chimborazo location as the bottom and it was located there at 29th and Franklin, relocated there and the skating mostly took place there on 29th Street.
I - What period of time are we talking about, generally what years?
N - I would say the late 30's.
I - OK. You went to East End generally your recreation and social life to be centered around skating and going to the park, things
N - Tennis courts or playground or volleyball courts.
I - Do you recall mentioning tennis courts? Do you recall a tennis court ever being in Jefferson Park? Grass tennis courts.
N - No that was beyond me. I don't remember any recreation facilities at all in Jefferson Park. They were mostly in and around 29th Street and Chimborazo Park. Any other playgrounds, there may have been one down in the Fulton area but I do not remember it. Fulton children came up to the playground in Church Hill. That was the focal point for those in Church Hill and Fulton Park.
I - What about theaters? Were there any theaters in your old neighborhood?
N - Well in the early 30's Mr. Pitts did build the Patrick Henry. I would say the year was along about 1933 or 1934. Two years after that he built what is known as the old East End Theater. Patrick Henry has been pulled down there on 25th Street both of them were just two or three doors from each other. And a theater in those days was 10cts on Saturday and you worked your butt off to get 10cts to go to the theater and everybody had to go. You either went to the Patrick Henry or to the East End. In Fulton we had what was known as the Old Star Theater but it was very seldom that I went down there. Most of the movies we watched on 25th Street.
I - What movie if any stands out in your mind from that period?
N - Well most in those days I think the kids were hooked on the western films. I can recall the Tom Mix films, the Gene Autry series, the Ken Maynard, Buck Jones, that type thing. We didn't have Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers films in those days. It was mostly westerns. We had a serial that ran on Gene Autry that was contingent on one Saturday to the other and as a rule those serials ran anywhere 6 to 8 weeks and you sort-of worked from one week to the next to get the 10cts to take up where it was left off the Saturday preceeding that. Of your more famous stars I suppose that Shirley Temple craze was along at that time. But the child stars Fred Bartholomew. Then you had your Mickey Rooneys and Ann Millers but better known stars I can recall some of the Garbo films, some of the Jean Harlow films when they were classed as second run films. After playing at the uptown theaters they were brought to the neighborhood theaters. And you saved your money to go to see them.
I - So that the theaters on Broad Street were considered sort-of first run theaters or major theaters and the neighborhood theaters were considered sort of on a secondary...
N - By the time the films got to the secondary theaters on Church Hill, the neighborhood theaters as they called them, they had already played the uptown theaters. But in order to see them on a matinee up town it cost you 10cts more than if you waited until the neighborhood theaters, save the money.
I - And we're talking about the 1930's beginning and mid-30's. What other kinds of things? Were there bicycles?
N - Well some of the children had bicycles and some of them had wagons and some of them had scooters, but most of the kids had roller skates. We had a hardware there on Church Hill called Enbanks on 25th and Broad. You could go there and buy a pair of union hardware skates were about $1.98. Save your money long enough and you fortunate to buy them and you could always buy the replacement wheels when they ran out. Bicycles there were not too many; there were some but not too many just like automobiles. I think that kids that were a little bit better off than others, but skates were very prominent and was the thing at that time.
I - Who were some of your friends or neighbors? I should say, people who lived in the community?
N - Well off hand I can recall in the block that I lived in we had a John Stone that went to school with me. He lived across the street. We had a Rosa Lee Dowdy that later married a Robertson boy, Melvin. She was in school with me at that time. Now they live in Ohio, her family lives there. The Allens and I remember the Connohens that lived in there, the Haigs, the Summerses, I mentioned the Robinsons before and then back on Grace Street we had the Tylers, the Bryans. I don't know, just any number of them. Their names escape me now. But all of them lived right in that area. You played with all of the children.
I - Was there any one person, oh any group of people, by group of people I mean maybe several, who were sort of neighborhood leaders or people that you as a child looked up to or people in the neighborhood looked up to?
N - Well the leaders in those days as I can recall, Mrs. Chaplin who was in charge of the playgrounds in those days and as I mentioned the playground moved over to 29th and Franklin, 29th and Grace. I think Mrs. Chaplin stands there mostly because of her leadership in getting the children together on basketball, volleyball right there at the playgrounds and she conducted a lot of tennis matches. I can also recall that on Saturday night they would have dances at the playgrounds and one of the people that I recall playing the piano was the McDonough girls that lived in the 2500 block of Grace Street. Saturday night at the playground, if you danced that's where you went. It was free of charge, it was arranged by the city. Mrs. Chaplin I think deserves a lot of credit in keeping the neighborhood kids together. To cite you an examle of how the kids flocked, if you were into such things well let's use for example if you were a tennis player and you had someone in the neighborhood that you would pick as your tennis partner the playground shouldn't go. If you entered football, if you had a team then you were most popular with the teammates. If you entered skating which is mostly what I did, it was just anything, everything and everybody that joined in. In the particular friends that I might remember I don't think there was any particular one, I just got along mostly with all of them.
I - Was there any particular place that you as a child or you and your friends frequented in the area such as the ice cream parlor or drug store?
N - Well at 25th and Marshall what was formerly an old bank and used to be a place called the Mellomalt. You could go there and buy such things such as a double dip of ice cream for 10cts and it had like the ice cream flavors or whatever you would want in the ice cream line. That was a popular hang-out particularly after the shows let out. Then in later years as we got into junior high school and then to your teens we had a place at 33rd and Marshall called Hudson Brothers and that was a very popular night spot for the teenagers and their girl friends. You could go there to listen to juke boxes. There was no dancing, it was just a gathering place. There was never any rough neck stuff.
I - Is that the same Hudson Brothers that is now on Williamsburg Road?
N - The same one. As a matter of fact Charlie Hudson just died during the past three or four months and I knew all three of those boys in my day and time. But Mr. Hudson, Mr. Charlie Hudson was the last one to die three months ago. His nephew Bobby Williams is now running the place and he is also a very good friend of mine. But that is the same Hudson brothers that was at 33rd and Marshall.
I - They apparently did business on that corner for a long time because I can remember.
N - The Hudsons started in on that corner I belheve it was sometime in the early 30's. I do not recall the date that it is as I came along in my teens they had been there for some years then and you were always welcome there and they knew all the boys by their names and as long as you behaved yourself and didn't start any ruckus or anything you were more than welcome. You could go in and buy a 5cts coke-a-cola and make it last all evening long and if you stayed there long enough some of your friends would come in and you could migrate on to other places. It didn't take a whole lot of money for you to be entertained in those days. To begin with you didn't have it.
I - Mr. Lively, you have mentioned Hudson Brothers as a popular hang-out for teenagers. Were there other places that you went in the Church Hill area or near the Church Hill area?
N - Well we had Mellomalt at 34th and Marshall, a block down and we had the Rendevous there at 28th and Broad, a good place to stop when you wanted to meet friends of yours. Zeke's at 25th and Broad and across from the 2500 block of Broad Street we had Doyle's Grill which was another popular place to stop. You'd always run into somebody you knew; if you didn't find him at one place you'd go to another. Bound to find two of them before the evening's over with.
I - One of the questions that I've been aching to ask. In growing up pretty close to St. John's Church in that area, a lot of emphasis being placed on that church, was that a source of pride to children in the neighborhood when you met people from other neighborhoods, was that a bragging right of a sort or just how did that affect your growing up?
N - If your stating of the church as a historic landmark, I don't believe it ever crossed the children's mind that it was a national historic landmark. I think it was taken for granted that it was there. St. John's Church was very active, they had a very active Sunday school department as well as a very active congregation, but I don't believe that many people looked upon it as being the famous landmark that it is and that it was in those days. Church Hill just took for granted that it was there. They cherished it. I don't recall anyone saying anything against it but better rather protect it if it was in our area and like so many things it was taken for granted.
I - Well I guess my question was what kinds of things did you and your peer group pride yourselves in as far as being residents of a particular area? Were there certain things that you felt proud of in comparison to maybe another area?
N - I can't think of any particular thing that we prided ourselves on. We had pretty good neighborhood there where everybody was congenial and friendly. Everybody got along and more or less mind their own business. You may have had some, where we had Catholics, Baptist, Episcopalians and what have you, sometimes there were some hot discussions over religion, but I don't think it is anything of any consequence. And you had some rif-raf, but they were taken for granted also, they were there and you just more or less ignored them. Some people, as I said earlier, were better off than others but I don't think there was anyone that was particularly proud the fact that they were in the better class, if there were any class conscious people over there, I don't recall,everybody was very friendly as I recall.
I - What was the relationship with other neighborhoods, the area in which you lived, I guess at the time was called Church Hill; what about across Jefferson Avenue, I understand that was Union Hill? Was it viewed that way during the time you were coming along?
N - I did not recall anything in the East End in the dividing line if you're speaking of gangs as one side against another I don't recall. I do know that they used to look down upon Oregon Hill and perhaps there were some frowning on the people down in Fulton, but when it was all said and done, they were good neighbors. We were, in some cases, a heck of a lot better. I can recall walking through Fulton as late as midnight at night and never had no one to bother me and I'm sure that many of them down there knew that I was from Church Hill, and it didn't make any difference to them. I don't recall having too much association with Oregon Hill. I remember that I had an aunt by marriage that lived over there, and on several occasions visited with her. But as far as any gang rivalry, I don't recall any of that at all.
I - Well, I wasn't necessarily speaking of gang rivalry, I just wondered maybe as we do sometimes, sort of brag, "Well my neighborhood is better..."
N - Well, I think you'll find that true even today, some people feel they're better than others, which we refer to as snobs. And the better way to get along with them was to let them think whatever they wanted to and to ignore them. That was the way I got around it. So you might have a buck or two more than I have but that doesn't make you any better. Sure we have that type and we just took it for granted and ignored it. We had the sense and that was the best thing to do. We had some that felt that they were a bit better off than you are but it never seemed to get to me. It never bothers me one way or the other. I was too preoccupied with the many other things to put myself above or below anybody else's level. You were just another neighbor as far as I was concerned.
I - Were there, and I understand the period was a period of segregation, was there any interrelationships between the races? Did you ever visit any of the black schools for example, or vice-versa? Or were there events that were attended by blacks as well as whites that you recall in your growing up?
N - The only time that I ever recall any of that was at some of your political rallies. I can recall that we had a voting precinct there in Chimborazo Park, 27th and Franklin. I don't recall the precinct number, it was before my days of voting, but I do recall on election days you would go out there, of course we only lived a block away, and you saw whites and blacks both and I don't recall anyone pointing out well that's white and that's black. They were there and that's as far as it would go. You did not have too many blacks in the neighborhood at that time, however, they were mostly on 25th and 23rd beyond the Nine Mile Road section; they did have a name that they called that section but there were not too many in the area. I do recall one family living at 25th and Main, the reason I remember her was her name was Nellie and she did some work for Grandma Ramsey. She lived and died right there at 25th and Main. Then on the east side of 25th Street, there on the corner of 23rd and Grace, we had a little confectionary called Laterzo's where you could buy supplies and candies.
I - The name of it was what?
N - Laterzo, I believe it is. They ran a little candy store and they sold school supplies. And just below Mrs. Laterzo's on 25th Street there was a double frame house. And as far back as I can remember, those houses wereoccupied by blacks and they were, that was it. Nobody seemed to bother one way or the other.
I - You mentioned the area near Nine Mile Road and 25th having a name, do you recall what that name was?
N - Not off hand.
I - Would it have been Dogbottom?
N - No. It seems to me it was some kind of field. I don't remember. But you cross Nine Mile Road there where 25th Street goes into Nine Mile Road. Woodville.
I - Woodville.
N - It was in Henrico County but you had a predominantly black area through there but I don't recall any problems out of there and you knew it. In the later years, Fulton we had black families move in down there, you had blacks and whites live down in there. But I don't recall any incidents or any trouble they were there and you took it for granted that they were down there.
I - Are there other things that you particular view as interesting in that area or during the period of time that you grew up in Church Hill?
N - Well the interesting things is the talk we talked in the early part of the conversation. You sort of looked forward to different events in the summertime but mostly in the wintertime it was pretty dull. You lived and you got out and played at nights, but as far as any outstanding events, I don't recall any at all it was just regular everyday living. Someone get sick in the neighborhood and everybody was there to take care of them or someone got in distress everybody was there to take care of them and to help in any way that they could.
I - Most of what you said gives me the impression that the neighborhood, at least from the way you see it, was one of neighbor helping neighbor, friendly relationships. Recreation being done close to where you lived. A closely knitted neighborhood. Is that ...
N - I would say that would pretty well sum it up. It was a very close knit neighborhood and most of the time you stuck pretty close in your own neighborhood. When you went anywhere at all outside, it would be like downtown Richmond, that would be the market area, or uptown Richmond, which would be your Broad Street area. But most of the acitivity centered around your own neighborhood. As you got into dating, if you dated somone else in another neighborhood you still went back in your own for your acitivites so to speak.
I - So generally would you go as far to say that the neighborhoods were clannish? Or were they just closely knitted?
N - I would say that they were more closely knitted than clannish. If there were any clannishness at all, as I said, I would ignore it. I sure we had it, but
I never let it bother me one way or the other. I always found it a very friendly, very close tied bunch over there. We used to call it God's country then and we still call it God's country. It was the most convenient section in the City of Richmond. You could go anywhere you wanted to, walk or ride. Downtown, uptown, you had everything you wanted right there, there was really no reason to go out of your own neighborhood. You had your clothing stores, you had your barbers, your drugstores, your theaters, laundries, confectioneries, your hang-outs, Hudson Brothers, so forth. There was really no need to go any other place, you had all the activity you need right there. Most of your friends come from that area.
I - What institutions would you say played the major role, if we can take a major role in the community, was it the church, was it the school ... ?
N - I think the church played a big part in it in those days because in those days I always looked forward to my church on Sundays as I do today. We had a lot of church activities going on, well all of the churches had activities going on. And I think that the church played a big big role in it. I recall Father Brennan, St. Patrick's, he was considered the Guardian Angel of Church Hill, whether you were one of his boys or not he still would take you under his wing and if you got out of hand and he'd let you know it. It's just as we spoke of the Mrs. Chaplin she run the playground. When you got out of hand she'd let you know it too. You really had your churches to thank, I think you had the Boy Scouts, even though I was not active in the Boy Scouts, I think that they played a big role in it. You had your community centers further than the area there, I think they played a big role in it. You were never lost for anything to do if you wanted to find something to do it was there to do.All you had to do was to devote your services for what they had to offer you. But very little was expected of you other than to take part. You could or couldn't, it didn't matter. [End of Transcript.]
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