Interviews with African Americans in Utah, Alberta West

Transcript (61 pages) of an interview by Leslie Kelen with Alberta West on May 15, 1984. From Interviews with African Americans in Utah

Mrs. West discusses her early life in Texas, segregation in Utah and Hill Air Force Base in the 1940s and 1950s and the activities of the LaVogue club.

·-·--;- - · ·-· . The Oral History Institute 1320 East 5th South Salt Lake City, Utah 84102 [phone] ex. 9 INTERVIEW SHEET Date &r ,2Jj}'/"/ Place Informant' s Name ---7-.,__,4-,L-L--'-~---'-f',~~~c4--=-_k""""~-~-'-=--'d__~ __- --,,-______ Birth Date :Z:""7'.22, / ?I!!;, Birthplace B~.,4:,,, Affiliation or Organization or Ethnic Minority ---------- Family Relationships Informant's Occupati0n Tape Recording Made? Yes ~ No ---------- Language of Recording ~-s..l . Translator Interviewer's Name Le.rh·~ /r;~ I For Office Use Date Received Tape Number ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -~~- Rough Draft Made By ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~- Index Card No . No. of Pages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~- I consent to this interview being placed in the Marriott: Library for future use by students and scholars in relation to t heir research and scholarly publications and to i ts usage i n the compilation o f a book and/or other publications. I grant and assign all my rights pertaining to this information to the Oral History Institute. Other comment s: AW ORAL HISTORY INSTITUTE ALBERTA WEST May 15, 1984 Interviewed by: Leslie Kelen I was born & r~~~ed in Austin, Texas, and my mother died when I was seven so I lived with my grandmother, and I called her Mama, because she was all the mother I knew, And they never allowed me to go to Public School so I was in Private School practically all, all but one year, rirst I went to kindergarden at a private lad 01 s house who eventually left Austin and they moved to Denver, Flnd they were they were the beginners of the American Woodmen, which is a kind of a lodge that , a~.Blacks have. LK American Woodmen? AW Um hum, in Denver, and I think that people belong to it all over the United States because it did get to be , prett y well organized and Nation wide, "Thats the first lady I went to Kindergarden to was Mrs White, and her husband was the one that started this American Le g ion, I mean American Woodmen. Then I went to Tillot so n Co lle g e, until I got to a bout th e Seventh grade. LK Tillotson? AW Um hum. LK How do you spell it? Aw Tillotson,thats in Austin, but the y ha v e combined it no w with the Sam Houston Colle ge. Page 2 but they have combined it now with the Sam Houston college which was there at the time. But the1,were two distinct j Colleges. LK Was it an all girls college? AW No, it was Co-Ed, . and now they have combined them so its a double college, now,where it wasn't when I went. And then my Grandmother sent me to Mary Allen's S emenar~ Which was in Matshall Texas,I don't mean Martial Texas, it was in Crockett, Texas, my sisters went to Marshall. P.nd I stayed there till my Junior year and their scholas-tic records were so low,my grandmother thou ght I better graduate from High School,to have a better rating. So they kept me in Austin that year, and I graduated from Anderson High School, and that was my first year of ever having gone to a public school. ~nd then they sent me to Kansas State Agriculture College because I was interested in cooking. I told them that was all I wanted to do was cook and keep house 1 cause I don't do it now because since I have gotten older but I used to keep house. ~ow I let the house keep itself. I think after you get Eighty you reach that point, you reali z e material things and you can't take it with you so why worry about it? I went i J~~ and I finished a course J~ that theN~called a Housekeepers course, which was cooking and sewing and every thing y o u do ;~ hous e - keeping, and I married that same year when I came home in June. Page 3 LK Did you marry sombody you knew? AW Yeah, we went to school, he went to Sam Houston and I went to Tillotson, and after I started going to High School,thats where I met him there. Hnd I was I was on the pep squad and he was a football star and you know how girls g o fo r football and basketball boys , ~nd we married but he was originally from BeeVille, Texas. . - ·1 I kn ow y o u ha v e n e v e r he a r d o f died - tT .S down ;J'Je l l/2.. the Rio Grand l',,:) rder, where the Corpus Kristie) close to Corpus Kristie, Have you ever been to Texas? LK Never been down there 1 but I know the names. AW Um hum, well after I went there,! wasn't there but about four months. When the School teacher took sick, and they asked me if I would substitute for her, and I did. &ut it was the first time I'd ever taught in my life, and there were grown men in the class, in the first and second grade, and that to me was so different from what I'd ever seen . But they were boys that when it was time to farm their fathers would take them out of school, and they would get maybe one or two months of schooling a year and of course they didn't make much progress. So there were boys that were fifteen and sixteen in the class, with kids that were five and six, but I only did that until the teacher returned, ~nd at that time they were payin g the huge sum of Fift y dollars a month, and you had to pay your transportation to school out of that; your room and board if yo u didn't happen to live there. LK About what year was this? AW That was 1920, because I moved to Houston in 1 922 , 1'1iy husband got a job there,in Austin, he was a Bell hop there at the largest Hotel, but when we went to Houston, he was workin g Page 4 with the government as a postman.And in the South; especially at Houston, in Texas,you never saw a white mailman all the mailmen were Black, and all the garbage men were Black 0 I'd never seen white mailmen until I came out here, and white garbage men, and ah .. · LK That's startling. AW Yeah, because you never saw a white shoe shine parlor , Hll the shoe shine parlors were Black. Rnd out here I was so Crme our ~i'IK- wY1.t shocked when IAsaw white men shining shoes, because in the South they think thats a it or do it.?Only Blacks low job and they wouldn't ~~cept would shine shoes, but I guess the world is changed all over because you go down there now things are different, just like they are here. LK What ever happened to your father? AW My father died after I moved to Utah, I came out here to work during the war in 1942. LK I mean during your young years when you were gn..'iv,1{g? AW Well, he lived in Dallas, He went to Dallas to get a good job, cause there was nothing in Austin to do, but as I say to work at that one big Hotel there, and he was a Hotel Waiter, LK That was pretty much the only job ? AW Um hum, so he went to Dallas, and he worked there at S~ nge~ Brother s o ~ee they had a big dining room there in Sa ng(R Brothers that was the largest store in Dallas at that time. Course it isn't any more, !t~ a large store but nothing t o the o t he r 1 a r g e s t o r e s r,1,"< t ha v e mo v e d t h e r e s i n c e . So he lived in Dallas and after my mo ther died, he marrie dJ Page 5 he married again. He married a lady that was just sixteen years old, and at the time I was just seven, seven and a half, so I'd go in the summer and spend summer after they had children~ I'd go there and spend the summer with them, course the kids were small,and , ~ ithey kind of grew up with me because I was the oldest and they liked to wear my clothes ~ One o f my s i s t e r s was c 1 o s e s t t o my a g e I I mean c 1 o s e r t o my size 1 but she wasn't my age, and they had big large feet and I had small feet at that time and I was wearing fours and! and I could never find my shoes when I got ready for them-they'd have them on and gone. So when we moved here, after I moved here, I married a8 Qt~. LK Now wait a second,what happened between the years 1920 and 1940? AW 1940 we lived in Houston. He was a mail carrier in Houston. L K We 11 how 1 on g wl?Cl 40.\. down there? *If~ AW Oh, I wasAeighteen years, but he died four years after we moved to Houston. LK He did? (..-.J-- A W Um hum he turnedAto be a pure ~choholic, thats something he didn't do when he was in Beeville or Austin,but there was alot of old alcholic Mailmen on there, some that he re a lly a d mi r e d , s o he t r i e d t o d o w ha t t he y d o • ·:/ o u k n o w y o u t a k e a country boy to the City and he gets in with them and he tried to do just what they did,wasn't lon g befor e he was dead~ 1;/hat is it you have in your liver when you drink alot? Page 6 LK Oh Sclerosis. AW Sclerosis of the liver, um hum, so I swore then I would never marry again cause I was still quite young. LK Was it a pretty painful thing to go through? AW No not too much, I didn't have sense enough to realize exactly LK AW what it was all about, I guess, and ) ah .I missed him of course but, I worked all the time,so , . . What were you doing? I was waiting table in Cafes there, black cafes, ~ee in the South all of the businesses where Blacks go are Black, because they couldn't attend white clubs and they couldn't go to whi te hotels, so everything that1 J ,the blacks had thats where you got a job b /t.'l.c.k picture shows and every thin g , But now its mixed, but then it wasn't. LK Were you earning some good money ? AW Oh yes, and I get alot of tips. 0~ it was good for the time people paid $7.00 (Seven dollars) a week. )hat was a whole ,:/) i /-U.{fl'~ I N..-r dollar a day, and there were many men i,,.;/;'0 ;.;t/!P j/ weren't getting but six dollars a week. So r I ~ was a time when people didn't make alot of money, but we reall y didn't need alot of money, because at that time bread was five cents a loaf, butter was twenty cents a pound, and you could buy ten or fifteen cents worth of meat and have enough for yo ur family, But those days are really gone forever , because I looked rrJ. e,.i-kr ,.,.,.,;,.. f at a loaf of bread at the store/\called Hawiian bread ~ $1. 79 a loaf. Page 7 LK I know, How much would you bring in on tips? AW Oh, from five to six dollars sometimes more, see by me being younger then some of the men were flirting, they would leave fifty cents or a dollar, which was a big tip, at that time. AndH~o~ttill had quite a social life for Blacks, alot of clubs and alot of formal dances, night clubs and things like that, so you had plenty of places to go and lot to do,~o when I moved out here I'll never live in this joint, nowhere to go and nothin to do, cause you see, we were out to Hill Field thats where they had us, and they took one of the barracks the soldiers had lived in and made it a civilian Barracks, and all the ladies lived in the Civilian Barracks and they had a j UurJ thQC would in between the I mens barracks and the womens barracks to try and keep the men out, But those men got so smart; those Airmen, that when they would see ~m pass they'd jump over the fence and come in. I'd hear men talking in the barracks all the time; scared me to death, because I wasn't going with any of the fellows at that time. LK What happened to make you leave Houston? AW Well, they were asking women all over the countr y to come and work at these different plants ~ ,\ JI LK Who were they? AW The Government, Uncle Sam, had big posters in all Post Offices and everything, because they were trying to put all available men in~A service, ·r he only men who didn't go to service were old men and men who were not able to go, like they had wooden legs and crippled and all kinds ' you had to ha ve some Page 8 ailment that they felt that you weren't able to be an airman or a soldier of some kind,so when I took the examination they gave me a choice of going to New Orleans or Seattle or here. LK Why didn't you just stay put in Houston, why did you want--- AW They didn't want me in Houston they didn't have a camp there I mean they didn't have a place for you to work there. They didn't have an Airfield there;you had to go where , I there were Air Fields, wAa~eye~ branch of service you were taking your thing for.If it were Marines, you would have to go where the marines were trainingJ see when I first came here they put me out on cutting out,. fhey put in what they called the wood work shop. LK Let me ask you something why did you decide to leave your job as a waitress in Houston and go elsewhere ? AW Well, because they were offering more mone y and I had gotten so tired of the same thing,just a runnin every night, dead tired every day. LK Were you going out to the clubs that yo ur talking about? AW Yeah, we even had clubs, we had what we called a workin g girls club, and I belonged to that and we had ~.,,.,k"..t. We hadAthe top of the building there called the masonic ,.,;_() (,l- Temple and we had parties and dancesAthere Awhich you had to 1,;,( have evening clothes every night. We didn't char geAto come " J, ,;;r92~k' ,ft·r . in but 1.v ;J. /I drinks up there. S::-ee you could sell drinks in Houston, a nd we sold drinks and we sold food, wh i ch took care of the rent, and I bought an old Juke box J put up there so when they come in~we didn't have bands they could dance by the Juke bo x , I brought it out here when I came, h a d it Page 9 ]. It in my basement when I lived1 t4lV', /first marr i,~ctl LK So all this time you were working in Houston and going to this club you didn't get married again? AW No , I d i d n ' t r_i e v e r ma r r y a g a i n i n Ho u s t o n ,, .J... ;.- ~JO ,Qc?. Jj di.. never marry again. But when I came out here I'd get lonesome/ ·*_ _ ...,. v cause~in the day I was gcvv,':J !.\"'1..,\... constantlyJ\doing something, #nd I had friends to go with, you know I had three women; four of us that used to run around together we'd get taxies and go to dances. LK Do you remember the~R names? AW um hum yeah, one of them lives here, she moved to Los Angel e s but she used to come visit me every August, and she liked it here so well she went home and told her daughter, she said, 'You know Alberta can sleep without her doors being locked.' At that time we could. Cause many nights I'd close the door and forget to lock it. Of course I don't do that anymore. And all the windows would be up in summer time. And she said we can't do this in Los Angeles. We have to have irons on all our windows and irons on aLL our doors. People are so treacherous that you go the store and you are afraid to come out with your groceries because someone will knock you down and take your groceries and grab your purse. I said, 'Well, how do you live there?' And she said, 'The smog is just killing my eyes. And here it's so nice I don't have that smog in my eyes. ' Well, she went home. Her name is A.L. Mathews. Her daughter married when they moved here. Her dau g hter wasn't Page 10 married when they moved here, but she did marry. Do you ever ~ remember Donald Cope that used to work for the gove~or? LK I remember his name AW And he was the black Odds, Oddsman. LK Onbudsman, yeah,I know that AW Well, her daughter married Donald Cope after they moved here. LK So you used to run with her, down in Houston. AW Yeah, we were real good friends, um hum, and another friend of mine, she lives in Los Angeles, and every year when I go down to San Bernadene, I always go to visit with her a day. LK What did you women do, down there together? AW Oh, we all worked in the day time. LK Did you all work on the same job? AW No we worked on different jobs,some of them were cooks for rich white people, and after I quit waiting tablef, one of them got me a job working with a cateress, so I made a lot more money than I, then I started making $1 5 .00 a week, with my board and room, and~ ' LK Did you wait catering food? um hum, and she owned this caterer,she only worked for all AW the people who had oil wells, and things, cause wasn't anybody else able to pay her. Stella charged so much LK So? i~ AW So I learned the work of,you know,learned howAdo all kinds of fine cooking and things working with her. LK Sounds very nice. AW But, see when I got this job out here I was getting $50.00 a month with a promise of a raise within three months. Page 11 LK Now, what year was it when you first looked into coming out here? AW 1942, LK 42? AW Um Hum, so we had to go to the Post Office and take an exmination, and there was three or four young girls that had taken it long-er than me, I say women about 22 and 23 I was a little older than that, then I was about 26 or 27, so I passed it and he called me to come to the post office and select where I'd like to be placed. Well, I got two sisters that live in Seattle, I didn't want to go there, I wanted to go some place I didn't know anybody, and I knew alot of people in New Orleans, cause we used to go to New Orleans, every year for Mardi gras, cause it was just $13.00 around trip from Houston so we'd go to New Orleans every year for Mardi gras so I knew alot of people in New Orleans. I didn't want to go anyplace I knew anybody. LK How come? AW I was just tired and felt like I wanted to start over again so I came here and, first I found when I got here was a man came in here from Houston, I was waiting in the train station I had called Hill Field and told them I was here I came on the train, Union Pacific,and I had called and told them I was here so they say well just stay there we'll send a jeep after you. So in about 30 or 40 minutes the jeep came for me and my bags and took me out to Hill Field where I work­ed, and they had this barrack, as I say, fixed up as a womens Page 12 barrack. So we stayed in that and LK How did it look to you here? AW Oh, barren and I wasn't used to no little town, you know, and I said oh my goodness I'll be so glad. Well when you signed up you signed up for two years. LK Was that what it was? AW Um hum, and I said well I'll be so glad my two years up so ;!_ 1V:.J-I can go back to Houston and live. This is exis~ you got :,J ,t here this i~Aliving, but you know after I stayed here a year they let me go home for a vacation, my grandmother was still living so I went home to see her. I went to Houston,to see some of my friends that I knew there and then I came on back out here & They said how do you stand it. I said I wish I knew. So when I came back I found out a colored lady owned a hotel right across the street from the Union Station, was originally from Houston, and I knew her in Houston, but I didn't know she was here. '::he was in Kansas City the last time I heard from her. ,he had married in Kansas City and she and her husband came out here during the war and opened this hotel. Cause, they had Ogden was a train center at that time, and they had so many trains com-ing in when these porters would come in they didn't have any where to stay. So the porters would stay there in her hotel., and she had a cafe in the bottom. She rented that to some-body else, and when I found out Mrs. Davis was here, why then I get off from Hill Field, on Saturdays, I'd come to town Page 13 and stay with her Saturdays and Sundays and go back Sunday evening. LK What was it like seeing her again? AW Oh, it was just like seeing somebody related to you that you hadn't seen in years. So then she introduced me to my Husband Jimmy, he was living there, and he had a car, so he would,he saidJ don't catch the bus I'll take you back to the Field.~o he started taking me back to the Field, each Sunday night when I'd come back, seeJ otherwise I'd come back on the bus. And the bus brought us right to the Field gate where I could J" i: off and go right on to the bu i 1 dings , but a/i(, · LK Did you have to wear a uniform? AW No, LK Just regular clothes? AW Just wore pants, but I had to ware safety shoes and safety glasses because I was using a Ban saw and they made ne w eLLf~ a safety ·+-n Q', ~ "" Ul.'l hel~et bec~use if that ban sa~ ~ great big saws 1 would break - sometimes that saw would fly back and hit you. LK Break in half kinda? AW Um hum. LK Just fly back? i::,WJ»L AW They'd fly bac~,have you ever seen a ban saw? LK No. ,,)> AW Some of them are~large as that window, and see I was cutting out guns out of wood, I don't what they did with all those , wooden guns: I guess thats what the soldiers would hr,·i/V Page 14 w /~ -the Airmen they were training with, you know, They were using them for training purposes and I'd cut out sometimes ; 1, '.,J 5 0 o r 7 5 g u n s a d a y , an d y o u ha d t o ah , +k:.. ban d ti ~;0 0. c o u 1 d be n d them any kind of wayJ You'd draw them and then you would cut them out of ply wood, and then they would go to the next machine Which would sand them like, so they wouldn't have splinters, and they would box them and sell them to all the different places where the ,the soldiers and whoever was training could ti-iv use them till~learned to use a gun, and then I got out of that and I went into buffing valves ... LK Buffing valves? AW um hum, for Airplanes, and of course that you have to wear safety glasses and a safety thing in front of you because of bristles, wire and they fall out, they jump all out. ,ometimes I would comb my hair and I would have bristles in my hairJ from those brushes. : These valves --- see) they'd get full of carbon on the plane and they'd bring them in ~""fhey looked like dumbbells, only they didn't have a double end, they just have that one end like a ball, and the other end is straight, and they'd stick them in the plane someplace and they'd get all the carbon on them , and they ' d come in and the y were j us t crusted • Tl :;;,- . I ?/t~ Astuck inside a board and I'd have to take them off of there and grind all that stuff off of them. LK What would you be using to do that ? AW This brush. This heavy brush. It was an electri c brush, and I'd have to wear safetj glasses and safety gloves and safety shoes, and I had that safety thing in front of me. LK A vest? Page 15 AW Um hum, and after the carbon was all off they'd shine just LK like silver and you put them in the clean board you had to cut board to put them on when you'd g~t them all done, ,ome of the Airmen would come and push them in to where-ever they going to put them into the plane, because they had B 29's out there like mad, out there then, and that's where I worked in the Airplane shop where they were doing these Airplanes, Rnd then before they would get t ha i one gone, here they would come with another one, so you were con­gt. P o J(. stantly buffing 1 valves, as they called it. Well after I married1 my husband insisted that I qui~ so a fter he bought a home and everything I did. Where did you move too, where was the home? AW We bought a home right down the street here on Stevens, we bought a duplex, so it would help pay for itself, and it had a two room house in the back , and , ah I after 11 ye a rs we s e per a t e d , and I go t +hQ. home and he got, he had all kinds of movin g picture equipment, because he was a movin g picture burr-had a dark room in the basement and everything, Hnd I had put my victrola down there and we had kind of a ba r down there where we would have "vh(e/ I •' fun, you know, ;\ w~d come f r cm danc1~s aild t hin~s. /_) €//, of course, then I had started liking Utah, and wasn't planning to go bac k to Hou sto n anymore, and after we seper a ted; at- 11 y e a rs, I d ecide d I didn't page 16 want that home because the people in the duplex were too noisy• They played their music too loud and if you said anything to them, and I had so much trouble with people that were on welfare, and would slip out after they were there a month and wouldn't pay rent, so I sold it after a while, after I bought this house and moved here, But I bought this house after I was single, and I had one ')'ii '' lady ask if I would like to help her serve a party and I told her,"yes/ )o we went to the to the ·I ~ a 1 Br owning:;-/ t.,..)o we~some of the richest people here in Ogden, his father was the one who invented the Browning rifle, so after that they got me to cook all the birthday kids and grandkids .... for the LK That was a full time job? AW No, I didn't work anyplace full time.ns I say)after you learn from the caterer you learn they can't pay you enough to keep your regular~ , LK )teah. AW But, I'd just go prepare special meals for them. LK I see. AW And I would do it for Thanksgiving,~Christmas,and though I had worked for Mr. Browning, since 1960 ' even every year he still sends me a $100 (one hundred dollars) for Christmas. LK So nice. AW Um hum, and he has alot of things named after him, he rV has a Browning Theater,down inAStation,and he has a Browning Armory, Page 17 /1, ·1 / Out on the other side of · Washington Terrace.Oh Lord, we don't have time to go into a meeting in this wi!Y-ld, LK It's a good w;\vJL AW It is. LK Let me ask you a little bit about what Mrs Davis's Hotel like? Remember when you were first going there? AW Well it was just a room for men, and a ..... LK What did it look like on the inside. AW Have you ever seen this place down on 25th Street, just painted red now, her daughter sold it to the group here that rehabi-litate people who are on dope and drinking, ~t's right off Wall Ave. it's on 25th and right off of Wall before you get to 25th, it's a big red building right across the street from the station. LK Yeah, yeah; I've seen it , AW Yeah, now that was the Hotel, that was the Davis Hotel,when I came here, and she named it the Royal Hotel later ... ( / 1.:.:;,·~·,<'u/c·) Vhen I first came here because as I say we couldn't go in #one of the white hotels or none of the White clubs, so most of the Blacks here had come from Bv rmingham, Kansas City, where they were accustomed to doin g those thin g s among themselves~ So those who moved here, did the same thing here, and most everybod/J, from Kansas City .... when I first came here was LK Really? AW Because these Airmen, I mean these Porters & waiters, they were bringing them out of Kansas City, the y 'd come here Page 18 and they would go on to California, and this is where the y would lay of fJ so they lived here most of them, H.nd these are the people who came from Kansas City, who started all these clubs and had Black Cafes, and things here. We had a good life here.Ve had a lot of fun , It made me think more of Houston then, because I'd been here then about twenty or twenty-five years. Course now I' ve been here since 1942, so you know that I've been here longer here than I've been anyplace else. LK Which were some of the big name clubs at that time? AW Oh they had one called The Cameo Girls,and I belon ged to one called the La Vo~~~ s ... LK The La V 09 u.es? ,J s1..:fi'··:...::.,:-, AW Because the y were!Jto be the best dressed, o nl y served Champa gne at our meetings, but I didn't drin k so I didn't stay in it long cause I'd have to help buy Ch amp a g n e w he t he r I d rank i t o r n o t. /-::;_ n d I w a s n ' t /;v ., I/ 1,,y to buy Champagne for other people to d rink all the time, so I finally got out of i t. I don't th i nk I'm much of a Club person anyway, cause I don't li k e t o go to meetings all the time. LK Did you en j oy the d a nc i n g? AW Oh yes, I love to dance. LK But you didn't drink ? AW No, I never did drink in my life. LK Why is that ? r AW Cause I didn't like it~ I tasted i t and Aburnt me, I didn't want nothin g hurtin g me , I wouldn' t eve n pl ay bal l wh e n I wa s a c h i ld ca use o n e time t h Pv l,;t- m ~ .. ~ +-t.. Page 19 the ball. I'm Allergic to being hurt~ LK How did the clubs at that time, you know,the clubs make money? How did they keep going? AW Well, they met once or twice a month at different homes and they all paid dues, Then they'd have a pay dance before their formal dance, which would pay for the formal LK M1/l; 111~1,;dJ the clubs would be open every night? AW Oh no, they weren't that kind of clubs, they were just formal clubs. Like you'd get a bunch of your friends and they'd meet at your house and you'd decide to lets have a club and call it "such and such" a thing, And it wasn't a night club .... J~ , LK ~Wasn'tet 1'· / ' -b d (.,b. AW It was just clubs where people would join and ... LK Social Clubs? AW Have social life together, yeah, and then they paid dues so much a month, or so much a month for their dues, LK You paid dues for the a ..... AW For the La Vogue ? Yeah we paid $2.00 a week, yeah every Sunday when we had our meeting, we met on Sunda y after church. We paid $2.00 every week. LK That's a pretty steep fee. AW Well, we had alot of affairs free, I and . ai1, we had free dinners and free luncheo~ and Style shows we charged for, and many things ,,,. _, many things that we could char g e for, you know, cause when we would rent the White City ,.,_,;- rt- P"- Ba 11 Ro o mh th a t was e x p e n s i v e a n d we ha d t o p a y f o r a band which was expensive, and then w~l have free punch Page 20 for them to drink.But the people who didn't attend the pay affairs didn't get invited to the free affairs, so it made people come if they wanted to be invited, And I think all the clubs had the same policy, They had a bunch of them around here at the time. LK Cameo1 La Vogues? Wh~t were some of the other names? AW Oh, my goodness thats been so long ago that I've forgotten. I know they had a club that just played pakeno all the time, 'They used to have dances and parties and I've forgotten the name of it, ~nd they had the Rosebud ,, Club, that was the younger womens club than ours, Ve were more mature women. LK That's a great name for it l too. The "Rose ·- Bud," ihats v'rty visual .. AW And the men were the Beaubrummels. LK The what names? AW Beaubrummels. LK How do spell that? AW Beaubrummels LK Bu AW Beau LK Brum AW Brummels, Beaubrummels, and any dance that they had if you didn't wear a tails and High hats you couldn't get in, -{hat club was exclusive like the La Vogues, if you came up there semi-formal you didn't get in. You had to wear an evening dress and all evening attire. LK I . . I That's high fall..L./-11V .. ,.,: , I AW YeahMthey were accustomed to it, and I was too in Houston Page 21 so, cause we had two or three clubs in Houston you couldn't go to without evening attire on. LK How are these clubs different from some of the night clubs like the Porters & Waiters club or that AW Oh, they were classy, °They had one they called the Golden Peacock in Houston, and you couldn't come there with, , l/1, d 1r11 +h,.-r like these kids dress now in Jeans and shirtsh none of them would have been able to come in cause you had to wear Tuxedos, they just had to wear evening dressesr --)hey were select~n the groups that they had. So that brings you up to what I've told you about my li f e here. 1 LK Now, now, now, now, now wait a second, llon' t Pus./f away yet ~ AW It's one o'clock and I've just got to get dressed. Page 22 ORAL HISTORY INSTITUTE ALBERTA WEST May 22, 1984 Interviewed by: Leslie Kelen LW Where have you met Mrs Davis? AW I met her in Houston, in 19, see I came out her in 42, so I must have met her during the 30's, because she married and left there and mo~ed to 'Kans~s City. LK What was she doing when you met her? AW I don't know of anything she was doing, I didn't know her to have a job, I don't know what she was doing to tell you the truth. I think she was somebody's secretary, but whom I don't know, I met her at dances, : hey used to have alot of dances in Houston, and I met her at the <lane$, and that's the only time I seen her .. . because she didn't belong to the same church I did and we didn't meet any place else except at dancesiso that's the only place I knew her from being at the dances. Pnd she always wore such beautiful clothes . She was a pretty lady,a very pretty person. LK So, did you just meet her once, in Houston? ~ AW r h, I saw her alot of times at the dances, I mean I never visited her and she never visited me~Wr~ 1 d just talk when we'd see each other at dances, because she was originally frvm Louis~na, and I was originally from Austin, Texas, so we had nothing in common except t~ friendship,m~eting at dances and things, and then when I came out here and saw her out here that was the first tim~ fld s eeh her · since she left Houston, and moved to Kansas City with her husband. LK How did you meet her again here ? AW Well, she had this Hotel here , and I came out here to work Page 23 for Hill Field in 1942, and one of the gentlemen over in the station was originally from Port Authur, Texas.nnd I told hi~ I thought when I came to Ogden, I was going some place I wouldn't see anybody in the world I knew and here the first thing I do is see you here; Duke, cause he was from Port Arthur,~o he said there alot of people here d ,, Texas. said, Lee just right across the street, ou mean " ti 11 Leager Davis? Yes, he said, she has a Hotel. LK Is that her first name Lisa? AW "L-e-a-g-e-r" Leager. I LK L-e-a-g-e-r? Wow,thats an unusal name. AW Well, I have another fr:ientl named that in Los Angeles, and +h t'.v( f{(. both from Louisana. LK Leager Davis. AW Um hum, LK So this guy told you where she was? AW He said, she has a hotel right across the street, and there's Josephine Mate, stays right there and she's from Houston, you know her# Qnd when he started naming the people, I said my goodness I thought I was going some place there wouldn't be anybody I knew. ~ut I didn't have time to go see her that day because they sent a jeep from the Field to get me and my bags and take me out to Hill Field , gut when I could get off they had a bus that bring me to town, I came to towh·· on the bus and went to her place, and we really became friends after I came here, cause whenever I came to town that's where I'd go would be down to her place.I knew her better than I did the other lady that was here cause she's dead now. ·J Page 24 LK Josephine Mate? 1( AW Um hum Li~er told meJ Josephine lives down there. Yes Duke told me the day I came on the train , ~o they had a picnic~ .She invited me to come into the picnic.It was up in the can- I yon, and thats where I met my husband up there 1cause we weren't married at the time. ~ o he started coming out to the field and getting and taking me back whenever I was off on Sat-erdays and Sundays and we eventually got married. He was rooming there at Mrs Davises. LK What was her place like on the inside? AW It was lovely, real lovely cause she had an apartment o f her own up there,that was beautiful,beautiful furniture , Rnd +he~ she had a club in the basement,that the American Legion ran it, -Yhey had dances down there, and all kinds of parties, course the upper two rooms were up second and third floors were rooms where the Porters stayed when they came here. A11 that didn't stay at the Porters & Wa iters club - that was around on 25th street ~ }hen she had a real nic e business then, and then she eventually, she had a Cafe in there but, she couldn't have time to run it, and run the Hotel 1 too. So she rented the Cafe out~ d i fferent peo-ple. LK Where was that, the Cafe? AW It was in the Hotel. LK On what the Ma i n F l o or ? AW Yeah the main floor. um hum, The main floor she just ha d a t1v 1:-L big living room downA with chairs like a lobb y , and then J Page 25 this Cafe. And on the next floor she had her apartment M and a few of the rooms where the porters stayed. r~·nd the third was all rooms for the porters. That Hotel is still there. It's being · usede. ·-lhey painted it red though it wasn't red in her life time. LK What was it? AW It was just a natural Brick. She had a daughter in Los Angeles Who came and stayed with her till she died, Doris Armstrong, and she bought her a group of , a h,Duplexes, I think t wo right together there; they had three in each one, so she'd have a way of making a living without working so hard, 8ut she was a beauty operator . LK The daughter? AW :? ! Um hum, but 111 -f!U( /.ft:. y1i{.I.. l t O O k s i C k ' >f,'IG. g O t s O s i C k s he C O u 1 d n I t do anything. She came and sta yed until sh e died, and ; of course 1 j ' •) :,/? e ~-: !, i,.i_ the h ot e 1 and she had a great bi g warehouse in the back , L K What did she do the ge :'._ AW We 11 , she kept a 11 the furniture , that , she ' d bu'{. furniture that, she'd but furniture from people when the y 's mo ve and want to sell it, then whenever something was broken in the hotel she'd put it in there, ~twas fi l led with ol d furniture and stuff back ther e and Do ri s so 1 d it , s h e took ~1J1 i-.l. t- ~Id furniture out there and cleaned it up and h a d aB Antique sale, sold all those old dressers with marble tops and those old washst a nds that h a d the place in th er e wh e re y o u h a d th e bowl a nd p i t c h e r, years ago . Sh e ma d e g ood mone y on all that stuff Lea ger had back there in th a t wareh o use. And then she sold the hotel and the war e hou s e . I thi n k she o(.d: •,J Page 26 $60,000 for it. For the hotel. I don't know what she got for the warehouse. Cause she lived in Los Angeles and she went on back home. After her mother passed and she got rid of all that stuff in the hotel, she had a sale down there for three or four day~ rummage sale, and antique sale, selling all that old furniture she had up there in different rooms and things. More people bought it~ One man said he was going to take some ,, 1'11 00(.\ can't furniture remover and polish remover and get down to the ~ .. oN all those things. /\said that this is good stuff, you ( , / I ,• buy it any more-its mahogany stuff., :::>o he brought a truck there and he bought a truck load of that stuff. 6ut to us it was junk, I guess we didn't know enough about it to know how to remove the stains and the paints on it1 you know; to get down to the natural Wood, didn't appreciate it that much. LK Did he turn around and sell it again? Maybe ? AW I don't what they did with it. I know one man came down there and bought a load~ Sut I know she sold alot of things J LK What kind of stuff went on in that club in the Hotel in the American Legion Club? AW They have it here yet,there on 27th. LK In those times,during the war years ? AW ; , .i They just had dances down there +- ,;;o f(. drinks . LK Did they have bands? AW They'd have bands 1 when they'd have a dance , but re g ularly they just had that victrola in there. What do the y calli page 27 call them now? They called them victrolas then? LK Record Players? +l'd' AW Yeah,Um hum, and they would dance on that whenAcome do wn tfl.\Y whenAdidn't have regular dances, just come down to ha v e a drink or sit and talk, if they wanted to dance. LK Were there alot of young women around in those days ? AW Yeah, cause everybody thats old now was cause I was young then. "There were alot youn g then, ~o,cny of)I women then. S~e all these porters and waiters came in here from Kansas Cit y , they brought their wives, who were youn g women. Rlot of them have died here~ .5'"ome of them when they moved the tr a ins to Los An g elBs, those who wer e still working 1 went to Los Angel~s. but those who had retired and bought homes here ; the y stayed here. LK Which were the good lookin g youn g women, that you reme mber back in those years? AW Good looking? LK Which were the names of the people that came t og ether that came to that club that c me to mind ? AW Ophelia Fullerton was a very good lookin g woman and she was from Kansas Cit y . 'nd ther e was a Luci l le Franklin she was here for a month from Det roi~ ~ e r husb a nd ~is ' I - _c;·( rn-it1 1/7 v11}}-- on the r a i 1 road. I don ' t know if he was a ,:; chaircar Por:~r or because some worked in th e Bar on the tra i n a nd some wo rk e d i n th e dinin g room, s o me coo k ed # I don't know the jobs that each of them had, but the y all had wives here. Page 28 hai Pnd many of them~families. LK Were there many single women here like you? AW Oh, there were alot of single women here When I first came ;f,J. f).,<- here~ was about 5 single wom~rr to every man here~ --/hey say Utah had more single women than any place in the United States at one time. That was during the forties. But they brought all those Airmen in here and alot of them got married and left and alot of them got married and stayed, so there are not that many now but there were alot of single women f. 1 here J cause they came to work out here during the war4 Hnd those are the women they gave these jobs to~ -rhey didn't give them to married women 0 v/omen that came out here to work were mostly single, and they had three bases here~ -;fhey had the Naval base, and the Army, and the Airforce ... LK They had a Navy Base here? AW Um hum, It's still here. They've got a Navy Base here way out on Second street, a big Naval Base here. feople JtJ are still working ou t there. They~renovating of ships and things and they send them away from here to the coast. They've got a full force out there now~ You should go out there and see it , 1t's out on second street. LK Would that make alot of competition for the men 1 between the women? AW No because there were so many of them here that they could choose and then were alot of them who wasn't that faithful . They had husbands and sweethearts too, cause their husbands I were gone on the train, and when one train was out another a ~ ~ Page 29 was in. 5:"~ some of them had boyfriends almost every train. Train would come in from Denver we'd have a crew they'd come in and spend the night and the next day they would go on to los angeles or San Francisco, or where ever. Then they ht i.'-<.. would have a train come inAfrom Kansas City and they had one from St Louis, and a lot of these women were single women 1 couldn't get anybody cause the married women had them all. That was the way it was when I first got here,for a long time. LK Sounds like a AW I used to think that Ogden was about the worst place I've LK .T>,ucL ever seen in my life. / this is almost as bad as Sodom and Gomora in the Bible ... because as fast as their husbands would leave1 the next man would come in, /hey' l be at the ~ .SI•• Jl station to meet him, And I ' d never seen it . I\ if they );""'l j <!~ ·r'- """ all this they would have been dead a long time ago, because the men 1· n t h e E ast didn't take that kind of stuff~ 8ut some of these men knew it and didn't do anything about it. Rnd some the railroad men were the ti:tlkint')(men did ;., -/ hey said in .the ·world. Th~y'd get on the railroad and hit to let you know about your wife going with somebody if they knew about it. So it wouldn't be too long if your wife did know it, I me an i f y o u r h u s b a n d d i· d "' i --I If ll-"··- I ;· ; ' '- "' /) it ) l'} f!c,:.,· , !, ( c.l He ' d kn o w · ). :.,, ;) f- / l t ;r/J, ,Oil(l/t /lk.. {/ D/1,.Q(', ....... (,) . .J . J /.~ . / V r • / '- , AW Yeah .. LK That's funny I hadn't thought about th e / ,,?.:::,· . ·, ' I • • / 1 . - ) • ., -- as page 30 AW Well, they were together for five days. See, each train left here and was gone for five days before they'd come back. And they said most of the men had women in Los Angeles or San Francisco or Kansas City, wherever they ran to and would stay all night. So it was just a double thing. I guess they understood it with each other. I don't know. LK Sounds like it was working on both ends. AW LK AW Those who did that. There were some who didn't. always going to be an exception. You mean the exceptions were the ones that didn't. you were really shocked by that? There's And I had never seen that like that. No, I'd never seen it in Houston. Women didn't play around like that. If they did, there didn't nonbody know it. LK So this was really out in the open. AW LK Yeh, well their husbands were out of town. have to hide from. I don't know. The next door neighbor? What did they AW The next door neighbor was probably out doing the same thing. If they were railroad men's wives. Of course, there were alot of people here that weren't railroading. They were at Hill Field. Lived here in town and worked out there. They had alot of them. every available man in the service. Because they took That's the reason they were sending women here to work because they were doing what men should have been doing. They were painting Page 31 fhings and working in the Airplane shops, woodwork shops , everything! women did all that during the war. LK How did you fit into that atmosphere of painting? AW It was different, but I was just drafted for two years, So I knew I could go back home in two years, and pick up my life again,! knew I could do it for two years,because they paid more money than I was getting in Houston, and I wanted to open a Hotel that was really my reason for coming out here. Cause I say I can't save no money in Houston going to parties and dancing and buying clothes. LK You wanted to open a hotel? AW Because at that time all the Black orchestras, like Louie Armstrong, Jimmy Lunsford, and Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, they couldn't stay in the white hotels in Texas , They had to stay in individual homes. ~o whoever would book them, would be some Black man that would know real nice people who had real nice homes. He would call them and ask them could you take Duke and his piano player or Duke and his trumpet player who brings his wife could you take a couple. They stayed around at different homes, thats how I met Louie ; they sent him to my house > He and his valet. LK In here, when he came into town? AW No, that was in Houston. LK Oh that was in Houston? AW Yeah, they had Hotels here for them, but there they didn't. They couldn't stay in a white Hotel, so the y put them in nice homes. Page 32 LK So he came to your home? AW Yeah, the man who booked them in there1he knew all the people in Houston that had de cent homes, mine wasn't no show place or nothin, but it was nicer than most. LK Did he pay you? AW Yeah they paid you, they paid you good. And if they en-joyed it and you prepared meals and things for them you got a big tip, and got more than just for the room. Some would eat at Cafes, people who were working and couldn't prepare their meals for them. LK Was Louie Armstrong already pretty famous when he stayed with you? AW Was he what? LK Pretty famous when he stayed with you? ~ AW No, Not like he was before~died, no. Most of these bands were just starting out. They were young bands ~~ ~~ and they would come there and play/at the Majestic Theater. Which was a big theater there. Then people would hire them when they got through.If they wanted to stay in Houston two or three days, they'd hire them to play for dances at different places, people had night clubs and places. They would hire them and pay them to play. I know if they had been famous then they couldn't afford it to have had them, cause ~ t they would have charged too much at that time. 11hey were just beginning to climb. LK Did you take to Louie Armstrong, did you like him? AW I liked him as a friend. He wasn't my type of man Page 33 no kind of way. LK What was he like when you first met him? How do you remember him? AW Oh, he was a nice person- He's very accomadating, ~e was nice to have as a room mate" He didn't bother you, He'd go in his room, he and his valet, and they'd stay in there till time to go to the dance, unless he paid me to fix him some red beans and rice or something he particularly liked. LK Was that a favorite dish of his? AW Yeah, that was his favorite dish. served in New Orleans. That was a dish that they LK Red Beans and Rice like Kidney beans? AW Yeah LK He must have been a young man. AW He was. They were all young. We were young, all of us were young at that time. LK What was his trumpet like in those days? Did you go hear Him? AW Yeah, I went quite often to hear him. I went to the Majes­tic once, but I didn't like to go up there, because you had to go up too many steps. Then they didn't let the Blacks sit on the main floor. You had to go up to what they called upstairs. I'm saying we paid the same price so I didn't appreciate that. So I only went once to hear him at the Majestic. But when he playeQ for the dances, I'd be going to the dances so naturally I'd hear him. Cause there would two or three night clubs there. One called the Golden Peacock,and one was the Page 34 Masonic hall, ·~one was the Pivian Hall, .fnd when he played at those places that's where we went for dances. So naturally I would go there and dance. bO I heard him every time he'd come. LK Did you like his style of playing? AW Yes. LK Did he have that raspy voice back then too that ... AW He always had that. I think he was born with that. LK He had an unusual voice. AW Um hum, F:::>g , Horn the boys in the band used to call him. LK Frog horn? AW Fog Horn, LK Fog Horn? (J-r,;li AW 11 All the different muE:i<.ians and different ones stayed in different ones homes. LK So, there were was some other people doing in Houston what you were doing in terms of ... ? J ;J,,_,j / 'i'.:?c·;p.<l' c.c;1 - AW LK Oh, they had to. I couldn't take a whole band. I just had two bed rooms and a dining room, and a kitchen and living room like I've got here, course I've got a bedroom in the basement here. Those houses there don't have basements cause we don't have furnaces. We don't have that kind of coal. People just have little gas heaters, or wood heaters. Nobody has basements. I never seen a basement till I went up to Kansas to school. That's: funny, ments so much. Seems so natural I've been around base- Page 35 AW All your life, hun? LK More or less,but ... AW Well you see nobody had furnaces ., We didn't have that much coal. We were right on the gulf of Mexico. We get warm ;.. ,·12. almost the year around. LK Right, right. AW This is the first ye~r they've ever had snow in Houston that stayed on the ground long enough for people to see. '-fhis has been unusual weather everywhere all over the United States, this year. LI Yeah, so how much money did you think youJ save to get a Hotel? How much did you think you'd need? AW Oh, I even sent off took a course in it. Cause I didn't want to go into it without knowing what I was doing. I took a correspondence course from Louis Hotel training. LK While you were here in Salt Lake, I mean, in Ogden? AW Yeah, while I was here. At nights when the other kids was out,women would out in the hall playin' checkers p /11-vj · r' '.r' andAwhatever they played bridge or something, I'd be in there studying and getting my lessons. They had rec l pies of how to prepare for 50 people, a 100 or 200; just whatever: re c , pies for all kinds of things. You would have to answer your sheets and send them back and get graded. In the end you get a diploma, in Hotel management. If you didn't want to open a place of your own1 they'd get you placed someplace. They promised you a job. But I didn't want to be placed because I wanted to open my own hotel. Page 36 L W We ' 11 d i d y o u t h i n k y o u ' J d o i t he r e o r b a ck i n . . . ,J-fc :v, )i-.,, AW No; I was going to do it in Houston. They didn't need it here,Mrs Davis, there were two black hotels here,ihey didn't need no Hotel h (l!( f . ,, ~ey had the Porters and Waiters. They had plenty places for them to sta y here. Mrs Davis would keep all the bands that would come -i-1,i. h. i l+c k. here, and all the baseball~teams. End of side 1 , Page 37 AW I've got to go take some cough medicine, in fact I feel so bad I'm going back and lay down till time to go to the doctor. LK I'm sorry that I came late I try .... AW Well you didn't know that I was going to be feeling sick and having fever. I didn't know it myself. That's some-thing unusal,I haven't had a cold I betcha in two or three years. This weather has been so unpredictable. LK Well the winters been long. AW It's been one day warm and the next day cold. LK That's right. ~ AW I go out everyday regardless and~guess I just got chilled at sometime and took cold, I don't know. LK Did you say the baseball teams used to come through here too? AW Yeah, they came here. LK Do you like baseball teams? AW Um hum, They be on there way someplace, "They didn't pla y here, because there were nobody for them to play. Say for instance, they'd been to Los Angeles, they would be going back to Kansas City, but see that train stayed here all night. Another one would leave in the morning. So they would have to spend the night here and leave the next morning. They couldn't make connections at night. When they'd get in the other train would be go ne, probably. So they would spend the night here in Ogden. LK At Mrs Davises? AW Um hum. Page 38 LK How much would she charge for somebody to spend the night? AW I couldn't tell you I don't know how much she char ged for her rooms. I never ask people their personal business if they don't volunteer and tell me I ne ver know . I never knew how much she charged, but she had people who even stayed there all the time. LK Lived there? AW Um hum, cause my husband before I married him lived there. There were alot of men who just stayed there regularl y . LK So it was a good comfortable place. AW Um hum, yeah, she had an nice bathrooms and they were con-venient. She had nice rooms. LK Was there any difference between her place and the Porters and waiters? AW Oh yes, cause the Porter~ and Waiters had a bar in it, where they could drink. They had a gambling joint in the r;,,J back. A1hat was just for men. Where in her place; the men could bring their wives. Cause it was just a roomin g h o use. Just a Hotel, with a lobby 1 but that was all and the Cafe on the side there. LK Yeah. AW The Porters and Wai ters was nothing but me n, n o women co u l d JC.:,; go in there, let alone muchAstay there. When Mr Weekl y opened that place, there was no pl ac e for the P o rters to <;c stay. Jl He made a rr a n gements with the r a ilro a d to ope n t h i s place for the Porters to have someplace to sta y . So ma n y trains came in the y had to sta y over ni ght, and leave the ne x t mo rnin g and go in another dir ec tion. Page 39 So they said the railroad had Mr. Weekly open that place. They paid for the men to stay at the Porters and Waiters. h I d o n ' t kn ow w he t;,e r t h e y pa i d they did.~All of them couldn't stay at the Porters & Waiters. They didn't have that many rooms. LK Did they have a whole bunch of men .... AW Yeah, this was a railroad center. Ogden was a railroad center when I came here. LK So it wouldn't be a great big thing for a hundred men to stop in one night. AW Oh no, coming from Kansas City and St Louis, and from Denver and from Los Angeles, and Frisco, and different places that the trains came from. Most of the men that would come through here after they go to Kansas City they'd come through here and there wives would R:-t and meet them.~~hey would be goi ng jO d ~wn to the station thrv,,<:0 onAto Los Angeles or somewhere. There would be a five day trip before they would go all around their route and come back. To go to Kansas City. They'd go to Denver first, and then to Kansas City, St Louis, and then back here, and then to Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or San Bernadino or where e ve r the y were g oing. LK What a long trip. AW Yeah, it would be five days when most of them would go out before they would return. LK What was Mrs Da vis like, what kind of woman was she ? AW She was a beautiful person. She had a lot of business ,.S ,;-,-; ;;,.c ha ve.. lu l &t1/ ;r,v'>rlv t C, with,1men all the time. As I said she was a very prett y lady. Page 40 LK How did she get everything going the Royal hotel? AW Well, she and her husband moved here and opened it. Then he died. She already had it 1so she just kept it. She had a sister who came and lived with her until she died and helped her in the hotel. LK Did she have alot of men running after her because of her wealth and beauty? AW No, I don't think so$ I don't think she encourged any of them. You Know a man has to have a little encourgement and she didn't encouroiJ c. them. Most of them had wives where they were coming from. There's always going to be ., ., · J 1 . .j.(J + i-cy /Jl· ., ~-' , 1,,..- \... ) .., ,1 I. 7 ·. "' .,I some that ;\ -fO .f'JA-r _around. AThis won It get them anywhere. Because all she wanted was that money for that room. LK So she was a pretty good business woman? AW She had to be to stay in busine~s as long as long as sh~ did after her husband died. LK Did she ever ask you to help her? AW No>cause she knew I wouldn't, I always had something to frr../ do. I worked at Hill Field, nI had a home after I married ~ I I had a home LK What kinds of things would you and her talk about when you AW were together? Well i we both \then I'd get were from Houston and we knew everybody in Houston. r a letter1 I'd take ;, down there and let her read it~ I'd read it to her r we'd discuss different things at Houston,AShe still took the Black Paper from Houston. LK What was the name of that? Page 41 AW It was called uhe Informer. LK Informer? AW Um hum, and she had n ces down there and nephews and things. So she'd go to Houston to visit just like I would. See every year I'd get a vacation and I'd go back and visit cause all my folk lived in Texas. P.nd most of ) Liger's folks that didn't live in Texas lived in Louisiana. So whenever she ' d take a vacation she ' d have o.. /a c4,;-­.' J here to come and help her sister and she'd take a vacation. We never went together except one time we went to Hot Springs together. To a Hotel Convention. I went as her Secretary. ~.~ We had the best time in Hot Springs. LK Hot Springs what? AW Hot Springs, Arkansas. That's where the Hotel Convention was. And all the Black Convention owners from ... we met people from New Jersey, New York,different places that h .:-.0:: hotels LK Why did you go as a secretary? AW Well, I couldn't have stayed with her in the hotel that was just for delegates. LK Oh 1 I see. AW So I went as hP.r Secretary, and you know that Rockfeller was there then, I guess he still is. He had a beautiful home up on the side of the Mountain and he invited all the people from the Hotel Convention to come out to his place. He served i ti\.,\_ , V ht .. '\,. ,f 'J_,. ' t yZ,. us some Barbecued dinner out there. He had a Black man~ he had gone to school who was his supervisor of his ranch ' upon that mountain. He had alot of people working up there ; Page 42 And he even had a lake up there for them to fish in. LK Sounds like a world up there. AW It was. He just had an empire, really was an empire. A beautiful place. He had a main dining room cause he had entertained -r/-J-a 11 these different conventions that went toAHot Springs. flt'J.. ~He'd serve here and there. It was real nice. The other time when we'd get out of the meetings from the convention, wefd go to the race track, and dog track. There was alot going on in Arkansas. There were race tracks, and dog races and alot of places there where people catch fish and sell it. You get fresh fish there right on the water front. So it was alot of fun, we enjoyed it. Then they had bath houses there where you can take Artisian baths~ they had the Baptist bath house and.+h Pek~ bath house, cause we stayed ffe ;.e. in the Baptist Hotel. ;\ 9.t that time we were paying $21.00 a day for a room. LK ; Well thats pretty good price. AW Um hum. L K That ' s a pretty good price for (.,t r ..;,C' w1 in those days . that's fairly expensive. AW Well, that was way up in the fifties. LK In the fifties? AW Um hum, cause I came here in the forties. LK Right, right. What kind of mannerisms or gestures did Mr s .-, Davis have, do you remember,wh e n you think back on her ~ LK I've got a lot of pictures of he~ Cut that off and I'll Page 43 go get them. LK Did Mrs Davis ever have any difficulties with men and the business? AW I couldn't tell you that because I don't know. I didn't live down there with Leager 4 I just visited on week ends R;. ~ when I'd be away from the Field. If she had any she never told me, so I wouldn't know. LK Bu~ what I mean is,in terms of business. What were the kinds of things that she might of run into dealing with business? AW I don't know. I never worked in the Hotel then. So I couldn't tell you that, cause I really don't know. LK But the Hotel did well .. AW I·/ I .j Arnt she died, she kept it till she died, and she made a living, and she bought property in Los Angeles for she and her daughter. LK Did she ever have any big events at the Hotel, were there any kind of yearly events or parties? AW No, she only had rooms .She rented the place downstairs where she could have had dances and things. LK Did she ever do anything big down there? AW Not that I know anything about. Page 44 ORAL HISTORY INSTITUTE ALBERTA WEST May 29, 1984 Interviewed by Leslie Kelen LK What about yourhusband 1 Jimmy? AW Um hum, LK Where did he come from, do you know? AW He came from Youngstown,Ohio, But he came here from Butte, Montana, because he was at Butte, before he came here. LK What do you know about his early life? AW I don't know anything about his early life. I just met him here, and I went to Youngstown, with a friend of mine and we visited his mother and father. His daddy was the sheriff there in Youngstown~ ~e owned alot of property there. He had built a whole row of garages which he rented out to people who had cars. So man y people there didn't have one. No place to keep their cars. So in the winter time they would have as much snow, more than we do, so Dad would rentihf~ Garages to people who wanted to keep their cars and boats in. They came here and visited us one time. He bought a brand new Cadilac, and he and his wife drove down here. After we had been married about two years. LK How did Jimmy get to Butte, Montana? How lid that happen ? AW I couldn't tell you cause I don' t know I know he came here C11wi...'.... from Butte,Athe ma n h e lived there wit h, h e called hi s son . . {Ji.,.Y,.t He cam~~here two or three times to visit. He sent for me to come one time when he had a birthda y party, to prepare the food for his birthday party, and I did. It was awfull y cold Page 45 up there then, because his birthday was like about the third of /J."l,i ;1 December./,He told meJ Mama, get up its early: it's warmer today we going fishing right here at the Madison river. I said "Is the river froze?" "No", he said. "no around the I ) edges is meltediso we can fish right around the edges \ " We went down there he and his wife and I, and her father went with him. He had a camper and he had everything we fo,.!!. needed in that camper. Ait was ten below zero, and that was a warm day to go fishing. I had on so many clothes I looked like a Teddy bear. If I had fallen>I couldn't have gotten up to save my life. So we never did see people P,,.J' fish with maggots. They have tiny hooks. they put these maggots on them and just throw them in the water there. And you catch white fish. I caught two 1 I thin~ before he went and decided that he was going to walk out on the water. There was some open water in the c.~;i{r,l,) he ' s going to walk out there and get to that op~n ice I ;;,) , ,. / and j?v.Jt l&J ) ..,( 301- on that ice , l Z-broke . .\ he went down and it sure was good her father was with us,cause he ran into the camper and got a rope and throwed it to him. Then we tied the rope to the car and his wife pulled /fJ,~i / ,1/ out of that ice. He was so cold when h~ got out of there, but he had some red hunting underweR~ in the camp-er. So they put him in the camper and took all his clothes off and dried him off good, and had him put these red under-ware on. So then we had to come home. So I was the only one who caught any fish,because, while they were scrambling around there 1 I was putting my hook in and I .:::.,c.,y ,~·-t -/r. .--c . . - . . , ! -; i_I T1<1l.·f' dr: 1.s . a .3 ;;1,i"".( 1·'< o/I .I, 'IV"" i ' t:1 I ',<: {j /Ii- r._,. r, 7.J .,,., _ Page 46 LK How did your husband get to Ogden? Did he tell you? AW Well, he came here as a railroad man. Ogden was a railroad town. LK And did the railroad move him? AW Yeah, um hum. Yeah,the Union Pacific. LK 1'" Did they ask hlm to make a change from ButteAhere? AW Fru~ butte here. So he moved here. LK Did he get a new job here or did he .... AW No he worked for the railroad. LK He worked on the railroad but did his job chan ge? AW No. He didn't work on the railroad,he worked for the railroad. He was a Red Cap, 0."v the station. Then after he got here he found our he could rent that shining parlor there in the station and he rent e d the shinin g stand from the Union Paci f ic, they l e t him h av e it cheap just to keep it clean, and to keep th e mens rest room clean. He had two or three fellow s th a t wo rke d at Hill Field to come and shine shoes in the a f ternoon. At that time these trains were coming in one right be-hind the other. On the lK, way to San Francisc o , with all I these officers and men, and these offic e rs boot s. The y 'd go in there and have him shine them and it would c o s t them a dollar. LK Oh! 1).:t'\ AW Um hum, Course J i mmy would g i v e th e m~ in te r es t so h e co ul d get 50 cents of it. So he made g o o d off the r a ilroad-off of the Sh :r1i P a rlor th e re in the st a t io n. Page 47 LK I never knew he had that, you know. AW Um hume Well; after the train stopped, then they closed it. ~ ,-.J See~all the trains started being moved from here ~ .. ihe ~ changed Ogden from being a railroad center to have just about two trains a day coming in here and going out. There was one from San Francisco and one to Los Angeles, and that same train would go to Kansas City and St Louis before it would get back _s:., here.ftHe worked there till he retired. He retired from the railroad. LK What did he think of his job as a Red Cap. AW I guess he liked it he came here to do it, and thats what he did. That's what he had done in Butte. He worked at the Union Pacific. LK Did he make good money on tips as a Red Cap? AW Oh y ea h , h e ma d e g o o d b e c a u s e e v e r y b o d y k n e w h i m . _ &::,i1 r1 ~j cf come in they would ask for Jimmy, and if he was busy th ey 'd wait until he got through before the y would let anybody take their bags to put them on the train for them. So he made good money. LK Why did everybody want him ? I AW Well, he was courteous and knew how to jive people and thats what people like.I . had so man y people te ll me, since I've been going out to Washington Terrace, Mrs West, was Jimmy was Jimmy West related to you? I said :1 . Ji' yes, that was my Husband. " Well 1 he used to put us on the train all the t ime ". they said1 " my husband wouldn 't l et anybody take our bags but Jimmny". So he had a good clientel down there. LK What's its like hearing people say that about your husband ? Page 48 AW What was it like? LK No, what's it like when someone says that to you? about your husband? AW I thought it was nice. It shows he knows how to be courteous. People admired him. He made more money than any of the other Red Caps. LK Is that right? AW Because most of them would sit around and wait until he had gone to a train with a thing full of bags they would wait until he came back if they were catching the following train. See during the war those trains were coming through here just as fast as one would leave another one would come in. LK That must have beea really hectic. AW There were so many soldiers coming in here. And at that time Ogden didn't have these liquor stores where you could go in and buy liquor. You had to buy a permit for 50¢ to buy liquor. So a bunch of bums hung around down there toward the station and when these soldiers would come they'd let them use their permits to get their liquor. And alot of them(the soldiers) would give them money to go get it for them, cause a train wouldn't be there but about 30 minutes. So all these bums around here made alot of money even on those trains when they were coming in here. And then they took all the trains away from Ogden.I They don't have but one that goes through here now, and it goes to Portland and Seattle, Idaho Falls, Boise. That's the only train. All the rest of them go out of Salt Lake, so if you're gonna catch a train to go to Page 49 California or anyplace you have to go over to Salt Lake to catch it. LK I heard some stories about your husband being a very well I dressed man, wAo used to sometimes ... : r_ i.,.')t ', / AW He was.He had so many clothes it was pitiful . HeAbought everything that came in, 1~ nd he wouldn't bu y any car but a Cadilac, and everytime he'd buy out one he'd buy a new one. When he died he had a brand new Cadilac. LK Where would he buy his clothes? AW He'd buy them at Be ~ /~h Binghams and at what's the other store now, they are all closed now . I can't think of the name of the other place, but the y 'd call him and tell him "Jimmy, all your shirts are out:' They are ha v in g shirts now with no cuffs, and the same color collu r that's on the s hi rt. He'd go down there and buy mayb e six shirt s . When he d ie d he had about fifty suits of clothes, and he had one he had never had on, He'd bought a new white suit . At that time I was working over at the Community Center as a Site Mana g er, a n d he'd come down there each day and eat his lunch. He said, "I'm going to leave c a use I'm goin g to get s o me eggs, at the e g g house." After he ate he was alwa y s f o oli n with e ve ry-body th a t came in there. Ask i n g th e m t o ma rr y him, a n d t el l him how much he loved them and and all that k i n d of bunk. And he left there and got in his car and got a s far as 28t h Street, and got s o si c k he couldn't mov e , so o n e o f th e lad ies that lived there, she went out and said,"Jimm y ,what's the mat-ter?" , /) I ~ '- I ,, 11 ,1"'/ Mrs Coop , j1 I'm so sick that I don't k n ow what to do." ~o she s a id, " Well_. wh y don't yo u go down t o th e r a ilr oad. ·' Page 50 They had a place down there for the railroad men to come and had railroad doctors in there and get there medication and stuff. Jimmy used to tell me, they give you Aspirin for any disease you have or any complaint. The railroad moved it last year right after that flood, cause flood water was so high that people couldn't go down there for about a week or more. They moved way up on the hill. He went out and got in his car and drove on down there. When he got to the door, they all knew him down there because I/ he'd come on time. And one of the nurses came up and sai~ Jimmy what's the matter?" He sounded so sick and he said, "I'm hurtin' r i g h t h e r e s o b a d ;' 5he said, "Sit down and I'll call the Para-medics". She called the Paramedics, and when they got there he was dead. He died just that quick. He had a heart attack. That was about his second one he had. They told him that if he didn't quit smoking he was going to have another one. He said he could quit and he stopped for about a week. Then he started back again. And the Doctor told him that his condition was so that those cigarettes were just poisoning his system. But you know these people get so in love with cigarettes, whiskey and stuff, they can't seem to quit. LK How come he bought so much clothes during those years? AW Well, he was just a clothes fanatic. He told me that when he was a boy, his daddy never bought them any clothes out of a store already made. He had his and his brothers clothes all ta i lor made. Course his daddy . had a little mone y . As I told you he owned three or four rent houses there. Had all these garages he rented, and he was the sheriff, too. And they say he was one of those crooked sheriffs,would take money from people who had boot legging houses not to ra i d th em and Hll Page 51 stuff. When you~ crJoked you can make alot of money. LK That's true, espe_c:ially when you'N a sheriff. AW When he told me his dad never bought them clothes on a rack or nothin' it was already made,his dadd y had their suits made when they were little boys six and seven years old. So he was used to clothes. He'd had them all his life. LK He was used to special clothes too, huh? AW Um hum; He had alot of special clothes when he died . He had overcoats to match most of his suits. He had about 55 suits when he died. I don't know how many overcoats, and hats and shoes. LK He must have been something when he got dressed up ? AW Yeah, he thought he was, whe ther anybody else thought it or not. He was pleasing himself with clothes. I keep seeing /liRs. - throwing things to Ar~ grandsons over t he r e , i he 1 a d y a c r o s s t he s t r e e t , a n d s he ·~- p 1 a y i n ' LK And she's throwing something ? Oh I know what those things are. AW Those discs. I'd see him come back so I'd know the little boy down there, he and his p als would be throwin g them back. LK You must have been somewhat dazzled yourself ? At the beginning at least. AW What about his death ? LK No, about his dressing when you first met him. Were y ou ? AW Well I dressed as well as he did, so that wasn't an y thrill to me. LK You did huh ? AW Yeah. LK You told me,in those days you got prett y much dressed up for g oin g down town, ri g ht ? page 52 AW Yeah, you didn't go down town without clothes or a purse and gloves, and a hat. We'd never see anybody down town bare headed. All these slip shod shoes and things they wear here in Utah now, I guess they do that all over the world, but Houston was a fashionable place. People dressed, and then ~)" had all those clubs there, andMtp' had all these formals. Course Jimmy didn't live in Houston, he lived here. ,1μ.:JL I met him after I could, they sent for me to come out here to work during the war, cause they had all the men in service. They were sending women out here to take the men's jobs. And my friend Mrs Davis owned the Hotel where he roomed. And when I'd ge t off from out to Hill Field, I'd catch the bus and come down town and usually spend Sat rday and Sunday with Leager, and go back Sunda y night in time to be at work Monday. So he had a beautiful black and white car at that time. So he got so he would pick me up and take me after she introduced me to him. Takin g me back and forth to the Field. He'd tell me to call Leager, when I was getting ready to come to town when I'd be off, and he'd come and get me. And he did and that's how I met him. birthday about eight months after I met him. And I told him I said,"This week end is my birthda y" , he said "What da y?" I said, "The 22nd of July," ,,,. jo the day for my birthday he bought me a beautiful black crape gown, real thin,and gave me a hundred dollar bill. And I thou gh t he was rich, and that was th e reason I married him, I said "this is a ric h man! " doing that , and he hadn't known me over three or four months. Page 53 Cause I'd been in Houston eighteen years, and not married, I had been married, but my husband and I seperated and divorced, He was a mail carrier, and he used to, but I said I'll never marry again, no more, as long as I live. But you know when you come from a city like Houston, and come to a place like this, you get so lonesome cause there is nothing here to do. And at that time there wasn't but one or two places to go. Cause the Blacks couldn't go in the Ben Lomond Hotel and all those places then. So I guess I was lonesome and when he ask-ed me to marry him I told him yes. And I told him I wanted a home so we bought a home down on Stevens, there was a duplex with a two room house in the back to rent. After he died I sold it and moved here cause I didn't like that little house. I don't like a duplex, because people next door w ;;/ play their music so loud and talk so loud. They didn't make those walls so they were sound pro o f then. LK How long were you married? AW We were married eleven years. LK Was the marriage hard? AW No. He was very good" He'd buy anything he thought I needed for the house. The only thing I didn't like about him he wouldn't give me an opportunity to go with him and select what I wanted , ~e'd been selecting everything for himself so long he'd go buy what he wanted. When I'd know an y thing the man was coming ,, there with a Frige or a stove. ~nd I said,w~ere did this come from? He s a i d ' II Mr we s t s e n t i t '.' an d I s a i d ' II I w i s h Mr . we s t would consult me since I'm going to be the woman of the house and have to use these things, and let me go with him to select what I want". Page 54 So, he wouldn't do it~'o after while I started sending things back. 1 wouldn't let them put it in the house and then he started cons u 1 ting me before he ' d go buy c,ny ·­thing . LK A good way to do it, AW Um hum. LK Did he fall into the patter .n of the other railroad men 1 too? AW What was that? LK f ,1 .,} ,.1 ,A Mention1 that there was a lot [ cj'tk'y ·) !: .rr.. •,,'1, L..J. AW Oh no, I don't know whether he did or noty If he did1 I didn't know it. He might have , I wouldn't be surprised if he did Cause these women, there were so many women here then and such a few men. I imagine some of them chased behind him cause he had good clothes and kept a Cadilac ctn c·<' always had a. puRre. f ee// of money. LK He was a good catch1 huh? AW Um hum. LK What happened to make you two split up ? ,; j AW Well, we had a boat, to match the Cadilac and ~one side he [. i,vr: H_:,"J . had/ Bt rt and on the other side he had Jimmy. AW Be rt. ~ ee1 my nam~s Albe~ta and everybod y called me Bi rt. LK One side of the boat was called B rt and the other side was called Jimmy ? AW Um hum. He had that painted on there and they had it painted the color of the car. A lot o f times I would be g oin g to town and I see him with the boat on the car, and two or three women in the car. ' ' . ' /'J:'/.J..--r t o fH,< t!. /!?e,-r,11 ridin g . He'd be takin g them u p to the dam LK AW LK AW Page 55 Go to Pine View Dam. Pine View Dam? J1x Um hum. There's alot of boatsAon Pine view now and Willard Bay too. Willard Bay wasn't here then. They built that later. And he just got so bold with these, taking these women out an~ rd see him with them and he pretend he didn't I see me and pass me real fast. So I told him, I say.> "'you ;,~ ,2. ,J,l;.2_ .... i..:, .. ,1r .. yon1>ee_ select who you want or else I 1m 7J1Jty,·,,··1°1,_. A you, Secause I don't need a man I've got to share." So he thought I was joking. When I put in for the divorce and had the police to come and move him out of the house, he was never so shocked ti in his life. I told him1 that's no respect for me . I go down town and everybody's standing on the street seeing you pass with two or three women in the car going up to the dam and )I • I'm walking. But he didn't pay me any attention, so thats the only way I could get some respect out of him, and some attention was to get my divorce. Course he married three times after we were divorced. LK But, you didn't marry again ? AW LK AW No I didn't want anybody else. I asked the Lord to let get married a gain. { E 1v,__/ s , ,c.'. 1 j me get rid of him and I'd never I think you would have been a good mother. We adopted this little ,r1l,,, .1 g irl, when she was six.fi1here was a lady in Salt Lake who used to make clothes a nd Jimmy would take her over there a nd he had a little suit ma d e t a thr ee i piece suit with a coat to match. She'd never had a Christ-mas tree1 so the first yea r she had a Christmas t ree and he bought her a great bi g Black doll. She h ad everything a nd Page 56 we got her through the courts, ~ut the Judge told her mother. ,, He s a i dJ now , they won't be able to put her on their tax /:,/•C /( ,w, '\f'J •""-' this year , but you can come back and get her/between now and De c em b e r/' he t o 1 d he r th e d a t e . S he 1 e t u s k e e p he r till about November the 25th and then she went to the Judge and told him she wanted her daughter back. So they gave her back to her. And I said that I would never do that again. That was the last time I would ever do that. LK That must have been painful. AW I t w a s , C OL,l .s e. J i mm y 1 o v e d he r s o , an d t ha t was h e r f i r s t y ea r of schooling, and gv tl it1g her shots, and everything, cause they didn't have head start then. I LK What was it like, you mentioned Ogdens segregation, that you couldn't go into the Ben Lomond? AW Oh, you couldn't go into a lot of places, you couldn't eat in any of those Cafes. That's the reason they had or we had three colored Cafes here, .feeJI eventually opened one down on 25th street. And there was another cafe, as I told you at Mrs Davises Hotel. Another Colored lady owned the La France Hotel,where if there were too many men to go to the Leμq ?.ri; 1they could come up to the La France and get a room. LK What kind of a Cafe did you open up ? AW Well, my Grandmother had a Cafe all my life,so I was brought up in a Cafe, so I knew Cafe life.Now I had white girls wait table, cause I found out if I hired them, theycl come in at night and they'd mop the floor before they'd leave. They'd do alot of things that Black women wouldn't do and I was paying them Page 57 all the same salary. So when I found out that they would come in there every night instead of me paying somebody to come in and mop, nl cv,,J · /i d/ ; ; /} the yet c u me inJl mop Je; 'otN! .. tj.Jjr( _.4;•ct V-t::'... . , I never asked them to, but they did.They saved me so much money that I gave each o f t h em a t hr e e d o 11 a r r a i s e a f t e r th e y we r e the r e aw h i 1 e . J1,,,,J) ihey worked for me till I closed. LK When did you open it up? AW I imagine it was in the early 60's. No, it was in the SO's because I closed in on the 60's. That's when I started catering for the homes here for the rich people here. LK What was your Cafe called? AW Just a Cafe, it didn't have any name. LK Just saidJ Cafe? AW Um hum. LK Did you do the cooking yourself ? AW Yeah, I did all the cooking. But I had these girls to wait table,and I had another girl in there who was washing dishes, cause then they didn't have alot of dish washers. LK They did it all by hand I assume huh? AW Yeah, that was the only way you could get it done. LK What kind of dishes > did you have an y dishes th a t you specia- AW lized in ? Oh 1 yeah, found out how to make stuffed shirmp, I went to Texas one year and leo..;v-t i )a.i on the warf. In Galvaston,this lad y eel speciali z ed in stuf~ shrimp, and I ate some a nd I knew wh a t was in them,so I came back here and bought those lar g e s hr imp ""' .. '"I i,\ a ndAcut them down the center. You make a dressing just li k e you put in Turkey, except you mix maybe some cr a b meat, cut u p some shr i mp in it. LK AW Page 58 And fill this opening in the shrimpAthen you dip them in egg mixtur~ and put 1themv in the freezer until they got good and 1.,1;-/1i! YI p {h'f" ;{_ ,.,J,1c(1'μU( #1..rr1fl. cold. Then~all you'd have to do is drop them in the hot gredse FJN<f! a for a little bit. A That was my specialty was stuffed shrimp. What made you close down finally? . hlfv/1v() 1-0 Well, I got tired. Cause I wasfimiss so much at night,I'd have to stay open, and I'd like to go dancing and things so I closed, after about three years. Wel~ I bought this house and after I bought this house, and after I got this house paid for;then I quit. LK You paid for the house with the Cafe? AW Um hum, I paid for it in two years. LK Well, hell you must have been doing okay? AW I was, I made alot of money down there. I just happened to open it at a convient time,because all these welfare gi rls were here, and they were getting these cans of por~ and cans of beef, and dried milk and all kinds of commodities, and they would bring me a box of it when they wanted to go some-place, and sell it to me real cheap 1call me on the stuff and I bought all this stuff cheap. So that's the reason I was able to make money with it because they'd have rice and they'd have milk . I used that dried milk to make bread puddings and my bread, and things .. LK You made fresh bread? AW No I d i d n ' t ha v e t i me t o ma k e f r e sh b r ea d . ·,he b a k e r y b r o u g h t bread every morning. lK Well you must have done all right to pay for it in two years~ that's prett y good. AW I rlirl_ page 59 LK But you quit it all too, so fast. AW Yeah, well after I got this house paid for I was tired. I didn't want nobody but me, I and I didn't see no need to A~ working myself to death. So I quit. LK Sounds like, right about the time when the Civil Rights move-ment was getting going in the country. AW Um hum, I guess it was. LK {'a,ej ·- 60's? AW Um hum. LK Did it have an impact here? Do you remember? AW I don't think so.You see most of that was in the South. Martin Luther King and Alabama and all those places. Whfie they couldn't ride on the Bus, and things, see here we could ride the bus. LK But you still had the other kinds of segregation in terms .. AW Oh yeah, you couldn't go in the cafes and the Hotels and they had a lot of Hotels,and they had alot of Cafes that had the sign on them, " We select our customers;' 'o if you went in there they would tell you we don't serve you in here. Cause people used off train and they had one on the side right across from me and they wouldn't let them come over there so they would have to come across the street from me and get a bag of lunch.To eat on the train. So they brought a bunch of soldiers in here and they wouldn't serve them and they went back to the train and told a whole group of , them and they came back and they tore that cafe to peices. ; k Ii> 1.Jtt< J iwe are going to the war to fight, and giving up our homes a n d o u r 1 i v e s an d we c an ' t e a t i n he r e ? I f we c a n ' t e a t i n ),; 1~ ~ Page 60 were not good enough to go die for you. So after they tore it all up and they fixed it up again, they had a sign "Negroes Welcome". But most of us who lived out here wouldn't go in cause we remembered when we couldn't. But the people that would get off the train would go in there, and they could be served after that. LK Did that happen dU/3 , the war? LK Was n ' t t he Ko r ea n W a r , i t w a s w o r 1 d w a r I I ~ P. 1~9 A i ? AW Yeah,Um hum. LK Did you see those guys come in and tear it up? aw No I wasn't there they did it one night when I was home. But they told me those Black Soldiers tore that place up so, and turned over the stools and said one of them went ;,.-<- and told the man say "Now ifl) got placess that we can't eat, then there is something wrong with this country, .!,,,.~,,- , / " we are going to eat anywhere we want to, and if you don't except us we are going to know the reason why, because we are going to the war to die for you propbably, leaving our famlies and our homes,and then have to come in here and can't be served a sandwitch or something". So when he opened he had a big sign out there "Negroes Welcome". It was a chinese Cafe to begin with. LK Oh, it was huh? AW You know they are very predjudice anyway. LK No , I didn't know that. LK Worse than Whites? AW LK page 61 Well, to a certain extent. They gotten out of that to because you see white girls marry to Japenese now but they weren't then.After they went to Vietnam 1 they married all kinds of men that came back here, and it was free after that. Yeah1 you can eat in most of these places and stay there too if you wanted to. But most of them kept staying at down to Leagers and Mrs Cobb cause they've been staying there all the time. Let me ask you something, die impact on your life? Martin Luther King have an AW No, not in a way he didn't, I saw him when I went to San Antonio to the World's fa~r one year and he was at the worlds fai~ and he left there and went to New Or leans and that's where he was shot. Buf t~a f was the first time I'd had ever seen him oe heard him speak. But see he never did come out here and this town had opened up so we weren't having a problem any more. LK It had opened up? AW Yeah, those soldiers opened up this town. They tore ever y place they couldn't go in and be treated like people. LK So it wasn't just the restaurants, and some other places too. AW Yeah they tore up alot of places. I wish that ~~s all you want to know cause I'm tired now, I got to go la y down. LK Okay