Interview with Louise Smith, September 24, 1984



SMITH: Now—and then my mother had a son. And he was paralyzed from birth.

He never walked. He was 15 years old when he passed. I remember him very

well—when I was—after I grew up.

HARDY: (taps microphone) Let me see if this is a... This should be working here.

There we go. OK. So how many children did he have with your mother?

SMITH: With my mother? With my mother, my father had three—four. Well, the one

died. And he had three living children, my baby sister and one brother and

then—and myself. There were three of us—with the fourth wife. Now all these

others... He had two by the first wife. So he had five living children of his

own. And my mother had—my mother had two of hers by her former marria-, so

she—with my father’s five and her two, was seven.

HARDY: Where did you all live when you were growing up, then?

SMITH: Well, my grandmother—most of my mother’s children was with my

grandmother. And she was in Granville County, near—and near the Virginia line.

And so we never seen her very often. And also, my aunt... My mother only had one

sister. Because my father was born in slavery. And my mother was born in

slavery. She said she only remember one brother and he was sold, just like

cattle. But I don’t like to talk about it. Because my father used to sit down

and explain things to us, what they went through. And it used to make my blood boil.

HARDY: Did he? So when you were children, he’d tell you—

SMITH: Yeah.

HARDY: —about slavery days?

SMITH: Yeah. He would tell us. And I said, “Pop, don’t tell me no more. I

don’t want to hear it.” And so he wouldn’t tell me no more. But he used to

tell me how they used to beat them and then rub them down with salt. And salt

burns. And—oh!—the things my father used to tell me, I used to tell him,

“Don’t tell me no more.” And so, when I finished school at home and came

north, my mother and father, neither one of them wanted me to come. Because I

was very apt in school and I finished always at the head of my class. I never

was at—I never... Only time I would go down in a class, when I had a class at

home, was when I missed the days and couldn’t get to school, when my father

farmed and we had to work. And I would miss days. And so then I would go down

almost to the foot of the class. But I didn’t stay there. (laughs) Because

soon as they missed something, I would grab it and get to the head! I always

stood to the head of my class. And many things—we used to have spelling bees

and many things that, I always won the first prize, in the classes that I used

to attend, when I was home. And that’s one of the reason my mother didn’t

want me to come north. They wanted me... It was another girlfriend and I—grew

up together... And her mother only had one. But we went to school together—all

through public school together. And then her parents—but her being the one,

they put her through all college. She went to Knoxville, Tennessee. She

graduated from Knoxville—Tennessee—College. And then her mother sent her to

New York. She finished college up there. So she could teach North or South. But

she married a lawyer. And poor Rowena. I must say her life was very short. She

married a lawyer and she had one little girl. When she came up here to visit me,

I was down there visiting her and we passed each other.

HARDY: Huh.

SMITH: And when she got back home, they rushed her to the hospital. And she died

on the operating table, had appendix burst. And that’s the last of Rowena. And

then, right after that, her mother died. And I never did much transportation

back and forth down south much, after that. She died. And only when my mother

got sick. And I was just reading a card from the lady I worked for at

924 Spruce Street. I was just reading her card that she wrote me when my mother

died, just a while ago.

HARDY: Hm! Now how far, then, did you go in school before you came...?

SMITH: Well, I was in the tenth grade.

HARDY: In the tenth grade.

SMITH: Mm-hmm. That’s as far as the school went down there. Or ninth grade,

ninth. And it was—of course, the tenth—they didn’t have the tenth grade.

You had to go to Shaw University to get to the tenth grade. But the ninth. They

had ninth grade. That’s when I finished school at home. And Professor Daniel

was our—was my last teacher. Because I went through different schools.

HARDY: What made you decide to come north?

SMITH: Well, I’ll tell you why. I wanted to come north to help my parents.

Because my father—I’m going to show you his picture—my father, when he was

working at home... They had those crossties they put across the railroad tracks.

It was a man loading—helping load one of the freight cars with those ties. And

he dropped his in. And he broke five ribs and [ ] his back. He wasn’t able to

do a day’s work from that time on. And then there was nobody. Then my sister

had two children. And she had them at home. And was eight of us, to feed. And I

said to my mother, “Please let me go away.” And, of course, and Professor

Daniel, our schoolteacher, he said, if he had a daughter, they would never go

north. Because, he said, “I don’t believe in sending young people up north

and the parents is not up there.” Well, he didn’t live long after that. His

same—this Lilia Daniel, that—his daughter—and we finished school

together—all of us finished school together. It’s four or five of them

coming on. And she lived with Dr. Overby, right on 17th Street. That was her

mother’s brother. He was a dentist. And Dr. Overby put her in Durham School

there, at 15th and Lombard. And that’s where she went to g— And he died. And

then she went to New York and married a fellow. And the bright lights-- She

didn’t last long. They carried her body back, to be—

HARDY: What...?

SMITH: —to be buried at home. She died up there.

HARDY: What happened?

SMITH: I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. All I know, she died. When my

mother wrote me, where Lilia’s body was brought home... Somebody brought...

Another girl, Lenore Austin, she was another one. She’d been at school along

with me. She went north. She died. And they brought her body back home. And

different one. Well, of course, naturally, I must say I had a Christian mother

and father. And my mother taught us, when we was at home, to keep out of bad

company and then you would keep out of trouble. And so that’s one thing... I

never... Person that I know would go this place and that place. And I went with

them once. But after I found out what they were doing, I quit. I didn’t go no more.

HARDY: What was that one time you went?

SMITH: Well, in—

HARDY: And where did you go?

SMITH: Atlantic City I met a girl—Atlantic City. Was a bunch of them from

Virginia (laughs) that I knew. And they said, “We’re going out tonight and

have a big time.” And I didn’t know what they went... And they went to a

beer garden. And they were drinking beer and everything. And they tried to make

me drink beer. That’s the night I kicked over the table. They tried to... One

girl had—and holding my hand and the other one was trying to pour the stuff in

me. And I yanked that—and kicked the table and kicked the whole thing over.

That’s the time I got out from there. And then I broke away from them. I never

went with them no more.

HARDY: It seemed that a lot of the young women who did come north—young men

and women came north were attracted by the bright lights and...

SMITH: Yeah, yeah! Yeah! Yeah. And but I didn’t.

HARDY: Yeah. What—you know, what was the bright lights? What were the things

that people—

SMITH: Well, they go to—

HARDY: —would become involved in?

SMITH: —you know, they’d go to these—well, they used to go in these places

where the girls used to dance and they’d throw money out on the floor at them,

on the stand at them. And they would be dancing, wiggling, and carrying on.

Well, things like that, my mother never raised us that way. So therefore, I

didn’t go in for that. Churches were the only thing I knew. And so that’s

why—so that’s why I never got with the rough crowd. I stayed in church—and

been in there ever since— And then, when I came to Philadelphia, when I came

to Philadelphia and joined East Calvary and got with Dr. Tindley-- There’s

his picture, sitting right there, behind you.

HARDY: Oh, yeah!

SMITH: And he said to me, my mother—he said my mother appeared to him in a

dream, after she died. My mother died the same year he lost his wife. Now,

Mrs. Tindley died in December the 7th, in 1924. My mother died on Mother’s

Day, in 1924. And I was down there with her when she passed. Because I left job,

husband, and everything. That was the card that I was reading over there, a

while ago—and pulling these things out—the card that Miss Meredi-, and I

worked for her at 924 Spruce Street. And she was one of the sweetest person I

ever want to meet. When I get to heaven, I’ll be looking for all my good folks.

HARDY: (laughs)

SMITH: Because I got some good ones there! And I worked for Mrs. Derousse and

Miss Meredith. And Mrs. Rogers was the first lady I worked for in Philadelphia.

When I came from the South, my sister was living at Quince Street, between Pine

and Lombard. And my brother-in-law, her husband, was a policeman. And he was in

the First District, 12th and Pine. That’s where his district was. He was a

policeman till he died. And he was a good brother-in-law. And that’s where I

lived, when I first come from the South, at my sister. And the first job I had

was at 239 South 41st Street, West Philadelphia, Mrs. Rogers. Lord bless her

in her grave. She was a sweet somebody. And I—white worked on both sides of

me. And I’ll lay in the bed sometime and remember how we used to get up

in—early in the morning to get our laundry out on the lines, see who going to

be the-- I never was worrying about the first one but I wanted to get it out

early, so it’d get through. And Mrs. Rogers, when I used to go and try to wash

with the hose, washing the porch off—and she used to call—come—“Louise,

don’t you go out there on that porch. You go downstairs. And Mr.--” She had

a son named Stanley. “Get Mr. Rogers’ boots and put them on.” And

that’s what—I used to dress my feet up in his boots to go wash the

porch—when I came up Philadelphia, as a young girl.

HARDY: How did you get your first job?

SMITH: Through the employment office. My sister had taken me to-- Miss Pollett.

She had a employment office, there on Pine Street. And my sister had taken me to

Miss Pollett. And she’s dead now, I know-but she was the one that got the

first job for me, in West Philadelphia. And I slept in. And I stayed with

Mrs. Rogers until my sister thought I was experienced enough to get more money.

And at that time, they was paying the domestic workers only three dollars a week.

HARDY: Three dollars a week!

SMITH: Three dollars a week! And I sent every penny of mine home. And

Mrs. Rogers told me I didn’t buy no clothes for myself. And I remember she

went to Wanamaker and bought me my first Easter suit, and dressed me up for

Easter. Then she told me she was going to take it out of wages. And I thought,

if she take it out of my wages, I wouldn’t have no money to send home to my

mother. And I told her I’d rather for her take the suit back. (laughs) And she

told me she was just kidding me. But she gave me the suit. And so I didn’t

have to pay her back. So then my sister, after I had worked for her for three

years or more—my sister wanted a raise. I got 50-cents raise. So 3.50, I was

getting. And so I worked there for a while. And the summer come. My sister said,

“I’m going to take you out.” And she sent me to Atlantic City, where there

supposed to be a friend of hers. And she was a rat—

HARDY: How’s that...?

SMITH: —A rat! I went to Atlantic City with her. And the lady that we worked

in the house with, she kept all young girls. And she had these cots that we’d

sleep on. I got my first job taking care of children. I love children. And I

used to go on the boardwalk and take the children out, every morning, and then

bring them back home and feed them and take them back for the afternoon. And I

was getting—instead of getting three dollars and a half from here, I got seven

dollars a week when I went Atlantic City. That’s how I started. So then, after

that job closed in Atlantic City-- They was from Wilmington, Delaware. And they

went back to Wilmington, Delaware. And that’s the time she went back on me two

weeks’ back pay. And I lost that money. I never got it, never got that money.

So then, instead of coming back to Philadelphia without a job... Was a lady

lived in the house with Mrs. King, where we live. She said, “Louise, if you

want to, you can go with me to this hotel. We need a second cook. And I’ll

teach you how. And you can work in there.” And so I went in one of the hotels

on Ocean Avenue and worked with her as a second cook—until around October. And

then I came back to Philadelphia. And that time, I went back home for Christmas,

to my mother. And, of course, I never told my mother what happened. But this

girl that my sister sent me over there with... Now, my sister took her as a

friend of hers. And she was like a sister. And Miss King told us we had the

living room, we had the dining room, we had the backyard, “to entertain all

the company you want but none to be taken to your bedroom.” She come in one

night with a guy. And all these girls was on the cots—summertime. Some of them

had the nightgowns up. And she and I had a double bed. And she brought this guy

in the room. And I said to her—I say, “Ada, you know Miss King said you’re

not supposed to bring...” She shut me—(slaps her hand) slapped me in the

face! See, I was young. I took a lot of junk. But I never told my mother. And so

this girl woke up. And she woke the house up, and Miss King come up. And Miss

King ordered her to move. And then she said I had to move with her. That’s

when she moved me up on North Carolina Avenue, where they had the red light

district, you call it. I didn’t know (laughs) what it was, then!

HARDY: Aha!

SMITH: So Mrs. King told me, she said, “Lou —” she says, “Sweetheart,

you ain’t got no business with that woman. She is not a per, type person for

you.” Well, then I wrote my sister, here, and told her what I was going

through. And she had so much faith in this friend of hers, she wouldn’t

believe a lie a told. So I didn’t want to write my mother. I kept it to

myself. But I didn’t come back to her house. When I came back from Atlantic

City, I stopped with a lady... Because this lady that I met in Atlantic City

said she had a daughter. And Mrs. Taylor lived on Lombard Street. And she told

me, I could get a room there. And that’s where I stayed, at Mrs. Taylor’s

house. And Miss Taylor lived on 16th Street before she died. That’s where...

Her son—both of her sons was in the post office. One was a Special Delivery

boy and the other one, Arthur, was a mail carrier. And they bought this home,

round here on 16th Street, for her. And after I come back, she always told me

that was my home. So that’s where I go visit. But all of them are dead now.

HARDY: Yeah?

SMITH: All those are gone.

HARDY: So you’re saying that your sister’s friend, then, in Atlantic City,

was a—she was selling her services, I guess you--?

SMITH: Yeah. She was no good. And I wrote my sister word. And she said she

wouldn’t believe a lie I told. So she believed her before she believed me. But

my brother-in-law told me he knew what she was. And he told me I did the right

thing. Well, when he saw me on the street, he wanted me to come back to the

house. And I told him I would never come back no more. So from that, I broke off

living with my sister. I lived with strangers, from that time on.

HARDY: You know, one of the things we’ve been reading about was, I guess in

Philadelphia there was a organization called the Association for the Protection

of Colored Women—

SMITH: Well, I don’t—

HARDY: —which was...

SMITH: —I didn’t know nothing about...

HARDY: And that was set up because there were real problems with people who were

supposedly from employment offices going south and bringing up young girls to do

domestic work, they said—

SMITH: Well, you see, I wasn’t brought up...

HARDY: —but they were actually—yeah, I know—but they were actually from

the sporting houses.

SMITH: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

HARDY: And apparently, a lot of young women, I suppose like yourself, who came

to Philadelphia and were supposed to be doing domestic work, either by friends

or by people who they thought were finding them jobs, got led into those red

light districts and into prostitution, I guess.

SMITH: Well, anyhow, this was the only one I knew. And so, when I went back to

Mrs. King and they asked me... She said, “Louise —” And she’s... I told

her. So when I went back up, that night, I paid the rent. She didn’t have no

money. She’d run around with these guys and they... Nobody had no money. And I

had paid rent for her. When I want back, Miss... She told me, when she moved up

to own this North Carolina Avenue—she told me I had to move with her. Well, I

let her move my things up there. And that night I went back. She was in the bed

with one guy and another one sitting up there, with patch over his eye, waiting

for me.

HARDY: (laughs)

SMITH: I didn’t go to bed. I went back down to Mrs. King. And that’s the

night, when I told her, she told me, if I leave out of that room, she was going

to beat me! She was much older than I was. She was older, like my sister. She

thought she was going to be my boss. But I had strong willpower. You don’t put

me under no subjection, especially when I know you’re wrong. And when she came

in there and brought another guy and she was in the bed with that guy and had

another one sitting up there, waiting for me, I wasn’t about to go bed. And I

had paid the rent too, so she could have the rent. I took my little stuff. And

she told me I wasn’t going out of that room. She jumped up to fight me. I went

back to the house and got one of the girls to come up there and get my thing.

And she come up there and help me pack my things. And I went back down to

Mrs. Ki-, and that’s where I stayed until I left to come home.

HARDY: Hm. Now, had you heard anything—had your parents given you any advice

or friends told you any stories, before you came up north—

SMITH: Oh, yeah! Wha—

HARDY: —about things to watch out for?

SMITH: Well, you see, when I came up, I met a elderly—well, it was a lot of

elderly women. They were like my mother. And they used to tell us girls what

these boys and things would do. “Don’t drink. Don’t take this. Don’t

take no nothin’.” And, of course, they—that’s only a trap to catch you.

And I was warned of that. So I never got in no traps. So they didn’t get me,

to carry me no place that, I didn’t know where I was going.

HARDY: That’s really interesting. Because that’s what... You know, I spoke

to a woman, I guess from North Carolina, whose—I guess her parents told her a

story called “Remember Mary.” And Mary was a nice girl who went north and

she got away from the church and, next thing she knew, she was just abou—

SMITH: But I never—I never.

HARDY: Did they tell—were there any stories they told, little specific stories

they gave you, to sort of...?

SMITH: Well, when we were growing up, my mother always wanted us to never take

gifts from boys. It puts you under obligation. And that’s one thing we never

did, take no nothin’. If you wanted treats, you—something, you don’t take

it. They want to give you something, don’t take it! So that was one thing I

would always wonder. What’s mine is mine. But yours is yours. And I don’t

take what you give me. So that was one of the things that I never did.

HARDY: Yeah. Did they tell you any other stories about the North, give you

advice about what to do when you got up there or warn you about things to stay

away from?

SMITH: Well, no. See, my mother never was up North and she didn’t know what it

was all about. And that’s why... I guess, Professor Daniel, he knew more about

what the city life would be. Because he was highly educated. And, of course,

naturally, he knew. And, you see, older people, being back there, they didn’t

know a whole lot what the person that had education would know. And, of course,

they would just give you advice. “Don’t let your daughter do this. And

don’t let her do that.” But when you get training from parents... Because

that’s where all these crimes begin, at home. If you don’t train a child...

Because my mother taught us in that book. “Train a child, and the way it

should go and when it grows old, it won’t depart from it.” And I’m a

witness. (laughter) I’ve lived to past 90 years.

HARDY: Yeah!

SMITH: And I know what it is. And I’ve tried to follow her teaching and my

father’s teaching. And, of course, with all of my family, all are gone. I’m

the last one of the family living. My sisters and brothers. I got one niece at

h, North Carolina. These is her grandchildren. And that’s my sister Annie’s

daughter, Mildred. That’s the o—my sister Annie o— She got married. She

only had two children, a boy and a girl. And the boy died. And Mildred was a

baby. When she was a baby, my sister gave her to me, before she died, and told

me to look after Mildred. And these are Mildred’s grandchildren. And these

are—Mildred has six living children and 29 grandchildren and 19 great

grandchildren. So there’s a big family of them.

HARDY: Yeah. Now, had you heard anything about Philadelphia, specifically,

before you came north, from your sister or...?

SMITH: Oh, yeah, from my sister. See, my sister, Pauline, she lived in New York

before she met and married Mr. Jones. And then she was here in Philadelphia—

And now, it’s one child that she had living. That’s my niece. But I

haven’t seen her in five years. And she lives out at 57th and

Jefferson—Lucy. And I haven’t seen her. But she’s got grandchildren—and

one daughter. But she don’t bother with nobody.

HARDY: So what I was asking, had you heard any things about Philadelphia, before

you came up here? What did you know about Philadelphia?

SMITH: I didn’t know nothin’.

HARDY: Not a thing.

SMITH: Not a thing, no.

HARDY: What did you bring with you, when you came up?

SMITH: I didn’t know nothin’ about nobody but my sister, up here. And when I

came, my brother, that was in the service, he was the one that sent money home

for to pay my fare. And my sister had a daughter at home as old as I was. And

she and I both came up here together. And that’s... We both lived with her.

But I was only the sister. She was her daughter. And then my sister had two

girls, that was here, hers, before she married Mr. Jones. Now Mr. Jones

would— my brother-in-law, the one that—Mr. Jones—one that I knew, he had

four children by my sister. But all of them are dead. Only one is living.

That’s Lucy. But I know all of them before they were born. And these two

children, my sister married a guy at home, before I was born, I guess. And he

got these children. And he walked away and left her with these two children. And

then she had these with my grandparents. And when she came up north to work, she

left them with my grandmother. And then, after my grandmother died, my mother

took them. That’s how my mother had all these on her hand. And they was

little. Because they wasn’t the husband’s children. And that’s why... She

left them down there in the country with my mother. And that’s when I came up

here, then she sent word for her oldest daughter to come with me. Because the

older daughter older than I am! And we both came up here together. And she lived

in Camden, New Jersey. Now, her daughter that died, she had one son here, my

nephew. I haven’t seen him in about ten years. He’s right here in the city.

But I don’t see him—unless I meet him in the street sometime. I think I met

him once or twice. But the life that he live, I couldn’t... Because he’s

been in and out of prison so many times, that we had to spend money, but he

learned his lesson. But now he married his wife and now he’s very friendly.

And she called me last night and told me that he was down there to see her. They

don’t live together. But he—yesterday was her birthday. And he gave her 25

dollar. (laughter)

HARDY: So when you came up here... I want to ask you about a couple of things.

One is about doing domestic work. And the other thing I want to ask you about is

about East Calvary Church, Reverend Tindley—and then, along with that, your

recollections of the nineteen-teens, you know, the war years, when people

started really coming up by the hundreds and thousands. When did you join the

East Calvary?

SMITH: I joined East Calvary in 1910. Then I went back home and I got married,

in 1921.

HARDY: You were married in 1921.

SMITH: Twenty-one, to the first husband. And then, when I got married to him, we

came to Baltimore and I lived in Baltimore.

HARDY: For how long?

SMITH: About—just about a year or more. And then I came back to Philadelph—

HARDY: Came back to Phila-, so during the nineteen-teens, then, 1916,’17,

’18, those years, you were in Philadelphia. What sort of work were you doing then?

SMITH: Domestic. Because they didn’t have no factory work then like they have

later years. Because in the later years, they had factory work, where you could

go in the factory and learn how to sew and do... Of course, I used to know a lot

about sewing. Because when I lived in Baltimore, I specialized making children

clothes. And I used to do a lot of sewing. But now... And I used to make

everything I wore! But now... I could cut—I could look at a pattern—look at

a picture on the book... And I see that that dress is made such-and-such a way.

I could lay down—put a piece of paper down on the floor and cut a pattern out

and make a dress just like what I see on the pattern. And one time I went to

church and the minister was amazed. And he asked me did I ever went to sewing

school. I told him no—but through my mother’s teaching. My mother used to

make all our clothes. I know, when—my mother used to spin cotton to make

socks, gloves, mittens—or knit them. My mother had a spinning wheel that she

used to spin cotton. We used to pick the seeds out of cotton. And she used to

have this cotton and then spin it, had a spinning wheel. I couldn’t tell you

what it looked like, now, of course, it been so long. But she used to make all of

our stocking, socks—stockings that we wore and these mittens. There’s no

fingers in them but just one finger—mittens. You know what a mitten is.

HARDY: Sure. And that was all made out of homespun cotton.

SMITH: Homespun cotton. Yeah. She used to spin all her cotton, and make—and knit

socks and...

HARDY: Couldn’t get factory work in Philadelphia?

SMITH: Well, no. The First World War... Now the First World War I was in

Baltimore. That’s the time when I was married to my first husband.

HARDY: Well, you said you married him in 1921.

SMITH: Was—

HARDY: Was...?

SMITH: —must be before 1921. Because I was in Baltimore at the time when they

was calling for men to go in the Army. And that’s back then, 1917.

HARDY: Right.

SMITH: Yeah.

HARDY: That would have been the... Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah. I was in Baltimore, that time. I married him... I’ll tell you, I

don’t... I know the papers is in the bank. Because I went to the courthouse,

after he come up here. And he run around with these girls. He told them that he

wasn’t married and I was somebody he was just living with. And I told him that

was something I wouldn’t ever stand for. And I went back home and went to the

courthouse and got these papers, and brought them back with me. So I was married

to him, and when the World War I was on.

HARDY: Now, you all lived in Baltimore then.

SMITH: At that time, yeah.

HARDY: At that t—

SMITH: Well, I think around 1915, when I got m, now around 1915, when I got

married to him. I think it was around 1915. I’m not sure. But I think it

around that time. Because in 1917, when we was in Baltimore, his parents all

lived in Baltimore, his mother and father. His grandparents raised him down

south. And of course, naturally, I didn’t want him to tell the truth, in the

beginning. It—of course, at that time, when a boy marry a girl, you go ask the

parents for them. You take them and go marry them just any kind of way. You’ve

got to ask them. And the day that he went in, he... Because he had been asking

me to get married to him and I told him I didn’t want him. (laughter) And

because he was going with different girls down—and I knew about him. And I

wasn’t particular about him. And so he said, “Well, I’m going to ask for

you. And after they say, I can have you, you won’t have a word to say.” So

the day he went and asked my mother and father for me, I listen. But my father

put up a fight. But my mother, [like?] she always thought a boy good to his

parents, grandparents, make a good husband. But my father knew, just like I did,

he used to go out in the woods and shoot crap and do a whole lot of things that

I didn’t approve of and my father didn’t approve of. And my father put up a

fight. But my mother stood to it. A boy good to his parents—and [all that?].

And then finally they give consent for me to marry him. Well, the day that we

were supposed to get married, I was working for Dr. [Boos?], in Oxford, North

Carolina. And Mrs. Boos said to me—she said, “Louise, ain’t you getting

married this afternoon?” I said, “I don’t want to get married.” And she

said, “You better go ahead. You promised the boy—the man—the boy you’re

going to marry. You better go ahead. Don’t you...? He might get angry with

you.” And so then my brother, Charlie, he came to the house where I was

working, told me, he said, if I held him up that afternoon... The preacher had

been there and everybody had been. I was supposed to get married in my

brother’s house. And that’s where the preacher was there and everybody was

waiting for me. (laughs) And I had bought the dress to get married and

everything. But still, I didn’t want to get married. But I went and married

him. So the night we got married, went home, I wouldn’t sleep with him.

(laughter) And my mother pleaded with me. That’s what got me back with him,

was my mother, saying, “You can’t do this,” and, “You can’t do

that,” and, “After all his... [You hurt him so?].” I try to make up with

him. So then his mother and father been in Baltimore. He wanted to come to

Baltimore to live, and brought me to Baltimore. We stayed in Baltimore. And

that’s where I had most of my problems with him, in Baltimore. So when I left

Baltimore, I couldn’t walk. And I was in Johns Hopkins Hospital. And the

doctors in Johns Hopkins Hospital said they had given me enough medicine to cure

ten women, and I was neither bit—and every drop of water I drank was against

me. And when I came back to Philadelphia to live, again, they had to bring

me—and put me in a cab and bring me to my sis-, I couldn’t walk. Then the

doctor ordered me to go to... My sister had taken me to a doctor on Pine Street,

a white doctor. And he told me I was poison through and I would—only thing

would do me, go down Atlantic City, in the sand. I went to Atlantic City. I

couldn’t walk! And the doctors in Johns Hopkins Hospital said I would never

walk again.

HARDY: What did you have?

SMITH: I don’t know! But every bit o-, I was weighing almost 200 pound. I had

gone away to nothing. I lost weight. And the flesh on my bones, you could flop

it just like flop a rag. And the night... I was living with my niece, over in

Camden, New Jersey. And a old white watchman, that worked every day, he

passed—he come... He said to my niece—he said, “You got somebody in there

sick?” And she said, “Yes, my aunt.” And she said, “She done poured all

the medicine—and swore she ain’t taking no more.” He said, “Well, tell

her she won’t have to take no more. Go—I want you to go to [Cane’s?]

Avenue and get a bottle of Dr. Jones’ Beaver Oil Liniment.” He says, “A

beaver is on the bottle. And I don’t want you—don’t rub it. Just saturate

this cloth and lay it on the spot where it ache.” Two weeks’ time, I was

able to walk. I got back on my feet again. I started to work. When I went back

to Baltimore, the doctors in Johns Hopkins couldn’t believe it was me. But

that’s the time I stepped out on faith. And I said, live or die, I wasn’t

taking no more medicine. That’s when I trust the Lord for everything. I

didn’t tell my mother. But somebody wrote my mother and told my mother I was

in a bad shape, all the flesh had left me and I wasn’t but skin and bone. And

I wrote her don’t believe nothing she heard—to keep her from worrying about

my condition.

HARDY: Now when did you come back to Philadelphia?

SMITH: I came back from Philadelphia that time, and I’ve been here ever since.

HARDY: OK. So you came back...

SMITH: That ended the husband.

HARDY: Did you come back, then, before the end of the First World War, or after

the war ended?

SMITH: The war ended—I was back here in Philadelphia when the war ended.

HARDY: When the war ended. OK. Now when the war was going on, people were coming

up here by the thousands, from all—

SMITH: Yeah. But I was already up here.

HARDY: —over the South.

SMITH: I was up here.

HARDY: Right. And I guess a lot of them came—you know, became members of East Calvary.

SMITH: Oh, I don’t know about people coming up from my home to attend the

Temple, to East Calvary. Because I don’t know nobody from my home come to East

Calvary but myself—

HARDY: Do you reme—

SMITH: —and my niece.

HARDY: —yeah—but do you remember the people coming up from the South, during

those war years?

SMITH: Yeah, I heard about it. But I wasn’t down there when all that happened.

HARDY: Where were you then?

SMITH: I was up here.

HARDY: Oh, that’s what I’m saying. Do you remember them coming up here,

during those years?

SMITH: No, I don’t remember anybody from my home coming up here.

HARDY: Yeah. Well, how about, just from the South, in general.

SMITH: Well, there’s a lot of people—course, a lot... The majority of people

that come from the South, they went to New York. Everybody landed most New Yor-,

they didn’t come here. Because this girl that came here from down South, with

me—Professor Daniel’s daughter. She came up here. But she didn’t stay in

Philadelphia. She went to New York. Bright lights! Bright lights in New York.

(laughs) I went to New York later years, when Dr. Tindley sent me over there.

Oh, it wasn’t no bright lights then. It wasn’t like it is when they come up

here. But when I went over there, I was living around here on—with

Mrs. Skinner. And that’s the time I was married to this husband and he come

up to Philadelphia to live. After I left him down in Baltimore, he come here to

live and went to my sister’s and everything. And we had a room, around at

1522 Catherine Street. And that night, he went out and took another girl out

and went out with her and come back that night. And he told me, since I was so

goody-goody, I was in church all the time, and I was so goody-goody, he had told

her he was going to kill me, one... And he said, “Since you’re so

goody-goody, I’ll get rid of you.” He attempted it. And just like he

attempted, he told me he was going to mark my good looks, so nobody would want

me when they saw me. He attempted. He went to the washstand that night and got a

long-blade razor, and come back and throwed it up to hit me in my face. And I

caught... And on my arm is a scar. Is only a little scar. I went right to the

hospital, across the street, in front of my church. And that’s where they

sewed five stitches in this arm. That’s when Dr. Tindley... The girl living

here—was Mom Henry—went over there and told Dr. Tindley. He sent for me to

come to the house. That’s when I went to... And he told me [inaudible

dialogue]... But I had something in the beginning. That husband that they wanted

me to get, down in North Carolina, I got rid of him right here in Philadelphia.

And when I left him and went to New York to live and got that job, he didn’t

know where I was. And he worried my sister and my brother-in-law both to try to

find out where I was. And so she told me to let him know. So I wrote him a

letter and told him, if he wanted to see me, to meet me in Tindley Temple. And

that’s the time I had my daddy with me. Then I wasn’t afraid of the devil.

(laughter) Pop could take care of anything that bothered me. And I know he

would. And I know he won’t never have thought to attack me, with him. And so,

when I come over here from New York and brought my daddy, in Tindley Temple,

Dr. Tindley met my father, that he had never met him before. And Dr. Tindley

told my daddy that Sunday—he said, “If I had one child was as devoted to me

as that girl to you, I would never have married my second wife.” Now, he had

married his second wife. Mrs. Tindley—first Tindley was dead. And his second

wife was named Jenny Tindley. And he said he would never have married his second

wife, if he had had one child was as devoted to him as I was to my dad. And my

daddy, then, when I had him up in New York with me and riding them double-decker

buses, he was 87 years old. (laughter)

HARDY: Was he...?

SMITH: I want to show you his picture.

HARDY: OK. I guess he lived to a ripe old age, then, for a man with a—

SMITH: Oh, Lord! He died when he—my father—

HARDY: —with a bad back.

SMITH: —when my father died, he was 97.

HARDY: Geez!

SMITH: And I went home and took care of him. And my sister, Lord bless her in

the ground too, she’d gone too. Now that was his daughter before I was. And

she said to me, when I went home to see my father when he was sick... And he

looked like he was getting better. And I said, “I think I’ll go back to

work, get back on my job.” And she said to me, “If you’re thinking about

going back to Philadelphia and leaving Pop here on my hand, you better put him

in the hospital or get somebody to wait on him. Because I’m not going to break

my wrists taking care of him.” And my poor dad laying with tears running down

his cheek. He always called me Babe. He said, “Babe, don’t leave me.” I

said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be here until the last bells ring.” So I

stayed, until the Lord took him home. I was just looking at the letter just now.

HARDY: Well, you didn’t bring him up here?

SMITH: No, I went down there and stayed with him.

HARDY: So you stayed with him until—

SMITH: Until he pa—

HARDY: —he passed.

SMITH: Uh-huh. Then I went to... And J. Robert Wood, the white undertaker... I

was just reading the letter, the last bill he s— And I would like for you to

see that letter.

HARDY: Yeah!

SMITH: The last letter he wrote me, he said, “If all people in the world were

like you, it would be a good world,” paying off a debt. And I never missed a

payment on my father. I didn’t have a dime! My sister said to me—when my

father died, she said, “You’re down here and you say you ain’t got no

money. If you ain’t got no money, the people down here are not going to take

your word for it. You’ve got to have money.” I said, “I cross my bridges

when I get to them.” So when my father died, I went to J. Robert Wood,

because he put my mother away. And I paid her funeral bill. Not a one, all her

children, not a one give me a brownie! But I put them both away, decent. They

wasn’t in no little old cloth casket either. They were put away decent. And

Mr. Wood said to me, when I went home... I didn’t have no money. Because I

had just got out of the hospital. And I told him. So anyway, when I went to pick

out the casket, he said, “You’re —” and then he said, “Well, you

ain’t [inaudible dialogue].” He was at the church when my father died. And I

went up to his undertaking shop, there in Oxford. And he is a white undertaker.

Of course, he buried all my family, and my baby sister, my husband, when I

carried him back home, [Billy?]. He died up here. He didn’t have five cents to

put his carcass in the ground.

HARDY: This is your first husband he buried too, the bad one?

SMITH: Yeah, the bad one. Now, he had a girl. He took a girl to Lawnside and

went down there, and had wrote me a lie, to come to Philadelphia and bring my

daddy and he would take care of all fares. And if I had of come over here and

brought my daddy, I wouldn’t have found him. Because he had a girl down in

Lawnside, New Jersey. And that’s where he got drowned.

HARDY: What work did he do in the city?

SMITH: He worked at Yale Club, down on Spruce Street. That’s where he worked.

It was the Yale Club. And he wrote me word that everybody was going from the

club for the 4th of July and wouldn’t be nobody there, but to come over and

bring my father and he would bear all expenses. And I was at my brother’s

house, in East Orange, New Jersey, with my father. And he was supposed to come

up there that day. Instead of coming there, he took a girl and went to Lawnside.

And the lie he wrote me, he wrote it in red. And when I got it, he was dead. And

when my brother called me from Philadelph, to New York and said to me, “Your

husband got drowned. What you going to do?”... And I told him—I said,

“Well, there’s nothing I can do.” I said, “He was still mine until death

do we part,” according to the book. And I said, “So you get [Cassell?] to go

to Jersey and bring the body to Philadelphia. And I’ll be over and complete

all the...” And, you know, they put my sister on me to carry. And I had my

father’s funeral expen-, carried him back home. I had my husband’s body to

carry home. And my sister and me. And not one of them put a dime to it but me.

The Lord has let me live all these years, what I’ve been going through. But

nobody give me a dime. And I buried him...

HARDY: And you were able to afford to do that on the wages—you know, doing housework—wages...?

SMITH: I didn’t have no wages! I had to come back and work to pay for—It

cost me over $700. At that time, you know, burial weren’t expensive like it is

today. And a $500 burial—you got a wonderful burial at $500. But I was living

in New York, at that time. And I’ll show you (laughs) the write-up. Lord have mercy!

HARDY: (laughs)

SMITH: I was just looking at this the other day. And I just come across it. And

I was looking at it. And that’s when he got drowned. And that’s

what—somebody put that in the paper. And I was living with Professor Freeman

and Mrs. Freeman, on 214 West 127th Street, at that time. You see that? He...

Louise Jones. That time, that was my name. I was Jones, wasn’t Smith then. And

he was supposed to be a good swimmer, got caught in [a storm?], was drowned. And

I had the sympathy from friends, both Philadelphia and New York. I was working

up there for Mrs. Herbert, when that happened. And I come across this in this

book, the other day, and I say, “Well, Lord, I had all these years, even this,

in 1929.” (laughter)

HARDY: So you were saddled with him off and on till 1929.

SMITH: Yeah. I was keeping—we kept in touch with one ano—

(break in audio)

SMITH: I plowed, many day, all day.

HARDY: Did you all sharecrop or were you tenant farmers or how...? Did he own

his own place?

SMITH: No, he didn’t own his own place. But the white people down there

thought so much of my mother and daddy, they give them a home. And they had a

home, their lifetime, him and my mother both—Mr. Charlie Roster. My mother

granted all of his children, raised all his children. That’s when I used to

push the carriage for Patty, when his—Mr. Roster’s children was little. And

he paid me a dollar a week.

HARDY: A dollar a week.

SMITH: A dollar a week. (laughs) And I was the babies’—I used to push the

carriage around with them. And, of course, his first wife died. And Mr. Roster

had four children when his first wife died. And that’s how my mother told

J. Robert Wood, when he buried Miss Kate Roster, Mr. Roster’s first wife, if

anything happen to her, she want him to bury her. And that’s J. Robert Wood.

And he had a great big undertaker—in Oxford. And so he was the one that buried

my mother. And I paid off every dime of her burial, through Miss Meredith, the

white woman that I tell you—924 Spruce Street. She had roomers. I worked in a

rooming house down there, was a chambermaid. And I worked down there with her

all through the years. Miss Meredith was a swee-, and but she died. And she told

me I would be taken care of the rest of my life. But her sister-in-law changed

the will and fixed so they got everything. But they didn’t enjoy it. They lost

everything. But they got everything that was... Miss Meredith got... And that

place, that 924 Spruce Street... She was a saleslady in Strawbridge and

Clothier, when I started working for her. And the woman that owned that house,

with 36 bedrooms, with hot and cold running water... And that’s where all the

students—mostly, she had—of Jefferson Colle-, and I worked there. And

that’s where I worked for most of my life, is with Miss Mer, until she died.

HARDY: When did you start there?

SMITH: I started with Miss Meredith in 1921.

HARDY: Twenty-one? And how long did you work there?

SMITH: Oh, I worked there for Miss Meredith, oh, I don’t know how many years.

I worked there until she died. I couldn’t tell you the day she died.

HARDY: So 10 years, 20 years...?

SMITH: Oh, every bit of 10 years or more. And then Mr. [Gersh?], a Jew man,

bought the place, after Miss Meredi— And I went with Miss Meredith’s niece,

Miss Anna. And I worked in Elmwood, with her, and raised her baby, my little

Janet. And I don’t know what become of her. Because, now, she married a man,

and he was no good. He run around with another woman, in New York, and left her

and the child. And when I worked for her, out there in Elmwood, she turned on

the gas to kill herself and the child, bo, and both. When I got to work on that

morning, she was laying in the floor, with her arms—and both her arms over

Janet, and in the floor. And every jet on the gas stove was turned on—

HARDY: Geez!

SMITH: —to commit suicide! She was killing herself and the baby both. Lord,

when I got to work, and I smelled the gas before I got in the house. And I went

and I threw up the windows and turned off the gas— I said, “Miss Anna, what

are you trying to do, kill yourself?” I said, “Mr. G, Mr. Gorman ain’t

worth it!” And I told her to take that 37th Psalm. “Fret not thyself

because of evildoers. And neither be thou envious against the workers of

iniquity. You’ll see them flourishing today as a green—tree—bay tree and

tomorrow they can be cut down. Fret not thyself in any way to do evil for evil

but overcome evil with good.” I told her—I said, “Take that

37th Psalm.” I said, “That’s what helped me.” She knew what I had gone

through, with that first one. And I told her, too, to take that 37th Psalm. And

I got her off that floor. And we—she went down... he had a printing place,

down on Walden Street. She brought a pack of letters that this woman had wrote

him from New York and she give them to me. And he had on these letters,

“Don’t—” telling him to don’t eat nothing she cook for him. Oh, I

couldn’t tell you all the junk and stuff that he wrote. And she was going to

kill herself! And I told her—I said, “Miss...” And he worked... (phone

rings) That’s my phone.

HARDY: Phone.

[Pause in recording.]

HARDY: —about East Calvary and Reverend Tindley. So we’re getting a good

background now, and about yourself. What were the people like who were in

Tindley’s church, back during—

SMITH: Well, in—back in—

HARDY: —the war years, in ninetee—

SMITH: —Dr. Tindley’s time, East Calvary, you couldn’t get in there after

10:30. The church was packed, standing and seated. They couldn’t—you

didn’t have standing room. That’s why he was led to... He say the Lord gave

him a vision of building this church that we are in now. And he built the church

according to his vision. And, of course, naturally, I was there when the first

shovel of dirt was dug. Because he was standing, and the man broke ground, and

to build Tindley Temple. And when he was in Tindley Temple, if you wasn’t

there by 10:30 in the morning, 11:00, it wasn’t much use you coming, as large

as Tindley Temple is today, the gallery. And when he preached “Heaven’s

Christmas Tree,” you couldn’t get in at all. Locked the doors. Because all

those stairways, from the balcony all the way down to the bottom of the steps,

were full with people—until the fire marshal stopped them from letting people

sit in there, said, if a fire were to get in, there’s a panic. They used to

have seats all on the side of the pews, from the back door all the way down to

the front, for people to sit in, as long as you could get one in there. And they

were standing where there was a space. And you couldn’t get in Tindley Temple.

HARDY: Why was he so popular?

SMITH: Well, he wasn’t so popular. Dr. Tindley was a very humble man. Any

child could go to him. And one thing Dr. Tindley—he had almost—the church

was almost as many white people as it was colored.

HARDY: Really?

SMITH: And then, when he had the feeding of the people, when the Depression was

on, the people come there and lined... Oh! And he would let—and feed them

downstairs. And he would tell the people that, “If you can come here,” they

may be down but they’re not out. And when they got to a place, they didn’t

have a place to sleep, he let them sleep in the church. That’s the time people

used to talk about seeing lights and stuff in there, crawling. But anyway,

Dr. Tindley helped people. He was a man, I don’t care who you were, black or

white, whatever you were, he would help you. Anybody could go to him. He was a

man that is humble. He was a humble person. You would never—it will never be

another one, as long as I live. I have seen him come and go. But you will never

meet another man like Dr. Tindley. Because... Now, when I came to Tindley

Temple... Now, a lot of the time, people don’t bother with people much in

church now, if you’re there, you’ve got burdens or anything. But if you’ve

got a burden, you could go to Dr. Tindley. Now, one night... I’ll tell you,

this same husband I’m talking about, I had a lot of... Man, when I came from

home... Dr. Tindley made me what I am today. Because he said, “The Lord puts

your temper under subjection but he don’t take it from you.” And I know I

had a temper. One night I attempted to kill my husband, the first one. I went in

the store on South Street and bought the gun—and taking the money out to pay

the man—to kill him. And as [soon?] as I had—I got that money, got that gun,

he would have been dead and I’d been pulling time. But something spoke to me,

just as plain, and said, “‘Vengeance is mine and I will repay,’ says the

Lord.” Instead of buying the gun-- I lived 1522 Catherine Street. Instead of

getting the gun, I came home to church, on a Tuesday night, to prayer meeting.

Dr. Tindley got up that night and he said—he told how the devil’ll get you

in trouble but he never know nobody that the devil get out. And after the devil

get you—he showed how he prance. And when he got through, I went to him like a

child and cried on his shoulder and told him he was talking to me, because I had

just attempted to get a gun. He closed his eyes and put both arms around me and

he said, “Daughter, I want you to go home tonight, and get on your knees and

ask God to take him out of your heart. Because he ain’t worth you getting

yourself in trouble for.” And he said, “And I’ll going to pray with

you.” I did what he told me. I went home that night, right around here at

1522 Catherine Street. I got on my knees and I prayed to the Lord. I cried. I

prayed. I cried. Every time I went to get up, like somebody would push me right

back. I stayed down there, until the burden was lifted. And when the burden was

lifted, I felt like I had wings, I could fly away. When I come back to church

the next Tuesday night, prayer meeting, Dr. Tindley’s closing remarks was,

“Sometimes we think that we have given up these burdens and sometimes we have

them still hid back in our heart.” And he said, “And as soon as you meet the

person, it’ll fly up in you again.” He said, “But if it don’t fly up in

you, you know it’s gone.” Well, I had the same opportunity to do the same

thing what he was talking about. One night I was coming from work, from Miss

Meredith, down 924 Spruce Street. I met him and the girlfriend on South Street.

He had nerve enough to introduce her to me. And I laughed in both of them’s

face. I kept on back to the church. And I come on to church prayer meeting. And

Dr. Tindley told about how you—only way you know this thing is gone, you can

meet the person and the thing don’t come up in you again. And that night, I

went back to him and told him—I said, “Well, Dr. Tindley, I (laughs) got

more news for you tonight.” And he said, “What is it, daughter?” He always

called me daughter. And he said, “What is it, daughter?” I said, “Doc,”

I said, “tonight I had privilege to meet, and the girlfriend. And he had nerve

enough to introduce me to her.” He said, “Did you get angry or did you get

mad or did you —?”

[Pause in recording.]

SMITH: After a while, he jumped out the bed. And my brother had a quart of milk

on the table, pies, plate—pie, ice cream. He grabbed that quart of milk and

slammed it. And it hit Mr. Evans’s head. He had French doors. He broke five

of those glasses in that door. So Mr. Evans come out the room. And he said to

him—he said, “Who is that breaking up my place?” And he allowed to Mr.

Evans, “Check your head back in there, before you take back [ano?]—” And

Mr. Evans went back and get his gun and come back and ordered him out. Well, at

that time, I had gone out to get a cop. And I come back with two cops. One was a

white and one was a colored. So we was on our way to the station house, to carry

him, to lock him up. And the whi— He started crying. “Oh, Lord, I ain’t

got no mother, ain’t got no father, ain’t got nobody. Lo—” (laughs)

HARDY: Huh!

SMITH: And the colored cop felt sorry for him. So he come and said to me—he

said, “Won’t you take him back and give him another...?” I said, “This

day is the last day he going to spend the day with me.” I said, “I am

positively through.” I said, “Anywhere he got to go, go to it.” I say,

“I’m through.” I say, “I’ve took enough. I’m not taking no more.”

And so that’s the day we ended our—correspond and everything.

HARDY: Now, in Tindley Temple, with Reverend Tindley’s congregation, were most

of the people, back in the early days, southern people, people up from the South?

SMITH: No, they mostly was from Berlin, Maryland.

HARDY: Oh? Most of the people were from Berlin?

SMITH: Yeah. And we had the Berlin—most of the people in Tindley Temple are

the Maryland people. You don’t find many people in there from South Carolina

or North Carolina. It was very few people in there from North Carolina. Now, my

class leader, Mr.—Brother Walker, he was from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

And he got one daughter that still comes to Tindley Temple church. But I think

he married—his wife and all his family was here.

HARDY: Because the impression I got from reading Ralph Jones’s book was that,

you know, East Calvary had a lot of people— many Southerners who came up would

go to Reverend Tindley’s church, because—

SMITH: Well, they w—

HARDY: —he was a Southerner himself and he—you know, he understood them—

SMITH: No, he was from Berlin.

HARDY: —I know he was from—

SMITH: Yeah.

HARDY: —Berlin, Maryland—but he understood them and he...

SMITH: Well, the most people that he had is from Berlin, Maryland. Because they

run the bus back to Berlin, Maryland, now. And I know the time when he used to

go down to Berlin, Maryland, to preach. And we used to go down there with him...

But the place was overfull with white people—than it was the colored. Was more

white people down here. Well, one thing about Dr. Tindley, he was always that

way. And then he preached in Ocean Grove, Jersey, every year, every summer. And

I don’t know another minister that’s been there to preach since he died.

HARDY: Hm. So then, during those war years, or 1920s, when people were really

coming up—

SMITH: Yeah!

HARDY: —they didn’t go to Tindley’s church. They went to other churches.

SMITH: —and they come—the people that went there, they were from everywhere.

It wasn’t just were all from the South, was just from everywhere, people right

here in the city.

HARDY: Yeah. The other thing in reading Mr. Jones’s book is that, during

those war years and into the ’20s...

SMITH: Well, of course, Ralph wrote a whole lot of stuff about Dr. Tindley that

he--He don’t even know nothing about him. Because I don’t even know where he

was when Dr. Tindley was at Tindley Temple.

HARDY: I think he was—

SMITH: Yeah, I know. Yeah.

HARDY: —not very big, back then.

SMITH: Yeah, I know. But, you see, Susie Walker, [Lulu Marrez?], and myself, we

were right here with...

HARDY: You were the ones who went back there.

SMITH: And we went back and forth there, with Mrs. Tindley and all his children.

HARDY: OK. Well, then during those...

SMITH: See, Emma and I worked together. Now, Emma was in Tindley Temple, Emma

was the Decorating Committee for every program. And she sang on the choir. Now,

Susie Walker and myself is the only two members of the old Senior Choir in

Tindley Temple. Because now, all of the old Senior Choir members, they are dead.

Now, Ralph Jones and Lotta Lee and Miss Hackett and the Hackett, they was all on

the Junior Choir, with Miss [Maston?].

HARDY: Yeah. The reason why I’m asking you is I’m trying to find out what he

did during those war years, the First World War, to help people coming up from

the South or to give them...

SMITH: Well, Dr. Tindley didn’t do anything much. Now, most of the

people—Dr. Tindley had foreigners. He had more foreigners. And Dr. Tindley

never owned a automobile, in his life.

HARDY: What do you mean, foreigners?

SMITH: Hm?

HARDY: What do you mean, foreigners?

SMITH: People from over—not in—from out of this country.

HARDY: From Europe?

SMITH: Yeah. From—well, not United State.

HARDY: Wasn’t that uncommon, for a black minister, back then, to have a lot of

whites in his congregation?

SMITH: Well, it was.

HARDY: I thought things were pretty segregated, back then.

SMITH: No. It wasn’t--Well, one thing, Dr. Tindley ain’t never

been—nothing segregated, that he was in. Because he said, “The Lord made all

of us.” He used to talk about a black cow can give white milk and a black hen

can lay a white egg as well as a white hen can lay a brown egg. But he talked

about all colors. And he said, “You don’t have no trouble with this race

business, only through the human race.” He said, “You go out in the field

and look at the cows, the black cows, spotted cows, white cows, brown cows. All

of them are grazing together.” He said, “But this race—this human race,

you—they fight. This one don’t like you. You too, you ain’t in this

place.” Because I know the time when they used to have—right over here, this

church right here. They used to separate them, over there, put the yellows on

one side and the blacks on the other.

HARDY: I’d heard that.

SMITH: Yeah! Well, that’s segregation. But Dr. Tindley never had that. Now...

HARDY: Did he talk, then, in some of his sermons about how—about, you know,

race relations or...?

SMITH: Well, Dr. Tindley used to bring up all about the cow. A black cow can

lay—a white—a black hen can lay a white egg, just like a brown hen can lay a

white egg and--Well, he used to talk about colors. But he said, now, you ask him

what color he would like to be. He say, “I’ll be deep blue, trimmed in

red.” (laughter)

HARDY: Deep blue, trimmed in red.

SMITH: Yeah. He said, “I’ll be deep blue...” I never will forget that

saying. He said, “I’ll be deep blue, trimmed in red.” He said, “But far

as...” And just like... Well, when I was working for Mrs. Derousse,

Bootsie... And I raised Boots. Boots was a baby, was only a month old when they

taking... And Mrs. Derousse said to me, one day... When Boots said to me—she

said, “Weezie, why your hand is brown and my—why is mine white?” She asked

the question. Mrs. Derousse said she was listening to see what kind of answer

would I give her. And I told her—I said, “Well, Bootsie, just like the

Lord...” I said, “Sometimes we have chi, a hen that lays—hatches

chickens.” I said, “Some little chickens come yellow. Some come white. Some

come Dominickers. Some come brown.” I said, “But they’re all that one

hen’s chickens.” I say, “They’re all one hen.” And I said, “See,

when the Lord made flowers, if he had of made all white flowers and didn’t

make some red ones and didn’t make some pink ones and some blue one,” I say,

“we would all have one color.” I said, “But the same man that made you,

made me.” Mrs. Derousse said she didn’t know—she said, “Louise, I was

listening. I was wondering what kind of answer will you...” I said, “Well,

Mrs. Derousse, that’s the only thing I could know,” I said, “Because

—” I said, “Because now, my pastor always talk about a black hen can lay a

white egg and a brown hen can lay a white egg. And whatever color they have, you

don’t have to be the color.” I say, “You take a old cat have kittens.” I

said, “Some of them come black. Some come white,” and I said, “Some come

brown.” And I said, “But they’re all that one cat’s kitten.”

HARDY: It’s true. Yeah. One of those other things is, during the First World

War, Ralph talked about how Reverend Tindley opened the church and had cots for

people, beds, provided food, did all those sorts of things. Did that happen...?

I know he did that during the Depression. Did he do that during the

nineteen-teens also? Or did that not come till later?

SMITH: Well, I do— Only time, when there was a depression on. That was the Depression—

HARDY: So...

SMITH: —years when people were selling apples.

HARDY: Yeah. Well, how about the hard times right after the First World

War—right after the First World War, when all the boys were coming back...?

You know, a lot of men were laid off.

SMITH: Yeah, a lot of people didn’t have jobs and everything. A lot of people

lost their homes and everything.

HARDY: Did he open up the church then, in the early ’20s, too?

SMITH: Yeah, well, the church has always been open, to help people. Dr. Tindley

had it that way until he died. And the day that he died, they had a—man said

they had the flower almost—to get out to the cemetery, before—they had

flowers up all the way to the cemetery, before they put him out there. Because I

was singing on the choir then—with the choir members.

HARDY: Now, you started in the church 1910. And that was when it—

SMITH: Yeah. We...

HARDY: —was still on Bainbridge Street.

SMITH: Yeah. No, no. Bainbridge Street—that was before they left Bainbridge

Street. Bainbridge—they left Bainbridge Street and moved up to East Calvary.

Bainbridge was the... Old Bainbridge Street church was still on Bainbridge Street.

HARDY: Were you...?

SMITH: But I wasn’t in there.

HARDY: You came...

SMITH: My sister was in there. My sister belonged to the church before they come

to Bainbridge Street. Because she was up here way ahead of me, all of her life,

my sister. And she was in old Bainbridge Street church. But when I came up here,

in 1910, was in April. And that’s when we joined, East Calvary. Of course,

that’s where she belonged.

HARDY: Did you see him change, over the years, from when you first arrived to

the 1920s?

SMITH: Now, you see, when Dr. Tindley was first in old Bainbridge Street

church, they tell me he was a hod carrier, and he was a janitor of the church.

And then he started, from the janitor, to preaching. And then, when the church

got too small for him, down on Bainbridge Street, that’s when he moved up here

to East Calvary. And they tell me... Of course, now, that’s what Dr. Tindley

tell me. They was getting ready to get—send—brought him up there onto East

Calvary and the doors are going to be closed... They thought the doors were

going to be closed. But the one thing, Dr. Tindley had faith. He’s always had

faith and believed what the Lord said. And many times, he said, when he would

sit down to eat his food, it wouldn’t be a piece of nothing to feed nobody

with. But he told the girl—told them to set the table anyway. And before they

got ready to sit down to the table, a rap come on the door and the food was

there. That’s where he could write those songs. Now, he wrote a song about,

“God has promised to provide for me. All creation is his own. All my needs, to

him are known. He has promised to provide for me.” And then one verse says,

“When they hadn’t any bread, good old Moses knelt and prayed. And the God

who gave so plentiful and free sent the precious manna down, Israel saw it on

the ground. He is the God who now provides for me.” He wrote that from

experience. All of his songs wasn’t written just because what he saw but it

was through his experience what he had gone through. And he wrote another song

saying, “A better day is coming. No more shall lords and rulers their heavy

victim oppress, shall bar the door against the poor and leave them in distress.

But God, the king of glory, who hears the ravens cry, will give command that

every man will have plenty, by and by. A better day is coming.” He wrote those

through experience. He know what he had gone through.

HARDY: Yeah. So that probably made it close to—

SMITH: And we—and—

HARDY: —the people in his...

SMITH: —yeah—and we are the same thing today, have gone through the same

thing. And then he wrote that song, “By and by, when the morning come and all

the saints of God be gathered home, then we’re going to tell the story, how we

overcome. We’ll understand it better, by and by.”

HARDY: Did he ever give sermons or write songs that really were addressed to

people from the South in the city?

SMITH: No, no. He never wrote nothing...

HARDY: Because I know that for people in the South adjusting to life in Philadelphia—

SMITH: Yeah, yeah.

HARDY: —and in the North was—

SMITH: No, no.

HARDY: —could be very difficult for some people.

SMITH: No. No, he didn’t—he never... Now the first book that Dr. Tindley

wrote... My sister brought one of his books home. And I know my mother never saw

Dr. Tindley. But she used to sing, “I’ve started out to find a better home.

My trials of this world can never come. With relatives and friends, I shall be

so happy then, in the presence of the Lord all the while.” Now that is a piece

that Dr. Tindley wrote in the first Songs of Paradise. That was his book name,

The Songs of Paradise. And that was a great... That book... I used to have a

book of every s, every year that he had increased the songs. And I had one of

his poem books. People come in here and pick them up and going out. And I lost

it. I had the book of poems that he gave me. And I had a book of every song that

he’d wri— The last song book I had was one that Albert [Tindley] wrote. Now,

Albert wrote the last song book that was put out by the Tindley family, I will

say. And his picture and his wife and his son was on that book. Somebody picked

that book up here and carried it—and I don’t have that one.

HARDY: Yeah. Let me ask you another question. Apparently, when Birth of the

Nation, the film, first—

SMITH: Hm?

HARDY: Do you remember the film Birth of the Nation, way on back there?

Apparently, Reverend Tindley and, I guess, Pops Graham, Baptist minister, some

of the others, led a march up to the theater, protesting its being showed to

Philadelphia, and, you know, were beaten up and [ran away?]. Any recollection of that?

SMITH: Yeah, I remember Pop Graham. Because, Mrs. Graham, she is the one

that—the time we had a play in Tindley Temple. And she was the one that put

on—demonstrated this play for the church. She was a member of the church. And

I was in that play. And we put it on in Tindley Temple. And that’s the time...

Now, Dr. Tindley never believe in selling and buying in the church. Now, that’s—

HARDY: I heard that.

SMITH: —one thing that’s in Tindley Temple today. And if any such thing as

he’s turned over in his grave, he’s flopped over more times than I got

fingers and toes.

HARDY: I think his daughter-in-law told me that too—

SMITH: Yeah. That’s right.

HARDY: —and the same thing.

SMITH: Yeah, that’s true.

HARDY: Yeah. Now, what can you tell me about Pops Graham?

SMITH: Pop Graham usually wa, here. And, you know, when Dr. Tindley got

baptized, by—yeah, by Pop—I think by Pop Graham—time he got baptized, the

Delaware Conference ministers went to the bishop, to throw Dr. Tindley out of

the Methodist conference, and said he had turned to a Baptist, because he was

baptized in a Baptist church by a Baptist minister. And Dr. Tindley sent them

word back, if he did anything contrary to what the Lord had done, they could

throw him out and he would get a church on any corner and will fill it. And, I

mean, they dropped that rabbit and jumped another one, [barred (laughter) them

over there?].

HARDY: Was Pops—Pop Graham’s church—

SMITH: Yeah.

HARDY: —First Baptist or...?

SMITH: Yeah, his church was a Baptist church, I don’t know whether Central

Baptist Church. It could be Central Baptist Church—where Central Baptist

Church is now. I think that was probably the chur-, I’m not sure. But I’ve

been there more times than a little. Because—and I know, when

Mrs. Graham—when we used to go to the church, and where Pop Graham was. And

he had a daughter too. I remember his daughter. And his wife, she was the one

that put on a play for us. Because—now, [Anne?] Townsend was the longest

president of the Usher Board we’ve had. And this is her administration. Those

two rooms down in the basement, one on one side was made for the men ushers and

one on the other side was for the lady ushers. And that night—through that

administration, that’s the time when we put on The Candlelight Rally. And

Dr. Tindley said to Miss Townsend—the tickets—“I don’t want no

tickets.” He never went for ticket selling and buying. He said, “It’s not

the sale of them. But people steal more than what they supposed to do.”

Because just the— it wasn’t good. He never went for it. And so he asked us

how was we going to raise the money. And at that rate, we had a play called The

Candlelight Rally. And you go up and, each verse, you march up the altar and you

said, just like the verse in the Bible—I’ll just take one—said, “Let

your light—” you hold the light up—“Let your light so shine before men

that they may see your good work and glorify your father which is in heaven.”

Then you say, “My offering to the Lord is,” so much and so much, $5 or $10

or whatever you’re putting in the envelope. And that’s how we raised that

money. We raised over $500 that night—

HARDY: Huh!

SMITH: —by The Candlelight Rally, for the ladies’ usher...

HARDY: So it didn’t need to have any selling.

SMITH: No. So that’s the time Miss Townsend had me to direct the ushers, with

that Candlelight Rally. And I told her, now, we had to have... I was with the

play that Mom Graham put on with Wesley [AME Zion] Church, 15th and Lombard. I

was with the ushers when she put it on. And the only thing that I wouldn’t be

able to demonstrate... Because she had about six young girls. And they

dramatize, “Lead, Kindly Light.” But she said, “We’ll omit that part.”

And I said, “Then we have to have a queen, for to represent the seven churches

of Asia Minor.” And Miss Townsend took the part of the queen of the churches.

And we had seven-- Then I went to the Jewish synagogue and I borrowed one of

these candleholders with seven candle. And each candle represent the seven

churches of Asia Minor. And she was the queen of the churches.

HARDY: Sounds like it was quite a production.

SMITH: Yeah, it was. And we raised $500 that night, for to build those rooms

down the basement, and Tindley Temple, down—for the Usher Board. And the men

still have theirs but the ladies give up theirs. Because our Usher Board got too

large, so we have to have a larger room.

HARDY: Right. Do you know if Reverend Tindley was politically active?

SMITH: No. Dr. Tindley never—he never bothered in politics, (laughs) no. And

he never cared too much for the... Because he called them—“Bowing to these

potentates.” But he was a Mason, when he died.

HARDY: Huh.

SMITH: But he used to tell the Masons about themselves. A man said he’d bring

them down and (laughs) lay them out! They—every—all the meeting that we

have, St. John’s Day—and all the big Masonic orders, when they would turn

out, they’d be in Tindley Temple. They always meet at Tindley Temple--And

Dr. Tindley would be the one to preach to them. And Dr. Tindley used to lay

them out about all of the bowing and scraping to this potentate and everything.

HARDY: (laughs)

SMITH: But anyhow, he was a Mason when he died.

HARDY: Ah. Just to switch the topic, what can you tell me about Amos Scott?

SMITH: Well, I couldn’t tell you anything about Amos Scott. He was the

magistrate down here. I know he was in this street when I moved here.

HARDY: Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah. He was down there, at that bay window house, down there. [But more

Stanton board?], lately. When I moved in this street, he was—Magistrate Scott,

he was down there. And Mr. [Agett?] was down there. And then Mr.—another man

lived in this street.

HARDY: So you never had any contact with...

SMITH: No, none of these people that was—only Dr. Tindley—is the only man

that (laughs) I know anything about.

HARDY: And, yeah. So...

SMITH: Of course, now, these doctors now, like Dr. Wooten and the Wolf

sisters-- Now, the girl that used to be up here with Mr. Dunn-- Now, Mr. Dunn

married one of the Wolff girls. And they all lived there in this one house

there, together. And one of them was a great seamstress. And she sewed for most

people on the Main Line.

HARDY: Aha!

SMITH: They used to bring in their sewing to her. She was a good seamstress.

HARDY: You know, the other thing I’d like to ask you about, since you go way

back, and go back to 1910 in the city, is... I was reading the Tribune, back

from the nineteen-teens, early ’20s. And they were talking about the Jewish

merchants on South Street and about the real troubles people had buying from the

merchants down there, stories like you go—incidents where you go and buy a

pair of shoes and you leave and you find that they’d put a different pair of

shoes in the box that you bought or where you’d go in and they’d shortchange

you. Do you remember...? You know, just—and it sounded like it was a real

problem, back then. Do you have any recollection of...?

SMITH: No, I don’t have any records about-- I know the time when they used to

have a lot of stuff on South Street. Because my brother-in-law.-- And I’ll

tell you, that was his beat, Mr. Jones’s beat. And I’ve seen him take

the--(laughs) I got his blackjack.

HARDY: Do you really?

SMITH: Oh, yeah. I’ll show it to you. (laughter) And my sister asked me, when

he died, did I want the gun or his blackjack. I said, “Well, if you give me

the gun, I might use it.” Oh, boy. People used to rob. And when--One man one

time went in the store and took a--stole a pair of pants hanging on a rack, and

then had it in his coat. And he didn’t—supposed to didn’t have it. And

when they found it—and he had it, just the same. And that’s the time... And

I don’t know what happened. But Mr. Jones... I was coming home from work one

time, from down Miss Meredith. And I always come up from that way and stop past

my sister’s and then come over here to 1522 Catherine Street. And that’s

when he used to have—that’s the time when he used to ha, tell me about the

things that happened. And Mr. Jones, he was telling me about so many things

that was happening on there. Because all his beat was in there on South Street.

HARDY: Yeah. And I guess, South Street, that was the major street, right?

SMITH: Yeah. Well, that was the main street then. Because, most everything, they

had on South Street. You could go down by the stores and things. Was more stores

all up and down South Street. South Street don’t look like the same street it

used to be.

HARDY: Did you ever go to the Standard Theater, back then?

SMITH: Mn-mn. I’ll tell you the truth. I haven’t been to the theater in

Philadelphia since I’ve been in here.

HARDY: Really?

SMITH: Uh-uh.

HARDY: Because I guess the Standard, back during the nineteen-teens, that was the—

SMITH: Yeah, but now—

HARDY: —Gibson’s Standard Theater?

SMITH: —the Standard Theater and the Royal. It’s on South Street. Yeah. The

Royal is still on there.

HARDY: And then there was the Dunbar, which—

SMITH: Yeah, the Dunbar.

HARDY: —became the Lincoln.

SMITH: Yeah. Well, now, that is the theater that—the Dunbar Theater is where

Professor Freeman’s wife... She was an actress. That’s who I lived with in

New York. She used to come over here and have her place—and the Dunbar, on

Broad Street. Mm-hmm.

HARDY: Yeah. I guess that’s where the touring companies—

SMITH: Yeah.

HARDY: —that did the whole circuit—that’s where—

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.

HARDY: —they’d stop, when they—

SMITH: Uh-huh.

HARDY: —got to Philadel—

SMITH: Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, that’s Mrs. Freeman. Now I used to live with them.

That’s where I come back...

HARDY: That was up in New York.

SMITH: Yeah. And that’s where live—and come back to Philadelphia, back here,

where—right here.

HARDY: Now back during the nineteen-teens, when you were first here, did you

have...? You came off of the farm. You’d come up to Philadelphia, big city.

SMITH: Yeah.

HARDY: And you had enou—

SMITH: Nothing excitable.

HARDY: Uh...?

SMITH: Nothing excitable.

HARDY: No? (laughter)

SMITH: Just I didn’t see no plowshares and other stuff. And, of course, people

down there are living far apart. You know you could get out and get the fresh

air. It’s not so jammed up like you’re in the city.

HARDY: What differences were the hardest to get used to?

SMITH: But in New York you find more Southern people—in New York. And now the

biggest majority of people that I found, when I went to New York to live, is

more Southern people in New York with business places than you ever found in

Philadelphia. I never found nobody in Philadelphia got no business place, that

come up and just open up a business, like some of the people in New York had.

HARDY: Huh!

SMITH: Because, now... And New York, we went to several places that, people

were—originated from the South.

HARDY: And you didn’t find people from the South in Philadelphia—

SMITH: No. No, no, no.

HARDY: —starting their businesses.

SMITH: No, you don’t find nobody here. And the people up here ain’t got

nothin’. There wasn’t any... And, of course, I had a friend of mine,

she’s—“I’m a Pennsylvanian.” And I told her—I say, “Yeah, you’re

a Pennsylvanian, (laughs) more... You all are so dumb, you ain’t got no—”

I say, “Everybody that is up here, mostly, that got anything or got anywhere

is from—originated from the South.” And just look at our mayor. He came from

the South.

HARDY: Why do you think that is?

SMITH: Hm?

HARDY: Why do you think that is?

SMITH: Well... Because now, well, he just went through the schools and got the

education. He has made hisself...

HARDY: Yeah. Well, I don’t mean him. I mean, why do you think that Southerners

seem to...?

SMITH: Well, I don’t know. As I told them, some of these right here, and born

and raised here, they don’t seem to get nowhere but just get—they don’t go

and get places that somebody that come up way from back down there and come up

here from the woods...

HARDY: Yeah. Well, when you were young, then, back during the nineteen-teens,

was there a difference between the people up from the South and the old Philadelphians?

SMITH: Well, yes. People that come from the South, especially those that are

educated, they know what to do. And they get up here and... They don’t seek...

Now just like, when I come up here and I brought my younger nieces that came

here with me... Now, I had two nieces come here from the South. They didn’t

have no job. Well, they give me understanding when they come. They were from

college. And they said to me, “Aunt Louie, don’t get me no domestic, because

I don’t want no housework job.” And they want to go where they have public.

So I had taken my first niece that come here, Elizabeth, and I’d taken her to

Gimbels, Strawbridge, some of the stores that I knew and some of the people that

I knew. But she didn’t get a job. And I landed her in Lane Bryant. She stayed

in Lane Bryant until she went home and got married.

HARDY: Ah.

SMITH: Then...

HARDY: This was much later, though, right?

SMITH: Yeah. Well, she came—well, when I married my second husband.

HARDY: OK. So when was that?

SMITH: That would have been 1943.

HARDY: Oh. Well, that’s—yeah, that’s past our period, then.

SMITH: Yeah—the—yeah, past—

HARDY: Our period’s up through...

SMITH: —your past period. Yeah. When she...

HARDY: Not... OK. Let me ask a question about that early period, then, back

before 1930. How did you feel about doing private work rather than public work,

in house—

SMITH: Well, see, I didn’t know nothing about any kind of work up here. I was

dumb—(laughter) as well as to say... I didn’t know nothing about... When I

turn on the gas, I didn’t know about no gas stove. I was think-, is something

going to blow up? And I jump. And, of course, the people that I worked for, as I

say, Mrs. Rogers, Lord bless her... Because I didn’t know nothing ab— When

things pop like that, I jumped from the stove. And she said, “It ain’t going

to bite you, Louise.” (laughs) And I go back there and turn it up or so, like

the-- But when I turn it off and it’d pop like that, I didn’t know whether

it was going to blow up or what it was going to do. But anyhow, she would tell

me. So it didn’t take me long to learn. And so, because as I said, my mother

always said I was very apt in learning anything, whatever you teach me once, you

don’t have to teach me the second time. And that’s how I used to get on to

knowing how to do thing. And even when were children and growing up and my

mother put us on the tub... We didn’t have no washing machines and things like

that. If you wash your clothes, if they [won’t?] clean... My mother would take

them on up and hold them up and look and see. If they ain’t clean, she make

you put them back and rub them some more! And then she—down the next time,

they look a little better. So you can hang them up then. But she don’t hang

them up until you get them clean. So that’s the way you taught. But people

don’t teach children now.

HARDY: Was it hard doing domestic work—

SMITH: No!

HARDY: —in the city?

SMITH: No, it was easy, like kissing your hand. No, nothing hard. And I love to cook.

HARDY: So you like that sort of work.

SMITH: Oh, yeah. And see, after I got up here and start to learn how to cook, I

cooked in boarding houses and hotels. And I cooked for Holland down there, when

he had his place down on our street. I cooked there five years, before I married

my husband. That’s when he made me quit—(laughs) the second husband. And

Mr. Newman said he had so many people in the kitchen and messing up the orders,

he had go out of business, after I left. Because he couldn’t get nobody to

fill those orders, like I did. And when they used to see me—the boys used to

see me coming in the kitchen, they’d say, “Get out of the way, boy! Here she

come!” (laughter) And I used to be in the kitchen [boys?]. But I know how to

sling hash. And I used to. And the days that we had bad days, when it was rainy

days and we had to make the bean soup and all... And Mr. Stewart, he was the

head chef. And things that I didn’t know how to make, he taught me. So I

learned a lot of stuff. And then being with different things, like in

Philadelphia, that I have been with—and learned how to cook and learned how to

do that. And then, after I got up here and after my husband died, they got after

me to join the Veterans of Foreign War. And I’ve been with them and going to

different places. And I’ve traveled, flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and to

Detroit and Chicago, for the national convention. And I tell, around Tindley

Temple Church, “Sometimes we think we know everything—little thing there,”

and I say, “Some of us in the church don’t know how to put a motion through.”

HARDY: Ah.

SMITH: I said... And they sit around and they don’t know. And I say, “But

when you go out and go with these groups that really know what they’re doing,

you learn a lot.” It’s just like going to school. And...

HARDY: And I’ve got to go, pretty soon. I’ve got to pick up my kids.

SMITH: Yeah. O—

HARDY: My wife’s working now, so I’ve got kids responsibilities. So let me

ask you one last question before I go. And what were the best and worst parts of

life in the South, before you came?

SMITH: Well, I’ll tell you the truth. Now, I don’t know. As I said, from my

parents and from my standpoint of being raised in the South, we never had

problems. Because... Now, I don’t know. Now, some parts of the South, where

the men do things and they hang them and they lynch them or whatever they

call... Now, I never known nothing about things like that. I read about them.

But not knowing. Because now, the white people at my home, we were brought up to

respect them and work and do. But as far as anything else, I don’t know

anything else. Now, as I said, I left home when I was quite young. And I

haven’t been back there to live since I left, only visit—and, when my mother

was sick, stayed there. As soon as anything happened, I come on back up here and

go back on my job. And now, most all of the white people that was in the South

when I lived there are gone. There are none there. Even the children that I used

to push around in the baby coaches, Maryann and Patty and Charlie—that’s

Mr. Roster’s children—they’re all dead. They young- they died young. So

when I go back there, I don’t know nobody. And Jack, the boy that I was

telling you about, that loved my daddy... He love my father as well as he did

his daddy. And anything anybody’d do to Uncle [Allen?], he would write me. He

wrote me a letter when I was in New York with Mrs. Herbert and told me—he

said, “Louise, I wish you would come home and see about Uncle Allen. He’s

not at Annie—” And Aunt Annie, he called her, Aunt Annie and—[Robert?].

[So it was in a more?]... “He’s gone to live by himself. And I don’t want

him out there in a house by himself. I don’t know what might happen to him. I

wish you would come home and see about him.” I got that letter that night and

got the t-, that morning. I got the train that night. When they saw me, I was

getting off a train. And my daddy said, “What are you doing here?” I said,

“Come after you.” That’s when I went down and packed him up and brought

him back with me. And Jack just love me for that. Now he’s gone. All of those

boys are gone.

HARDY: So live in the South, for you, was pretty good—

SMITH: Yeah, was—

HARDY: —before you came.

SMITH: —pretty good, with all of us doing... I don’t know anybody that I

dislike. I don’t have no dislikes for nobody down there.

HARDY: How about one final question, then? Did you ever become involved in any

civil rights activities, back during the teens or the ’20s—

SMITH: No.

HARDY: —like the early day—?

SMITH: No, I know they never had no civil rights down there, like Dr. Martin

Luther King.

HARDY: Oh, I mean up in Philadelphia here.

SMITH: Oh. No. No, I never got into none of those affairs with them. Because...

HARDY: I guess there wasn’t much going on, back during the teens and ’20s.

SMITH: No. They didn’t have all that burning and stuff like they had here

since. And, of course, now, when Dr. Martin Luther King started, they started a

whole lot of that. And I met him through the girl over there. And I met him

personally in Atlantic City, when he boycotted the buses—

HARDY: Huh!

SMITH: —in—down in Alabama, when...

HARDY: That’s early ’60s, right?

SMITH: Yeah.

HARDY: Yeah. So—

SMITH: Well... And the girlfriend of mine...

HARDY: —that’s after our period.

SMITH: Yeah. Oh, yeah. But she was the one that introduced me to him. And she

and him was raised together. And they gave him a banquet that night. And he

invited this girl that he was raised with and I to his banquet. That’s how I

met him personally. And the next time I met Dr. Martin Luther King was in New

York, on 125th Street, when he was stabbed by the woman that they sent to get

rid of him.

HARDY: Huh!

SMITH: And he told me, in the hospital, of all the letters... He got letters

from all over the world, from sympathy of what had happened to him. And he said

one of the main letters he got from the South was— the only regret that they

had, down there, that they didn’t complete the job that she was paid to do. So

they paid her off to get rid of him. And when I got up to my niece’s, that

lived in New York, her girlfriend called her. And I was right on 125th Street

the day that happened, looking right at it. But different people told me,

“Don’t go up in that crowd,” because I may get shot, because… a man

stabbed a woman. So instead of going up in the crowd, I went on up in the Bronx,

where my niece live. And her girlfriend called her and told her to turn on the

television. And she turned on the television. He was sitting there with this

knife still sticking in his chest—

HARDY: Auh!

SMITH: —on television.

[End of interview.]