448 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/638df8240d99be75a44efabfbef4a625.pdf e69277df19f11218272a11319045a496 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Juana “Jenny” Jiménez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 5/10/2012 Biography and Description English Juana “Jenny” Jiménez is one of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez’s sisters. She was born while her father, Antonio, worked as a seasonal farm laborer, or tomatero, in the late 1940s for Andy Boy Farms at a migrant camp in Minot, Massachusetts near Concord. They picked vegetables primarily for the Campbell Soup Company. In 1951 the family moved to Chicago to be closer to other relatives who had been living in La Clark since the late 1940s. Jenny grew up in Lincoln Park and in Wicker Park. When she became pregnant, but was unmarried, she was placed temporarily in a juvenile home for girls run by Catholic nuns. It is there that Jenny developed her spirituality and she remains very active in her community to this day, including working on behalf of her husband’s baseball and bowling leagues and running a Boy Scout troop to support her own and other neighborhood children in Puerto Rico. She now lives in Camuy, Puerto Rico. Spanish Juana Jiménez es una hermana de José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Nació en Minot, Massachusetts cerca de Concord donde su padre trabajo como tomatero para Andy Boy Farms en 1940. Aquí recogieron vegetables para la compañía de Campbell Soup. En 1951 la familia se cambio a Chicago para acercarse �con familiares que vivían en La Clark. Juana creció en Lincoln Park Wicker Park. Cuando se embarazo, antes de tener esposo, la mandaron a una casa para mujeres jóvenes que era atendida por monjas Católicas. Aquí es donde ella desarrollo su espirituelidad y todavía sigue muy dedicada en su comunida igual que ayudando los equipos de Béisbol y boliche en que esta su esposo y corriendo el grupo de Boy Scout para sus hijos y los del vecindario. Ahora vive en Camuy, Puerto Rico. �Transcript JUANA JIMENEZ: I didn’t like that name, Cha-Cha. (laughs) JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, you don’t like Cha-Cha. All right, all right. No, that’s good. It was a good answer. Okay, (inaudible), ready? If you could tell me your name, your full name, and where you were born. JUANA JIMENEZ: Okay. My name is Juana Jiménez, and as my mom used to say, I was born in Boston in Massachusetts, but I wasn’t. I was born in Concord, Massachusetts. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. Does it say that on your birth certificate? JUANA JIMENEZ: It says that on my birth certificate. Says Concord, Massachusetts. JOSE JIMENEZ: ’Cause he also said that it was Minot, there was a place called Minot. But your birth certificate says Concord. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, my birth certificate says Concord, Massachusetts. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, and did she say anything else? Where you were born, what was it like or whatever? Or anything? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, she just said -- well, [00:01:00] they lived in like a farm place or something. JOSE JIMENEZ: Like a migrant farm? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. They went down from Puerto Rico to Massachusetts so they could work, and they could at least have some money, and have a better life than what they did have when they were living here. At that time, of course, here 1 �there was no roads, everything dust roads and things like that. So it was really pretty hard for them. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. So they were working like a migrant farm camp? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. JOSE JIMENEZ: And then you were born in the town of Concord? JUANA JIMENEZ: I was born. She said from that town, I guess the owner of the farm or something, they took her to the hospital, and then -- they took her over there, and they kept thinking that the owner of the farm was [00:02:00] the father. Instead of my dad being my father, it would be the boss’s. But that’s because he paid for everything, but it wasn’t true. They fixed that right away. JOSE JIMENEZ: He paid for the insurance? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, he paid for everything. JOSE JIMENEZ: Did they say who the owner of the farm was? JUANA JIMENEZ: I really can’t remember the name. [Dowdry?], or -JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, [Dowry?]. JUANA JIMENEZ: Dowry, something like that. That’s what she says. JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that name before. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. Well, something like that. So I really don’t know. I always tell everybody the only thing I remember from Massachusetts is the blanket. I was underneath it, (laughs) and then we went down to Chicago because I don’t remember anything. I don’t know, I was just a baby. JOSE JIMENEZ: So you were born -- what year was that, again? JUANA JIMENEZ: Nineteen fifty-one. 2 �JOSE JIMENEZ: So 1951 she was in Concord, Massachusetts. JUANA JIMENEZ: In Concord, Massachusetts. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, so after that, then they moved to Chicago? JUANA JIMENEZ: After that, they moved to Chicago, [00:03:00] and -JOSE JIMENEZ: So around ’51 or ’52? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, I think it was really in the same year. Yeah, ’51. JOSE JIMENEZ: Fifty-one? Okay, so they moved to Chicago. Do you know where they moved to? JUANA JIMENEZ: The only place that I remember -- oh, my God. I don’t remember much about names of streets or something, but I know it was a really slum area. And I remember to get into the apartment -- it was a big building -- to get into the apartment, you had to go through the alley and the door was on the side of the alley. It was a bad -JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, that was on Dayton. That was on Dayton -- JUANA JIMENEZ: Way in back. JOSE JIMENEZ: Dayton by North Avenue. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, and I really didn’t like that place. JOSE JIMENEZ: So the entrance was in the alley, I remember that. JUANA JIMENEZ: It was in the alley. JOSE JIMENEZ: It was behind the businesses. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, right. JOSE JIMENEZ: The North Avenue businesses. JUANA JIMENEZ: That’s right. 3 �JOSE JIMENEZ: So there was North Avenue businesses between Halsted and Dayton, and right behind there was an alley, and there was a building there. JUANA JIMENEZ: That’s right, yeah. [00:04:00] And I hated that place. JOSE JIMENEZ: ’Cause there was a cat called kitty that we had or something. JUANA JIMENEZ: No, no. JOSE JIMENEZ: There wasn’t? JUANA JIMENEZ: That was in a different area. JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, that was a different -- JUANA JIMENEZ: That was way back later on. But when we were a lot smaller, we lived in that area, and I didn’t like it because they had a lot of roaches, a lot of -JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, so this is still on Clark Street that you’re talking about? It’s not North Avenue, then? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, it must not be. I just don’t know the name of the streets or anything. JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, you remember Maple. That was another alley. There was another alley. JUANA JIMENEZ: It was this little small alley I remember, and the other side was busy streets. JOSE JIMENEZ: That was La Salle. La Salle and Maple. JUANA JIMENEZ: You could see drunk people all the time in the streets. JOSE JIMENEZ: Clark Street. That was Clark Street. JUANA JIMENEZ: That was horrible. I hated it. I hated it. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, that was La Salle and Maple. Yeah, I remember that. Okay. 4 �JUANA JIMENEZ: ’Cause I remember that when -JOSE JIMENEZ: So what do you remember about there? JUANA JIMENEZ: The only thing I remember, we never had anything. At least we had food, but not much of anything. [00:05:00] We had to get our clothes was from the secondhand store all the time or from people that gave us clothes. For Christmas, we never had anything. I remember one time really special from school, the police officers, they went around to see the poor families. We were very, very poor. And they came around to our house, and they took you to go to their party and their Christmas party where Santa Claus was and everything, and I stayed home crying because they didn’t pick me to go. But later on, they came back about an hour later on, and they got my shoes, my clothes, and they finished dressing me in their car so I could go with them. And the first thing I saw when I went down there was Santa Claus, the kids running around everywhere, and the table filled with food. And when we got home, you had a great big sack of clothes [00:06:00] and toys, and I had the same. And that was one of the good times, at least I thought. JOSE JIMENEZ: I think that was Catholic Charities. JUANA JIMENEZ: Maybe, I don’t know. I really don’t know. JOSE JIMENEZ: Yeah, they were located by Superior and La Salle at that time. JUANA JIMENEZ: We had another time -- we had another -JOSE JIMENEZ: But we weren’t living there at that time. We were living -- JUANA JIMENEZ: ’Cause there was another time that we had a good time for the Catholic Charities that they did help us. And we were living -- 5 �JOSE JIMENEZ: It was at St. Teresa’s, I think? From St. Teresa’s (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t know, but I know that -- this was in a different place, where we lived, and they came to the house and brought us a big Christmas tree and big presents. JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, yeah, that was a different time. JUANA JIMENEZ: Different time. JOSE JIMENEZ: Yeah, but the first one was Catholic Charities. JUANA JIMENEZ: The first time I was really, really young I remember. But that place that I hated was because of all the rats and the roaches everywhere. [00:07:00] You could see the walls moving. JOSE JIMENEZ: So that was on Maple and La Salle with the rats and the roaches. JUANA JIMENEZ: Okay. I really don’t know, but -JOSE JIMENEZ: It was a basement. It was a basement apartment. JUANA JIMENEZ: It was a basement. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. Actually, there’s a picture of that on Facebook. JUANA JIMENEZ: Is it? JOSE JIMENEZ: I got to show it to you. JUANA JIMENEZ: I hated that place. I hated that place. JOSE JIMENEZ: So you remember that, that place there. That was at La Salle and Maple. Where did you go to school? JUANA JIMENEZ: At that time, we were going to St. Teresa. We were going to a Catholic school, I believe. Or how was that? I’m not sure that we went first to a public school and then we went to a Catholic school, but -- no, we did go to a 6 �public school first because [00:08:00] I remember going to kindergarten and not wanting to go to school, starting to scream because I wanted to go back home. I remember that one. That was in a (inaudible). JOSE JIMENEZ: Was it Newberry? Do you remember that school? JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t remember them. JOSE JIMENEZ: Franklin? JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t know the names of the -- I don’t know. JOSE JIMENEZ: None of the schools you know the name of. You remember St. Teresa. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, I remember St. Teresa. And I think it was after that that we did go to St. Teresa’s. And I remember mom working, making pasteles. JOSE JIMENEZ: I think before that we went to Newberry, (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: Just to pay for the tuition. JOSE JIMENEZ: Or at least I was going to Newberry before I went to St. Teresa’s. JUANA JIMENEZ: Okay, could be. JOSE JIMENEZ: [Probably?] you were going somewhere else. JUANA JIMENEZ: But I remember going to that school, and it was nice, but -- but we did go to St. Teresa. But it wasn’t at that time. JOSE JIMENEZ: So what are your first memories of Chicago growing up? JUANA JIMENEZ: Being a girl, [00:09:00] growing up, you only saw the inside of the house because it came with Puerto Rican -JOSE JIMENEZ: Culture. JUANA JIMENEZ: -- cultures and everything. My mom and dad -- 7 �JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, so what kind of cultures? JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, the women would stay in the house, clean, cook, do whatever they had to do. They wouldn’t go out for anything. The husbands or the men could do whatever they wanted. All the food had to be done for them, clothes had to be fixed, everything had to be ready for them. JOSE JIMENEZ: And mom was comfortable with that? JUANA JIMENEZ: She taught us that’s the way we had to do it. JOSE JIMENEZ: She told you that’s the way you had to do it? JUANA JIMENEZ: That’s the way you had to do it. JOSE JIMENEZ: And you had to behave yourself and -- I mean she actually said that? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. She told us, “When your father comes, the food has to be done, [00:10:00] the house has to be clean, you can’t let them fight,” and stuff like that. The men can go out drinking, and having fun, and whatever and the women had to stay in the house. Of course, she didn’t like that much either because dad would go out drinking and come back really drunk and half the time beat her up because of that. The first apartment -- you said it was Mayberry? By Clark? JOSE JIMENEZ: Maple. JUANA JIMENEZ: Maple, okay. Maple and Clark. JOSE JIMENEZ: La Salle. Maple and La Salle. JUANA JIMENEZ: I remember -- ’cause [Myrna?] was a baby -- my sister, Myrna. She was -- 8 �JOSE JIMENEZ: She was born right there in (inaudible) Hospital, right? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, she was a baby ’cause there were only two bedrooms in that apartment. There was two bedrooms, living room, and kitchen. JOSE JIMENEZ: It was a basement and the entrance was on Maple, on the small street. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. And then I remember my dad going out, and I decided I wanted to sleep out -- I didn’t want sleep with -- I had to sleep -- on one bed, I had to sleep [00:11:00] me, Daisy, and you. All three of us had to sleep there in one bed because there was nowhere else to sleep. And that day, I said, “I’m not sleeping in this bed anymore. I’m tired of being in this room.” So in the living room, there was a little crib, and I asked my mom, “Can I sleep on this crib tonight?” She said, “Fine,” because my sister slept with them. So in the middle of the night, all I did was open my eyes, and all you could see were these roaches, and these rats, and everything, but then they’d run. My dad came in drunk, and I could see him throwing baby food jars, throwing them because he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. He started fighting with my mom, throwing food everywhere on the walls. There was baby food everywhere, everywhere you could see. JOSE JIMENEZ: What was he drunk about? What was he mad about? JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t know. He was always mad at something. Always mad at something. And he wanted to fight with her. [00:12:00] So I really wouldn’t know. I really couldn’t tell you what they were fighting about. She wasn’t doing 9 �the fighting, he was doing the fighting. She was just running around so that he wouldn’t hurt her. JOSE JIMENEZ: What would happen the next day? JUANA JIMENEZ: The next day he’d either wake up by the bathroom floor throwing up, or half on the floor in the bedroom, or on the bed or whatever. And he would act like nothing, and she would have to get him his coffee, and make him some soup, or get him something cool to drink like 7UP or something because he wasn’t feeling well. But then the next day it was like nothing. He was an alcoholic and he didn’t realize that. And he always had to drink. All weekend he had to keep drinking. The whole weekend. JOSE JIMENEZ: That’s his negative side. What about his positive side? JUANA JIMENEZ: His positive side, he was a great dad. JOSE JIMENEZ: What do you mean? JUANA JIMENEZ: At least with me. [00:13:00] He could talk to me. I would sit on his lap, rub his face, would talk to him -- “Why are you so upset?” “I’m not upset. Go over there.” He’d tell me to get off his lap or go somewhere else. (laughs) But, you know, then he would smile and laugh a lot, make jokes. I liked the way when he would -- he loved movies from cowboys especially. And he would take the chairs, the back ends of the chairs, and turn it around, and sit with his legs spread apart. And since he had a big fat belly, the chairs instead of being straight up, it already had the form of the belly coming to the side. You could see him just kind of fighting, “Come on, you can do it.” And then when they started saying on the TV that that was too much violence, and they were taking all these 10 �movies out because of the violence and stuff, he was so mad. [00:14:00] He didn’t want to watch anymore cowboy and Indian movies (laughs) anymore because he said it was really wasn’t (inaudible). JOSE JIMENEZ: Didn’t he also watch The Honeymooners or something like that? JUANA JIMENEZ: He was what? JOSE JIMENEZ: You remember that show The Honeymooners? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, I remember. The Jackie Gleason show. JOSE JIMENEZ: And he reminded me of Jackie Gleason. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, he did. JOSE JIMENEZ: (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: That’s how it was. JOSE JIMENEZ: And that was one of his favorite shows. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes. Except the lady was -- Jackie Gleason’s wife -- my mom was more quiet because the one there on TV was a little mouthy. My mother wasn’t. JOSE JIMENEZ: But Antonio liked that. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, he liked that. JOSE JIMENEZ: Your dad. JUANA JIMENEZ: He liked that. Yeah, he did. JOSE JIMENEZ: Except for the lady wasn’t like mom. Mom was more quiet, she was more Puerto Rican. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, that’s it. JOSE JIMENEZ: Would you say Puerto Rican or that’s just the way she -- not really Puerto Rican, but -- were all Puerto Ricans like that or no? 11 �JUANA JIMENEZ: I really don’t know, but mom was because that’s the way she was raised. JOSE JIMENEZ: Were there many other women like that? Other women raised that way [00:15:00] or no? JUANA JIMENEZ: I really wouldn’t know. At least at that time -JOSE JIMENEZ: Why do you think mom was so quiet like that, accepting that? JUANA JIMENEZ: I think she was that way because she was raised and always -when she was younger, she went to a convent, and she learned a lot with the nuns. You have to be quiet, you can’t raise your voice, have to be cleaning all the time. That’s why we did a lot of cleaning on our hands and knees, cleaning and shining floors. But she said that’s the way the women had to be. And I kept thinking, “This can’t be life,” (laughs) you know? But we either behaved or we got punished kneeling in front of the altar. JOSE JIMENEZ: So she was very religious? JUANA JIMENEZ: She was very religious. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, but before we go into very religious, she also threw a few punches. Do you remember, [00:16:00] right in that spot, there was a fight or something? Do you remember that? JUANA JIMENEZ: What street? JOSE JIMENEZ: On Maple and La Salle, there was a fight -- JUANA JIMENEZ: There was a fight? JOSE JIMENEZ: -- with mom, right? You don’t remember that? JUANA JIMENEZ: With mom and who else? 12 �JOSE JIMENEZ: Some lady or something like that. It was a street fight. All the neighbors were outside (laughs) watching the fight. JUANA JIMENEZ: I really don’t remember that. JOSE JIMENEZ: You don’t remember that? JUANA JIMENEZ: I really don’t. And I don’t know why -JOSE JIMENEZ: So you never remember mom ever being aggressive? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, no. JOSE JIMENEZ: Fighting back on anybody? JUANA JIMENEZ: No. JOSE JIMENEZ: You just only remember her in the church. JUANA JIMENEZ: In the church, in the house. JOSE JIMENEZ: Gambling? JUANA JIMENEZ: Oh, yes, she did. (laughs) I remember her playing a lotería, but it’s not the lottery like they play now ’cause there was the three small cards. JOSE JIMENEZ: So it was like bingo? JUANA JIMENEZ: It’s like bingo, but it wasn’t. Bingo uses those cards, and straight across and down to the side. These were like three small cards -- [00:17:00] of course, it was illegal. JOSE JIMENEZ: But this was Spanish bingo. JUANA JIMENEZ: Spanish bingo. JOSE JIMENEZ: So why is Spanish bingo illegal and not English bingo? 13 �JUANA JIMENEZ: All bingos were illegal if you went over the limit of the money. You weren’t playing for pennies here. You were playing -- you know, $5.00, $10.00, $50.00, things like this. JOSE JIMENEZ: So it was illegal because they charged too much money? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, it was gambling. It was gambling. JOSE JIMENEZ: So all bingo was illegal at that time. JUANA JIMENEZ: All bingo was illegal at that time. JOSE JIMENEZ: But did a lot of people play it? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes. Hiding, yes. (laughs) JOSE JIMENEZ: So it was common. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, it was common especially in the Puerto Ricans ’cause I remember standing -- trying to go to sleep standing up by a wall, “Let me go to sleep, I’m tired. We want to go home.” And we wouldn’t go home until they played their bingos. And the kids had to be quiet -- “Go over there and sit down and watch TV or just be quiet. You can’t be over here because there’s money here.” Half the time it was more [00:18:00] or less more family playing it, but it was still illegal. So as soon as somebody would knock at the door, everybody would stop, I remember, and look out the window, see who it was or whatever. JOSE JIMENEZ: Now, we moved up towards Clark Street by Lincoln Park. Do you remember that place? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, I do ’cause there were some Italian people that were the landlords or something, wasn’t that? JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, that wasn’t that. But that was in -- 14 �JUANA JIMENEZ: That was another place. JOSE JIMENEZ: That was on Fremont. The Italian people, (inaudible). I was thinking about right across the street from Lincoln Park on Clark Street. Right there on North Avenue and Clark. Do you remember that or no? JUANA JIMENEZ: What’s that? JOSE JIMENEZ: You remember Fremont Street, though, right? With the Italian gangs? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, I remember that. JOSE JIMENEZ: So what do you remember there? JUANA JIMENEZ: I remember my mom being very superstitious, and she kept saying [00:19:00] that there were ghosts or something that could hear people walking around, or people knocking at the doors, or things like this. And she kept saying that we had to be very quiet because the landlord lived downstairs and he didn’t want any noise or else they were going to throw us out, you know? I can remember a lot of things because we were always in the house, like I told you. We were never outside. We couldn’t go outside to the stairs. In the summertime, maybe, for a little bit with them out in the front, and then back in the house. JOSE JIMENEZ: With who? With mom? JUANA JIMENEZ: With mom, with my dad. JOSE JIMENEZ: So you would go outside? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. I remember there mom made a lot of pasteles so she could take it to Lincoln Park area and sell it. They sold a lot of pasteles. 15 �JOSE JIMENEZ: Pasteles, like Puerto Rican tamales? JUANA JIMENEZ: They’re the Puerto Rican tamales, like they say. A lot better than tamales. A lot more work. So I don’t make ’em, I buy them. (laughter) [00:20:00] I’m too lazy for that. JOSE JIMENEZ: So they went to Lincoln Park and sold them? JUANA JIMENEZ: They went to Lincoln Park and sold them, and they were sold right away. Right away. JOSE JIMENEZ: Why? Were there a lot of Puerto Ricans (inaudible)? JUANA JIMENEZ: There were a lot of Puerto Ricans at that time. There was a hippie stage at that time, there were a lot -JOSE JIMENEZ: This was like ’68, ’70? Around there, ’67-’68? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, around there, I believe. Yeah ’cause I remember her saying, “Don’t go in that area. Stay over there.” Because, of course, they would take off their bras and burn them or something, and mom wouldn’t want me to hang around with that. Of course, I liked that. JOSE JIMENEZ: So there was Puerto Ricans and hippies in the Lincoln Park? JUANA JIMENEZ: In the Lincoln Park. JOSE JIMENEZ: That end of the park. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. JOSE JIMENEZ: Was there like softball games or something? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, they did have a lot of softball games because the Puerto Ricans had a lot of softball games. It was really nice. It was really good. JOSE JIMENEZ: And so mom would go to the softball games to sell. 16 �JUANA JIMENEZ: Just to sell pasteles. JOSE JIMENEZ: Were those softball games part of the church that mom was involved in? JUANA JIMENEZ: [00:21:00] I think they were, but she wasn’t involved with the softball team, that I don’t believe. JOSE JIMENEZ: She was just selling. JUANA JIMENEZ: She was just there to sell pasteles. JOSE JIMENEZ: The pasteles were money for her. JUANA JIMENEZ: Money for her for income ’cause the income was very -JOSE JIMENEZ: Because she also sold for the teams later or something. JUANA JIMENEZ: Later on. JOSE JIMENEZ: Or before (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: But that was a lot later on for the Puerto Rican community. Let’s say they would have raffles and things that would help for the girls that wanted to run like for Puerto Rican queen or something, she did a lot of selling of pasteles. JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, for the ones that ran for Puerto Rican queens. JUANA JIMENEZ: Puerto Rican queens. JOSE JIMENEZ: So Puerto Rican queen in Chicago. So this was later on in Aurora or was this in Chicago? JUANA JIMENEZ: She did that later on in Aurora, but she did this in Chicago, too. But in Chicago she did it first because for our income. We didn’t have a lot of money. [00:22:00] At that time, there was no food. I remember dad going one time when we lived there on Bissell Street, he would go out to these farm areas, he would 17 �bring back sacks of potatoes. One week would be potatoes. We’d have potatoes for breakfast, for lunch -- different ways he would make them, but he would make them and bring them. Another time he would bring a sack or corn. We’d have corn different ways. You know, all sorts of fruit, vegetables, or whatever, but he would bring sacks of them because it was a time of depression. There was no money, no jobs, nothing. Nothing. JOSE JIMENEZ: So what year was this about? JUANA JIMENEZ: You’re going to tell me the year. All I remember is we had food in our stomachs. (laughs) I don’t know. I remember being small. It’s really weird because there’s a lot of things that I would like to remember, and I can’t remember them. JOSE JIMENEZ: Was this the hippie time? JUANA JIMENEZ: [00:23:00] That was at the hippie time. That was the hippie time. JOSE JIMENEZ: So ’67, ’66, ’68 -- JUANA JIMENEZ: Around there. JOSE JIMENEZ: Around there. Okay, so that’s when he brought the sacks of food, and that’s when you said it was a depression. People were kind of poor. Yeah, that sounds like that time. JUANA JIMENEZ: He would go out and work on these farms and just come back and bring back sacks. JOSE JIMENEZ: He would work at the farms? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, he would work at farms. He said they would pick him up or something at a certain place, and he would work, and then come back. 18 �JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, so this was west Chicago. This was (inaudible) or something like that. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, something like that. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. (inaudible) was in west Chicago, and people straight from Puerto Rico would come to work there. And, in fact, dad did work that as a migrant work before, so he was used to working that. So he probably went and worked -- from Chicago he went to work -JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, he did. JOSE JIMENEZ: ’Cause he couldn’t find no job. JUANA JIMENEZ: There was no jobs anywhere. JOSE JIMENEZ: But didn’t he work for Armour Food Company? JUANA JIMENEZ: He worked for Armour Food Company. JOSE JIMENEZ: And where was that? Was that the one on [00:24:00] Sedgwick or something? JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t know. I really don’t know much about -JOSE JIMENEZ: But it was Armour Food. JUANA JIMENEZ: It was Armour Food ’cause I remember also one of our uncles, my dad’s brother -JOSE JIMENEZ: So it was a meat company. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, the meat company. Our uncle would work for the like nuts or something, and he would bring to our house -JOSE JIMENEZ: Peanuts across the street from (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes. They were all these different -- 19 �JOSE JIMENEZ: Superior and [Wells?] Street, it was a peanut factory. JUANA JIMENEZ: -- all these sorts of nuts. And then we were really happy for that. JOSE JIMENEZ: So Superior and Wells Street, the peanut factory there. So a lot of us worked there. A lot the family worked there. So you mentioned the Italian gangs on Fremont and Armitage, around there. But then what about Bissell Street and Dickens? Do you remember that? JUANA JIMENEZ: Bissell and Dickens, yes, I remember that. JOSE JIMENEZ: 2117 Bissell. JUANA JIMENEZ: I liked that place. [00:25:00] It was -JOSE JIMENEZ: Why did you like that place? JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, it was nice. There was a lot of people, especially during the summertime, there was a lot of people that would come out and, you know, have fun, and talk, and things like that. I remember one time that I really didn’t like that you were looking for a job, and I think that’s the time that the cops beat you up or something. JOSE JIMENEZ: I was coming home from work. JUANA JIMENEZ: You were coming home from work on a Friday. JOSE JIMENEZ: I was working at (inaudible), and I was coming, and (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: You were happy because it was your first paycheck, and you already was drinkin’, but you were just walking down. And I was inside the house cooking with my sisters. And, of course, we had to be cooking all the time, and my mom would either be next door talkin’ to somebody, and we had to be fixing the food and having that ready. And someone told me, “Oh, Joseph’s coming,” 20 �you know, [00:26:00] “José is coming, and he’s arguing with someone on the corner.” So I ran over there to see what was going on, and I heard the man said something that he was gonna kill you or something, and he was going to get his gun, and he went inside to get a gun. I remember saying to you, “Everything is fine, don’t worry. Let’s just go home. Let’s go home.” And you just wanted to keep arguing with the man ’cause you were drunk. But I just kept pushing you towards the house and almost -JOSE JIMENEZ: That’s why I thought he was arguing at you (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, you thought he was arguing and saying something to me, and he wasn’t. JOSE JIMENEZ: He was talking to some other girl. JUANA JIMENEZ: He was talking to somebody else. JOSE JIMENEZ: Some other girl. JUANA JIMENEZ: And you wanted to save me from -- but I kept pushing you away, “He’s okay, he’s okay.” And I guess he went in the house, and he said he was gonna get a gun or something. Somebody called the cops. I don’t know. And as we were walking down to the house, almost right in front of the house, like a house away from our house, the cops [00:27:00] stopped you and asked you if there was any problem. And I said, “No, there’s no problem. He just came home from work, he’s fine. He’s going home.” And they wanted to see your ID or whatever, I don’t know. The next thing I know they had thrown you on the ground, and they were all -- it was like three guys on top of you trying to beat you up, and hitting you, and kicking your head, and slamming it on the sidewalk. And 21 �I didn’t want them to hurt you, so I went and I put my hand under your head so it wouldn’t hurt you. And they just went like this, and slammed their hand against my body and, of course, I was so thin I just flew and hit my back against this fence that was there. And I just said, “Leave him alone. Leave him alone.” But, of course, they just kept kicking you. And all the neighbors were all around trying to find out what was going on. And then mom came out and [00:28:00] they had taken you away. JOSE JIMENEZ: So mom comes out and what happens? JUANA JIMENEZ: Nothing. She started screaming, and telling ’em that that was her son, that you weren’t doing anything, “Let’s just talk about it to fix it.” And I believe they said -- because my mom was trying to stop them from fighting and hitting you -- I think she grabbed somebody or one of the cops by the mouth or something, and they said -JOSE JIMENEZ: She threw a bottle at them. JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t know, she did something, and they said that my mom -JOSE JIMENEZ: It broke a tooth. Broke a tooth. JUANA JIMENEZ: -- broke a tooth, yeah. JOSE JIMENEZ: Broke a policeman’s tooth. JUANA JIMENEZ: Broke a policeman’s tooth. JOSE JIMENEZ: ’Cause she just threw a bottle at somebody. Everybody got involved, right? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, everybody got involved. JOSE JIMENEZ: I mean the whole family -- Daisy, you, Myrna. 22 �JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, everybody. So they were gonna take my mom because she broke the tooth, and I went with her because I didn’t want her to be alone over there. Of course, she didn’t know any English. JOSE JIMENEZ: So you went with her over there? JUANA JIMENEZ: I went with her. JOSE JIMENEZ: Was she in the police car? JUANA JIMENEZ: [00:29:00] She went in the police car. JOSE JIMENEZ: Not in paddy wagon? JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, I don’t know if it was a paddy wagon. JOSE JIMENEZ: Paddy wagon is like a truck. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, I know. JOSE JIMENEZ: Or was it a police car that she went? I thought I had seen her in a paddy wagon. JUANA JIMENEZ: It could have been a paddy wagon. It could have been. JOSE JIMENEZ: You know, at least for a little bit. JUANA JIMENEZ: I know they took her and I went with her. JOSE JIMENEZ: ’Cause I was half asleep drunk, but I woke up and I thought I saw her. But you drove in the squad car. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, I probably drove in the -JOSE JIMENEZ: Me and mom drove in the paddy wagon. That’s what it was. JUANA JIMENEZ: That’s what it was because I knew you didn’t do anything, and they told her that she broke somebody’s tooth, and I thought, “How could that little old lady (laughs) chip somebody’s tooth?” But there was my mom defending us. 23 �JOSE JIMENEZ: So how did you feel about that? What was that to you? Seeing your mom and your brother being arrested. JUANA JIMENEZ: I had a lot of mixed feelings. You know, it was really [00:30:00] weird because the police are supposed to be helping us, saving us, but I believe that those cops were drunk themselves because you could smell beer or something, the alcohol from them. And the way they acted. And when I went over there and I told them about it, they had to let my mother go, too, because I was a minor and they hurt me. They threw me against a fence. I kept telling them, “Leave him alone,” and they didn’t say anything to me, they just -- with one hand and I flew away. That was me. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, then what happened later with the case? Do you know? JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t know what happened to the case later on. I was never told about anything anyway. But I know that you were in jail for a little bit. And I just kept thinking, “How?” You just got yourself a job, trying to get yourself fixed, [00:31:00] go to work and do things good, and the cops ruin it again. It was really hard growing up especially there that you weren’t there the half the time ’cause -JOSE JIMENEZ: Where was I? JUANA JIMENEZ: You were either with your friends or in jail. And it’s like if we grew up without a brother, really, it was just the three girls. Just the three girls always ’cause you were really never really there. JOSE JIMENEZ: So what did the three girls do to live? JUANA JIMENEZ: To live? Clean, cook, wash clothes -- wash clothes by hand in the bath tub because we had no washing machine. Just like if she would be living 24 �over here, “Oh, I did this all the time in the river.” There was no river there, there was a bath tub. JOSE JIMENEZ: So mom would say, “I did it in the river?” JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. So we had to be washing clothes. JOSE JIMENEZ: [00:32:00] In the bath tub water. JUANA JIMENEZ: In the bath tub with one of those -- the boards. JOSE JIMENEZ: Washboards. JUANA JIMENEZ: Washboards. That’s what it was. One of those boards. JOSE JIMENEZ: And where did you dry the clothes? JUANA JIMENEZ: When it was wash day, there was like rope hanging from the living room, dining room, bedrooms, everywhere. You had push away the clothes just to get from one room to the other. That’s the way the clothes were dried because we didn’t even have money to go and wash clothes in the laundromat, or it was too cold to go out to wash the clothes. And then after that, we had to iron all this. And my mother was the type that she would iron t-shirts, underwear, and the bed sheets -- the sheets for the beds, we had to iron the sheets, and pillowcases, and all this other stuff. JOSE JIMENEZ: What about grocery shopping? [00:33:00] Where did you go shopping? JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t remember ever going shopping with her -- or with my mom or dad, grocery shopping. We had to stay at home until they bought groceries. JOSE JIMENEZ: Now, you’re living in the best place that you like, 2117 Bissell. What happened? Why did you move from there? 25 �JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, we moved from there because at that time, my father was always -- “You have to go to work, you have to go to work.” I was going to high school -- “You have to find work.” JOSE JIMENEZ: You were going to high school where? JUANA JIMENEZ: When we were on Bissell Street. JOSE JIMENEZ: What high school? JUANA JIMENEZ: Waller High School in Chicago. JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, you went to Waller High School? JUANA JIMENEZ: I went to Waller High School. And I went to Arnold Upper Grade Center, and then I went to Waller High School. And he just kept [00:34:00] saying, “You have to look for a job, you have to look for a job, you have to” -- he just drove me crazy because I had to look for a job because there was no jobs anywhere. Looking for jobs in Chicago -JOSE JIMENEZ: Why would you have to look for a job? JUANA JIMENEZ: Pardon? JOSE JIMENEZ: Why did you have to look for a job? JUANA JIMENEZ: Because there was no money, and, you know, to get to live, and have more bills, and to help my parents out, I had to look for a job and work. I remember my -JOSE JIMENEZ: So he wanted you to go look for work and then give him money. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, and give him money. But I’m slick, I never gave him anything. (laughs) I never gave him anything. But, anyway, the thing was that the very first job that I looked for was with a friend of mine and we both got lost 26 �looking. We went to this nursing home looking for a job, and she says, “Oh, I know exactly where it’s at.” We went from one train to the other, got another train, and then got off of that, got on another train, we got onto the bus. [00:35:00] I don’t know where we were at, but I know we were walking, we were lost. I said, “Well, let’s ask a police officer.” “No.” She didn’t want to ask no police officer. And I said, “Well, okay. Let’s find somewhere where we can call.” She finally called her dad, and in that little car it was her dad, her mom, my mom, my dad, me, and her. We were all squished into one car -- oh, plus my sisters. (laughs) We were all squeezed in one little car when they picked us up and went back. We never got the job, but we looked for the job. My first job that I did finally find was a spot-welding place. Don’t know the name of it, but that’s where I met my neighbor’s cousin. And he offered to take me ’cause he said that he would go that way all the time [00:36:00] so that he could work, so he would offer to take me as a ride. And I would have rather taken the bus, it didn’t bother me. But at that time, things went back and forth, and we just started talking and stuff like that. And he says to me one day, he says, “Let’s go to the movies.” And I had never been to a movie. I never went to the movies before. And he says, “Well, you don’t have to go to work. Nobody will find out that you went to the movies.” I say, “Okay, let’s go to the movies.” Well, we went to the movies, things got a little bit late, he says, “Now you can’t go home because if you go home, your mom’s gonna -- you know, they’re gonna get you because they’re gonna say, ‘Where were you?’” I says, “Well, I’ll tell them that I was with you,” 27 �and stuff like this. He says, “She’s not gonna believe that we didn’t do anything, you with a guy.” So he kinda blackmailed me. JOSE JIMENEZ: Who was this guy? JUANA JIMENEZ: His name is [00:37:00] Michael (inaudible). JOSE JIMENEZ: So Michael. Just say Michael. JUANA JIMENEZ: Mike, yes. JOSE JIMENEZ: And this guy was from the school? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, this guy was not from the school. JOSE JIMENEZ: From the neighborhood? JUANA JIMENEZ: He was the cousin that went to visit -- he would come to visit his cousin next door. JOSE JIMENEZ: From Bissell? JUANA JIMENEZ: From Bissell. That’s how I met him. JOSE JIMENEZ: So you met him like sitting on the stairs? People used to sit on the stairs. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, people used to sit on the stairs. And she said, “Oh, this is my cousin. He can give you a ride.” And things got back and forth, and, well, like I said, he came and he kind of blackmailed me. And I had to stay at this place for a while, and my mom was looking for me. JOSE JIMENEZ: You stayed for a while? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, I had to stay there a few days -- forever almost because -JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, so that was a boyfriend you had. 28 �JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, well, at that time he became a boyfriend. But [00:38:00] he mistreated me, also. JOSE JIMENEZ: But he blackmailed you. JUANA JIMENEZ: He blackmailed me into staying with him. JOSE JIMENEZ: He suckered you in. JUANA JIMENEZ: He suckered me in, yeah. JOSE JIMENEZ: But how can you be suckered in? JUANA JIMENEZ: Because I was a very naïve person. At that time, remember, we didn’t live -- we didn’t know anything about the streets. All we knew was cooking, cleaning, and staying in the house, and that’s -- we didn’t know anything about the outside. And that was the first time that I went to the movies. First time I went to the movies with that guy. JOSE JIMENEZ: With this guy named Michael? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes. And so after that, we -- of course, I made him so that I could call my mom and let them know where I was. He went by the house, and my sister had a boyfriend around that area, and Michael knew her boyfriend, they were friends, he told her [00:39:00] that I was with him, and she should tell my mom ’cause my mom was going crazy. And I was already 17, almost going on -that happened like a few weeks before my 18th birthday. Eighteen, and people think, “Wow, 18 and she didn’t have a brain.” Yes because we didn’t know anything about nothing. Things that women should know that I would tell my kids -- that my granddaughter now knows and my granddaughter is nine. She knows all about this. She knows how babies come from -- the real way, and how her 29 �body changes and everything. I never knew any of this because my mother never told me. The first time I ever knew that my body was gonna change and I was gonna get my period or something was from a doctor. And I remember screaming at that doctor saying, “I don’t want it. Take it away. Give me a pill or something. Take that away because I don’t want it.” [00:40:00] And he’s telling me how my body was gonna change and everything because my mother never talked about this stuff to us because that was voodoo, that was stuff that women don’t talk about. As a matter of fact, she would tell us that you could get pregnant by holding hands or a little kiss. What did I know? JOSE JIMENEZ: Your mom? JUANA JIMENEZ: My mom. JOSE JIMENEZ: Mom told you that? JUANA JIMENEZ: Oh, yes. We couldn’t even hold hands. Imagine I was so naïve the very first kiss I got from a boy, I ran and told my mom, “Mom, I just got a kiss, this so and so person kissed me.” She says, “He kissed you on your cheek?” “No, he kissed me on my lips.” (laughter) I was such a dummy. I didn’t know anything because she wouldn’t tell us anything about life. And this is how I got suckered into staying with this guy because -- and I believed him. If I go back home, I was gonna get beat up. I was gonna get really, really badly beat up and they were gonna [00:41:00] throw me out because I stayed with a guy. Believing him, I stayed with him. And look who beat me up? He beat me up. My parents didn’t, he did. JOSE JIMENEZ: Your parents never beat you up? 30 �JUANA JIMENEZ: Beat me up? No. Spanked? Yes. JOSE JIMENEZ: Who spanked you? JUANA JIMENEZ: (laughs) My dad every once in a while. I was not a very good girl (laughs) ’cause I had a mouth. Being not a good girl is having a mouth. I would get tired of things. JOSE JIMENEZ: I was gonna say so the good thing about -- looking at the good side of that is that all those years you didn’t know anything about sex and all that. JUANA JIMENEZ: Nothing. JOSE JIMENEZ: So that means you weren’t abused, right? I mean all those years, never being abused. JUANA JIMENEZ: Abused from my parents? JOSE JIMENEZ: From parents or from anybody. Were you abused? I mean you don’t have to answer it. JUANA JIMENEZ: I’m not gonna answer that. JOSE JIMENEZ: [00:42:00] Okay, all right. (inaudible) I mean we don’t have to answer that. JUANA JIMENEZ: No, I’m not gonna answer that. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, so now Michael is there, and now you left Michael and you went back home or what happened? JUANA JIMENEZ: Once I was with him, he would lock me in the house ’cause he was afraid I was gonna leave ’cause he was right. If he left the door open, I would leave ’cause I wanted to get out of there. JOSE JIMENEZ: So was Michael Spanish? 31 �JUANA JIMENEZ: He was Puerto Rican. JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, he was Puerto Rican? Michael was Latin? Okay. JUANA JIMENEZ: [Algarin?] or something. That’s what he said his last name was, [Algarin?]. So he would lock me -- the door that we had was like one of those skeleton key things. JOSE JIMENEZ: (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: Joey. He would have the little skeleton key. He could lock the door from the inside or lock the door from the outside. So when he went to work, he would lock the door. If there was a fire, I would burn in because I couldn’t get out. [00:43:00] But the neighbors next door could hear me screaming sometimes because he would beat me up. JOSE JIMENEZ: So he lived on Bissell Street? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, he didn’t live on Bissell Street. He lived on Francisco, close to Humboldt Park. JOSE JIMENEZ: But he came over to Bissell. JUANA JIMENEZ: He would go to Bissell because he had his cousin that lived next door to our house. JOSE JIMENEZ: And that’s where you met him on the porch? JUANA JIMENEZ: And that’s where I met him. JOSE JIMENEZ: And then he lied to you -- I mean he tricked you. JUANA JIMENEZ: He tricked me into staying with him which I did. And I remember one time to escape from him, I got out through the kitchen window, opened the window because I couldn’t open the door. I got up through the window, came out 32 �to the ledge, it was like a first floor thing, came out to the ledge, and jumped from that floor all the way down. And I just jumped. When I jumped, and came back up, there was he -- he was standing right there in front of me. [00:44:00] So what happened was that that day (audio cuts out) “I just wanna go home. I want to go back to my parents.” And he says, “Okay, well, let’s go up and get your purse so we can go.” Well, the wrong thing to do ’cause I went back up, he locked the door, and beat me up again. The next day he locked me up real good, locked everything up, I couldn’t go anywhere. But the bed, there was another door -there was the bed and a door right behind the bed. I pulled that bed, and I don’t know how I got my strength, but as soon as he left -- as soon as he left -- I pulled that bed out, and I got the hinges out from the door, and I pulled the door out. And when I went out, the first thing I looked, when I stopped, was the lady next door. And she looked at me, she says, “Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared. Just run and get out.” ’Cause she could hear me every night screaming and crying. She says, “Just run. Just run. He’s not gonna [00:45:00] be around, I won’t tell him anything. Just run and get out.” When I ran, I ran to where the church -JOSE JIMENEZ: The Young Lords church. JUANA JIMENEZ: The Young Lords church was at that corner. JOSE JIMENEZ: This is when the Young Lords were political, they weren’t a gang. JUANA JIMENEZ: No, they weren’t a gang. Not at that time. And I ran down to that section, and I talked to you, and then you said, “What happened?” And I didn’t have to say much because you could see my face, the way I was, anyway. And I also told you what happened, and you said, “Well, just stay here. You’re gonna 33 �stay away. Just stay on this side close by. We’re gonna just see what we’re gonna do.” And you took me, I remember, to my friend’s house, my best friend’s house, and I stayed there. Then you came back for me. When you came back for me, you took me back to where he was at, [00:46:00] and you kinda pushed him. And he was all bruised up, I guess. He got beat up, too. I was never happy for anybody to get beat up, but for him, at that time, I really didn’t care. I was kinda happy he got it, too. I kept telling myself inside, “I told him this was gonna happen. I told him.” (laughs) I’m glad for my brother. He says, “Oh, look what I let him do to me.” And I kept thinking, “Yeah, right. They hold him down while Joseph beat him up. That’s fine with me. I don’t care.” I don’t want to believe anything he said -- “Oh, but I’m sorry. I love you. I love you. I’m gonna marry you.” Didn’t believe anything he had to say. From there, you took me back to mom’s. At that time, I already almost couldn’t even walk because jumping from the day before, jumping from the first story down, I was all bruised up. I was really hurting. [00:47:00] And when you took me back to mom’s house, my bedroom wasn’t mine anymore, it was my sister’s bedroom. My mom says, “Well, you left, we gave your bedroom to somebody else.” And I remember sleeping in the living room on one of those folding -JOSE JIMENEZ: So did she want to take you back? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, she took me back. She took me back. And the next day, my father, we went to Aurora, and -JOSE JIMENEZ: This was on Claremont Street. When you were living on Claremont. We started on Bissell, but by that time -- 34 �JUANA JIMENEZ: No. JOSE JIMENEZ: -- mom was living on Claremont. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, then mom was living already on Claremont. We started on Bissell, and then from there we moved. JOSE JIMENEZ: North Avenue and Claremont. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, then we moved and went down to Claremont. And then from Claremont, that’s where we moved -- when I went back ’cause I didn’t know that they were already there, and they took -- then we went down to Aurora. JOSE JIMENEZ: What happened after that? You had a child from him, right? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, I did. [00:48:00] My son. I was pregnant, which I didn’t know that I was pregnant. And I kept thinking, “Oh, my God. How am I gonna have this baby without a father?” Didn’t think about that a woman can do it. I kept thinking, “No, he needs a father, he needs a father.” So I went back with him. And all I did was go back with him, the slapping and the beating up again. I ran out right the next day. I went out, went to this church that was close by, and I talked to the priest there, and he says, “You know, you’re of age, if you want, you can stay living here in this unwed mother’s home that he knew.” And I said, “Fine.” Didn’t bother me. But, of course, there were girls there that were giving up their baby, but I wasn’t gonna give up my baby. So I had to work there for my stay. I worked there. And, well, after that, he kept trying to look for us, [00:49:00] and we moved from where we at in my cousin’s house in Aurora, they found another apartment or another house to rent on Claim. It was on Claim Street. JOSE JIMENEZ: Claim in Aurora. 35 �JUANA JIMENEZ: In Aurora. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. Let’s go on back a little bit. JUANA JIMENEZ: That’s really far back now. (laughs) JOSE JIMENEZ: But we’ll go back a little bit. Did I ask you about mom’s catechism classes or no? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, you didn’t. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, do you remember those? JUANA JIMENEZ: I remember, but she was giving catechism classes -- I think it was even in that one basement. JOSE JIMENEZ: By Dayton Street, right? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, around there. JOSE JIMENEZ: Yeah, we lived near -- we lived on one side of the street then we moved to the other. JUANA JIMENEZ: Then we [00:50:00] moved the other street. JOSE JIMENEZ: (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: We kept moving from one side to the other, we were like gypsies just moving from one side to the other. JOSE JIMENEZ: Dayton near Willow Street. Near Willow. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. She did a lot of catechism there. And that’s where my sister -JOSE JIMENEZ: What was that about? What was that about? JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, I guess she was involved in all this stuff of the church. And one day, she comes up and she says that she’s gonna -- there was some kids 36 �that were gonna be coming in so they could do their communion and stuff. And I had to, of course, be there, too. We were like -- well, I just did what I was told. She says, “Stay here. You gotta learn this and you have to learn about God.” And we just had to do what we were told. JOSE JIMENEZ: That’s where your sister what? You were saying. JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, because Daisy was too small. She was about four, she wasn’t quite five yet. And you had to be a certain age to do your communion. And she wasn’t gonna be [00:51:00] the one in the classes, but since she was close, she was very smart, she learned everything -- everything. And they let her make her first communion ’cause when they were doing the test, and they said that she couldn’t because she was too young, she started to cry. And when they gave her the test to see if she knew it, she knew it better than anybody. Mom didn’t even give her classes, she was just there close by, and she listened to everything. She listened. JOSE JIMENEZ: How were the classes? Do you remember seeing any of the classes? I mean ’cause mom didn’t go to school, so how did she do that? JUANA JIMENEZ: No. She didn’t go to school, but -JOSE JIMENEZ: So how could she teach people if she didn’t go to school? JUANA JIMENEZ: Because she didn’t go to school, but her sister taught her how to read and write. She didn’t know how to write real well, but she -JOSE JIMENEZ: Her sister, (inaudible)? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. JOSE JIMENEZ: So she learned how to write. 37 �JUANA JIMENEZ: She learned how to read. JOSE JIMENEZ: Or write. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, she could read. JOSE JIMENEZ: So how did she run the classes then? JUANA JIMENEZ: [00:52:00] Just by learning by heart all the -JOSE JIMENEZ: Learning by heart? JUANA JIMENEZ: Everything was learned by heart. JOSE JIMENEZ: In other words, the kids had to repeat everything? JUANA JIMENEZ: Everything. Everything. JOSE JIMENEZ: She would say a sentence and they would have to repeat it? JUANA JIMENEZ: And they would have to repeat it. And she would just teach ’em what she knew. She taught them everything that she knew. JOSE JIMENEZ: They had to repeat her with respect, too, right? JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, of course. JOSE JIMENEZ: Didn’t they have to say, “Yes, mam,” “No, mam.” JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, (laughs) that was it. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, so they would say, “Yes, mam. Christ rose from the dead on the third day.” “No, mam. He didn’t do this, he didn’t do that.” That’s the way she taught it? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. But she would say it in Spanish. It was, “Si, señora.” JOSE JIMENEZ: Yeah, “Si, señora,” in Spanish. JUANA JIMENEZ: “Si, señora.” JOSE JIMENEZ: But that’s the way she taught? 38 �JUANA JIMENEZ: That’s the way she taught. JOSE JIMENEZ: So everybody had it memorized. JUANA JIMENEZ: And it was the old way of learning and teaching, the way she -JOSE JIMENEZ: Did she graduate a lot of kids? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, a lot of them. A lot of them. JOSE JIMENEZ: How many were in a class at a time about? Thirty? Twenty? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, I think that was [00:53:00] too many. They were a lot. But in one class -JOSE JIMENEZ: Twenty-five? JUANA JIMENEZ: Could be about 25. It was a lot. There was a lot. A lot, a lot of kids. She even taught a lot of kids for the altar boys. JOSE JIMENEZ: To become altar boys? JUANA JIMENEZ: To become altar boys. JOSE JIMENEZ: She’d train ’em? JUANA JIMENEZ: She would train ’em. She did a lot of that, too. JOSE JIMENEZ: You said you went to Waller, and you went to what’s that other school? Arnold? JUANA JIMENEZ: Arnold Upper Grade Center. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. You went for three years there? JUANA JIMENEZ: I went there for -- it was sixth, seventh, eighth -- the two years in Arnold Upper Grade Center. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. And how was that? JUANA JIMENEZ: It was different. 39 �JOSE JIMENEZ: Were there Spanish kids or no? JUANA JIMENEZ: There were a lot of Black people. [00:54:00] There were a lot of Black kids. Some Spanish kids. I didn’t like the Catholic school that we went to. They were all high-class American kids. Out of the whole school there was one Black girl, I remember, and just a few Puerto Ricans. The rest was all white. All white kids which they thought they were in a (inaudible) Catholic School, they were better than anybody. We were very quiet. And I really didn’t like it. And it was really hard for me, and I did fail. I failed to go to sixth grade, I failed there, and I told my mom, “If you don’t take me out of this school, I don’t want to go back to school.” So that’s when she put me in a public school. And I went to a public school in sixth grade, and from there, then I went to [00:55:00] Arnold Upper Grade Center in seventh and eighth grade. JOSE JIMENEZ: So that’s St. Teresa’s where you had all these white kids. JUANA JIMENEZ: All white kids. JOSE JIMENEZ: And when you say white you mean like Italian, Irish? JUANA JIMENEZ: Italian, Irish -- to me, they were all white. Anybody that wasn’t Puerto Rican was white -- or either Puerto Rican or Black. Other than that, everybody else was -- to me, there were just three people: white, Blacks, Puerto Ricans. JOSE JIMENEZ: So that’s all? There was white? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, it was just white, Puerto Ricans, and one Black. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, that was it. Just three races. 40 �JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, three races to me. That’s the only people that was around until I went to public school. When I went to public school, you see all these different people. And I was very popular, and I loved sixth grade. I was glad I failed. (laughs) JOSE JIMENEZ: At Arnold? This was at Arnold? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, this was not at Arnold. This was the school before Arnold which I don’t remember the name of the school, but I was there just for one year. That was in sixth grade. And then from -JOSE JIMENEZ: [00:56:00] Sexton? Not Sexton. Newberry? JUANA JIMENEZ: It was maybe Newberry School. Newberry School. JOSE JIMENEZ: That was on Willow Street. JUANA JIMENEZ: I think it was Newberry School. JOSE JIMENEZ: Burling and Willow. JUANA JIMENEZ: It had to be because I remember that name, Newberry. But then after that, at Arnold -JOSE JIMENEZ: I remember Newberry before we went to St. Teresa’s, and then St. Teresa -- but you went to Arnold. JUANA JIMENEZ: I went to Arnold Upper Grade Center which was nice. And remember -JOSE JIMENEZ: So you probably went to Newberry. JUANA JIMENEZ: -- at that time, the girls could not wear pants. Of course, at that time, it was like miniskirts, and mini dresses, and stuff like this. But to school, you were not allowed to wear pants at all even in the freezing whether that we 41 �had to walk six, seven blocks down just to go to school -- [00:57:00] below zero weather. You’d go to school freezing until they finally said, “Well, the girls could wear pants, but under the skirt.” As soon as they got in the school, they had to hurry up and take those pants off and put ’em in their locker. They were not allowed to be walking around with the pants. But it was nice. I liked it. I remember graduating from there and everything. JOSE JIMENEZ: Do you remember any of your classmates? JUANA JIMENEZ: One Mexican girl. Oh, God, I can’t remember her name. This one Mexican girl. And another girl which became my best friend, an American girl, her name was [Sandra Morales?] because her father was a Puerto Rican. Her mother was American, (laugher) her father was a Puerto Rican, and she lived close by. It was Sandra Morales, she was my best friend, and that’s why I named my oldest daughter [Sandy?]. It was Sandra, her name. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, this was from Arnold. JUANA JIMENEZ: It was from [00:58:00] Arnold. JOSE JIMENEZ: Were you in gym or anything? What kind of classes? JUANA JIMENEZ: Oh, yes, I went to gym class. And, of course, Joseph, Cha-Cha, was very famous there because even the teacher in the gym class knew you. He says, “But your brother did this, and he was a good student, how is your brother?” And I thought, “He’s fine.” (laughs) Just like, “Who is this guy telling me about my brother?” (laughs) He wanted me to be better than my brother because he knew that my brother was always in gangs and stuff like this, and getting himself in trouble, and he didn’t want me to go through that. And gym 42 �class was okay. Never got beat up from anybody in school there, in that school at least. (laughs) [00:59:00] But there were some Black girls that were bothering me one time, but this other group of Black girls said, “Hey, leave her alone, she didn’t do anything.” They were really nice to me, but not in gym. When they played kickball, they kicked that ball and hit your face, hit your arm, hit whatever it was and they did it hard. (laughs) JOSE JIMENEZ: Kickball or dodgeball? JUANA JIMENEZ: Dodgeball. JOSE JIMENEZ: Dodgeball. So you played a lot of dodgeball? JUANA JIMENEZ: Oh, yes. And I really got all the bruises at that time for it. But it was okay. After I graduated -- of course, my mother never went to my graduation class -- or my father. Never went to school, I never saw them inside a school for nothing. Nothing. I remember being in Arnold School, and I had to go to my sister’s -- [01:00:00] one of these recital things that she had from school. And I had to go from one -- from my school, skip class to go and see what she was doing so at least a family member could go ’cause my mother wasn’t gonna go. I asked a teacher for permission, the teacher said at least she knows where I was at, but she couldn’t give me permission, but try to get to school as soon as I can. Said at least she knew where I was at. Anything my sisters had for school, I would go. I would skip school just so I could go what my sisters were doing ’cause my mom and dad never -- ’cause in Puerto Rico here, they never went to anything like this. In Puerto Rico, you either go to school, learn what you had to do, come home. You never had to go to the school and find out how your kids 43 �are doing unless they were fighting. That’s about it. So I did all the [01:01:00] going to the school for my sisters. And then from there, when I graduated, then I went to Waller High School. JOSE JIMENEZ: How far did you go at Waller? JUANA JIMENEZ: In Waller, I was a freshman and I didn’t even finish freshman because my father kept fighting -- “Go look for job. Go look for a job.” At that time, it was Blacks against whites. It was the time of just fighting all the time with the Blacks and the whites. All the time pulling down the fire alarm -JOSE JIMENEZ: (inaudible). Pulling the alarm. JUANA JIMENEZ: Pulling the alarm, a lot of riots. So my father would wait for me -JOSE JIMENEZ: A lot of kids would pull the alarm? JUANA JIMENEZ: They would pull the alarm, and everybody had to run outside, and you’d get trampled down the stairs, really hurt bad, just to get out of the building. So my father, he got tired of waiting for me, he would take me to school -- and this is in high school -- he would take me to school, and when [01:02:00] I got out of school at the end of the day, he was out there waiting for me just so nothing would happen until he saw that everything was fine. Then I could go home on my home. Or the times he was working he wouldn’t pick me up, but when he wasn’t working, he’d be there waiting for me to make sure I was gonna get home fine. JOSE JIMENEZ: What did you think about the Young Lords? JUANA JIMENEZ: The Young Lords as a gang or Young Lords -JOSE JIMENEZ: What did you think when they were a gang? 44 �JUANA JIMENEZ: All I could think was, “Oh, wow. My brother’s the head of these guys.” (laughs) I was happy ’cause you were the one -- like the president of the gang. You were the head one there, and I thought that was cool. But then after all this time that they would come to the house [01:03:00] looking for you all the time because someone stole the car, or they look everywhere -JOSE JIMENEZ: Who would come? JUANA JIMENEZ: The police. The police would come to the house with their flashlight going into the bedrooms. And my mother’s over here yelling at the police, “Get out of the girls’ room! Get out of the girls’ room!” I remember -JOSE JIMENEZ: Detectives or regular cops? JUANA JIMENEZ: Both. There were detectives and cops with them, together, because there were some that wore plain clothes and some that had their uniforms. JOSE JIMENEZ: And this was during the gang? JUANA JIMENEZ: During the gang time. JOSE JIMENEZ: They were looking for stolen stuff? JUANA JIMENEZ: They were really looking for you to take you away for stolen things. They had it in for you guys all the time. Whenever anything happened, it was the Young Lords Organization -- or not an organization, the Young Lords gang at that time that did it. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, but I mean I don’t -- JUANA JIMENEZ: I remember that you did go to jail for something. I don’t know if it was for stealing a car or something. I really can’t remember, [01:04:00] but I 45 �know that you were in this institute really far away. I remember driving down just to visit you with mom, and dad, and someone else that they found to take them down. JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, Vandalia. Vandalia, Illinois. Southern Illinois. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes. JOSE JIMENEZ: So that was for the stabbing. JUANA JIMENEZ: Oh, that was for the stabbing. You stayed there for a while. JOSE JIMENEZ: Six months. JUANA JIMENEZ: I remember that you would say, “Oh, they want me to work out here.” And you would do things on purpose so that they can just leave you in solitary so you wouldn’t have to work in the sun. You’d be out away from the sun and stuff like that you would say. JOSE JIMENEZ: Yeah, 15 days in the hole because I refused to work. But it was better than working in the sun. Okay, so you went with mom to Vandalia to visit me there? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, I remember that. JOSE JIMENEZ: So how did you feel on that trip that you were visiting your brother that’s in jail? JUANA JIMENEZ: Oh, I was happy to at least see you. I really didn’t think bad about anything. I thought, to me, it was just part of [01:05:00] life. We’re gonna go see my brother finally, and I hadn’t seen you for a long time, and half the time you were never there. 46 �JOSE JIMENEZ: So that was when it was a gang. So how did you feel when it was a political group? JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, when it was a political group, I thought it was really good because you were really helping the Puerto Rican community. You were helping so that at least the parents can go to work and the kids can have a daycare and stuff, they can have good breakfast. You were trying to help the people. JOSE JIMENEZ: You mean there was breakfast for children (inaudible)? JUANA JIMENEZ: There was breakfast for children. JOSE JIMENEZ: And then there was also a daycare center. JUANA JIMENEZ: And a daycare center. JOSE JIMENEZ: And so you thought that the Young Lords were helping at that time. JUANA JIMENEZ: I thought that was helping a lot. JOSE JIMENEZ: Now, did you know some of those Young Lords or no? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, not really because I was not allowed to even associate with any of them. JOSE JIMENEZ: Even the women? You didn’t know the other women? JUANA JIMENEZ: No. I would know them by far away. It’s not like we would stay there, [01:06:00] and stay talking, and have a conversation with them at all. Not at all. (audio cuts out) allowed to. You especially would not want us to have any contact with any of them ’cause you didn’t want us to get in trouble in case something would happen. They wouldn’t blame -JOSE JIMENEZ: What kind of trouble? 47 �JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, like if they would have any fights, or any stealing, or anything so they wouldn’t start saying, “Oh, they’re also part of a gang,” or whatever. We were never allowed to even associate with anything. And I remember one time there was a party, and one of your gang members picked me out to dance, and when they found out that you were -- I was your sister, right away he stopped dancing and took me back to sit down. JOSE JIMENEZ: But this was in the gang time? JUANA JIMENEZ: That was the gang group. JOSE JIMENEZ: That was the gang time. JUANA JIMENEZ: I remember that part. JOSE JIMENEZ: [01:07:00] I was missing for a few years, right? I had to go underground when it was a political group. Do you recall that? JUANA JIMENEZ: I remember when nobody knew where you were at. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, so what happened? Because I think you made a video later, too, or something like that. You sent me a video that you made with the whole family. I mean I still have the video (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: Of the whole family? JOSE JIMENEZ: You just put together like a family video and you sent it to me. From here. You were living (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: From Caguas and stuff? JOSE JIMENEZ: Yeah. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. ’Cause you wanted to see some pictures and stuff and I did -- 48 �JOSE JIMENEZ: But that was after I came back. I was hiding. JUANA JIMENEZ: After you came back. After you came back. JOSE JIMENEZ: So where do you think I was? And where do you think people were? JUANA JIMENEZ: Well, I didn’t know where you were. You wouldn’t say anything. At first, I thought you were in jail somewhere. I thought, “Well, maybe he’s in jail, he doesn’t want no one to know where he’s at, [01:08:00] so just leave it alone.” I know mother would cry a lot because she didn’t know anything from you. I just kept saying, “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine. If something was wrong, we would hear something from you or somebody would say something.” My mom, she suffered a lot. JOSE JIMENEZ: Did the police ever come by the house after the Young Lords were political? JUANA JIMENEZ: If they did, I wasn’t around to see anything. JOSE JIMENEZ: Oh, you weren’t living there anymore? JUANA JIMENEZ: No. JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay ’cause you got remarried and that. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, then I got remarried. Once I left Michael, I had a baby, and I kept thinking, “Well, this is not for me. And I’m not going to let this guy kill me or my baby.” So I just left him, and after a while I remarried. Not remarried [01:09:00] because I wasn’t married with Michael, but I got married with Willie. JOSE JIMENEZ: You got married with Willie right around that time. How did you meet Willie? 49 �JUANA JIMENEZ: I met Willie because since I was in the unwed mother’s home, my mom and my dad would go visit me, and Willie was my cousin’s (inaudible) friend. And since they were friends, they would go down in the car, driving down, and sometimes Willie would drive or (inaudible) would drive, they would drive ’em down to where I was at, and we met each other. I got tired of staying there, listening to girls cry because they didn’t want to leave their babies and their parents are making them leave their babies there. And I told my mom, I says, “Mom, I really want to go home. I’m tired of this. [01:10:00] I’m tired of hearing these girls cry. This is horrible.” And, “Do you think dad will let me come home?” “I don’t care what he says. I’m gonna pick you up right now.” And she got somebody and they went to pick me up. And I believe that was in March. The month was March, and the next day when my cousin came, he brought Willie also. And all I kept thinking was, “Oh, cute guy. Cute guy.” (laughs) JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, so now you’re with Willie and then you’re raising the kids. You were involved in different community stuff, no? I mean what kind of community stuff were you involved in? JUANA JIMENEZ: In which community? JOSE JIMENEZ: I’m wondering about with the scouts or something? What was that about? JUANA JIMENEZ: With the boy scouts, that’s when my oldest son, Joey, [01:11:00] he was a lot older -- well, he went to boy scouts from St. Joseph’s church here in Aurora. And then he just kept going, and we helped out a little bit. That wasn’t too bad. But we helped out more with boy scouts after we came back to Puerto 50 �Rico to live. And my youngest, Danny, he was with the boy scouts, and we did a lot of stuff there with them. JOSE JIMENEZ: What do you call your position? Didn’t you become a member of it? JUANA JIMENEZ: There, once, I was a secretary for them for just a little bit. And we were always just involved with it. If they had anything -- like for their 50-mile hike, we’d be walking with them. Or if they had camping, we’d be camping out with them. Of course, the parents on one side and the scouts on the other side. JOSE JIMENEZ: And this is in [01:12:00] Puerto Rico? JUANA JIMENEZ: This is in Puerto Rico. But in Aurora, no, Joey just went down to the boy scouts, but we weren’t that involved. And then I tried at one time to be with the cub scouts, but it really didn’t work out. I guess I didn’t know what I was doing really, so I just gave it up. It was very different so I didn’t really know what I was doing. JOSE JIMENEZ: Some of the stuff that the Young Lords were fighting for -- they were fighting against police brutality, they were fighting for self-determination for Puerto Rico, they were fighting for ex-offenders, they were fighting for free breakfast for children, like you said, the daycare center. How did you feel about those things? JUANA JIMENEZ: [01:13:00] Well, I thought that that was good that they were helping finally instead of being a gang. Instead of beating up on people, or stealing, or doing bad things, all of a sudden they changed and were -- they turned their whole -JOSE JIMENEZ: Did you see a change or were they just saying it? 51 �JUANA JIMENEZ: No, I did see a change. JOSE JIMENEZ: What kind of a -- JUANA JIMENEZ: You could see the change in the people. The way the people would talk about it -- more of the people around, that was around saying and talking about it. And I kept thinking, “Is it the gang they’re talking about?” Because I wasn’t sure about the organization and the gang part. To me, at that time, it was the same thing except I just kept thinking, “They’re just better. They’re not being bad anymore. They turned good.” (laughs) JOSE JIMENEZ: So you’re saying they turned good. [01:14:00] But you couldn’t see the difference that much. JUANA JIMENEZ: I saw a little difference but not too much because remember we were always inside. If people were talking, we were always taught not to get into conversations. Never. You were always behind, go to the room, go somewhere else. “We’re talking here. Can’t listen.” JOSE JIMENEZ: There was a community right there in Lincoln Park. Let’s say from Larrabee all the way to Racine, from North Avenue to Diversey. There was like a Puerto Rican community there, too. So have you been to Chicago lately? JUANA JIMENEZ: Have I been to Chicago lately? JOSE JIMENEZ: Yeah, when was the last time you were in Chicago? JUANA JIMENEZ: Last time I was in Chicago was last year, I believe. JOSE JIMENEZ: Have you seen that there’s -- at Lincoln Park, that neighborhood. JUANA JIMENEZ: I didn’t go down to Lincoln Park, around there. 52 �JOSE JIMENEZ: [01:15:00] Have you heard that there’s no more Puerto Ricans living there? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, I did hear. And the last time I went was many, many, many, many years back. We just kinda passed by just to see what the old neighborhood looked like. It looked nothing -- nothing. And I kept thinking, “Wow, it must be like rich people now or something,” because it didn’t look like it before. You would go before, the stairs -- like you just on there and there was no plant life or something. And now it’s like big old fences. JOSE JIMENEZ: Did you care that all those people moved out? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, I did care because it kinda bothered me. I kept thinking, “Wow, it’s not like that anymore.” It would have been nice to bring back memories about how it looked before. It looked too clean. (laughs) [01:16:00] I don’t know. JOSE JIMENEZ: But I mean a lot of Puerto Ricans moved out of there. JUANA JIMENEZ: A lot? I think everybody moved out. I don’t think there’s any of them in there. I really don’t know. I really can’t say if they are living there or not, but it didn’t really look like that. JOSE JIMENEZ: So how do you feel that they were kinda pushed out? JUANA JIMENEZ: Didn’t really like it because it seems like you’re pushing us away from things -- “Let somebody else come in because you guys can’t afford this place. Just by looking at you, you can’t afford this place.” And you feel bad about it. And I’ll give you an example. I went to Chicago once, and I went to a store, and I said, “Well, I want to get this.” And, “Well, this costs so and so.” 53 �“So? Like I don’t have money for it [01:17:00] because I’m a Puerto Rican or am a Latin person or something? I’m asking about it because I know I could afford it.” I was at that store because I knew I could afford whatever they had there, or whatever it was that I wanted to buy. You feel like they’re degrading you. JOSE JIMENEZ: This was where? Where was this at? JUANA JIMENEZ: This was -- oh, God. It was a women’s store. JOSE JIMENEZ: In Lincoln Park? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, not in Lincoln Park. Not in Lincoln Park. I can’t remember, but that wasn’t even that long ago either. And I just kept thinking -JOSE JIMENEZ: Well, this neighborhood changed, everybody moved away, and so - JUANA JIMENEZ: Everybody moved away. JOSE JIMENEZ: Was it a choice? Did they have any choice to make? JUANA JIMENEZ: I think they didn’t have a choice because they just kept raising the rent always. Kept raising the rent, kept raising the rent, and then we couldn’t afford it. So we would have to look for [01:18:00] somewhere else to live, you know? And then after they were raising the rent, the person that had their homes there, they were obligated to sell their homes to -- (phone rings). (break in audio) JOSE JIMENEZ: How do you feel because, you know, the Young Lords, they were a gang and then they changed. Then they wanted to help the community. But they were attacked by the government because they were also fighting against people being kicked out of their homes, displaced, like the city. So they were 54 �fighting with Mayor Daley and they were fighting the government because they wanted Puerto Rico to govern themselves whether you agree or not. But because of that -JUANA JIMENEZ: At that time -JOSE JIMENEZ: At that time what? JUANA JIMENEZ: At that time, to me, I really didn’t think anything of it because I had nothing to do with [01:19:00] political stuff. I just kept thinking, “Why does he keep attacking” -- I think they’re doing fine, politics or whatever. I’m never into anything of politics. Never because I don’t like politics. But now, you think back and you think, “Wow, why would they want Puerto Rico to govern itself?” Thinking, “Wow. Why would they want to go back to the stone ages?” You’re trying to move ahead, and Puerto Rico’s not moving ahead. It’s in a standstill, just like moving back a little bit -- inch by inch, but moving back just a little bit. They try, but they move back a little bit, and that’s all just government. JOSE JIMENEZ: But still, the Young Lords had a right to kinda -- JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, you had a right. JOSE JIMENEZ: -- make their choices. JUANA JIMENEZ: They had to make their choices and that’s their choice. JOSE JIMENEZ: But they were attacked real rough by the government. [01:20:00] In fact, remember Bruce Johnson got killed and all that? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes. JOSE JIMENEZ: How do you feel about that time when you heard about that? 55 �JUANA JIMENEZ: First, I thought it was just a plan that the police themselves made up so that you guys could get in trouble because I kept thinking, “Why would they kill” -- because they were blaming you guys for doing that killing, or the organization or somebody in that organization for killing him. And I kept thinking, “How can anybody do that if he’s the one that’s helping these people? And the organization knows that he’s helping them, why would they kill him?” So I believe that, to me, it was just like a set up, and it was like the police themselves that did it or something there because never would I believe that it would be -even to this day, [01:21:00] I wouldn’t believe that it was anybody from the Young Lords. Not to kill the Reverend because he was the one helping the Young Lords there. Letting them use the church, letting them -- and everything. And I don’t think nobody would -JOSE JIMENEZ: Did you ever participate in any of the marches or anything? JUANA JIMENEZ: Never. We were never allowed to. Never allowed to. JOSE JIMENEZ: And most of the family didn’t agree with the Young Lords, did they? JUANA JIMENEZ: No. Not at all because they just kept thinking it was just a gang -“It’s a gang.” The organization to them was just like nothing. It was just a gang. JOSE JIMENEZ: So it was like the Puerto Ricans putting each other down, basically. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, they were putting each other down. JOSE JIMENEZ: In other words, “They can’t make it, they’re just a gang.” JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah. JOSE JIMENEZ: Or, “They’re just a gang, they’re nothing.” 56 �JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, “They’re a gang.” Or, “They’re just doing that -- it’s just a set up. They’re trying to do it -- being good, doing good things for other people so [01:22:00] people can see that they’re doing nothing wrong, but they’re really a gang.” So the police wouldn’t blame the organization for anything. JOSE JIMENEZ: And did I ask you how many kids you had? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, you didn’t. I have four kids. JOSE JIMENEZ: What’s their names? JUANA JIMENEZ: My eldest is Joseph, and, of course, I named him after you. I don’t know why, but I did. (laughs) The next one was Sandy, then Margie -- about four years later, Margie came along. And after Margie, about eight years later, Danny came along. So four kids, three with Willie and one with -- the first one with -JOSE JIMENEZ: And now you got some grandkids, too? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes, I have about six grandkids. I had eight and two of my grandkids are not with us anymore. They were babies. JOSE JIMENEZ: Sorry about that. JUANA JIMENEZ: [01:23:00] They were sick babies, but it’s fine. JOSE JIMENEZ: Anything that you want to add? Otherwise, we’ll just finish it up. JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t know. I could say that now I’m happy. I keep telling my husband, “Now, I’m in Puerto Rico, but I’m dying -- I am dying to sell my home and leave to the states,” because I am tired of Puerto Rico. I am tired of Puerto Rico. JOSE JIMENEZ: How long have you been here? 57 �JUANA JIMENEZ: We’ve been here -- let me see. I’ve been here for about 26 -Danny’s 30 -- about 26 years. And that’s 26 years, all I could see is nothing really good for Puerto Rico and I’m tired of it. [01:24:00] You don’t get a job unless you have one of these family member or somebody -- like they say, you scratch my back, I scratch yours or whatever. (Spanish) [01:24:11], they say in Spanish, (Spanish) [01:24:14]. Someone in the political view so they can help you find a job. If not, you’re not gonna get a job here unless it’s in a store or something. But not at all. No jobs here at all. I’m tired of not having water. I’m tired of the light leaving whenever it feels like it and out for days. We have to live. We have to live. And I don’t like the cold weather, but if there was a place that I could stay that it was not expensive, I’d move out of here because I cannot -- I’m tired of this place. I’m tired of people [01:25:00] being so nosy. You’re too close to the family, too close to people next door. And at this age, you just want to relax. And the government is not getting any better. Not at all. It’s not gonna become a state. You either become a state -- the commonwealth, they don’t want to keep it as a commonwealth. Become a state, be independent, or something. And independence is not gonna work, let me tell you. It’s not gonna work. I think it would be a great idea if there was some way that there would be good jobs that they could do something. It’s not gonna work. Nobody really wants it independent. And being a state, we’re paying taxes anyway. JOSE JIMENEZ: How about like the Young Lords say? They’re not talking about independence, [01:26:00] they’re talking about people determining their own life, their own destiny. What do you think about that? 58 �JUANA JIMENEZ: People already determine their own destiny, their own life. People already do that. You don’t have to have anybody tell you. That was before -JOSE JIMENEZ: In Puerto Rico, people determine their own government. That’s what they mean, (inaudible). JUANA JIMENEZ: Oh, their own government? JOSE JIMENEZ: Yeah, people make decisions that affect their own government. For example, in Chicago, when they had the urban renewal and kicked everybody out, none of the Puerto Ricans were able to make a decision for their own neighborhood. JUANA JIMENEZ: Over there, no. At that time. JOSE JIMENEZ: So in Puerto Rico, it means the same thing. It means just like Puerto Ricans should have been allowed to make decisions about what type of neighborhood they wanted to live in, they need to be able to make a decision in terms of [01:27:00] what type of nation they need to be living in. How do you feel about that? JUANA JIMENEZ: I think everybody -- of course, you want to live in a nation -- let’s say Cuba, they move to Cuba. That’s the way I feel. JOSE JIMENEZ: So you feel that the Young Lords are more closer to Cuba. That’s what you’re saying? In their thinking? JUANA JIMENEZ: In their thinking. JOSE JIMENEZ: And that’s not good? JUANA JIMENEZ: And, also, like Santa Domingo. They’re thinking like that, too, because they want to be apart on their own, but, see, Cubans -- what I know a 59 �little bit of, I don’t know much -- but they don’t want help from the United States, they don’t want help from anybody, but on their own. And for the Dominican Republic, [01:28:00] they’re just a republic, but they’re on their own also. They just get a little bit of help. They don’t get a lot of help. But you look at both of them, they’re both really very poor places. And in Puerto Rico, nobody here is really, really poor. You see people in the streets asking for money and stuff because they want to be that way. You don’t really see people that are really, really, really poor unless you don’t ask for the help. The government usually helps you, but you have to ask for the help. And a lot of times, they’ll show them on TV -- “Oh, look at this poor old lady. Look at the way she’s living in her home.” But, of course, they give them the help and they use the money for other things instead of really helping themselves. I don’t know. [01:29:00] You have to look for help. JOSE JIMENEZ: So you’re saying the homeless, it’s all their fault, basically? JUANA JIMENEZ: No, I’m not saying -JOSE JIMENEZ: Yeah, I think it’s probably their fault if they’re drinking -- JUANA JIMENEZ: If they’re drinking and doing their stuff, but I don’t think it’s all their fault either because drinking is a sickness, and you need to get help from it. But if you don’t take the help, if you don’t want the help -- an example. There is a man I know down right on Route 129 he stands there by the light, and he goes like this so you can give him some money. We give him change, sometimes I give him a dollar or whatever. But I heard if you give him pennies, he throws it. A penny is money. One hundred of those pennies is gonna give you a dollar. 60 �That could get you a cup of coffee, [01:30:00] but he throws money away. He chooses not to take that. So he’s that way because he wants to be, because the government does help him. He does get help. He’ll ask for money for food, go down and sit and drink his coffee, or donut, or whatever, read his newspaper, and walk back to wherever he lives. Down the road or whatever. Pennies? He throws away. I would never throw away pennies. I’m sorry. That’s money. You choose what you want. And if you want to live that way, that’s the way you’re gonna live. If you don’t ask for the help, you’re not gonna get it. JOSE JIMENEZ: Do you also believe that -- and we’re just kind of -- ’cause we don’t want to get into the philosophy, we’re just trying to tell the history and stuff like that. So do you think the Young Lords [01:31:00] did anything to help the community at all or what do you think? It’s a loaded question. JUANA JIMENEZ: It is a loaded question. (laughs) JOSE JIMENEZ: So what do you think? Did they do anything or were they just worthless? JUANA JIMENEZ: I don’t think they were worthless because some of those people that I did see that -- even in the newspapers that you would see -- you would see pictures of them helping other people. And they probably didn’t help, let’s say, for many, many years or stay at the thing for many, many years because they didn’t -- other people wouldn’t let them. Like the government wouldn’t let them or the police wouldn’t let them. They were always trying to get them to separate and break everything apart. Let’s say the daycare center. They went in there and they tore everything out. The police went in there and tore everything out. 61 �And they would look for a way [01:32:00] so that -- you know, let’s say they looked for something wrong to say, “Okay, you’re not -- there’s a fire hazard here you have to close the place down because it is wrong. You don’t have this, you don’t have that.” They would always look for something. JOSE JIMENEZ: The building inspectors. They came to the daycare center to try to close it down. They did close it down. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, they did close it down. JOSE JIMENEZ: So you felt that that was wrong? JUANA JIMENEZ: I thought that was wrong because you guys were doing something really good at that time. I thought it was really great. When they had that daycare center, I thought, “Oh, God. Thank God. Finally, something good is coming out of this.” I thought it was very unfair. Very unfair the way they would go hunting you guys down and treating you -JOSE JIMENEZ: [01:33:00] Hunting the Young Lords down? JUANA JIMENEZ: Yes. They would -JOSE JIMENEZ: The police was hunting them down? JUANA JIMENEZ: Wherever you guys would be, do anything good, they would find something negative about what you were doing, a lot of times. I remember one time walking down the street with my mom going -- I don’t know where we were going, but just walking down with her, and some guy came out, “Oh, you spics, go back to your home.” And, of course, me with my big mouth, “Why don’t you shut the mm out?” And my mom’s grabbing me, “Come on. Come on.” Well, I was learning to defend myself at that time. I was tired of being pushed around. 62 �Speaking of pushing around, let’s leave that. (laughs) I got pushed around sometimes till I got myself [01:34:00] defended by somebody in my brain. (laughs) JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay. Who pushed you around? JUANA JIMENEZ: You. (laughs) You did a lot of pushing around. You pushed Daisy a lot, and I would have to be there trying to defend her. I thought, “I can’t take this. I don’t mind if he’s hitting me, but not her.” Yeah, I had -JOSE JIMENEZ: I didn’t want to leave it at that point, but we’re gonna have to leave it there. JUANA JIMENEZ: Yeah, let’s leave it at that point. (laughter) It’s past. END OF VIDEO FILE 63 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/22e09bbc070228d6d1829942d05abe52.mp4 794fbfc364021e71b25841bcf3f8229e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Juana Jiménez vídeo entrevista y biografía Descripción Spanish language Description entry Juana Jiménez es una hermana de José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. Nació en Minot, Massachusetts cerca de Concord donde su padre trabajo como tomatero para Andy Boy Farms en 1940. Aquí recogieron vegetables para la compañía de Campbell Soup. En 1951 la familia se cambio a Chicago para acercarse con familiares que vivían en La Clark. Juana creció en Lincoln Park Wicker Park. Cuando se embarazo, antes de tener esposo, la mandaron a una casa para mujeres jóvenes que era atendida por monjas Católicas. Aquí es donde ella desarrollo su espirituelidad y todavía sigue muy dedicada en su comunida igual que ayudando los equipos de Béisbol y boliche en que esta su esposo y corriendo el grupo de Boy Scout para sus hijos y los del vecindario. Ahora vive en Camuy, Puerto Rico. Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Narrativas personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Jimenez_Juana Title A name given to the resource Juana “Jenny” Jiménez video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, Juana Description An account of the resource Juana “Jenny” Jiménez is one of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez’s sisters. She was born while her father, Antonio, worked as a seasonal farm laborer, or tomatero, in the late 1940s for Andy Boy Farms at a migrant camp in Minot, Massachusetts near Concord. They picked vegetables primarily for the Campbell Soup Company. In 1951 the family moved to Chicago to be closer to other relatives who had been living in La Clark since the late 1940s. Jenny grew up in Lincoln Park and in Wicker Park. When she became pregnant, but was unmarried, she was placed temporarily in a juvenile home for girls run by Catholic nuns. It is there that Jenny developed her spirituality and she remains very active in her community to this day, including working on behalf of her husband’s baseball and bowling leagues and running a Boy Scout troop to support her own and other neighborhood children in Puerto Rico. She now lives in Camuy, Puerto Rico. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-10 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d815b6470750bd2d284ddc3d22aba11a.jpg 01db0262ae7b2ffd79969f5f1cc21ec0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Merrill_NE_58_1924_015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1924-06 Title A name given to the resource Juarez Monument Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of three people, one man and two women, standing in front of a monument to Benito Juárez in Juárez, Mexico. Subject The topic of the resource Juárez (Chihuahua, Mexico) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8f0646e755247820180ac04841e324ac.pdf 60e3a5bb08e6b86ec548b2eea3dfe69d PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Mrs. Siegel Judd (Dorothy Leonard) Interviewed on September 17, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #13 (1:05:11) Biographical Information Dorothy S. Leonard was born 14 September 1898 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the daughter of Harry Carr Leonard and Willie Thomas Stansbury. She died 14 February 1989 at Porter Hills Presbyterian Village in Grand Rapids. Dorothy married Siegel Judd 29 June 1922 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Siegel was born Siegel Wright on 19 June 1895 in Kent County. He was the son of Addison Wright, the brother of Mrs. Lillian (Edward C.) Judd, who adopted and raised Siegel. Siegel died 4 September 1982. Mrs. Judd’s father was Harry Carr Leonard, born 25 December 1874 in Grand Rapids, the son of Charles H. and Emma (Carr) Leonard. Harry died 14 February 1956 at the age of 81. The mother of Mrs. Judd was Willie Thomas Stansbury, born in Delaware, Ohio, 18 August 1875 and she died in Grand Rapids on 21 March 1938. Their marriage took place in Lafayette, Indiana on 23 June 1897. ____________ Interview conducted with Mrs. Siegel W. Judd on September 17, 1971. Mrs. Judd: You asked me about the flavor of life in Grand Rapids when I was young, I think one of the predominant characteristics was the closeness of family life. My family really was not patriarchy, but a grand patriarchy, you might say, with my grandfather Leonard heading it up; and so, I’m going to want to tell you something about my grandfather so you’ll understand that family life. In the first place, he was always looking to the future. I never remember him talking about the past except when sometimes I asked him questions about it. He was always envisioning the needs of the community and the needs of business and industry, the new technologies, we’d call it today. I think they didn’t use that work; management systems, we’d call it today. But he was into these things and I think he’d be quite surprised to know that you young people wanted to know about the past. For example, really he was called in the refrigerator business the ―Granddaddy of the Refrigerator Business,‖ because he really was the inventor of the refrigerator, if you can say that anything as complicated was a single invention. But prior to that time, and this was along in the eighteen eighties there was no such thing as refrigeration. People had boxes, and they put ice in them; but, they didn’t have drainage, they weren’t cleanable, and only the people in the north who could get ice had refrigeration. In the south they couldn’t get ice, so they had to have other methods. I can remember my grandfather trying to sell the people in the south, on the idea of an icebox, as we called it in those days; and later on trying to sell the idea in South America and Europe. So it was pretty much in the northern part of the states that the idea of refrigeration got �2 going. I have his patents, oh, on hinges and locks and linings and drain pipes, and trays and all the things that go into a refrigerator. It was a seasonal business, too, because people only felt they needed it in the summertime. They always manufactured in the winter and piled them up in warehouses, ready to sell in the summertime. And of course, here in Grand Rapids the ice pretty much came from Reed’s Lake. I never think of Reed’s Lake as freezing so deep today, but where the East Grand Rapids Junior High School is, there was a great big wooden warehouse, storage house. The big drays, with great big horses, would go out on the ice and cut the ice, and put it in this storage house, and cover it with sawdust. That’s where our ice came for the iceboxes, in those early days. But, my grandfather wasn’t satisfied with an icebox. We have a scrapbook of his clippings that he cut out in the eighteen nineties with ideas about how to have what he called an ―iceless refrigerator,‖ and when I was a little girl, we were always experimenting on how to have a cold refrigerator without ice. I can remember one icebox where my father cut a big hole in the side of it down at the bottom and set an electric fan, with a wet flannel over it, in that hole to see if that wouldn’t be one way to get refrigeration. Another thing, one of his early interests, was the need for what he called pure water in Grand Rapids. Our water was so bad that people didn’t drink it; and if they did, they often died of typhoid fever. There was a big death rate from typhoid fever in Grand Rapids. Of course, the water we had was river water. My grandfather’s scrapbook has pictures in it of a barrel, I can remember, with sand in the bottom and gravel on the top experimenting filtering water through it to see if it wouldn’t purify the water. That’s back in the eighteen nineties. In nineteen four there was a World’s fair in St. Louis, and my grandfather went down there because St. Louis had a filtration plant. When he came back, he built an eight-foot model of it and persuaded the city government to set it up in the city hall so people could see what filtration could mean to Grand Rapids. Then, in nineteen seven, there was a campaign. I’ve forgotten whether it was to decide to build a plant or, I think it must have included the bond issue. I can show you, in a few minutes, my grandfather’s accounts of money he raised for that campaign for pure water. It was defeated: and I think it was defeated again around nineteen eleven. If you want to know more about pure water, John Martin also worked on this; and Mrs. Richard Meade can tell a lot about it. And of course, it wasn’t until nineteen seventeen that they finally built the plant and we began to have pure water. That seems very recent to me, maybe it doesn’t to you! But this made a tremendous reduction in the death rate of typhoid fever the very next year. That was another one of his forward-looking interests. Another example: That was my grandfather’s father who came to Grand Rapids originally, and I’d like to go back to that later, but I’d like to go on with some of these forward looking things of my grandfather’s. He was born on Monroe Street in a little frame house bordering now on what’s the McKay Tower, where the Houseman Clothing Store is now. It was a general store his father had on the first floor, and they lived on the second floor. After my grandfather grew up and began to be active in the business, they decided they should have a new building there. So, I don’t know the exact date, but sometime in the eighties I think it was, he built the brick building that stands there now, that. Houseman Clothing Store is in. Well, to do that, he had to rent a store across the street for his business. He was never a man to spend any more dollars than he had to, so he was in a great hurry to get the building done. At that time, the Edison Incandescent Lamp came out. He was the first one to use this in Grand Rapids. So, they went on with their construction at night, with the new Edison light. �3 Another new thing that he did, he was great on construction. He never had a college education; he wasn’t an engineer, but he was a great inventor. So, when in nineteen seven, they built the big plant on Clyde Park, which became the Kelvinator Plant after we sold it to Kelvinator. He built it of hollow cement blocks. Nobody had ever heard of building with hollow cement blocks. He mixed the cement mixture himself. And everybody said: ―Oh, Leonard’s building’s going to fall down for sure!‖ It was a great big building and they called it ―Leonard’s Elephant.‖ But, it’s still there and it’s been greatly enlarged by future owners of the plant. Then he had a great interest in educating youngsters and especially in developing skills. Now here today we’ve got these new skill centers about to open and we’re very excited about them; but along in nineteen four or five, my grandfather introduced manual training into the public schools; woodworking for boys, and sewing and cooking for girls. This was what you might call the beginning of occupational training for children. I have a clipping of a letter he wrote to the ―Public Pulse,‖ oh, maybe it was back in the teens, I’ve forgotten just when, recommending oneway streets. We had no one-way streets. In fact when I was on the city planning commission in the forties, we were beginning to recommend one-way streets, and it just raised Cain in the town. People would not have one-way streets! But, my grandfather said that this had to come, and he suggested it for what was then Commerce Street, which at that time went clear through to Monroe and created a lot of traffic problems with Commerce and Division so close coming into Monroe Street. He had the second automobile in Grand Rapids; it was a Knox, and it had three wheels. This is when they lived on Fulton Street in the John Ball House, which had great big stables down behind the house, where they had a beautiful carriage and a pair of white horses. Of course, they didn’t dare put the automobile there because they figured the automobile and the horses wouldn’t get along together very well. The house went downhill at the rear so that you could get into the basement from the ground, so the Knox was put in the basement. I can remember grandpa used to have an awful time getting up Fulton Street hill with the car. All the boys would line up and shout: ―Get a horse, mister‖. Then, of course, in the refrigerator business along came electrical refrigeration finally. It really developed during the war, the first war. And so we started selling the boxes to Frigidaire that made the motors. These were the first electric refrigerators. But my grandfather felt that the future of his business depended on his developing an electrical motor, and building the whole business. So, he bought land south of the Clyde Park plant to build a new plant to build motors. This was in nineteen twenty-four, about, and he was eighty years old. He was ready to build a new plant and experiment with a new product at that age. And of course, the poor old fellow; all his family said no. Nobody else in the family could do this, and grandpa was too old and really it just broke his heart. He just went downhill after that. Interviewer: Who said no? Mrs. Judd: The family, the rest of the family. Of course you must understand that industries in those days were family industries, they were not publicly owned. The whole family, including my father and my two sister’s families were all dependent on the refrigerator, and they all worked there and my cousins worked there, and my uncles, and my mother’s father. It was really a family affair. So, if it had gone into bankruptcy over this effort to build a new plant without the leadership of my grandfather, the whole family would have gone down the drain. So they had to say they couldn’t do it. This was the reason that they finally sold the plant to the Kelvinator �4 people, who were making electric refrigerator motors at that time, and who wanted to own a box factory. Frigidaire was part of General Motors and they built their own box factory. I would suggest you tape a conversation with my husband on this. The new Grand Rapids history is very inadequate and somewhat inaccurate on this thing of the refrigerator business here. My husband was the attorney in the sale, and he knows all about it. He was also attorney for many of the big furniture plants here, and he’d be a good one to talk to on the relationship of the whole furniture industry to life in Grand Rapids. It was very vital, the part that it had in family life and general living. Now let’s see. Shall we go back and talk about where the family came from? You’ve suggested this. My grandfather’s name was Charles H. Leonard and his father’s name was Heman. Heman came, his family originally - from New England and had lived a few years in Monroe County, New York state, near Rochester. Then old - oh dear! I forget Heman’s father’s name – anyway he had several sons and he said to them all, you must go west young man. And he offered each of them two hundred acres of land in Michigan if they would go and settle in Michigan. Some of them stopped around Detroit; and around Saginaw you’ll find Leonard families today. I don’t know them but I know that they’re there. Heman did what many people did who were moving west, when they came along the Erie Canal and Lake Erie and got to Detroit. Then they took, I suppose what was called, the old Territorial Road, which was practically I-ninety-four now, across southern part of the state, so that Jackson, Battle Creek, and Kalamazoo are all older communities than Grand Rapids: and then many of them came from the southern part of the state and moved up to Grand Rapids. And that was true of Heman Leonard. He lived a few years in Three Rivers and then came up here. The third wife he married, her family, her name was Mariah Winslow and her father was a doctor, and they lived near Kalamazoo. They came up here in eighteen thirty-five orseven. He was the first doctor, incidentally to perform any kind of service in the Grand Rapids area, and he came up on horseback from Kalamazoo to do it. Interviewer: And that was who? Winslow? Mrs. Judd: Dr. Winslow. The Baxter history tells about this. Evidently he liked Grand Rapids, so two years later he and his daughter Mariah came up here. You know, a lot of these hard working pioneers wore out several wives. Mariah was not the mother of my grandfather, but she was the stepmother who really brought up the two Leonard boys; Frank and Charles and Fred the three of them. So, she was a great influence in the family. She’s buried out in the Fulton Cemetery along with all the rest of the Leonards. In eighteen forty-two, she was the only woman on a committee of seven men who founded the First Baptist Church. It was really her influence that kept the Leonard family in what is now the Fountain Street Church all down through the years. I wish I knew more about her, she sounds like a wonderful person. Interviewer: Why did Heman Leonard remove from his farm to Grand Rapids? Mrs. Judd: Siegel and I were talking about that this morning. Why did people come to Grand Rapids, because it was offbeat from the normal transportation routes even in the pioneer days, just as it was in the development of railroads? It had railroads much later than Kalamazoo did. And still today in the airlines, we’re really offbeat. We don’t have the service that the lines from Detroit to Chicago get. But, I think Siegel would really be able to give you a better picture of this economically. The kind of people who came here from New England were not the fly-by-nights �5 that were just all the time going west to find something new. They were quite substantial businessmen in New England, and in New York state, and they became so when they came here. They came here with the idea of settling down, stabilizing; this had made this a stable community. And it was a center of trade for the lumber camps, and even for the copper country. It was the farthest north, settled community, and a lot of those really settled in Grand Rapids. Of course my grandfather’s (Oh, I’m skipping around now) as I told you, his father started a general store on Monroe Street, so he went on with this, my grandfather did when he grew up, and started in the wholesale business. There is a lot of wholesale business here, supplying stores all the way up and down Western Michigan. Grandpa told me that his first wholesale business was: he went down to Ohio, and he got a freight car full of kerosene lamps, and those clay pickle jars and… Interviewer: Crocks? Mrs. Judd: …took them up to the---crocks-, yes—and took them up to the lumber camps and that was the beginning of H. Leonard and Sons. Have you ever heard of that store? That store didn’t go out of business till in the nineteen fifties. It was one hundred eight years old when they finally---the family--- sold it to the men who so long had been running the store. Interviewer: What’s the name of the store now? Mrs. Judd: Well, it doesn’t exist anymore. The building is there, it’s on the corner of Fulton and Commerce, and Dykstra, [is] there a warehouse, I think. Interviewer: Oh yes, it’s a furniture… (Mrs. J. – I don’t know what ….) Mrs. Judd:. I don’t know what their business is or what’s in it, but on the front door you’ll still see the bronze plaque that says H. Leonard and Sons. H. Leonard was my great-grandfather, and his sons, my grandfather Charles and his brother Frank. Frank Leonard was the father of Mrs. Noyes Avery, Senior. Mrs. Judd: Let’s see, well just a word about the family-nature of the industry. As I said, all of us were in it, and were proud of it, used to take all our guests over to see it. It was very interesting because in those days a factory made every part of what they needed for a product. So that there was not only the woodworking in the days when there were wood refrigerators, but there was metal working. When they began to make porcelain linings they had the big furnaces that baked the porcelain. When they made trays that---you know, wire trays—that were tin covered, they did that process. They had a brass foundry that made hinges and the locks. So it was a very interesting place to go and to see. Also, there was a very close contact between my grandfather and all of the people who worked in the plant. He was always concerned when there was illness or trouble or the children needed some education. He’d go and call on them all and he knew them all. Then there was always the picnic, the annual picnic usually up at Bostwick Lake, and with all the workers and their families. There was a full day’s program of baseball and games. I remember watching my grandfather in the cigar smoking contest. He always could smoke that down to the pin faster than anybody else could. I told you that he was interested in what, today, we’d call management systems. He was the first person, I think, in the city to try to adopt some of the new ideas of efficiency in managing the plant. There was a Frenchman who was famous �6 for this; he was called an ―Efficiency Engineer,‖ named Charles Bedeaux. Have you ever come across that? Interviewer: No…… Mrs. Judd: It’s B E D E A U X, and he came and lived here all one winter and installed this efficiency system. He later married a Grand Rapids girl—this is just gossip on the side, I don’t know whether you want it or not--Interviewer: Who did he marry? Mrs. Judd: He married Fern Lombard, which was also an old family here, from Maine. They went back to France, and they became very wealthy, and they bought a beautiful big chateau, and when the Prince of Wales couldn’t find a place where he could marry—what’s the girl he married? Interviewer: The present Duchess…? Mrs. Judd: The American divorcee… Interviewer: Simpson, Mrs. Simpson. Mrs. Judd: Yes, Mrs. Simpson. They invited them to be married in their chateau. This is a story from the Lombards of Grand Rapids. Interviewer: Were they married there? Mrs. Judd: Yes. Bedeaux later became a Nazi in France and he was tried and, I think executed. I’m not sure about that; don’t put that down for a fact. About this time I came out of Vassar College, where I had majored in Economics and Political Science. I had taken some courses in labor management, so I came home to tell my grandfather how to run his labor problems. And you know he didn’t laugh at me, he took me seriously: and he took me out to the factory and he got out these great big charts of the organization of the factory, and talked to me just as though he were going to get ready to hire me for his personnel manager! I respected him very much for that, but this was the beginning of my interest in personnel work, which, of course, has pursued me clear down to the end of the state Civil Service Commission job a couple of years ago. In our family life, I think probably, like many families, my grandfather wanted to keep everybody close to him, and every Sunday we all went to their house for dinner. I can remember in the John Ball House there was a big dining room and a great big round table, and there were my father and each of his sisters and their families. In the end there were twelve grandchildren, but I don’t think we all sat around one table by that time. But it was just routine for everybody to go there for Sunday dinner. After a while my grandfather thought that—my grandmother, I should say--thought that that house was too big. There was too much work to be done in it, and I guess she, just to get away from Sunday dinners, anyways they sold the house without telling anybody. Oh my goodness, I can’t tell you how disappointed the family was because they loved that place. I can remember playing in the backyard. There was a big field back there then, between Gay Street and College. There was a cow in the field, and young Jo Brewer and I used to play house back �7 there; we’d cook and---. One of the games we played, all of us then, was an exchange of cigar bands. Did you ever hear of that; did you ever know that cigars had cigar bands? Interviewer: Oh, yes, I remember the cigar bands. Mrs. Judd: Oh, they were beautiful. You could get all kinds of great big gold seals on them, and everybody exchanged them. It was a great trading operation, and then you’d paste them on the bottom of a glass bowl. This was very decorative in the house. Well, anyway so they rented—no they bought a little house on Paris Avenue, about half way between Cherry and Wealthy. We were just squeezed in there; there just wasn’t room for anybody, and I guess it was worse for grandmother than having us all in the big house. So that’s when they built the house on Morris. You know that house on the corner of Morris and Logan? I guess, it’s one of the houses to be preserved in the Heritage Hill business, with the two story living room and the organ in it and the balcony over it. Here we had numerous weddings of the various cousins, and we had my grandmother’s funeral there. Grandpa used to bring professional organists who would come and stay for, say, a couple of weeks and have a series of organ concerts. This is where they had their golden wedding anniversary. Now, that was different from most golden wedding anniversary celebrations today. This was nineteen twenty-three. I think they were married in seventy-three. It was open house. They put it in the newspaper and everybody would be welcome. Of course, they had a host of friends and family, and then all the employees. They came with their families: it was really a wonderful affair. I can show you a few things I’ve put out there, one of which is a parchment that the employees gave to Grandma and Grandpa, at the time of their golden anniversary. They continued after they moved on Morris to develop houses for the family, all around them. At that time, straight through practically, on what’s now Prospect, used to be called Terrace Avenue, is where Frank Leonard lived, Grandpa’s brother, and their daughter [Evelyn Leonard] who became Mrs. Avery, and their son, Franklin. Across the street from them was one of Grandpa’s daughters [Jessie E. Leonard married Walter H. Whittier], the Whittier family. The Harvey family [Jennie M. Leonard married Frank A. Harvey] built a house I guess you designated for preservation on College Avenue between Wealthy and Logan. It’s a Spanish architecture. He had six daughters and they lived there. Then, as each of us grandchildren married, Grandpa gave us a house for a wedding present. Only three houses got built before Grandpa died, but one was on Morris. Oh, I forgot to mention that my father, my family, built kitty-cornered across from grandfather’s Morris Avenue house, on the south-east corner of Morris and Logan. That’s where I lived from the time I was fourteen. There was one of the grandchildren’s houses on Morris; one on College south of Logan; and then ours on Morris, right across the street between Logan and Wealthy. All these houses were together and the family Christmas dinners continued: and the family Thanksgiving dinners continued. There were always thirty-five or so of us for these dinners. Interviewer: Sounds like the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port. Mrs. Judd: We weren’t the same political party, though. But, there was also a compound down at Highland Park. This isn’t Grand Rapids, but would you be interested in adding a bit about our life there? My grandparents bought a little cottage there in nineteen two. They’d been on Black Lake, but their cottage there burned down, so they bought this little cottage. Next to them was another cottage already built, so that was for the Whitter family; and then they built two more cottages on either side, for the Harvey family and for our family. The one they built for the �8 Harveys is still there, but there was a big fire in thirty-four that burned all the rest of these houses down. Next north of us was the McKee family who were also relatives. So there were five houses full of us. How the parents ever survived it, I’ll never know! But, you know, in those days you went down by interurban, which was an electric car. You went all the day down – you know that Highland Park was part of Grand Haven really, but we were just outside the city limits – and that went down the beach. There was a streetcar track, and the interurban came down to within about three hundred feet of our cottage, where there was what we called the loop. Every morning my father would get up at five o’clock, and they would catch this six o’clock ―Limited‖ they called it, that would take all the businessmen to Grand Rapids, - a two-hour trip. Every night he’d come back and we’d go down to the loop to meet our parents at seven o’clock. He did this every day because he said that the air down at Lake Michigan was something he just couldn’t miss for a single night. But when we’d go, we’d go for the season; we never dreamed of going back and forth. (End of side one) The trunks came down on the interurban and were loaded on great big trucks with big dray horses and were pulled down the beach. The men carried those trunks up maybe hundred steps and on up into our attic. The trunks didn’t come down again until the first day of school. By that time we were all packed up, and we’d put the blinds on the windows: and we moved to Grand Rapids and we never went back until the following July first. June was considered too cold a month to go down. You know? There were no roads, of course, behind those hills except farmers’ roads. The farmers would come with their vegetables and we youngsters used to go off with the farmer and see his farm. About everything had to be delivered down the beach. Even the ice for the refrigerators came down the beach. Can you imagine finding anybody today that would lug ice up those hundred steps on his back in the hot summer? The groceries came down [the beach too]. I remember one day, it was a very rough day, the boy delivering the groceries and his horse got thirsty. So he (the horse) just went out into the lake and the baskets all floated away. Another thing about our life there was the Fourth of July Celebration. My grandfather would bring down a whole trunk full of fireworks and it would be on the porch of his cottage. We could all go and help ourselves to firecrackers and…. Interviewer: Roman candles? Mrs. Judd: No, no that was at night, the adults ran those. But during the day there were all sorts of things, and once in a while a thumb nail would be blown off and somebody would have to be taken care of. Then at night the adults put on the show with the big fireworks down on the beach. That was a great family affair. Then, of course, my dad had to go to Chicago on business quite often, you know, in those days the customers of the refrigerator factory and the furniture factories, too, were the big department stores all over the country. So, we often had business in Chicago. The Goodrich boat line was running boats between Muskegon and Grand Haven and Milwaukee and Chicago. When dad would go, he’d go on the night boat and we’d all go up to Grand Haven to see him off. Then we’d come down to where the State Park is now. There was a little cement-block building that was the wireless station, which communicated with the boats without any wires. Then we’d go in and we’d send dad a message on the wireless. I suppose this was what preceded the radio. I don’t know how it really worked. �9 Now, let me see, I think I should tell you a little bit about the Carrs, because they’re not too far off from your Heritage Hill business. My grandfather married Emma Carr. They came from New Hampshire. He was a colonel in the Civil War. I had his sword, with Gettysburg and all the battles engraved on it. He went into the lumber business here, in about – well, they came West first in the fifties and grandmother was born in Illinois, and then the war came they went back to New Hampshire, because he was in the New Hampshire militia. I had his book on the practice rules for the New Hampshire militia; I sent it back to the New Hampshire museum. He built a house on the corner of Lyon and Bostwick, where it’s just been torn down for that new Junior College building that’s now about finished, I guess. It was a little New England farm house type of house; you know, in New England, often the oldest son, when he was married, or the oldest daughter would live in the same house with their parents, which was built as a sort of a double house, except for the kitchen. The kitchen would go clear across the back; it would be a common kitchen for both families. Well that’s what that house was like. I can remember, as a child, the family had long left it, but I can remember it as being really a colonial type of house. After that its architecture was ruined by being covered with shingles, with - - what is that stuff they use, it looks like shingles. Interviewer: I know what you mean, I call it funny brick. Mrs. Judd: Yes, and a little store was added to it, Perry’s Interviewer: Yes, or something. Mrs. Judd: Still, it was no longer an attractive house, but this was the house where my grandfather and Emma Carr were married and where my own father was born. My father was Harry Carr Leonard. You know, they first named him Noel Winslow Leonard, Winslow after Mariah, the stepmother and Noel, because he was born on Christmas. For the first two years, they called the little baby Winnie, and finally Mariah said, ―Emma, you cannot bring up a boy called Winnie, you have to change his name.‖ So, they changed it to Harry Carr Leonard. When he went to get a passport, he wasn’t registered anywhere in the state at all. Let me see, my father went to Purdue University because Grandma and Grandpa thought the University of Michigan was too tough a place to send their sixteen year old boy. Interviewer: He was sixteen when he went to college? Mrs. Judd: He was sixteen because, apparently, it wasn’t necessary to go four years to high school; he could get into the university with three years. But, my grandmother was very worried about her little boy, so she took him down to Lafayette, Indiana, and took him to the Baptist minister’s family and asked them to take care of him. The daughter of the family was my mother, and she went to Purdue University. She was one of fifty coeds in a school of about a thousand boys. Needless to say, she had a wonderful time. But when they were married, of course, they came back to Grand Rapids, because my father went into the refrigerator factory. I want to say a word about my mother, if I may; because she was I suppose one of the most loved women in all of Grand Rapids. She was very active in community affairs. She was a charter member of the Women’s University Club, which later became a branch of the American Association of University Women. She was always busy with the Visiting Nurses, which became Community Nursing. I think it’s called now. She was one of three that helped organize the first union of all �10 the social agencies for a single budget job, what we now call the United Fund, and used to be called Community… Interviewer: Community Chest? Mrs. Judd: Community Chest. But, when they started, it Ben Merrick was one of the three and I’ve forgotten the third. This was during the World War when it was so necessary to be more efficient about raising money for these needs. Ben Merrick and Mother called it the Welfare Union at that time. That was a very difficult job. I can remember Mother oh, being so depressed over the controversies and conflicts and jealousies among all the different agencies; each leader wanted their own, you know. Interviewer: I don’t think it’s much different today really. Mrs. Judd: No, well, it was quite an achievement and then, of course, she was very active in Fountain Street church, as all of the family were. I think it’s the sixth or seventh generation now in the Fountain Street Church. The Leonards were always extremely active in it. My Uncle Frank Leonard, Mrs. [Noyes] Avery’s father, was chairman of the Board of Trustees for, oh I don’t know about twenty years or more. When he died my grandfather succeeded him. So, there was a period of forty or fifty years when these men took the leadership in the church; and of course mother was a great supporter of Dad when he was doing that. I can remember in the old church, you know, that burned down in nineteen sixteen or seventeen, the same corner where the church is now – every Thanksgiving, the night before Thanksgiving, we had a big church dinner. I don’t know how the women ever got through. They did all the cooking, the members of the church; we didn’t have any professional cooks in those days. They cooked that great big dinner on Wednesday and had their own family dinners on Thursday. My father always carved all the turkeys for the gang, and his way of carving turkey was neat, and he became quite famous for this. Dad ran down after the furniture factory was sold and went into the public life and became a member of the city commission, you know, he was on it for eight years, and there was a lot of controversy. Let me see, I should tell you something about me? I was born on John Street; that was in a house that my grandfather bought for my father and his wife when they were married. That’s where I was born. Of course, nobody was born in a hospital in those days; they were always born at home. That house has just been torn down in the past year or two. There were twin houses, and there was just a driveway between us and the one to the east of us bordered on the Immen House, which has recently been bought by those architects, up there on the corner: that big white house on the corner of Lafayette and John. The house to the south of us, when I was young, was occupied part of the time by the Charles Garfield family; you know the man who gave his farm for the Garfield park. He was one of Grand Rapids finest man. I don’t know of any leader in the history of Grand Rapids that I can think of who was a finer man than that. His wife was the maid of honor in Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding. John Street was a great place for coasting. You could go up to the top of the hill and, of course, there was very little traffic and you could coast down the hill and cross Barclay Street, down thru an alley next to the St. Cecilia until you got to, what is that street called? Interviewer: Ransom? �11 Mrs. Judd: Let me see. Yes, Ransom. Near the park. Interviewer: That’s quite a ride. Mrs. Judd: That’s quite a ride, yes. One of the stories my mother used to tell was how on my way up to Fountain Street School, I would draw my little sister up on a sled up to the top of the hill and then just give her a shove, and I’d go on to school. She was really rather small to make that trip all by herself. Then, of course, the groceries were delivered in the wintertime in sleighs, because there was always snow on the streets. So, one of our fun things to do was to stand on the sleds of the grocery sleigh, and go all over town with the grocery boy. If you can imagine letting a youngster of that age do it now! I was sent down to the grocery store often by myself when I was four and five years old. It was located where Rood’s China Store is now. I had to cross Fulton street and Jefferson. There were no lights; there were no automobiles; it was a very safe thing to do. We had a big garden back of us and we had three great big apple trees. We always picked the apples and spread them out on the floor in the attic, put newspapers over them, and then we had apples all winter long. We had, in the basement, big potato bins; we’d buy our potatoes in season and use them all winter there. Then we had tremendous big closets in the basement for canned goods and, of course, there was a big job in the fall doing all the canning. The furnace was a coal burning furnace, and I can remember my father getting up in his white night shirt at five o’clock on an icy morning, going downstairs and starting the fire to keep the rest of us warm. We had gas lights, and the mantles. You know what a mantle is? A gas mantle? They were always burning out or breaking – making trouble. I went to the Fountain Street School. This was the building that my father had gone to school in. I can remember once a boy threw a snowball at the wall and you could see the crack from the inside. It was getting that old. That was where the Central High School is now. We had a great big playground – they owned as much land as they do now for Central – and it was all in tall grass and big trees. We played games around the stumps. At the back of the lot there was an old rickety barn, where there were horses, and we’d feed the horses, for fun, during our recess. Then, finally, the Board of Education decided to build a high school there. I was in the fifth grade then. The first thing they did was to build a gymnasium. That was the end of our playground. Then they put the elementary school into the gymnasium and built the classrooms there. So, I had my sixth grade in the gym. For the seventh and eighth grade we went to Central Grammar, which was the old high school, older than the one they’re about to tear down now, which I guess you mostly remember as Strong Junior High. Interviewer: Which building would that be, the one on Barclay? Between Barclay and Ransom? Mrs. Judd: It was on, well this is Central Grammar I’m talking about was on the corner of Barclay and Lyon. It’s vacant land now. Interviewer: Oh, just adjacent to what is the East Building of J.C. Mrs. Judd: That’s right, there was no East building then. It was the old High School. Preliminary to that building was the Stone Building, that’s where my grandmother and grandfather went to high school back in the eighties. This Central Grammar was also a very old building. The principal was Mrs. Goss. I guess I should mention the fact that when school started, or when school was out, the pupils all lined up from their room to march downstairs and out; and in the �12 morning nobody could come into the building until they all lined up and marched into the building. Mrs. Goss would not let us march in rhythm because she said if we got too much rhythm going the building would fall down. I was in the first class to enter the new Central High School as a freshman in nineteen twelve. My grandfather Leonard was a member of the Board of Education; you’ll find his name up there on the plaque, when the building was built. That was a wonderful experience, that high school experience. We had marvelous teachers in those days. They went on, most of them, to become teachers in the Junior College. We had a lunchroom, and we had all our parties in the lunchroom. Of course, the floor was very rough. When a club had a party there, they’d go up Saturday morning and put cornmeal all over the floor and slide all morning long to get the floor so it was good enough to dance on. By this time I was living down on Logan and Morris. There were the most whole lot of wonderful young people who lived up and down Madison. We called it the Madison Avenue crowd. The first one lived near Franklin Street, and then we always walked to school; of course nobody ever dreamed of having to be driven to school. We’d gradually pick up one person after another all the way up Madison until we got to about Washington. And that was the Madison Avenue crowd. Our parties were always in people’s homes. We didn’t have clubs to go to, we did, but it wasn’t the place for young people. Many of the homes had ballrooms, and player pianos for our music, and we had a wonderful time. At Christmas time there were engraved invitations for every single night of the Christmas vacation; come to somebody’s house for a dance. Let’s see. There was a house I wanted to mention next to Central High School. I think of all the houses you people are preserving, this one would have been the most wonderful one to have had. It belonged to the Baars. It was set back in a great big yard with lots of trees. It was a little frame Gothic house with all the lace and pointed roofs. It was really darling place. It’s too bad that it disappeared. Interviewer: I wonder if I could ask you a question right now. You mentioned that your husband lived on the West side of Grand Rapids, and you lived on the East side of Grand Rapids, and your family, obviously, a very substantial family. How did you and your husband meet? Mrs. Judd: Union High school was only three year high school and all of their students had to come to Central for their senior year. Now you must know that some of Grand Rapids most prominent families lived on the West side in those days, the Tuttles, and the Baldwins. Oh, Siegel can tell you a large number of them. When he was a senior his family moved over here to be closer to the school, and that’s where I met him – was in high school. He went to Dartmouth and I went to Vassar; and then he went on to the First World War. He was in Dartmouth in the war, and he enlisted in the Navy and went on to Annapolis and got his commission in the regular Navy from Annapolis training, then came back here and went to law school. In those days, nobody married until they were able to support a wife, and so I had to wait about two years for him to finish law school and get a job before he would marry. This was pretty tough. I finally got a job myself. I taught at Central High. Oh, I wanted to mention this thing about Central High School, too. I taught there for four years, from nineteen twenty-one to twenty-five. During that time, of course, when I was in high school they played football out here at Ramona. But during that time that I taught, the board bought Houseman Field. It was very wet, and there was no money to drain it, so the students decided to do it. The boys were organized, of course they had the engineering guidance, but they were organized to dig the trenches back and forth across the field and lay the tile, and fill it in. this was all done in one Saturday. The girls organized to get the lunch and bring it and serve it. I organized the girls for this so every time I drive by Houseman Field, I have a sense of pride about Houseman Field. There was something else about �13 high school. Ramona meant a great deal to us. It’s not in your Heritage Hill district, but it was a great amusement park. The route out there was through the woods. You see, it was way out of town. It belonged to the streetcar company; of course, we helped them make that business. They had summer cars that didn’t have any walls on the sides and the seats went clear across and the conductor collected the fares (of course they had both the motor man and the conductor) by walking along that step along the edge it. On a hot summer day, before we had the cottage, mother would take us and we’d get on that streetcar, and we’d ride out to Ramona. Then we’d stay on it and it would go back downtown and ride out to North Park. We would get some ice cream there and then come home; that was our summer outing. The outdoor theatre at Ramona had the best Keith Vaudeville that there was in the country. It was just a dandy place to go for the summer evenings. Then there was the O-Wash-Ta-Nong Club. Did you ever hear of that? Oh, that was a beautiful clubhouse, built right over the edge of the water. It was a three-storied building with a beautiful ballroom that looked out over the water, and a balcony, and underneath it were the canoes. You could go there and have a canoe ride or you could have a beautiful dance. During the war I can remember many dances out there for the boys in uniform. It was a lovely place, it burned down. Mr. Hanchett – did you ever hear of the Philipine band? Mr. Hanchett was the head of the streetcar company. His house is one of your houses for preservation, on College, the red stone house just north of Cherry Street. Interviewer: Right next to the Voigt house, isn’t it? Mrs. Judd: Yes, just to the south of the Voigt house. He brought a Filipino band to Grand Rapids and it stayed about a year, I think. He would put them on his streetcar that would go out to Ramona. They would be playing out there, you see. This attracted a great deal of business to Ramona. Then later the Hanchetts moved and bought the house where the Bissells live now, across from the hospital on the corner of Wealthy and Plymouth. They built a big ballroom on the back of it, and there were many dances there with the Filipino Band. We had a very happy life as young people. We used to have to have chaperones in the automobiles that drove us to the party, but I don’t think that really hampered us very much. Interviewer: I’d like to ask you a question right now; it’s a question I asked everybody that grew up during that period of time. What do you think Mrs. Judd, thinking back, what was it that ended that era? Mrs. Judd: Oh, I think the automobile more than anything else. In the first place, it ruined the streetcar business, and the interurban business. My father was on the city commission and the one who insisted that the streetcar tracks be removed from Monroe Street and the street be repaved clear across so it would be good pavement. Many cities simply paved on either side and left the streetcar tracks. Now, that was nineteen thirty -(?) it was during the depression, I guess it was one way of giving more employment-thirty-four or thirty-five along on there. Interviewer: You’d say it was the automobile more than anything. Mrs. Judd: Oh, I think so. It made life go faster, it made people get off their feet and sit on their fannies, [and] this I think, prevented lot of camaraderie that we used to have as a group when we went back and forth to school, to say nothing of what it did to our physiques. Well, I suppose the movies really destroyed the amusement park, although it wore out. The roller coaster was going �14 to kill somebody if they didn’t take it down. Maybe people just got too sophisticated for that kind of amusement. It did kill the vaudeville circuit. The first movie I ever went to was on Monroe Street, just about where Goebel and Brown’s store is now. It was called the Monroe Vaudette. It was five cents and there was an organ; and that’s where I saw Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, but never with my mother’s permission. Oh, she didn’t believe in it; I had to sneak in and not tell her. But Grand Rapids was a city that had the best Broadway theatre in those days. I saw all the leading Shakespearean actors. All the operettas came. You talk to Siegel about operetta; he was crazy about operetta and music, of course. He used to go to all of them and sit in the top gallery, which they called then something I won’t mention. Maude Adams, Billie Burke, all the people right off the Broadway companies stopped here. Now, the reason, I think, was the furniture industry and the markets. I’m going to leave that for Siegel to tell you because he can make a very interesting story about it. Interviewer: Well, I think we’ve covered everything that I wanted to cover, and you certainly were well prepared. Mrs. Judd: Well, I tell you, I’ve been in the process of trying to write a story about my grandfather, for the family. There’s a lot of research necessary, the kind of research I wish you people had done on the Heritage House houses. I know where the buildings were that my grandfather built, so to find out when they were built and what became of them afterwards, I started out in the city hall in the Assessor’s office, where you have to look up things by address. I got the history of assessment of that particular property; you can sometimes tell by the, say, quick jump in the assessment that’s there’s been a new building or something put there. Then, to find out who the owners were, you take the numbers off the assessment that each property has and then you go over to Michigan Trust Building, where the abstract company is. With that number they will give you the abstract from the beginning. The first properties that my grandfather built on were in the village of Grand Rapids – or village of Kent, I’ve forgotten, I mean it dates back that far – and then you can pursue the ownership of that piece of property that way. I don’t know whether you know I was on that little committee that went over all the history of the houses to determine which ones were historically worth preserving. I noticed that one was listed as the Wagemaker house on Lyon Street. Now, that really is the Idema house. If you want the history of that house, you could go to Chester Idema or Walter Idema. Interviewer: He’s one of the fellows that I’m going to be interviewing next week. Mrs. Judd: Is he? Well, you get him. I asked him about it quite recently because I was perturbed that the name of it was Wagemaker, when really the Idemas, you know were the heads of the bank and one of the biggest families. Their house on the corner of College and Washington, north of the Voigts, was the later house. But that’s something that really ought to go in your Heritage Hill area. Interviewer: OK. �15 INDEX A Avery, Mrs. Noyes · 6, 8, 11 B Baldwin Family · 13 Bedeaux, Charles · 6, 7 Bedeaux, Fern Lombard · 6 C Central Grammar School · 12, 13 Central High School · 12, 13, 14 Community Chest · 11 D Dartmouth · 13 F Fountain Street Church · 5, 11 Frigidaire · 3, 4 G Goss, Mrs. · 13 H H. Leonard and Sons · 5, 6 Hanchett, Mr. · 14 Harvey Family · 8 Leonard, Emma Carr (Grandmother) · 7, 8, 9, 10, 13 Leonard, Harry Carr (Father) · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15 Leonard, Heman (Great-Grandfather) · 4, 5 Leonard, Mariah Winslow · 4 Leonard, Willie Thomas Stansbury (Mother) · 1, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 M Martin, John · 2 McKee Family · 8 Meade, Richard Mrs. · 2 O O-Wash-Ta-Nong Club · 14 P Purdue University · 10 R Ramona Park · 14 Reed’s Lake · 2 S Simpson, Mrs. · 7 T Tuttle Family · 13 U I University of Michigan · 10 Idema Family · 16 V J Judd, Siegel (Husband) · 1, 5, 13, 15 Vassar College · 7 Visiting Nurses · 10 K W Kelvinator · 3, 4 L Leonard, Charles H. (Grandfather) · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15 Wagemaker Family · 15, 16 Whittier Family · 8 Women’s University Club · 10 �16 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/44402fc843dc870171fd2f87949c3eee.mp3 6a77bde69b7f8311662638b93752a15a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_13Judd Title A name given to the resource Judd, Dorothy Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Judd, Dorothy Description An account of the resource Dorothy Leonard was born in 1898 in Grand Rapids. She studied economics and political science at Vassar College and had an interest in city government. Her grandfather, Charles H. Leonard, was the inventor of the refrigerator. Mrs. Judd was the keeper of her grandfather's patents. She married Siegel Judd in 1922. She died in 1989. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/627d47331523b089fb1eaaf03a9eea86.pdf 879897e64026b6864a68dd24586739b8 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Siegel Judd Interviewed on September 28, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape # 20 & 21 (47:25) Biographical Information Siegel Judd was born Siegel Wright on 19 June 1895 in Leoti, Wichita County, Kansas, the son of Addison J. Wright. His parents died and he was adopted as an infant by his father’s sister and her husband, Lillian V. Wright and Edward C. Judd. Siegel died in Grand Rapids on 2 September 1982. Siegel was married to Dorothy S. Leonard 29 June 1922 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dorothy was born 14 September 1898 in Grand Rapids, the daughter of Harry Carr Leonard and Willie Thomas Stansbury. Dorothy died 14 February 1989 at Porter Hills Presbyterian Village. ___________ Interviewer: This interview with Siegel Judd was conducted September 28, 1971. Interviewer: Let’s start with…about your family and so on. Were you…were you born in Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: No, I was born out there in Leoti, Kansas about fifteen miles from the Colorado line… Western Colorado, Colorado line. And, you mean you want me to go on and tell what I just told you? Interviewer: Sure, that’s a good story. Mr. Judd: Well, my family, my ancestors came from western New York and came out when the Erie Canal was opened in eighteen thirty and came to Michigan in eighteen thirty-five, it was. And my ancestor at that time was a Continental Soldier and he’d been granted some land in Michigan that… what’s now in Alpine Township and so he came out here to farm it and he brought his seven sons and came down the Grand River on a raft. That’s the way others were coming in here at that time. You see, that wasn’t such a long time after this town was founded by Campau. I think it was in eighteen twenty-one or twenty-five, along in there. But there were many people coming from New York State. My family came out there and their names were Wright. You want me to tell that part of the story? Interviewer: If you want to. Mr. Judd: Well I don’t know as it makes a lot of difference… Interviewer: Okay. �2 Mr. Judd: That’s incidental really. But my father, who was a generation or two after the ancestor who came out here, wasn’t caring much for the farming life in Alpine Township so he and his two cousins-other Wrights-decided to go out to Kansas, [to] see what they could do out there in the way of taking up some land. And my father was in a little town-all three boys were-a little town called Leoti and my father married the school marm in the town, a very small village. And he… what should I say he was short lived out there because there was no doctor in the town and he’d taken sick and the town druggist, by mistake, gave him a dose of lignum which killed him and I was born about three months after he died and my mother died about three months after I was born and her sister was… she was the school teacher in this village and so my aunt here, a Mrs. Judd-my father’s sister, went out to Kansas and brought me back to Grand Rapids where I’ve lived all my life. And they formally adopted me and that’s why I have the name Judd instead of Wright. That’s … Interviewer: Where did you go to high school in Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: Well, I went… we lived on the west side on Scribner Street and Tenth and I went to Turner Street School, which is still there, and Union School. At that time, Union School High School went to the tenth grade so when, when I got through the tenth grade I came over here to Central High School and then my family moved over here on the east side and I graduated from Central High School in ninteen fourteen. Then, I went with a couple of boys from… graduated at that time, we went out to Kansas to work in the wheat fields. Interviewer: Oh really? Mr. Judd: I can see where my father might not have liked that, too. But we worked all one summer and wound up in Saskatchewan, Canada, following the harvest up…know that’s a detail… but after that I went to Dartmouth to college. I was there three years when the First World War broke out and in May of nineteen seventeen everybody went to war. I mean everybody went down and enlisted. And I went to the Naval Training Station at Newport, Rhode Island and was in the Navy two, two and a half years. That was the first of the year and I don’t know if you want this detail, do you? Interviewer: That’s alright, you got out of the Navy and you went to… Mr. Judd: I got out of the Navy and I went to law school down in Ann Arbor. Then I came here and I practiced here ever since. I started in twenty-one and now it’s seventy-one – so that’s fifty years. Interviewer: You’ve specialized in corporate law. Mr. Judd: Almost entirely. Interviewer: Can you tell me about some of the early businesses in Grand Rapids-the lumber business for example and what happened to it? �3 Mr. Judd: Well, when I started practicing law in twenty-one, there were many lumber companies in Western Michigan and all north of here. And that was because there was a lot of virgin timber and they were all cutting it and, of course, selling this. And the way they marketed it they cut the timber and in the north got the…floated the logs down the Muskegon River and the Pere Marquette and the Grand River and that was the easiest way of transporting them. There wasn’t any railroads at that time. And then at the mouth of the rivers, sawmills sprung up and they’d saw the logs up into lumber and then, with the Great Lakes here, they could ship at very low cost this lumber all, like Chicago, Detroit, all around at much less cost than the railroads that were then coming in. And here in Grand Rapids, there were some sawmills but there were bigger ones at Spring Lake and also what is now Port Sheldon, there was a big, big mill there and a hotel. You wouldn’t think so now down there but there was and, as a matter of fact, after the town died because they ran out of raw materials to cut with and those towns just died out. But the pillars that you have on the Art Museum here were on one of the hotels at Port Sheldon. Interviewer: Is that right? Mr. Judd: That was supposed to be classical Greek hotel and architecture those were saved and brought up here. If you’re interested in that kind of detail it’s… Interviewer: How did these guys like Blodgett and some of the other families that made tremendous fortunes out of the lumber industry-how did they get the concessions to the land? Mr. Judd: They got ‘em from the government. It was easy to get them because the government wanted to develop the country and Grand Rapids-well the Blodgetts, for example, started way back in the seventies. Delos [Abiel] Blodgett came out here from Massachusetts, I think. And it’s been three generations of ‘em. Of course, now they haven’t any timber in Michigan to cut and, of course, the White-Friant Company was the big company. There were a lot of ‘em. Interviewer: Was that a local company? Mr. Judd: Yes, as a matter Friant’s house is that stone house up on the Northeast corner of Union and Cherry and one of our boys in here bought it-John Logie. Interviewer: Oh yes.. Mr. Judd: Of course, the Whites built that beautiful home up next to-well it’s part of Davenport School now-on the northeast corner of Prospect and Fulton. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Judd: First, as the new office building was built in there and the next building east is the old White home. And, oh, there were a lot of lesser fortunes but those-the Whites were the big ones and, of course, the Blodgetts particularly. And the Blodgetts stayed in the timber business after it all cut off here and went out to California and now disposed of all their timber business. When they, just ‘til a few years ago, they had large holdings out in California, Northern California. �4 Interviewer: Well, are there any Whites and Friants still left in Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: There’s only one White and there are no Friants that I know of but White, the founder of the business-the father-he had five sons and one of them is still here. And that’s Norton Rugee White who lives, I think, on Plymouth. He’s about the only one. Their mother was the cook in the lumber camp and she was a very energetic woman and when they made money, she moved the family to Grand Rapids and saw to it…are you interested in these details? Interviewer: Yes Mr. Judd: Mrs. White saw to it that her five sons were well educated. And the oldest one [Stewart Edward White] turned out to be a writer of quite some standing. He wrote novels, a lot of ‘em about the timber game-you can credit a lot of the history about the timber business…the lumber business from some of his books. He was a very popular writer. He had his stories in the Saturday Evening Post at the time when that was flourishing very much. He wrote a book called The Riverman. That was a pretty good book. I don’t know these details you care about but when you add that up you can cut these things out. But the second one was [Thomas Gilbert White]…she took him… he went to Paris and studied there at one of the art schools and he turned out to be quite a famous painter and was a great racketeer. And then she had a third son who she wanted to be a musician and she took him to Saint Petersburg, Russia, and he studied with Leopold Auer who was the great teacher of the violin at that time. He didn’t make the success, though, that the other two did. And then there were two more boys and Rugee is one of them. And then the other one, Vici, who was somewhat of a writer, too. But that was quite a family here at that time. None live here except Rugee. In fact, I think they’re all dead. Interviewer: Where did the Friant family go? Mr. Judd: I don’t know about the Friants too much. But they were partners in the White-Friant Lumber Company. Many of these lumbermen who lived here in Grand Rapids used to go out to California in the winter time. They had homes out there, Santa Barbara particularly. The Whites had it; I think the Friants did. Interviewer: Why did they choose California rather than Florida? Mr. Judd: Well, Florida wasn’t developed at that time. Florida really didn’t get started in any big way until the twenties. I went down there in nineteen twenty-three with…I don’t know whether you knew Harold Fletcher, the real estate man here or not… wanted to buy some land. And Harry Goodspeed who owned the real estate around-you’d be surprised how undeveloped that was at that time. The shore-beautiful shore-and quite a lot of cottages like there’d be along Lake Michigan. None of this large stuff but the jungle was right behind it. So that was late, but they went out to California because of the climate and it was a very fashionable thing to do. Interviewer: Well, when did the lumbering business here die? The lumbering business, did that had an effect on the development on the furniture industry here? �5 Mr. Judd: Oh sure. It furnished the raw material for the furniture factory and that’s why they started here. And I mentioned this water power being one natural resource-the lumber was another. Those two combined were the reason they had furniture companies start up here. Interviewer: Water power… could you review that a little bit? Mr. Judd: Well, the Grand River-called the Grand Rapids-meant there was a fall in the stream. There were rapids and those were up north of here. They manufactured, built power damsyou’ve seen how they work. There was a channel on each side of the river and the dams would shunt the water into those channels. The channels would go through wheels, you see, that would turn around and turn the machinery. And they also had on both sides of the rivers… they just recently wound up the last one and that’s with the Voigt Milling Company-they had a milling flour mill over on what was then Bridge Street but now is Michigan over on the west side and another one down here at Pearl Street. The mills have been taken down now but…so you see the water power was good to grind the wheat into flour, too. And so we had up here the Lilly White Flour Mill. I don’t know whether you ever heard of that and then there was the Voigt Milling Company, and Blue Ribbon or something of that sort. But that was the power, too, and now when the power was giving out, I mean when there was less water in the Grand River, there was less water because they cut away the trees. When they cut away the trees, you let the water all run off in the spring when the snow melts and it goes off in a hurry and then the rest of the time you haven’t got this full head of water like you do when the woods are there and it melts and gradually runs off. So that’s how it gradually gave out and so the furniture companies that had been built along there got into steam plants and burned coal and generated power by that method. Water power passed practically out of existence. And where the Rowe Hotel is down there was the end of the-no it wasn’t either-it was down on Pearl Street. I was going to say the canal but these furniture factories were built right over the canals. They’d have these wheels that the waters passed by would turn. Interviewer: Well, in other words… Mr. Judd: Just the regular fashion that they did in old days. Everywhere, you got water. Interviewer: In other words, all along the canal where the canal began to where it ended… Mr. Judd: That’s right. Interviewer: …there were furniture businesses built along the river? Mr. Judd: That’s right-and these flour mills too. Interviewer:: Yes. Were they… ? Mr. Judd: …but mainly for furniture. Interviewer: Were those on both the east and the west side of the river? �6 Mr. Judd: Well, the flour mills-yes-the Lilly White was right where the post office is now and the Voigt Mill had two. They had one up across the bridge and in those days it was a covered wooden bridge with a covered roof, you know, like you used to see in New Hampshire and up there. Interviewer: When did those furniture factories come down-the ones that were right along the river here? Mr. Judd: When did they start? Interviewer: No, when were they torn down? Mr. Judd: Well, they kind of died off during the depression in the thirties. The factors that caused it was the loss of water power and it was more expensive then to generate power by steam and the natural resources cut off. I mean most of it had been harvested up north. And then, thirdly, is the invasion, you might say, of the automobile business where they would pay higher wages than was paid in the furniture business. And the furniture business up until just fairly recently has been a lower wage paying business. And so the boys in the next generation-their fathers went into the automobile game or businesses that made parts for automobiles-and that still goes. Lot of… Interviewer: Lot of automotive-related industry in Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: Oh yes, oh yes, sure-and there’s any number of parts people around. Even the Keeler Brass Company, a very successful brass company, they make metal parts for automobiles-do a lot of business with Ford-not just…they started up to make brass fittings to go on the furniturelike drawer pulls… Interviewer: Oh yes. Mr. Judd: …that sort of thing. And they did a fine job of this. In fact, they went and manufactured for other furniture centers, too. There, you see, were not any furniture factories in the south that amounted to anything and this was the town that made the quality furniture the furniture business-and still is but there’s very little of it left. Interviewer: Now, why did the furniture companies move south-a lot of these companies? Mr. Judd: Well, they got lower labor rates, you see. Interviewer: Oh. Mr. Judd: In North Carolina, they were near a source of supply. There is lumber down there but not many of the hard woods we had up here and they didn’t have the competition for labor that the automobile industry gave to the furniture industry. And that’s about it Interviewer: Yes. �7 Mr. Judd: Also, the furniture industry was hard hit by the depression of the thirties and a lot of my law business at that time was helping furniture people to get cash to get money to keep going. And, you see, their sales dropped off in the depression. People didn’t have the money to buy furniture and then when they thought…saw a chance to start up…why, they needed money and I don’t know about telling you about myself but we did the log business, too, so I got learned about the RFC which is a Reconstruction Finance Corporation in Washington that Hoover started before Roosevelt was elected, for the purpose of making loans to industry and commercial companies. See, everybody needed money in the depression. And so I went down to Washington and got a charter to form one for Michigan. And this was a corporation down there that made these loans, like the government loans people today, but the method then was through corporations that they could control. So I got a charter and got a couple of bankers here who were unemployed because of the bank holiday to look after it and we made loans to any number of companies that suffered during the thirties or when the banks closed. Not just around Grand Rapids but all around here. Greenville, over there the Gibson Furniture Company, furniture companies down in Holland and many of the furniture companies here-the Luce Furniture Company, you remember that one? It was a large one down on Godfrey Avenue. And Berkey and Gay but they never…-we got all our money back for the government by about the time the war started but they were all financially weak and we got money for them with this company and of course it made law business, too. Had to run down to Washington with all these loans and get ‘em approved down there. There was a lot tighter control in those days when the government was helping out than it seems to me that there are today when the government is making these loans. But there… that was a new thing for the government to step in and help private industry. Today, it’s expected but then it was surprising. Interviewer: Um hum. Mr. Judd: So we were…that way we got quite a few clients ‘cause they stayed with us after we kept ‘em alive. That may be beside the point but… Interviewer: It’s a… Mr. Judd: But gradually, you see, some local manufacturers went down to North Carolina because of the labor rate advantage and they got competition from people who were already down there and these people-because of the low rate or wage paying industry, why, they didn’t get people that cared to go into it. They wanted to go into higher [paying] work for General Motors or work for Chrysler or somebody with…or some companies that are furnishing products to them. Interviewer: What were-besides the furniture industry-what were some of the other businesses here that were thriving, perhaps, around the turn of the century up until… Mr. Judd: Well, there was… there were a number of wholesale houses we called ‘em. That is they’d be like, well, there’s not really any left today but there were companies that would buy quantities of household things and household products and also products needed in business in connection with the lumbering up north and so forth. Grand Rapids in that period was quite a �8 distributing point of merchandise of that kind. And these companies, well, there was the Worden Grocery Company. They would buy large quantities of groceries and sell ‘em to the little grocers on the street corners and they would step in between the manufacturers of the food products and the small grocers. There were no chain stores then, you see. There was no Kroger or people like that around. There’s just these little grocery stores in the neighborhoods. Do you remember that or don’t you go back that far? Interviewer: No, I don’t go back that far. Mr. Judd: Oh, sure. Your mother would tell you here’s a dimem go down to the grocery store on the corner and get two loaves of bread or something like that. We were always running to stores like that and that was small business. But these wholesale houses would buy large quantities and they would ship farther north. We worked sort of the beginning of the north and of course there was a demand for food and household products ‘cause the people were building houses north and these lumber camps were big buyers, you see, or customers. Dorothy’s father or grandfather, Mr. Leonard, he used to travel up to the… he told me he’d travel up to the lumber camps north of here and sell ‘em lamp chimneys and oil lamps and all sorts of things like that, kitchenware… Interviewer: How many men would be in a camp like that up north? Mr. Judd: I don’t know, but they were pretty large and they were a pretty rough and tough customers, too. They’d be up there in the woods, get down here Saturday night and it used to be a big night in Grand Rapids and they used to see some pretty rough times in those days. Interviewer: Do you remember any of that? Mr. Judd: Yes, some, when I lived on the west side. Of course we had a lot of saloons. There wasn’t much. Well, there was whiskey drunk, too, but there were a lot of saloons. Down here on this corner of Michigan and Monroe there were a saloons on each corner except this near corner and that was a drug store. But that was the same thing as a saloon really in those days, too. And it was, well …the hotels did a big bar business. Everybody…Morton and Sweets Hotel which is what later became Pantlind Hotel… When the boys came in from the north, stay a week or so. Why, there was a lot going on. Man: What, when you were…you grew up on the west side predominantly…? Mr. Judd: Yes. Man: When you came over to the east side to… Mr. Judd: Central… Interviewer: Central High School, that was in the tenth grade? Mr. Judd: Yes, I went in the eleventh and twelfth grades �9 Interviewer: Was the east side considered like that-where Central School is up on the hill and the homes in the Hill District was. Was that considered very fashionable? Mr. Judd: Oh yes. Interviewer: Was there… Mr. Judd: Yes, they used to call it-some used to call it-Quality Hill... that was, some of the residents. I remember Mr. Booth, Ted Booth’s father, who lives on Fountain Street there and his pictures of his house was in the paper the other day. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Judd: …beautiful house. I think Mr. Shelby built it. Remember Mr. Booth used to always refer to it as Quality Hill. And his son, Ted, was in high school when I was and that’s how I happened to hear his father say that because we got around his house once in a while. He was a very fine man but that was the attitude and it was entirely justified. That whole area out there was beautiful. Now that Stickley House-I haven’t heard that mentioned much but that’s the house on Prospect between Fountain and Fulton. It’s one of the high…of these large white pillars and yellow brick. Now, Stickley was a furniture manufacturer, too, and he had a big business and he built that beautiful home but his business didn’t survive the depression of the thirties. It wasn’t one of the companies that we found a loan for but he had a hard time and just went out of business. And it was by that time, see, the late thirties,. they were beginning to feel the competition of North Carolina so they and those boys weren’t as young as they had been and their sons didn’t care about the business but there wasn’t the incentive either to keep it going. Interviewer: Did that happen very often where businesses were started by… Mr. Judd: Oh yes, they were family institutions. Families from generation to generation handed ‘em down but they say in the thirties a furniture business wasn’t attractive to the young men with ambition. I don’t know as I ought to say that, what else, there were other things that offered more reward, I think. And they felt that way now you see. Or the families sort of died out or the Widdicombes, their younger generation, went East to school. One of them went to London and they got away from here. And there was the Gunn Furniture Company-they made showcases and library cases. Still, you can see that up near the so-called junction on Ann Street. That was a flourishing business until the First World War and Mr. Gunn, the owner, who was the son of the founder, went to England to live and lived in London for quite a while and his right-hand man, Mr. Homiller, who’s a very capable manufacturer, ran the show and Mr. Gunn didn’t come back ‘til the First World War got going, came over here. He’s abroad…lived there. He’s very well. So… and his son didn’t have any interest in it and so that was sold and then there’s this Kent Furniture, Imperial Furniture Company up near Ann Street-the red brick one. The Foote family built that and they did a big business. But, it’s the Depression-hurt all those and they really never got going again for one reason or another… �10 Interviewer: Well, was there any … one thing I don’t want to forget is you said before that your mother would give you a dime and tell you to run down to the corner grocery store and there weren’t any chain stores at the time. Mr. Judd: Oh no, there weren’t. Interviewer: At that time were there more a neighborhood shopping areas than there are today? Mr. Judd: Oh yes, well, you see, yes in every… well I’ll take where I lived. There was a drug store-or not a drug store-well, on Sixth Street was quite a little center-commercial center-with a drug store on Sixth Street and Broadway. And there was a meat market and a grocery store on Sixth Street and Scribner and up at Eighth Street which was... . I think it was another grocery store and Leonard Street was quite a busy street on the West Side up there. There was, oh, meat markets and grocery stores and some little dry good places and cobblers who… that sort of thing. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Judd: And then Bridge Street, of course, here was… that’s Michigan…that was a busy street on the west side. That was commercial all the way out, but, yes, it…over where I lived at Eleventh Street, which is one block up Broadway, there was a grocery store-a lot of little stores like that. But they… the twenties and the, well, really the thirties-places kind of went out of business because they couldn’t compete with these larger concerns. Interviewer: Were there well-to-do families living on the west side? Mr. Judd: Oh yes. There were these German families that I mentioned… all did well. And they had nice homes. And, let’s see, Scribner Street was quite a street but as far as fine homes are concerned, near us there was a very fine home just south of Tenth Street on Scribner. We lived on the corner of Tenth and Scribner. Built by a man named Chick and he was representative of a man in Boston, an investor who had sent Chick out here to look after his interest in the plaster mines, you know. That was developing… going pretty well. It still is going. It belongs to U.S. Gypsum but [James W.] Converse spent…invested quite a lot of money out in Michigan and that man, Chick, had a beautiful home and saddle horses and all that. That was on Scribner Street. Doesn’t look like much now. Then right behind it on Turner Street, I keep thinking that a family was Alt but it wasn’t, but they had a beautiful home and, at that day, an oval glass plate. Oval front door was the thing and a large oval glass there and, of course, curtains behind it-but they were nice homes. Not like on the hill here but, as a matter of fact, originally Front Street over here started to be a good residential street in the early day of Grand Rapids-up at First Street and Second Street and along in there. They used to be, when I was a kid, some lovely homes there-and there were post Civil War homes. And some of them were a lot of sandstone homes that were very attractive homes. But when industry got going strong, why, they moved out. Interviewer: Was that the reason why the west side… Mr. Judd: Kind of lost out as far as keeping with…wasn’t a quality hill but it was quality people though. Some, lot of them at that time, lived over there but moved over… �11 Interviewer: Why did, why did these German families that were doing well in the machinery work, for example, why did they continue to live on the west side? Mr. Judd: Well, they did. Although later they moved over here but they…it was near their factories and those days you didn’t have an automobile, you know. You walked to work and… Interviewer: Well, when you came to school on the east side, was there any kind of social discrimination against… Mr. Judd: No, it was alright. There wasn’t anything of the sort. In fact, all the kids from Union came over here to finish up their last two years. And it wasn’t long that way but when they got that in then they built a larger school and… or built for more kids anyway. And then, also, they increased Union’s so you could stay there and graduate from Union. The building you see there now was being built when I moved over on the east side. I mean, the large red brick building, of course, now today it’s way out on the hill I guess, isn’t it? Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Judd: …on the west side. Interviewer: When you moved to the east side, was that after you were married? Mr. Judd: Oh no, it was when I was just came to the tenth, eleventh grade over here… my family moved over at the same time and we lived down on Waverly Place. The house is gone now but the Waverly Place is a little street one block up from Jefferson Avenue off State Street. It just runs one block. It’s an awful dump down in there now. But at that time, the White family-you know how Washington Street comes down to Jefferson and State comes in and makes a point there-at that time, the White Family had a very beautiful home of their own in that triangle. They hadn’t moved up on Quality Hill yet but they were very wealthy people. Interviewer: Why… Mr. Judd: That’s why I knew some of the boys because we were living on Waverly and the White family were all brought up on that triangle down there not up on top of the hill where I told you that house is now. That’s kind of an English-type house. Interviewer: Well, I guess Jefferson Avenue at one time was a very fashionable… Mr. Judd: Well, it had beautiful trees and, oh yes, it was very fashionable and also Sheldon Street was, too. I’m talking about… (I’ve got a husky voice here, sorry)… up to nineteen ten, that Fulton Street across from the park was very nice before they built the Metz Building and the…what’s the name of the building, the Lorraine Building on the corner of LaGrave. Where Jacobson’s is now, was a beautiful stone house with brass railings and polished up and the man that lived there was a lawyer and looked like Charles Evans Hughes and his-what was his name … can’t think of it but, anyway, he-man of great dignity and he represented one of the railroads �12 that were in here then. Then he represented a trolley line, too. I foreclosed the trolley line. We wound it up when, about nineteen thirty-three or four…when they went off the streets. The trolley business was a fine business for a long time. Also in Grand Rapids makes me think this… the utility business started to develop about the turn of the century… I mean, the gas light and electric business and so forth. We had quite a number of entrepreneurs in Grand Rapids who started utility companies and did very well internationally and the Hodenpyl-Hardy people were in the Michigan Trust as officers under Mr. Withey. And power companies started here and there were three groups that did very well. There was this… these two boys from the Michigan Trustthe names were Hodenpyland Hardy-and they started and collected or started little gas companies around the small towns and they got it growing into Consumers Power and then they built the trolley lines ‘cause they generating power they could power dams. At that time, we had a lot of water and the streams, you see, and the rivers- it’s all they had. They were generating electric power again with these canals. And so they had more power than they could sell so they started these inter-urbans, too, electric inter-urbans. I don’t know whether you remember those but that was the inter-urban line from Grand Rapids to Muskegon, Grand Haven, and an electric train and they ran to Kalamazoo and all around. They started in the early nineteen hundreds and they were financed with twenty year bonds and I was not practicing law when those bonds were gotten out but had something to do with foreclosures, though, when the bonds came due. Why they… the automobiles had licked the inter-urban so that they went out business. And the bonds had… we had to foreclose them and, in other words, that industry or the inter-urbans between cities and electric cars that ran just about lasted as long as the twenty year bonds and that was all. And then when they went out of business. The Holland inter-urban, I foreclosed on that, sold all the assets, sold the rails to Broady. I don’t know whether you ever heard of Broady but he was a junk dealer, a very wealthy junk…his son and all of ‘em lived over on the east, moved over on the east side when they got some money. And… but these, these men that built up Consumers Power and they went down to New York and lived there. They’re not living now but they went down there because that was a source of the money to finance and build these things. Consumers Power was one, then there was a fellow here named…a Hollander here named [John A.] Hulswit who did the same thing. He had a traction lines and electric light companies in…out in Iowa and around in Ohio and built up a big picture and, of course, he moved to New York to finance it, too. But many of them started here and then, of course, Joe Brewer-I don’t know whether you’ve heard of him but he’s more recent. He built up a picture and companies he started with a little one, the Holland Gas Company, down here and collected, well, his best one was the Indianapolis Light and Power which is one of the fine utilities today and then he sold it all to Insull in the twenties when Samuel Insull was mopping up the universe buying all the utility companies and blew up higher than a kite in twenty-nine. But, I just saying about the history of Grand Rapids, we had people who got into new industries, developed here and elsewhere. That’s… it’s kind of unusual that a town this size would have people who built up such large companies from practically nothing in a new industry, you see. Interviewer: Do you feel that… that time has been and still is somewhat of a characteristic of Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: There isn’t today anybody that seceded it to those people. No, because there those pictures were big enough so that their main offices were not in Grand Rapids any longer. They moved away, they moved Consumers Power down to Jackson because it was more central. It �13 was on the… then as important as the railroad line too, see we were kind of a branch off from Jackson, so there, that’s their headquarters but we’ve had people that have really built up businesses and constructive people, I think. This has been a very good town. Probably taking a hell of a lot of your time but I … Interviewer: No, that’s alright. Mr. Judd: I could dig up a lot of stuff if you wanted to. Interviewer: Oh. I have one last question for you. What do you think that…what, when you were growing up in Grand Rapids-the way the pace of life and style of life was then compared to today- what was it that changed everything? What was it that ended that era, so to speak, and brought on the era that we’re into today? Mr. Judd: Oh, well, you mean talking about the economics? Man: Yes Mr. Judd: Or the social… Interviewer: Well, the economics certainly have a lot to do with the social, I think. Mr. Judd: Of course, what’s been a great contributor, I think, is the automobile. Because when I was in high school, I’ll say, Henry Ford starting out with a low priced car. You could buy a car for around five hundred dollars. His first cars and, of course, he got this idea of having one model and nothing else in a straight line production and interchangeable parts and that sort of thing. And the early cars were custom made really...the Pierce Arrows and the great big ones around and he made it-made cars that were within the reach of really poor people .And then they got on the road and that, of course, the demand for roads and the automobile industry is, I think, practically runs the country today. It even cuts up your cities like we’re getting Plymouth Road cut up pretty soon, I’m afraid. It’s change, it’s changed the life. Of course, it’s changed the pace because people, you see, when I was a boy had horses and carriages to get around. Everybody didn’t have those but that was what they had on Quality Hill up and around and …the grocery men had it and your father had ‘em. Was he your grandfather? Interviewer: My grandfather? Mr. Judd: Grandfather, yes. I remember he was chief competition, I think, over there with a German named [Jacob] Rauschenberger. Did you ever hear of him? On Turner Street, but the pace was slow and you didn’t have the sense of urgency you’ve got today. And it was very nice and … but on the other hand, there’s a lot of good things brought with what we’ve got now, too. Sorry I have this cold, I… Interviewer: That’s alright, I think we can end right there anyway. �14 L B Blodgett Family · 3 Booth, Mr. · 9 Leonard, Mr. (Grandfather-in-law) · 8 R C Reconstruction Finance Corporation · 7 Consumers Power · 12, 13 S F Shelby, Mr. · 9 Friant Family · 4 V G Voigt Milling Company · 5 Gunn Furniture Company · 9 W K White Family · 3, 4 Widdicombe Family · 9 Withey, Mr. · 12 Worden Grocery Company · 8 Wright, Addison J. (Father) · 1, 2, 4, 9 Keeler Brass Company · 6 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/23a8cf6901908a91eae8bfc4fad527ff.mp3 ef6fcb382a950649cd37ddcd660c0910 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_20-21Judd Title A name given to the resource Judd, Siegel Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Judd, Siegel Description An account of the resource Siegel Judd was born Siegel Wright; after his parents died, his father's sister and her husband adopted him. Mr. Judd attended Dartmouth College and served in the navy during WWI. He married Dorothy Leonard in 1898. He went to law school, specializing in corporate law, and was involved in the lumber business. He died in 1982. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/759e51153c5d31970bc3de9bbb24a99e.mp3 033339ac5248e6f48137f82205350ec9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Midweek Lent Series What Wouldn't Jesus Do? Scripture Text James 4:11-12, Matthew 7:1-5 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20000329 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-03-29 Title A name given to the resource Judging and Condemning is Not Our Prerogative Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 29, 2000 entitled "Judging and Condemning is Not Our Prerogative", as part of the series "What Wouldn't Jesus Do? ", on the occasion of Midweek Lent, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: James 4:11-12, Matthew 7:1-5. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/53e288005d52cff57ab56e711e04dbe8.jpg a5adcf8751e984ef964e871d76c4ec15 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1960s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_000032 Title A name given to the resource Judging contest for Grand Valley's official seal Description An account of the resource Philip W. Buchen, Gerald Mast, and Walter McBridge judge a contest for Grand Valley's official seal, summer 1963. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Buchen, Philip W. (Philip William), 1916- Mast, Gerald, 1908-1971 McBridge, Walter Universities and colleges College administrators Events Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1963 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ae4b500a159dd90cff2d31ed22ddfa58.jpg 33557a85d7b39ef680e1ff19604c10b7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7c64f98598b8e995b8dbce67066df22f.jpg 76f19c05c3b5685b20149cd77b86ac6f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Insel-Bücherei Series Description An account of the resource The German publishing company Insel Verlag was founded in 1899 by Anton Kippenberg in Leipzig. In its early years the firm only printed expensive, beautifully-produced volumes, until demand led to the publication of the more modest Insel-Bücherei series in 1912. Relatively inexpensive but with the same careful sense of design and typography, these smaller-format books reprinted shorter works from a variety of German, European, and world authors. The series numbers considerably more than a thousand titles and is still being issued. The Digital Collection contains the scanned covers of 140 titles held by Grand Valley State University Libraries. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1904-1987 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-05 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource ger Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-09-29 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-05_IB0204 Title A name given to the resource Jüdische Geschichten Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-09-29 Description An account of the resource Cover of Jüdische Geschichten, by Isaac Leib Peretz, published by Insel-Verlag. Insel-Bücherei Nr. 204 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books. Insel-Bücherei. Z315.I5 B83 no.204 Language A language of the resource de Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6f97d56532bbfd21221c3bad56363ab1.pdf 2265684e24c24e93d72fcd10122331e0 PDF Text Text Speaking Out Western Michigan’s Civil Rights Histories Interviewee: Judith Claytor Interviewers: Paige Goote Supervising Faculty: Melanie Shell-Weiss Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 11/22/2011 Biography and Description Judith Claytor was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She graduated from Western Michigan University with a degree in sociology/social work. She discusses the racial and religious differences between living in Grand Rapids and Washington D.C. and attending Western Michigan University. Transcript Paige Goote (GOOTE): My name is Paige Goote and I'm here today interviewing Judith Claytor and its November 22 about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and we are in Grand Rapids Michigan. So today we are here to interview you about your experience with civil rights, in Western Michigan specifically. So I guess we can start with, we can start with some basic information about you. So how old are you? Judith Claytor (CLAYTOR): I am 64. Where do you want me to go with this? GOOTE: What I have here is full name, place and date of birth. CLAYTOR: I am Judith Claytor, I was born in Grand Rapids, in fact was brought home from the hospital to this very house and I... grew up here in Grand Rapids. Went through elementary through high school here. And then went to Western Michigan University and then as an adult moved away and then came back to take care of my...very elderly mother. And have remained here since her death, in 2005. GOOTE: Okay, so you've always been in West Michigan. CLAYTOR: No, I was in Washington D.C. for 30 years. GOOTE: Okay so we went from here to Washington D.C. What did you do in Washington D.C.? CLAYTOR: And I lived in Peru for a couple of years. I married a foreign services officer right out of Western Michigan University and so I was a diplomats wife in Peru for two years, and then we got posted back to D.C. and then... I decided our marriage was not... working out. And I fired him. That’s what I did, I fired him. He was using me as a punching bag and I didn't feel like being such. But be that as it is, that is over and done and I stayed in D.C. my original degree from Western was in sociology/social work, they didn't, they were just developing a social work major as I was leaving and they had a minor in social work and that’s what I did. And so after I got back to D.C. I started doing work that was social service related not necessarily pure social work. I worked for the District of Columbia government as an Page 1 �assistant in the, for the city council. And that was a very unusual experience because the District of Columbia is like no place else, basically in the world, because it's not a state and at the time when I first got there, we could not even vote for the President of the United States. Much less have any representation in Congress. And it’s still that there is no voting representation in Congress, we can vote if you are a District of Columbia resident, you can vote for the President of the United States but as far as being represented that’s it. And the District of Columbia budget has to be approved by Congress even though, even all the amount of money raised in the district. And Congress does supplement some because of all the federal buildings that are part of the district but it is not as generous a compensation as would happen if there was a military installation in a particular state or in a particular region because there are local representatives that would make sure the reimbursement to that area would be far more generous. And so the District of Columbia has to operate in a really peculiar fashion and so you learn a whole lot about government in funny ways and you learn about both the federal and the local government in funny ways because they are so intertwined. GOOTE: I never thought about any of that CLAYTOR: Oh and nobody does, and there is no reason to unless you're right nearby. And so in the job I had I had to sometimes write testimony for my bosses to defend our budget at Congressional hearings. So it was part of my job, on Capitol Hill, defending the District of Columbia’s budget, it was local government but it was odd. So, that was one of the things. GOOTE: Wow. Do you feel like there was a difference between how you were treated in Washington D.C. and West Michigan? CLAYTOR: Oh absolutely. I mean Western Michigan is a place unto itself and I obviously didn't understand nearly how unique it was until I was in the District of Columbia. I remember one of the most startling things that came to my attention was I joined an Episcopal church whose pastor or rector was the son of an RCA pastor. And when growing up here in Grand Rapids I had no idea that there was a different between the Reformed Church of America and the Christian Reformed Church. I just figured they were all Dutch people and they all went to the Reformed Church of some sort and that was it. There wasn't much more to know particularly. But after I met this uh upstanding clergy person, who was also somewhat of a snob, he kind of was... speaking kind of disparagingly of the CRC folks and I thought, "Oh what’s that all about and then began to be more kind of interested in how that developed. The differences between the two denominations and how they came to be two different denominations and one thing and another. And there is another telling piece of how that happened. When I went to, for some reason or another, I don't remember why I was there, but I was in the office of the Roman Catholic bishop’s council or whatever it's called but the organization of the national bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. And they had a map, and it was color coded by region or county or something that would tell you what the predominate denominational affiliation was for the county, for the region, whatever. And there were different colors assigned to main line denominations and there was this bright blue color for "other". And all of Utah was "other" and we could kind of understand that, those of us looking at the map, and all of w Michigan was other and by that point I was the only one who had a clue as to what that "other" meant, but the fact a whole group of people migrated from the Netherlands to the united states to practice a more conservative form of their religion, and it was a whole group of people men women children, the whole shebang that set up here and they set up the whole support system to practice the religion as they wanted too, it ended up having a much greater impact on the community than you would imagine. Really. Page 2 �GOOTE: So did you grow up religious? CLAYTOR: Yeah, I've always been an Episcopalian. My mother was an Episcopalian, and her mother before her was an Episcopalian. But being an Episcopalian here in GR was kind of rare. People looked at you like what in the world is that? And I got to DC and I didn't see any CRC or Reformed churches. RCA types and then later on I found one RCA church and when I got back here I looked up on the computer and there was one CRC church in the whole of the District of Columbia and I thought oh is that interesting. And of course there were Episcopal churches all over the place and so it was a whole different dynamic both religiously and then I began to realize culturally. Because the the way of doing things culturally I think because of a lot of them, at least in the earlier days, the people who relocated here, kind of had a closed group of socialization or what not. And if you were outside that, you were just kind of outside of it. And it created a much more conservative environment and so even now I find that there is much less just plain 'old socialization. Socializing among different groups of people I imagine with young people it's getting better. But Grand Rapids and Western Michigan is so overwhelmingly dominated by couples, if you're not part of a couple, you can hang it up. And in Washington, if you lived and breathed and were friendly with somebody there were gatherings of people who would get together. And there would be married folks and single folks and people of this or that ethic group you know what I mean it was just kind of a mixture and I find that to be much more, it just doesn't occur much here. GOOTE: So would you say that you felt more excluded on the basis of religion and didn't deal as much with being discriminated by your race? CLAYTOR: uh nuh. Race and Religion were kind of all, it was a both and. I mean when my parents bought this house, or my father did cause he married a widow with a child, and, actually a mother. He had set up his medical practice here and had a difficult time as an African American physician setting up a practice. And he had decided he wasn't going to marry until he could support a family. That was just how he saw it. And he actually lived in a rooming house until he married Momma and bought this house. And he couldn't get any of the real estate agents to show him any houses outside the ghetto. And if you look at that portrait up there he doesn't look particularly African American, he kind of could be a lot of different things but the real estate people knew his ethnicity and just wouldn’t show him places and so he meandered around and bought this house from the owner. And he went and got a mortgage from the bank where he had his accounts. Mostly I understand from him, he did that to open the doors so that other African Americans could get mortgages. 'Cause he had been saving so long for his life that he could have bought the house straight out if he wanted to, and ultimately did, when the banker kind of said, "oh well you were late with a payment and he said will you look at the accounts I have with your bank?" and the guy did and he said, "will you transfer some money and pay this mortgage off?" 'Cause ya know, this nonsense, cause, he felt it was total nonsense to be aggravated that way. And then when I came along as his first natural child I went to school and the kids I guess were told there was going to be a black kid in their class and I didn't particularly stand out in a way that would be meaningful to another kindergartener and so they apparently went home and said well no we didn't see one. So then they came back with my name and then said are you colored or are you white and so when I said I was colored they started calling me nigger. And I could tell even though I didn't know about that word, I could tell that it was negative and that they weren’t playing with me. So I believe the story is that I came home and told my mother since they couldn't figure out if I was colored or white I was going to tell them I was a medi. And I don't know if I ever did that but that's how I felt. There was always this exclusion, and since I was the only medi or colored kid or whatever in the school there was always that cloud saying that maybe you're not quite the same as everybody else. And that there is something Page 3 �wrong with you. And then by the time I hit Junior High, we didn't have middle schools then, we had a Junior High which was a newfangled idea, and , then , I, then I had ultimately become part of the fabric of the elementary school. And was invited to birthday parties and what not, and that was alright, but then when they started having parties where they would invite boys I was all the sudden no longer welcome. And so the whole group of friends that I had known before just plain dropped me. Period. Ya know, end of story. And so I was able to make new friends and these were the girls that were not interacting with boys and so forth and they were wonderful friends, but it was just the fact there was this immediate shift, just, ya know, for no apparent reason. That that was kind of uncomfortable and then ya know I'd come home and my parents would begin to explain to me what was going on. And then we did, momma did have us going to an Episcopal church that was a historically African American church and that was on the other side of town. But it was hard to be hooked in to the group of kids that went to that church because most everybody went to school across town. And I didn't know anybody and I was kind of shy and so from what I was told, or I figured it out and had it confirmed by some of my classmates when I got to college at Western, that they all decided that because I was shy and quiet that I was stuck up because not only was I an African American living outside the normal neighborhood ghetto, whatever you want to call it, where most of the black people lived at the time. They decided since I was the daughter of a physician that I must be stuck up. And I wasn't, but I was just feeling out of place, I didn't seem to fit anywhere, and it was a pretty bleak kind of experience. GOOTE: Did that continue through high school? CLAYTOR: Oh yeah. GOOTE: So was it any different when you went to Western? CLAYTOR: Yeah it was because there wasn't as much, I mean; Western didn't just have folks from Grand Rapids. I was able to go ahead and just be me. And I did join a predominately African American sorority because, just, ya know, just to make it clear that my personal orientation was on target, because now with your generation kids who, young people who come up with .. Various complexions and looking different can easily discuss both sides of their family "well I've got a white mom I've got a black dad," but for us in my age group the mixing of races so to speak, if you want to call it that was involuntary. My father's parents were slaves. And the...matralinical line was often ... you know... abused by the masters and bore children. Ya know because no matter if you want to go in to the Sally Hemmings sort of mentality and think of that as being a love affair of some sort, the female didn’t have any choice in it particularly. If she was chosen by the master there might have been some benefits to it, there might not, but it was not an equal kind of relationship. And so all of us up until...maybe...the generation after me was kind of ashamed of this history. , just didn't want to talk about it and my mother decided that I should have an opportunity to read some books and learn about the caste and class system that developed in the African American community after slavery was ended. And what happened with the delineation among the people who had been, more closely aligned with the master of the house, or of the plantation or of the farm or whatever it was. Because often times it was the progeny of those relationships that were treated with greater deference or at least those folks had a better opportunity to see how the white folks did things and survive. 'Cause the system in actual slavery was when the people were first brought over from Africa they were separated from any of the people of their tribes or anything so you did not have the cultural cohesion that other immigrant groups get when they come. They come and they set up their churches, their this's thats and the others and there is a certain cultural bond. But if you are deliberated separated from people that speak your same languages and have your same cultural practices, it gets diluted and then the culture that developed among the slaves in general Page 4 �was something that they had to cobble together from what little they could remember from before. And then it would be from a lot of different regions and so it wasn't... it was all new. And there was no way of saying, then for those that were products of these illicit relationships, there was no way to say, "well I can trace my history back through, on my momma's side it was this and on my father's side it was that." Because the father’s side was just rendered to being something you couldn't claim. Although in the South there is a funny way people do sort of know and claim some of it. But in terms of inheritance and that sort of thing. No GOOTE: So just for dates, when did you start college? CLAYTOR: 1965 GOOTE: Okay and when, your dad started his practice here, where did he come from? He moved to Western Michigan from? CLAYTOR: Roanoke, VA GOOTE: When was that approximately? CLAYTOR: Early 30's GOOTE: And your mother? CLAYTOR: She came in the early 40's (She’s eating lunch) CLAYTOR: Yeah, my father grew up on a farm... that his father had established after he was emancipated, and from my father tells me, is that granddad left the plantation and did not look back. Did not want 40 acres or a mule or anything else from the plantation owner. Now arguable, he looked just, the familiar relationship, resemblance is what I'm looking for not relationship, resemblance, was very strong. You could almost not from appearance tell the difference between legitimate and illegitimate children. But at any rate Grandpa, according to Daddy was just was sick of it all and he went and established a prosperous farm. In Floyd County VA which is outside Roanoke somewhere. I haven't looked carefully at the map to get a sense of that. But, and, I do believe it is still in family hands and he and my Grandma Judith, after who I'm named, set up this farm and had 13 kids. And I believe I am the second to the last of 50, I know I'm the second to the last, but I think there were 56 of us in the generation. And my father was the youngest of 13 children and didn’t start producing anybody until he was 50 which are how I get back to having my actual grandparents being slaves. Because they were pretty old when daddy was born, and he was pretty old when he started produced children of his own. So most people my age would not be able to say that their grandparents were, had been slaves. GOOTE: And what was your dad’s full name? CLAYTOR: Robert Claytor. Robert W. He didn't like to use his middle name so I ain't gonna do it. GOOTE: So he came here and started his practice, did he ever talk about how that was difficult? Did he know anybody here? He just chose Grand Rapids off the map and wanted to come up here? Page 5 �CLAYTOR: Something that like that. He went to Meherry Medical College and he had gone. Well he waited until 21 to leave the farm. Because he was the youngest he felt that he owed his parents, waiting until he was 21 to help on the farm before he left. But they only had a one room school that went only through the 8th grade. And actually the older ones would go to a normal school and learn how to teach, and then go back and teach in the one room school. And so that level of education was pretty solid, but it wasn't a high school education. So then he had to spend some time to earn some tuition, to go to a high school. But it was a boarding school since they didn't have a high school black people could go to in Floyd County so he went to Petersburg, Virginia where I think (I can't remember the current name because it has become a college) and got his high school done. He was in his early twenties by that time. Then he went onto the University of Pennsylvania to the Wharton school. He was going on along in that field. The professors there told him in order to succeed in business he would have to start passing as a white because there wouldn't be much of a future for him if he claimed his African American identity. He was taking no part in that nonsense so he completed his bachelors at Northwestern with a pre-med zoology major. At Northwestern they told him if he wanted to go to medical school there he could as long as he didn't touch anybody. He couldn't even watch a white woman give birth, and could only watch an African American woman give birth, but he couldn't touch anybody. And he didn't think that was such a fine was to learn to be a physician. So he went to Meherry Medical College which was one of the historical African American medical colleges. And he graduated from there and while he was at Northwestern he met some wealthy person from Evanston who offered him a job and he went up to North Port Point outside of Traverse City to work during this summer. She just paid him what was tuition. From what he tells me, he had a brother who had become a pharmacist, his next oldest brother because there was one in between him and that brother who had died after World War I, I think he was exposed to nerve gas or something. At any rate, he had approached his brother and said why don't we go to medical school together? My uncle said "okay, fine," but I think, as I recall, I don't keep these dates in my head, but that was around the depression. My father, in his frugle ways, had socked away under his mattress or something so he had tuition to go to the medical school for his brother. What I understand from my father, this lady had decided she was going to pay for tuition for the both of them to go to medical school because my uncle was already married I believe when the notion of going to medical school had occurred. And others of his brothers had gone to Meherry I think one had become a Physician and one a dentist so there was a family tradition there. SO they finished medical school and I think ended up back in Chicago doing a residency. So daddy had a sense of Michigan from being up north with his family that he had worked for. There seemed to be a need for an African American physician here and one in Saginaw. Apparently there was a practice (in Saginaw) my uncle could buy or just ask, and since he had a family, my daddy said okay you go there here and I'll stay in Grand Rapids since there where there needs to be more ground work done, because I can do that. So that's how he ended up here. So he was doing whatever he was doing, living in this rooming house and so forth. And my mom, who was a widow, she had gone to the University from Minnesota. She had graduated from there and was there with her high school or childhood sweet-heart and so it was almost a foregone conclusion that they were going to marry. But ma had promised her parents that she would wait until she finished college. Her mother pushed her to wait a year after finishing college and go work some place. So mama went to work some place, and it took her 6 months to learn the job, and to leave after only 6 months of doing, she didn't like that idea. And her fiancé I guess we called him was getting annoyed for keepin coming up with these excuses, because from what I gather my grandma, my mother's mother wanted my mother not to get married at all but to do things and just get famous with her maiden name. So mama says she went off to New York where her sisters were living, and she was working in Trenton. So she secretly married her beloved and went back to work, but the secret marriage made him happier that she was making the commitment and was trying to assuage (?) her mother's notions of what to do. And so after she finished the second year working at the job with the YWCA in Page 6 �Trenton she married her beloved. He was working in Kansas City as a journalist working on the African American Newspaper in Kansas City. I believe his brother was also out there doing something but I can't get all those particulars together. But at any rate, they were out there and setting up their life, and had a little baby boy, my brother Roger. Shortly after Roger was born, his father Earl got Tuberculosis, and was in a Sanitari. And so mama had to become the principle bread-winner. This was also the depression times so it was a complicated situation and Grandma had to move in to help take care of Roger while mama worked. And then, Earl got out of the sanitari and was working at home, but could only work part-time. They had, I think, disabled one of his lungs. I don't believe it was removed but it didn't work. He was weak and couldn't work full time. Mama ultimately took a job after consulting with the whole family including her husband, and her mother and her brother in law and my God-mother, ya know a confab (?). I found all this out from my God-Mother. And they agreed that Mama should take a job with the national YWCA but it would require a lot of traveling and it was actually based in New York City. And so her husband was still recuperating in Kansas City with her mother and my brother, I mean her mother taking care of both Earl and my brother. while Mama was traveling around a lot and while she was traveling she was doing interracial studies of YWCA's throughout the country. And she came to Grand Rapids to make a speech on said topic, and ran in to one bachelor physician named Claytor. And she had been in Roanoke, where lots of his relatives were living. And in the South, black people couldn't stay in hotels. So mama, the YWCA arranged for them, the black women who were traveling, to stay with families that had space. And my Uncle John, who was also a physician, had space in his house. He had a huge, well, huge by Mamas and Daddy's standards, he had 8 children. And some of them were already grown and gone and already physicians and what not, and so when Mama met Daddy and he looked just like his brother, she said, "Oh, are you one of Dr. Claytor's sons form Roanoke?" And Daddy said, "No, I'm his brother." But he was intrigued she knew the Roanoke people so he invited her out to dinner. And, as I gather, the rest is history. And so they developed a communication and then they developed a relationship, and they settled here. And so then Daddy came and bought this house for us to live in. And the neighbors were not pleased when he bought it. HE tells me the guy who owned it, when he found out Daddy was black; he tried to buy it back. And the neighbors, some of them, were not happy. And then there were a few neighbors who said, "Let's wait a bit, and give 'em a chance and see if they are okay." And it's kind of funny when you figure that clearly my parents, I believe, were the only people in the whole neighborhood who had a college education. Duh. But somehow they were going to drop the property values. It was sort of dopey. But there it was. And so that’s that kind of ancient history. GOOTE: Did your parents ever tell you any particular stories of like, them being discriminated against besides the housing? Did any stories stick out in your childhood? CLAYTOR: Oh I don’t know. They are so common as part of the fabric of... GOOTE: Or for you for that instance, growing up does anything stick out? CLAYTOR: Well, there was one thing that did stick out, does stick out. , kind of, profoundly I guess. Is that I was, yah know I made the best of my days in high school ya know and fashioned a pretty comfortable situation. And I sang in the choir at Creston high school and had lots, some friends from the choir and one thing and another. I had a pretty happy existence and I was a member of the NAACP Youth Council. And that was mostly black kids. And yet one of the guys from Creston decided to join it. And he was in the class ahead and was sort of a big man on campus kind of guy and was sort of interested in a lot of different things. We were going to have a dance, and so he invited me to go to the dance. And I was kind of dbfounded because no one asked me on a date for anything given this odd situation. And there was like one other African American in that guy’s class, which was the class ahead of me, and he was the son Page 7 �of friends of the family, but his parents were often trying to push him to be involved with me which sort of drove him away. When we could have banded together and just survived high school together for the social stuff it sometimes didn't happen. I did go out with him a couple of different times. At any rate, for this thing this guy invited me, and oh I believe the day or so before the event was supposed to happen, he came to the door, he came in, I don't even think he sat down, but he told me that his mother didn’t want him to take me to this dance. You know, because it was going to be interracial dating. And I was smart enough at the time, when he invited me, to know he wasn't really trying to push for me being his girlfriend but it was to go to the dance with someone he'd seen or heard of before. But still for me it was like, a date. Ya know. My god, someone actually asked me on a date. Ya know, and so it was really disappointing. And my family had been worried about something like this happening. Anyway and so when it came time for the dance, we decided that I was still going to go. And my Father actually dressed up and escorted me in to the, ya know, it was at some hotel downtown. And so he escorted me up the elevator and in to the space where the dance was held. Not that he was going to stay and be a chaperone but he didn't want me to feel like I had to stroll in there all by myself. And then there were some other girls there who didn’t have dates. But going from the position of thinking I was going to have a date to not having one that really was hurtful. And there were other things that were hurtful but just not as quite as in your face. GOOTE: So would you say it was more of the insidious backhanded things versus an outright comment or nothing ever got violent? CLAYTOR: No, it wasn't violence or anything like that. It was more of the insidious type stuff. Where people, were all the sudden I would be ostracized from something where I had been involved before. And when it got to be the boy girl thing, I was no longer part of that group of people or it was it was just this quiet kind of ostracism and it was ostracism on both sides of the fence so to speak because I didn't have that much interest coming from the black community either. I was just kind of left out there in the wind. And I had learned from the stuff Mama had me reading and so forth about sociology and what not and I began to understand why it happened. But I couldn't really do much until I got to college and was able to begin to function outside of that whole... GOOTE: Would you say that it would have been the same if West Michigan didn't have that predominant religious, Dutch aspect? Do you think that was a big part of it or... CLAYTOR: It was part of it, but not, it was more a product of the times. , 'cause the religious stuff just has made this community more conservative. And kind of, for a long time, adhering to some of the social norms that were more common in that community. But that interracial stuff wasn't common anywhere. GOOTE: Would you say there was a big difference from when you left to go to Washington D.C. and came back 30 years later? CLAYTOR: Yup, I mean yeah, there was a difference to a certain extent. And yet to another extent no. Because this whole business about the couples thing. , I came back and started going back to the same church I'd gone to as a kid. And people I'd known and stuff would never say, "well, we're having an open house at Christmas time, come." It just wasn't something that happened. And this had been common in D.C. among the people I knew from church. We became kind of a community that did things socially and one thing and anything and it didn't require that we had a mate in order to do the things. And there would be gatherings and everyone would sit down and running their mouths about whatever and, it was just an easier interplay among people but in Grand Rapids with all this conversation about healing Page 8 �racism and one thing and another. I wasn't seeing terribly much of a difference in that kind of interaction from when I was a kid. Going around and talking about race relations. 'Cause I did set up a group of teenagers that were doing this because my parents were prominent in the community and as the Civil Rights Movement, the Modern Civil Rights Movement was taking hold. People were trying to explore the feelings of prejudice and segregation and this that and the other. And so there was group called the Panel of Americans that adults were doing where they would go around and have representatives of racial and ethnic groups. And so there might be a Jew, and a Catholic, and an African American, and a WASP. Ya know, a group. So I rbled around and found my friends who were of various and sundry backgrounds and said, "ok" 'cause there were people that were asking me to do it, go around and talk about what it was like to be black and I'd be sitting up in some classroom someplace talking to a bunch of folks and that just began to feel stupid. And so we set up a Panel of Americans and we were doing the same things the adults were doing. And we actually got one of the leaders of that group there was a priest in town, a Roman Catholic priest who was really can't...****PHONE RINGS*** Excuse me. (She asked for the tape recorder to be turned off. I was coughing so I went to get a drink and paused the recording.) GOOTE: Okay and we are going again. CLAYTOR: Okay, at any rate. We had a meeting of the people that got recruited to be in this group. And, and we would go around and talk about ya know, how much the same we were. Rather than difference in terms of aspirations and one thing or anything. And it didn't matter whether we were Jewish or Christian or Black or White or anything. And that was pretty interesting but I find when I came back these 30 or 40 years later, 'cause you have to figure that I was in college for a while and all that but when I'm coming back and they are having all these institutes for healing racism and what not I'm finding that in the community there is still a lot of this separation. That people aren't just comfortably socializing with each other. And at some point I've talked with younger people who are coming in to the community and they find some of that same kind of stuff going on. I have a feeling now with the increased influx of people to be working at Van Andel Institute and going to the Medical College and Grand Valley's programs growing up and one thing and another that some of this maybe will get to be less so, but I was just kind of amazed that the community was having all of these very out in your face community efforts to talk about eliminating racism and it didn't look like much progress had been made. And yeah, so I noticed, I went into nursing as a second career in Washington and I came back here and I had opportunities to look at the nursing field and I wasn't seeing any African Americans in leadership roles in nursing here in Grand Rapids. And some of the other kinds of professions, ya know, I wasn't seeing that kind of advancement that would indicate things were equalizing out in the way it should. GOOTE: You did see those things in Washington D.C.? CLAYTOR: Yeah, to a greater extent. Of course, DC by itself for a while was called the Chocolate City. Ya know, there were more black people there and there were a lot of educated black people. Now what happened here is a lot of the families ya know who produced kids who went on to higher education the kids just didn't come back here to settle. And I think that's been the case with a lot of families no matter what their ethnicity is. And then you have kind of the retention of some of those more tradition old ways of doing things among any part of the community that returns because I've noticed, I am just a rare thing as an African American adult to come back to Grand Rapids after being gone as long as I've been gone. Obviously there have been a few but it is not a large number. And, I threw a conniption one Page 9 �time, not long ago like five years ago. Mom died in May of 2005, and I had a car accident on Christmas day of 2005. And in January we discovered that I had a slow brain bleed as a result of that accident and so had to have brain surgery and haven't been back to work in other than volunteer kinds of things since. And so just before Mom died I was still on the advisory committee for the health department. And we had a meeting and the rate of infant mortality in Grand Rapids among African Americans at that particular point in time was the second highest in the state. Wayne County was even better than Kent. Oakland County was the highest and Kent was the second highest for infant mortality among African Americans. And so the people were sitting up in this meeting saying, "Oh my goodness, what is this all about?" and they were having reports from like four different program groups that were allegedly working on this problem. And as I looked around this room, when somebody said, "How can this be, we have such fine medical facilities here," and I looked around the room and I said, "Ya know, this a really bizarre situation because I don't talk about my mother often but 60 years ago when she came here to Grand Rapids she would sit on committees and she would be the only African American on the committee. And they were working on problems related to poor health outcomes or poor outcomes of any variety among African Americans and I'm sitting in this room today, her daughter, and the picture is still the same. I am the only African American in the room. And you’re having presentations from four groups. That are supposed to be working on this topic with infant mortality among African Americans and you don't have one African American professional working in those programs. That’s what's wrong." And they looked at me like "Oh my goodness, wants this all about." Because I hadn't been all that vocal. Furthermore they didn't know who I was talking about when I talked about my mother. Well, Mama died before the next meeting and because she was fairly prominent in the community her obit was on the front page of the Press. Which kind of blew me away myself but at any rate it was there. So they had an opportunity to know who I was talking about and what this was all about and so when I went back to the next meeting the woman who was administrating the Health Department told me she they had been granted another chunk of money to work on this problem and I said, "how is this money being administered?" And the woman went and told me that the same committee who had been working on the Healthy Kent 2010 Initiatives would be the same committee that would be working on this again. I said, "Are you telling me, the committee that had those poor outcomes, is going to be doing, I said this doesn't make any sense." And by this point everyone shut up and said, "What do you recommend?" And I said, "Maybe some focus groups that are in the African American community to discuss the problem and preferably being led by other African Americans. And so you can get some real feedback. And that you would have the Advisory Committee meeting at such a time that people from the community can attend if they are not are not health care professionals who can get off from work in the middle of the day to attend a meeting." Duh, I mean I sat on these committees in Washington and we had enough sense to have them in the evening when people could come. I could not believe it. And I sat there and kind of said this that and the other and it was like I speaking some new language. And I find when I talk about coming back here I find there is just a lot of this kind of thing where people think that oh well we'll just think of this program and do it and never ask the people who are to be served what might work." And that is part of what is a throwback to the Reformed community the CRC in particular. Because from what I gather, the missionary efforts on their part, and I've gathered this even from members of that group, is that, a lot of it is to go out and spread the word and invite people to come in and be just like them. But not to go out and work with incorporating people, respecting where their coming from. And so we'll go out and do something for you, and so a lot of the social outreach initiatives whether or not they have been undertaken specifically by the CRC or whether they are undertaken by somebody else. That way of doing things has become more of a common feature here in Grand Rapids and West Michigan than it seems to be in other areas. So you don't find as many peoples who have been in Grand Rapids forever that get to the planning tables for stuff. And so you have the people saying, "Oh well you should do something for my group." And they hear about getting grant money from some place. But Page 10 �nobody has ever kind of said, "Well when you get grant money, you have to account for it." And it's not just you get a check. I mean, there has just been this disconnect for how things work. So you have things kind of going belly up when they don’t' need to be going belly up. But it's just because the way of doing things has gone along a different path. And so it doesn't occur to people to say, "Well if we are going to be working with this community and in this community. And at this point there are professionals who are within the communities. Why don't we work with this group of people and do a program?" As opposed to just thinking of it on our own and it may not be hitting the particular spot, yeah it's just nuts. So at any rate yes, I mentioned that coming back this is why I think I find myself being frustrated because there is some stuff that is just, haven't you quite figured this out yet. And I'd find myself being misunderstood when I'd try and speak about how it might have been done somewhere else. And there are a lot of people I've learned who've come to Grand Rapids thinking that they've had a nice opportunity to do something and they leave. And go back to whenever they came from because they don't want to be bothered with it. And I can see why. And I talk with people the people who I get to know who are newer to Grand Rapids, African Americans who are newer to Grand Rapids and they will kind of look at it and say, "What is this?" It's just very peculiar. GOOTE: To finish up, you said your mom; you mentioned on the phone there was even a scholarship named after here and that she was involved a lot. But what sort of things were your parents involved in? Obviously she served on committees. Did she still work for the YMCA? CLAYTOR: YWCA. W's are different than M's. Woman as opposed to men. They, when she got here, after she had been doing this interracial study for the national YWCA after she married, they both sat down and he ran the numbers and said, "if you go back to work it really won't impact the family that much, because what you earn.." it was going to put him up in another tax bracket, but not enough into it to make much of a difference. So he encouraged her to pursue some very intense volunteer stuff. Such that she went to China for a world YWCA council meeting when I was 6 months old. And my Grandma took care of me but then after Grandma died he made sure there was household help and what not to make sure she could do the traveling she needed to do for the national YWCA efforts that she was involved in. And a lot of those were involved in equal rights and freedom and dignity for all people. And that was what she did. And daddy had been involved in the community chest, and community services here in Grand Rapids as a volunteer. And he help to found the Grand Rapids Chapter of the Urban League along with an Episcopal Bishop which was kind of interesting because daddy was a Baptist at the time. But he did a lot of community outreach work and what he decided to do, well when he and Mom got married, he put her in charge of all the family outreach volunteer stuff and he would pull back on doing that so he could spend his spare time with the family. And so as a family unit, the whole effort could be put forward. And so his efforts were often putting forward, treating people with equality and dignity. And in his practice it was always that way. And to make sure that people of all ethnic persuasions had equal access to jobs and things. And mom's efforts involved in the community, she was one of the people who set up the Han Relations Commission in Grand Rapids, it was the forerunner of the equal employment activities. There was just a lot she was involved with. When I was young there were very few if any African American teachers in the school system. And Mom pushed very hard for that to be changed. You would have African American people in the community who had been to college and had teacher certification and they wouldn't be hired in the system. They had to be out in retail establishments and doing things that were not compatible with the educational background they had, and that was real stupid, and mom did a lot of stuff about those kinds of things and sorts of local community stuff she did. And so she had an impact in a strong way. And I kind of was eh, a little astonished, not astonished but realized that they hadn't gone back enough in History because when they were opening up the new Han Services Building for the county they went to have a profile of Mama Page 11 �in the building and I tried to tell them, but no one asked me at the right time, that it would probably be more appropriate to have my father in that area because of the kinds of things he did with his medical practice. Ya know, he saw just an enormous number of patients without charging them, or would charge them way lower fees just because of what people could afford. And he did his thing so quietly that people didn’t know, the people who knew him knew, and they had a great deal of respect for him. And he was just a real significant figure, particularly in the African American community for just the kinds of things that he did to push for the dignity and uplifting of everybody. But because Mom ended up having the more public role she got a lot of attention and she was inducted in the Michigan Woman's Hall of Fame and all manner of things. And she had every right to be there but it was very much a team effort with them in terms of how they viewed their role in the community. (She points out a photo of her mother receiving the honor for the naming of the scholarship at GVSU) END OF INTERVIEW Page 12 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/75933085f74177ee918736353cb6ebaf.mp3 6db5c85a76b6cfc9ffbfe8ea8cde07c1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights--Michigan--History Personal narratives Oral histories African Americans--Personal narratives Gays--Personal narratives Lesbians--Personal narratives Bisexual people--Personal narratives Transgender people--Personal narratives Veterans--Personal narratives Women--Personal narratives People with disabilities--Personal narratives Muslims--United States--Personal narratives Hispanic Americans--Personal narratives Homophobia Discrimination Islamophobia Stereotypes (Social psychology)--Upper Penninsula (Mich.) Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history recordings documenting the history of civil rights and social justice advocacy in Western Michigan. The collection was created by faculty and students as a project of the LIB 201 (formerly US 201): "Diversity in the U.S." course from 2011-2012. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project (GV248-01) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-05-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV248-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1930-2011 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV248-01_Claytor_Judith Title A name given to the resource Judith Claytor audio interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Claytor, Judith Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Goote, Paige Description An account of the resource Judith Claytor was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She graduated from Western Michigan University with a degree in sociology/social work. She discusses the racial and religious differences between living in Grand Rapids and Washington D.C. and attending Western Michigan University. Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights--Michigan--History Discrimination Religious discrimination Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Relation A related resource Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-11-11 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9176d31c5c214d40be594e2c969ba961.jpg 9f00c7e661332e91059206223149e5a5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1970s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_001090 Title A name given to the resource Judy Edwards Description An account of the resource Student Judy Edwards. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Students Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e341f11f466887a4d4fe2036155e2397.jpg c893226eda44f423325ce3ad15d72544 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183_E159-0008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-07-23/1964-07-26 Title A name given to the resource Judy Roderick Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of Judy Roderick performing at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1964. Photograph by Douglas R. Gilbert. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource Roderick, Judy Folk singers Newport Folk Festival Newport (R.I.) Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aab198854900dc7b6f4391406a7df3f1.jpg d010b44ba7e95820551a662bd1b9768b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183_E171-0020 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-07-23/1964-07-26 Title A name given to the resource Judy Roderick Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of Judy Roderick performing at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1964. Photograph by Douglas R. Gilbert. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource Roderick, Judy Folk singers Newport Folk Festival Newport (R.I.) Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9d3eb2fa7eba43677dc0744fa0a0d486.jpg eb1c88593259c26284ac30ce1e6da1a3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50_Judy Title A name given to the resource Judy, Japanese dive bomber Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource T-2 Judy, Japanese reconaissance dive bomber. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy Japan World War, 1939-1945 Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/18c9da1dc304021f8b8f88933dcbce38.jpg 275f79bbe3d2c28c1fd4f0ec74d49228 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Michigan Novels Collection. PS3523.A928 J84 1901 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01_Bindings0079 Title A name given to the resource Juell Demming: A Story Description An account of the resource Binding of Juell Demming: A Story, by Albert Lathrop Lawrence, published by A.C. McClurg & co., 1901. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1901 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/37199c61e9ea6b49a47a15946bfe4553.jpg 19609dda8c4877554656ae2fd8507520 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Summers in Saugatuck-Douglas Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Stories of Summer," supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant. The collection aims to document the twin lakeshore communities of Saugatuck and Douglas, Michigan, as they transformed through the state's bustling tourism industry and acceptance of minorities. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1910s-2010s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Various Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Saugatuck (Mich.) Douglas (Mich.) Michigan, Lake Allegan County (Mich.) Beaches Sand dunes Outdoor recreation Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Saugatuck-Douglas History Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Stories of Summer (Common Heritage project) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Text Language A language of the resource English Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-07_SD-Brigham-D_0115 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brigham, D. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960 Title A name given to the resource July 4th celebration at Beech-Hurst Description An account of the resource The Eddy clan celebrating Independence Day on the front lawn at Beech-Hurst. There are several tables set out, as well as lawn chairs, and everyone is in conversation. Circa 1960s Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Saugatuck (Mich.) Allegan County (Mich.) Outdoor recreation Families Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Digital file contributed by D. Brigham as part of the Stories of Summer project. Relation A related resource Stories of Summer (project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dd62227bb67c7a886ee05e64ca01ab3f.pdf 2b1114fa10a755c7c197b0a097482ad8 PDF Text Text MUSIC PROGRAM Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club July Fourth 1910 3:30 P. M. 1. March ''Great Divide'' 2. Selection 3. V alse 4. Scenes Populaire - '' Flirting Princess'' ''Affinity'' • Holzman • Howard - - - - Scott . • - - Von Tilzer Introducing ''Smile,'' ''My Southern Rose,'' '' Oh, What I Know About You,'' ''Just Like a Rose,'' Etc. 5. Amina ''Egyptian Intermezzo'' • 6. Serenade '' Les Millions De Arlinguin'' 7. Selection 8. Medley '' Goddess of Liberty'' • ''National Airs'' • Tuller's Orchestra • • Lincke Drigo • Howard - Beyer � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club Description An account of the resource Scrapbooks of newsclippings, photographs, postcards, and ephemera of the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club. Photos were taken at regattas on Reeds Lake; the Grand River; Peoria, Illinois; and in Chicago of club members, and events. Historical articles, reports of regatta events, and articles featuring members Charles McQuewan and Jack Corbett are included. Programs include the First Grand Regatta on Great Salt Lake 1888, and Peoria Rowing Festival, and banquet and music programs and the GR Log, a publication of the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club. Materials from the Central States Amater Rowing Association, and the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen are also included. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1980s to 1940s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/481">Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club scrapbooks, (RHC-54)</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Rapids (Mich.) Outdoor recreation Boats and boating Racing shells Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-54 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-54_Ephemera-GRRC_E09 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1910-07-04 Title A name given to the resource July Fourth Music Program Description An account of the resource Small card with printed American flag listing the songs and musicians of the music played at the July Fourth celebration in 1910. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Grand Rapids Rowing Club Subject The topic of the resource Grand Rapids (Mich.) Outdoor recreation Boats and boating Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/481">Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club scrapbooks (RHC-54)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/">No Known Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fbdbb4a129d40b4e67baaebac726ca89.jpg aafd1541340835358b20b4ff52c7d144 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Merrill_NE_57_1924_013 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1924-05-18 Title A name given to the resource Junction Dam Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of a dam built on the edge of a lake. "Junction Dam. Is written on the bottom of the image. The dam is know known as the "Tippy Dam." Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Manistee County (Mich.) Dams Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/61750f284d2d6e5036d7e217b8a7fcb0.jpg 70846c71634318c1ee32e9f1bb94623c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1960s Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 Title A name given to the resource June L. Caster, GVSC student teacher Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_001619 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Description An account of the resource June L. Caster, GVSC student teacher at Riverside Elementary in Grand Rapids. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Universities and colleges Education Students Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In copyright - Non-commercial use permitted.</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/edb6df67e42f0b949730a18b6041fd93.pdf de58080be0006a6184057a2bed7397a0 PDF Text Text Native American Oral Histories Gi-gikinomaage-min Project Interview: June Mamagona Fletcher Interviewer: Belinda Bardwell Date: April 6, 2016 [Lin] So, I am interviewing June Mamagona Fletcher for the Gi-gikinomaage-min Defend Our History Project. Oral History project through the Kutsche office of Grand Valley State University. It's April 6th, it's about 2 P.M. and we are in the studios of WGVU. I want to thank you June for allowing me to interview you today. I was wondering if you could introduce yourself? [June] Well, I'm glad to be here. My name is June Mamagona Fletcher, and my father is David Mamagona. Who's Grand Traverse Ottawa, and my mother is Laura Stevens, and she is a decedent of the Pokagon tribe, and I am Bear Clan through my mother’s side. I'm married to Richard Fletcher, and my sons are Matthew Fletcher and Zeke Fletcher. On the side note, I graduated from Grand Valley State University many years ago. With my master’s degree in business administration. [Lin] Nice! Where were you born? [June] I was born in Detroit, Michigan. My father was relocated during the forties to Detroit. In a roundabout way he met my mother. So, they lived there for a while. At least while I was born. Then they would move back to Dorr in Allegan County. When my brother was born they moved back to Detroit, so we were both born in the same Mt. Carmel Hospital in Detroit. [Lin] Oh, okay. So, where was your father is located from? [June] He was relocated from--Um, by Traverse City. He lived at Kewadin area, which is on the other side of the Peninsula from Peshawbestown. Then my mother grew up in Allegan County. She was one of the few people who didn't go to the boarding school in that particular area, because she had TB. She was diagnosed with TB. So, about the time that they went from twelve to sixteen, she was in the hospital. Then she was out of the hospital for a few months. Then she was in a car accident and broke her back. So, then she was out again. She was one of the first recipients of the GED certificate. That she earned when she was in the hospital. She was also one of the first people to get her LPN license in-state they had just started the program when she was a young person. [Lin] And where did she work? [June] She worked--Uh, she started out at Allegan General Hospital, and she worked at 1|Page �various places. When she retired, she retired from Michigan Veterans Facility. [Lin] Oh. [June] And then my father was an engineer. He went to college in Angola, Indiana. He was what they call--Uh, a job shopper, or engineer. But, he would do short term projects. So, they would live in various places while he--Um, ‘til he would finish up a project in the particular city. Then usually they move back to Allegan County. Either with my grandpa, or in that area. [Lin] So, that's your Pottawatomie side? [June] Yes, that was my Pottawatomie side. I also lived for a couple years up with my grandpa Mamagona in Kewadin. When my dad was working and going to school through Ford Motor Company. So, that was pretty interesting. He was one of the people that invented the shift system for the Mustang. [Lin] Nice! [June] So, now I know why I like Mustangs. [Lin] That's my favorite car too. Okay, so where was the majority of your time growing up spent? [June] Uh, probably once my brother got older, it was probably Grand Rapids. That's where I grew up. Um, and I went to--I started high school at Central Michigan-Uh, Central Christian, and then I went to-- I graduated from Creston High School. In fact, the year that I graduated Joanne Sprague and I were the only two Native American students to graduate from in the city of Grand Rapids. [Lin] How was attending school being the only two Native people in the school? [June] We didn't actually even go to school together very much. She went to Central and I went to Christian. I mean to say Creston. But, I-- they had a program where I would go to Central once a day for physics class, and then we would go out to lunch together, so--Plus, you know, I'd known her all my life. [Lin] Mhm. [June] She's about the same age as I was, and her family was real close with my aunt and uncle. Well anyway, and there's a lot of Spragues. [Laughter] [Lin] They're sprinkled throughout. 2|Page �[June] Yeah. [Lin] Uh, did you suffer any racism? Or— [June] You know being the only one for many many years in the different school systems that I went to, it was more of a novelty for me when I was growing up. I really didn't--Uh, the most overt racism that I ever came to is when I was in the restroom, after seeing a movie at Studio Twenty-Eight. You know afterwards, after that that big glass of ice tea--you really have to go. [Laughter] Alright, so I'm standing in line and I got finished. And I came out and this woman, she said "Well I'm not going in after her." Then she'd turned around, then the lady behind her-"Well, don't care!" And then she went in there. She wouldn't use the restroom after me. That was probably the most overt. [Lin] Yeah? About how old were you? [June] I was probably about twenty. [Lin] Sheese. [June] And I really didn't care. [Laughter] It's her problem. [Lin] Okay, so you graduated from Creston. And I noticed that you went to Western Michigan University. [June] Mhm. [Lin] What was it like attending there your first--So, you weren't the first-generation college student--'Cause your mother and father were-- [June] Well technically if you go by the federal guidelines, I was. Because my father didn't get a bachelor’s degree and my mother had a certificate, a nursing certificate. So, technically. But, growing up – I actually went to Grand Rapids Community College first. I think probably, I went to college the hard way. You know, I got married first, had a kid, and then decide to go back to college. Which makes it a little bit different. Because then you have home, family, work. You know, then school and studying. That was probably the most difficult way to do it. But, I had a lot of support at home. You know, Richard was real supportive, my mother's real supportive. Helped me to take care of my son and I made it through, and I went to, after Community College, is when I went to Western. Again, you know, my family is real helpful and help me get me through there. After I graduated there, was probably a couple years later when I started working here at Grand Valley State University. Then I worked here for seventeen years. While I was working here is when I got my vouchers. Actually, I was probably one 3|Page �of the first people to use the Tuition Waiver Program. When I was going to GRCC. [Lin] Can you explain a little bit what the tuition waiver program is? [June] Well, it's not really tight down the way it is now, it was more loose. 'Cause people weren't really schools, and the people weren't really sure how to use it. I got my certification through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. So, that's how you did that back then, rather than going through your tribes. We'd have to go--the way they do it nowadays. I also I got some school funding through them to help pay for my child care, when I was going through there. So, everything was through the Bureau of Indian Affairs as opposed to tribes. Everything is run through tribes now. The process was you just fill out the form, and approve it by the BIA. Then you send it to the State of Michigan, and there it was. You know, the school had to waive your tuition, basically. While you was going to school. That was before the State of Michigan actually set up a funding process for the tuition waiver. [Lin] What year was that? [June] Oh, man! [Laughter] Um, let's see. Probably 1979. [Lin] And that was the beginning of that tuition waiver? [June] Yeah, right around there. I think it actually was starting in like ’77, ’78. But, you know, it took them a while to figure out how they were going to do it. So, I think for me it was ’79, is when I… I only got, like, one semester in before I graduated. Then I started in at Western in 1981. Then I graduated from there in ’83. Then I started here in ‘90, I think. [Lin] And what did you do at Grand— [Unknown Person] Can we pause? [Lin] Is it off? [Unknown Person] [Lin] Oh. [Unknown Person] [Lin] Can you restate that question? What was the question? [Unknown Person] 4|Page No, it's not off. [INAUDIBLE] �[Lin] Oh, I was gonna-- I was going to-- So, what did you do here at Grand Valley State University? [June] I worked for the talent search program, and our job was to assist first generation students into continuing their education beyond high school. So, when I first started, we only work with high school students to get them prepared, shown them what the ropes are, help 'em fill out scholarships, college applications, and financial aid to continue their education beyond high school. Okay. And, we worked with alternative schools. So, a lot of my students went to Grand Rapids Community College. And not all of them went for, you know-- Not everybody is going to become a teacher, or lawyer, or whatever. They were mainly going for continuing studies in some area. It could be out of mechanics, it could be nursing, it could be childcare assisting--there was a number different programs that GRCC had back then. That my student started out for, and since we worked with non-traditional students-- What I did, is my focus was on--Um, I had two focuses. One was adult education, and then the other one was the Native American community. So, I assisted probably over the seventeen years, probably hundreds of Native American members of this community. To continue to-- at least know what they had to do to continue their education. You know, they might've not went that year, or they mighta' started and then stopped. And then, you know, five years later they were in a better spot, and then they started back up--but, at least they knew what the ropes were to continue their education beyond high school. [Lin] What were some of the common threads between the Native community and getting access to higher education. [June] Well, knowledge is one thing--that being first generation students, a lot of students didn't know what they had to do to get into higher education. And, having a really good institution like GRCC, where they had a number of different programs that you can use. They had a number of choices that they could figure out where they wanted to use the tuition waiver at. [Lin] Mhm. [June] Because you're--the tuition waiver only covers public colleges and universities. So, we kinda went down that route and for some people they continued on--You know, I have students – You know I meet people at Meijers they'll say: "Oh! Missus Fletcher! You know, you helped me get my master’s degree. Do you remember way back when?” and I just say--well you know! I had eight hundred clients a year! [Laughter] [June] So, you know. Can you give me a break here? Can you tell me what your name 5|Page �was, and where, you know, whatever? But, you know, a lot of 'em have gone to get their doctorates. You know? I think once you know what the ropes are it's easier. Also, it was helpful for the parents too. Because, parents-- They wanna be able to help their students--their kids-- and they don't wanna look like they don't know what they're doing. So, it's nice when everybody comes in and you tell them, you gotta do this, this, this, and this. Had a nice little check list going, and these are the things that you had to do. And, as a parent this is what you have to do, and as a student this is what you have to do. So, graduating from high school was always the number one priority. Which is really nice working with Ron in the community, because he had kind of a nice classroom that I could start out with working with students. He had--we had a lot--we supported each other. So, he would you know say: "Well, June you know this is what we wanna do. And you know, come visit colleges, provide scholarship assistance, and information." And, we would work together in getting these kids graduated. I was just looking at pictures the other day, I was trying to remember what I did way back then, and I'm going, you know, we had a lot of kids that we both worked with over the years that through the Grand Rapids Public schools. [Lin] So at that time, you mentioned Ron, who's Ron? [June] Ron Yob is a teacher that worked with the alternative education programs in the Grand Rapids Public School system. And his classroom was mainly for Native American students. [Lin] So did you work closely with the Native American education program within GRPS? [June] Um, off and on, depending on what was going on. Actually, I worked, probably five years for the Native American Education Program when I first started working in Grand Rapids Public Schools. And then I did not -- um-- I had my second child and went on maternity leave and then when I came back I went into Community Education work. [Lin] Okay so, let me fast forward, you answer all my questions before I ask him. [June] Oh well that's good. [Lin] Less I have to do. Sorry [Laughs] I get off track. Okay I am so being able to focus on the Native community within your job at GVSU, was that difficult to push through GVSU, or did they allow you to focus on the Native community. [June] Well because of the grant requirements, it was fairly easy to work with the Native American community because it was one of our focus areas, because we worked with non-dominant populations. And so, we had various, we had, we worked with 6|Page �the Black American community, we worked with the Hispanic community and our advisors you know had our -- everybody in our program had their different areas of expertise. But our main overall function usually was working with alternative education programs. You know, so we worked with young mothers, we worked with people that were just coming to the community from other countries, we worked with displaced homemakers. So, you know we had a really wide range of areas within our program and one of the things of having a federal grant like that is Grand Valley does sign off and they were always very supportive of our program, as we were going through. [Lin] And the grant that was for Talent Search? [June] Which is one of the TRIO programs through the Department of Education. [Lin] Okay. Yeah that still is going on today. Are there any students that stand out in your history? You know working with Grand Rapids Public schools, there was always a couple of students that stand out and I remember. Just wondering if you had any? [June] Oh well not right off hand. [Lin] Okay. [June] They were all pretty good. [Lin] Um, let's see here, more about Grand Valley. So, working with Ron Yob, what exactly did he do for his students through your perspective. [June] He was a hands-on educator, and an all-around one, so if the student was lagging behind in any of their educational areas he would reinforce that and if they were having problems at home, he would make home visits. And there's been a couple times where both of us had gone to talk to a parent because the student wanted to go to college but the parent was not on board with the student continuing their education. So we would sit and have a discussion about you know what education does for you. And what education does is gives you the possibility of making choices of what you want to do. Many times, um say, you get your education in Education, but that doesn't always mean you're gonna be a teacher. There's a lot of possibilities that you can do within the educational system. You might have a background in business and you might you know end up being a trainer for a large company. You're still in education and you're still teaching but you're doing it in a different focus area. So there's a lot of different possibilities you could do with that, same with nursing. You know you go into nursing and everybody thinks oh you're gonna be a nurse. That's not -- you may end up with Insurance Company. You know, looking at claims and checking out 7|Page �the possibilities, you know, of what you know this claim might cover not cover. [Lin] So you mentioned job training. I noticed that you also had a career as part of the Michigan Indian employment training. [June] I've been on the board for since 1985. Oh, for me it's, oh my goodness, um, and that, originally and still is the focus is to help assist Native American peoples in the work place and the requirements have changed over the years. I think they're slowly kinda winding it down as far as funding goes and as far as support goes with within the government process. Politics are changing, you know, and a lot of it is going with politics on that one. But again, there's a number of people that were - a lot of people that were assisted through the program because of that. [Lin] So what exactly did the program do? [June] Well what it used to do is use to help people. I would work with employers and would place people and employers it would help him with job training. It would help them with the equipment. There was a lot of, you know, everything you might need -- transportation through the public system -- so there was number of things that, you know, would assist people in the area. One of the other things that we did, that I did when I worked with Grand Valley, was we had a higher education advocacy program that we worked with colleges around the State of Michigan. So, say I have somebody that's graduating from Grand Rapids Community College and they wanna become an engineer. Maybe, you know, there are a good enough student and they always really wanted to go to the University of Michigan. So, I would work with that staff person at Michigan to see if the possibility of that student transferring over there and then because of the support program they have, you know, not only would help them, they'd help them through the whole process, a lot of times, even if they were only working, say, in financial aid. You know they would still say, well this is a good place to live or, you know you don't really need a car, or maybe you need to find a place to park a car outside the city and then use the public system within the city to get around. Ann Arbor is, you know, a real different type of city than Grand Rapids, and also bringing that up. I also I had, say like I had students, because I would work, like with you know, with Waylon or Hopkins and the students from there might want to go to like the University of Michigan or Michigan State University, and you know it's a totally different system. You know and I had some success but I also had a few that maybe were not quite as successful. They get into, you know, that huge environment and it was just too overwhelming for some students. [Lin] Was there departments or offices on campus that helped deal with that transition period between living at home going to high school to a bigger university like that? 8|Page �[June] You mean with here? [Lin] With any school. [June] Oh yeah there's all -- it's just a matter of finding the support system, and that's basically like what I would do through my program, is we would dig in the background and find out what needed to be done. You know to make that person that student successful and where they wanted to go. [Lin] Do you have-- um-- did you used to work, you know like Ron and several other people had worked at the Native American Alternative School, that was at Lexington I believe. Did you work specifically with that school? [June] Not specifically with that, because that, when they first started out they weren't part of the public school system. It was Title IVC and it was part of inter-tribal council. [Lin] So you worked closely with inter-tribal council? [June] Well I actually, I was working with a Native American program at that time and our office was there. [Lin] So yeah? [June] Well not really, because we were part of the Grand Rapids Public Schools. So, I worked with the schools as a paraprofessional. [Lin] And where were all those offices located at the time? [June] Well let's see, we had an office, we started -- where did we start out at? We started out at Lexington, then we went to Westside Complex, and then we went back to Lexington and that's where they were when I went on maternity leave. And then after that I think they went, that's when they went to West Bridge, West Middle. [Lin] West Middle. Okay. I think that's when I started working there at West Middle. Let's see, so. So, working in Grand Rapids, did you also live in Grand Rapids too? Or did you live south of? [June] Well I did live here but not when I worked here. I worked -- I lived south of here when my son was, I think he was about four, we moved to Cutlerville. So it wasn't that far away. 9|Page �[Lin] What was Grand Rapids like for Native people back then. [June] Oh I don't know. We used to have a lot of fun. [Laughs] We had a lot of different things you know and we had all our get-togethers and know you we really worked as a close community and so, and when we did projects we did as a community. We didn't do it as say, one person. That's the person that's responsible for everything that went on. We worked together as though there was a number of people that were all contributing in their various areas. When we started the Native American Coalition, it was actually the brain child of Laura Church. She brought in the resources to figure out how we wanted do this. The coalition, whether we wanted to be our standalone entity, or whatever, and since all the members were all--usually came from nonprofit organizations it seemed kinda silly for us to become a nonprofit organization. So that's why we went with the coalition route. I can't think of any of the people around any of the organizations around here that didn't contribute when we first started out. We used to have the Back to School program. Again, that was kinda like a Laura Church idea and everybody just kinda though, “Aw, it's a great idea!” We all got in, everybody made contributions, and everybody--one group would bring in the food, and then another group would bring in projects, and another one would bring in--We had educational centers that would come in and share their information with the community. In the Native community setting, besides back to school supplies. You know? So it was like a--like a whole little community affair fair. [Laughter] They used to be a lot of fun, a lot of work, it was a lot of work. And I don't think that if not everybody had gotten involved we would have been able to do that. But, we didn't rely on just one person doing everything. Which is--which is really what tribal communities are all about. A lot of times, you'll get a person in there and they're the ones that want all the glory. So it's always--"Well I brought these people together, or I did this." Once you start doing that then everybody start backing away. Why should I contribute if you're not gonna give me any of the glory? [Laughs] As a result, I think that was part of the reason why we don't have a coalition any more. [Lin] Can you briefly explain the Native American Coalition? [June] Well, we were group of community organizations that wanted to help, assist, inform, and recognize our community. So, we had kind of all-encompassing type of mission statement. So, we had the Back to School program, we had graduation parties, we had New Year's Eve parties. Used to have-- a lot of communities had potlucks. Different celebrities would come in--like through colleges or whatever. We would invite them to come and say: "We would like to meet you, and would you like to come to our potluck?" And, many times they would come. We would welcome new members of the community. For example, when Jeff and Betty Davis came--We had a nice little organization. It was a lot of fun to get together. I'm sure it really put them on the spot. [Laughs] them and 10 | P a g e �their children. But you know it's just a fun getting together. [Lin] Who's Jeff and Betty Davis? [June] Jeff was the--was--on the--What do they call it? Assistant Attorney for-- Which one is it? I can't think of--Brain fart. [Lin] He's a federal attorney, I believe. [June] Yeah, but he doesn't do it any more, 'cause he has a different function now--but he was assistant attorney I think--I was gonna say he's looking at his phone. [Lin] Is he googling it? [June] Yeah. Probably. [Laughter] [Lin] And who is Betty Davis? [June] Well, at the time she was a wife, but she is now the director, I believe, of Native American Education Program. [Lin] Besides the functions of the coalition put on, what other--You said there was a lot of fun activities in Indian--In the Indian Community in Grand Rapids. What other sorts of activities existed? [June] Oh, I forgot the vet's pow wow. The coalition used to do the vet's pow wow too in November. Well we--there's the pow wows they have in the spring. That Grand Valley would put one on, and then the other one--Well it's hosted down by the Grand River Ottawa. The two pow wows. You know, once you get to the summer time you have pow wows around the state. It's not stuck just to one community. It's kind of a state-wide community. [Lin] So, what did your family do within the Native community? You and your children? [June] Well, when my son--As adults, my sons now are both attorneys, and um. Matthew is a professor at Michigan State University. He's also judge at, I don't know, six or seven different tribes. My younger son is private practicing attorney that works with tribes. So, they both work in tribal law. [Lin] You proud of them? [June] Of course-- [Lin] Mmm, I'm nosy. 11 | P a g e �[June] --and I got the greatest grandchildren. [Laughter] [Lin] You had mentioned that back-- Back in the day, like I don't know what time frame that is, but the Native community was together, and planning functions, and doing functions together. Do you see a difference in today's Native community? [June] Yes. I don't think we're as close as we used to be, and I don't know if it's because people were--people my age we all kinda clan together anyway, the baby boomers. Because we just did. Then maybe that just kinda rolled over into the community at large because there were just so many of us about the same age. So, we really enjoyed each other's company. We had the same rock stars, a lot of the same backgrounds. With-- Neither of my parents went to boarding school, but a number of our parents--our aunts and uncles, and other relatives did go to boarding schools. I think we lost a lot, well I know we lost a lot, by doing that because part of it is--a big part is the language. When I was little my grandpas took care of me, because I had no grandmothers. So, we lived in Allegan County was my grandpa Pete took care of us, and then when I lived up North it was my grandpa Ben. They spoke Ottawa and Pottawatomie to me. When I dream about them that's what they are speaking to me in my dreams, but I can't, I don't understand what they're saying. [Laughter] [Lin] My next question. [June] But the little me does. Not the adult me. [Laughter] [Lin] Have they ever shared any stories about the boarding school with you? [June] Neither my grandpas went to boarding school. My aunt went briefly to Mount Pleasant. She was one of the--I don't know. I think she's probably one of the last ones to go to the Mount Pleasant boarding school? She didn't like being away from home. So, she didn't continue--she only went one year. But my grandpa would pay to have somebody drive down--drive her down to Mount Pleasant from Kewadin. Then bring her home on holidays and weekends and stuff. My uncles-my grandpas’ brothers. Three of them went to the University of Michigan. My Uncle George is in engineer, and two of them were in law. But one just started, and then he was killed in accident. So he didn't finish. Then the other one died also, so my Uncle George is the only one that actually made it through, then he moved away. [Laughter] [Lin] Where did he move to? [June] He went into service with the government. Then I'd hear just some wonderful stories, weird stories, about him. Mostly, it sounded like he was a civil engineer. Then he went into government service, and settle down in Pennsylvania 12 | P a g e �[Lin] Okay. [June] So for when I grew up, I thought myself, my brother, and my dad were the only actually named Mamagonas left. So you kinda grew up thinking well, you know, this is it. We're the last ones with the name. Especially my brother, because my cousins-- with my aunt--all married Churches. So, their name was all Church. Then my dad's other brother had one daughter. Of course, she changed her name. Of course, I change mine too eventually. But my brother would have been the last one. Well, thanks to Facebook, we found out that George had three sons. Each one of those three sons had like three or four children. Each one of those three or four children had like five to eight children. So between Pennsylvania and Florida, we're just like talking like zillions of Mamagonas. [Laughter] [Lin] Right. [June] You know, thinking that you're the only one. Then come to find out that there is this whole group out there that all have your name. And think their Cherokee. [Lin] That's comforting. And they--they what? [June] They think they’re Cherokee. [Laughs] [Lin] Aw. [June] See what happens? You know, it goes on, and on, and on. [Lin] Right. [Lin] So growing up with you, and your family, and then your children-- Does religion play a huge part of your spirituality? [June] Well we're religious. Belonging to the United Methodist Church. My kids grew up within the church. But as you get older, you got things to do. [Laughs] So you go to churches for weddings and funerals. [Laughs] At my age is more funerals than not. [Laughs] [Lin] Aw. So back to the urban Grand Rapids area. Kind of the lifestyle and the time period. What influences do you think that the National Indian, American Indian Organization such as civil rights organizations or political organizations. I am played in the Grand Rapids. why you're in the Grand Rapids area while you were here? [June] Trying to think that far back. I would say none. 13 | P a g e �[Lin] None? [June] You know, we had-we had the Wounded Knee, and people would talk about it, but that wasn’t here. If you look--I did a presentation many years ago. Part of that was I wanted to see what kind of presence we had within the public eye. And, the only times we were mentioned in the newspaper between this fifty-year period was Wounded Knee back in what? 1889, ‘99, whenever it was, and Wounded Knee again back in the seventies. Too. There was nothing else about it. It was just like we did exist in all that time before or after. You know, Wounded--And that's not even us! [Laughter] You know there was no mention. The Anishinabek Community at all in the public eye. So when they, like when they did the dedication of the of the statue in Ah-Nab-Awen Park, everybody goes: "Oh, look! There's a statue to them!" Then, you know, it's just like people still think that you live in teepees and ride ponies. Even when I used to do presentations. I had a sixth grade I presented to. They wanted to know where my teepee was, and how many horses I had. All I says is: "All I got is a Ford [Laughter] and I live in-- I live in a ranch house right around the corner from here. They're going: "Oh!" And these were--children that--kids that--my children went to school with. [Lin] Mhm. Do you see things changing? [June] Sure. Sure, I think there's a there's a lot of changes. There's--there's some probably some backlash since there's a lot of children that are not identifiably Indian. Like I am, or like you are. My grandson is one of them. I have a grandson that's--When he lived up in Traverse City the kids would say: "You can't do this because you don't look Indian." He still remembers that! Here he is thirteen years old, and he was--Just year ago, he was tell me about that. He says: "So, does that make me not Indian?" I say: "No" [Laughs] I says: " You are an Indian as part of your- your heart, your heritage, and your history." [Lin] Yeah, it's a delicate balance between tribal citizenship-- [June] Oh, right. [Lin] It’s very divisive. [June] And, its more difficult for those who don't. I also have two other grandsons that are brothers. One's blonde hair blue-eyed, and the other is black hair brown-eye. Everybody goes: "They're brothers?" [Lin] I have a couple of nephews that way too. So, if you could summarize into one to two highlights about who you are as an urban native, what would you want to pass on to the next generation? 14 | P a g e �[June] I think that you should be true to yourself, and what you stand for--and do the best that you can do with whatever you decide to do. That's what my mother said. Is if you think you wanna go into the public eye because you want to bring out the history--then stand for that. If you want to improve the educational background a of person-- Realize that you won't always get the glory, because somebody else is always gonna be credited for what you do. That doesn't stop you from doing what you want to do. If that's what you want to do, then do it. [Lin] Very nice. Is there anything that I didn't ask that you wanted to talk about? [June] Probably education. When I went to college my focus was on business, because I didn't see myself as a teacher. I didn't see myself as an office worker, and I didn't see myself as a nurse. Which the women in my family were nurses. My mother, my aunts, my cousins. I got a lot of nurses there. I also had some teachers. I think my family--I have 51 first cousins, and out of all those first cousins every single one of them is graduated from high school. That was-- that's one thing that is always been real prominent. Not only my family, but in my dad's fami--My mom's family--But my dad's family too. I think that that was part of my promotion for actually getting where I am at. Because, like I said, it wasn't my first focus. Business was the area that I found most interesting. My mother was always the one that said you gotta be educated. Which her father told her. You gotta be educated so that you can support your children, because that's always your number one priority. Your number two priority is your family. So, you got your child, and you got your family. Then you have your community. I think those are probably some of the things that kinda guided me as a made my decisions through the--through the degrees that have gone through. I think having both sides of my family be educated in one way, shape, or form, has helped kind of support me in that area. I think overall my family at large has been real supportive of us getting our education. 'Cause I'm not the only one who's educated my family with the higher education. As a matter fact, one of my cousins just got his doctorate. So, I'm gonna have a party on the thirtieth. [Lin] In what? [June] You know, I think it's philosophy. [Laughter] [June] Isn't that what PhD's are all about? [Laughs] [Lin] I don't know. I don't think I'll find out. [June] I know. [Lin] Never say never, right? 15 | P a g e �[June] Mhm. [Lin] Levi had sent me a couple of questions. [June] Oh, I wanted to say too, I was one of the first King Chavez Park Scholars. KCP [Lin] Oh. [June] Myself and a guy up north. We graduated the same year. [Lin] And that was a high school scholarship? [June] No. It was a graduate fellowship. [Lin] Nice. [June] That we both got. We both happened to finish at the same time. So, can't say we were first. [Laughs] [Lin] So knowing now--If you knew now--If you knew back then what you know now, would you continue? Would you have gotten an MBA? Or, would you have gone into something different? [June] No, I think I would have stayed with what I went, because that's what I find most interesting. [Lin] Business? [June] Mhm. I like to tell people what to do. [Lin] I like to do that too. [June] I know! [Lin] We're so good at it! [June] Bossy Odawa women. [Laughter] [Lin] I think that's all I have. [June] Okay [Lin] So. 16 | P a g e �[June] Well, thank you for inviting me. Thank you for sharing and asking. [Lin] Thank you for your participating in this project. I appreciate everything that you've done and will do for the community. [June] It's nice to be noticed once in a while. [Laughter] okay 17 | P a g e � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0a16ce6b5e2dbd7ca90a0dce0457e945.mp3 db129eeaf846cdfca27c38088e6a8fac Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gi-gikinomaage-min Interviews Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Native American Advisory Council Grand Valley State University. Kustche Office of Local History Description An account of the resource Interviews with members of Grand Rapids' urban Native American population collected as part of the Gi-gikinomaage-min Project: Defend Our History, Unlock Your Spirit. Translated from Anishinaabemowin, the original language of this area, Gi-gikinomaage-min means "We are all teachers." This is the name our project team choose to convey to the Native American community that through our stories and experiences, we are all teachers to someone. As we share those stories, we are allowing for our next generations to experience the past. Grand Rapids’ Native American community grew dramatically in the last half of the 20th century as a result of a little-known federal program that still impacts American Indian lives today. Called the Urban Relocation Program, it created one of the largest mass movements of Indians in American history. The full scope of this massive social experiment and its impact on multiple generations of Native Americans remains largely undocumented and unexplored. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015/2016 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Gi-gikinomaage-min Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Indians of North America Indians of North America--Michigan Indians of North America--Education Potawatomi Indians Bode'wadmi Ojibwa Indians Anishinaabe Navajo Indians Dine'e Cherokee Indians Tsagali Aniyunwiya Archaeology Mound-builders Hopewellian culture Indian arts--North America Personal narrativse Grand Rapids (Mich.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-10 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-10_Fletcher_June_Mamagona_0416 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fletcher, June Mamagona Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-04-06 Title A name given to the resource June Mamagona Fletcher interview (audio and transcript) Description An account of the resource June Mamagona Fletcher is a member of the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians (Gun Lake). She was born in Detroit, Michigan and has lived in Dorr and Grand Rapids, Michigan. She holds an MBA from Grand Valley State Unviersity as well as degrees from Western Michigan University and Grand Rapids Community College. In this interview, she discusses her family history, education, and the Native American community in Grand Rapids. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Bardwell, Belinda (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Potawatomi Indians Bode'wadmi Personal narratives Grand Rapids (Mich.) Indians of North America Indians of North America--Michigan Indians of North America--Education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Gi-gikinomaage-min Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4e50daf44d28129acc8a5a9e7002669f.jpg f5e8f0f0c4a0c2c48e83a478e1eca000 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50_X792 Title A name given to the resource Juneau class, anti-aircraft light cruiser Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource Juneau class, US CLAA (anti-aircraft light cruiser), September 1, 1953. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945 Military education Warships--Recognition Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-09-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5f06d3480e6604c8b1d01de998145685.jpg 7f7674480bd4eacc7c1a9a435eb7ac33 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50_X793 Title A name given to the resource Juneau class, anti-aircraft light cruiser Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource Juneau class, US CLAA (Anita-aircraft light cruiser), September 1, 1953. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945 Military education Warships--Recognition Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-09-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8f304c8e382a773ac7a84b2c0776c7ce.jpg 2c8d5af6f500a073d0c8d29d73901431 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50_X795 Title A name given to the resource Juneau class, anti-aircraft light cruiser Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource USS Juneau, US CLAA (anti-aircraft light cruiser), September 1, 1953. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945 Military education Warships--Recognition Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1953-09-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/67a76974eefed09497a00bd7e45a9bb8.jpg dbc7390e9463bb0359deadc8f5a1345b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Merrill_LS00303 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1935 Title A name given to the resource Juneau looking down channel Description An account of the resource Black and white lantern slide (dark) of an aerial view of Juneau, Alaska. Subject The topic of the resource Lantern slides Juneau (Alaska) Aerial photographs Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1ecb69e59899cf71b00cc4875f52a5e1.jpg 935568971ec1ac1883d74466c3af29d1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club Description An account of the resource Scrapbooks of newsclippings, photographs, postcards, and ephemera of the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club. Photos were taken at regattas on Reeds Lake; the Grand River; Peoria, Illinois; and in Chicago of club members, and events. Historical articles, reports of regatta events, and articles featuring members Charles McQuewan and Jack Corbett are included. Programs include the First Grand Regatta on Great Salt Lake 1888, and Peoria Rowing Festival, and banquet and music programs and the GR Log, a publication of the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club. Materials from the Central States Amater Rowing Association, and the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen are also included. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1980s to 1940s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/481">Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club scrapbooks, (RHC-54)</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Rapids (Mich.) Outdoor recreation Boats and boating Racing shells Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-54 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-54_Photographs-GRRC08 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource no date Title A name given to the resource Junior "8" Crew Chicago Description An account of the resource 8-man crewboat in the water with a grassy shoreline in the background. H. E. Schumacher on stroke, H. C. Carlson on the bow, Bill Corbat on cox, with a crew of H. Templeman, W. J. McClure, R. E. Camfield, F. W. Grosspeter, R. R. Roberts, and O. N. Peterson Subject The topic of the resource Grand Rapids (Mich.) Outdoor recreation Boats and boating Racing shells Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/481">Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club scrapbooks (RHC-54)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/">No Known Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4cc0d82bc5177fea83c2c38aaf62ab22.jpg e9d69c11d9379ee601e2393abfd642f3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club Description An account of the resource Scrapbooks of newsclippings, photographs, postcards, and ephemera of the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club. Photos were taken at regattas on Reeds Lake; the Grand River; Peoria, Illinois; and in Chicago of club members, and events. Historical articles, reports of regatta events, and articles featuring members Charles McQuewan and Jack Corbett are included. Programs include the First Grand Regatta on Great Salt Lake 1888, and Peoria Rowing Festival, and banquet and music programs and the GR Log, a publication of the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club. Materials from the Central States Amater Rowing Association, and the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen are also included. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1980s to 1940s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/481">Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club scrapbooks, (RHC-54)</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Rapids (Mich.) Outdoor recreation Boats and boating Racing shells Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-54 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-54_Photographs-GRRC14 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1921 Title A name given to the resource Junior 8 Grand Rapids Description An account of the resource 8-man crew with cox on crewboat, racing in Chicago. Trees and a car on the shore in the background. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Rapids (Mich.) Outdoor recreation Boats and boating Racing shells Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/481">Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club scrapbooks (RHC-54)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/">No Known Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives