Federal Writers' Project Papers

-5-

was H. J. and Corine Jackson. My father come from Queensboro, Mississippi, and my mother from Arlington, Georgia. My father was a turpentine worker in his early days, but later began preaching and selling. Father is dead, and my mother lives with us. Mother is now 70 years old, but very active for her age. She use to work hard too, takin in washin's and workin for private families. She can't do any of that kind of work now. Right now she's visitin friends in Medulla, Florida.

"My parents left Ocala when I was between two and three year old. They first moved to Orlando and afterwards went from place to place, wherever they could find work to do.

"I have two sisters, Rosa Lee Boone, age 30, she has two childrens, H. J. and Reva. Rosa Lee lives in Mulberry, Florida. I think her husband works for WPA. Lillian Melton, my other sister lives in Gainesville, Florida, and she is 33 years old. She is separated from her husband, Daniel. She works out in private families.

"I work hard to take care of my wife and mother, and we all gets along nicely together. My wife understands me and I understand her. You see if we don't agree, I will get another woman. There are too many women in the world who would want a good working man." Corneal, who was still seated on the bench before the dresser, looked up with a sharp eye, while William continued: "You see this is my third wife, but I'm not going to tell you anything about the other two.

"I think that a home should be the first thing in a man's mind, although I don't own my own home. But I don't never worry too much about it because like it says in the Bible, 'first seek ye the Kingdom of Heaven, and everything shall be added unto you,' and that's what I do. I've owned

1117

-4-

sometimes for the people in Lakeland. Oh! I like to sew and make pretty things."

As Corneal talked I noticed that her brogue speech was that of a Nassau native, and I ask her where she was from; she told me Key West, which explained accounted for the matter brogue, as many Key West Negroes are emigrants from Nassau.

Corneal then said: "Don't you want to know about my family too?" I admitted that I did and urged her to continue.

"You see, I was born in Key West, February 17, 1908. My mother, you know her? Mary Ellen Wallace, well she's seventy years old now. Then there is my sisters, Bloneva, Flossie, Elvita, and Mercedes, the latter was taken into the family when she was four years old. Blovena, she works in a dress factory in New York City. Flossie is a nurse in the Morrell Hospital in Lakeland. Elveta is a student at Tuskegee Institute, in Tuskegee, Alabama. And Mercedes is in the eleventh grade at the Washington Park High School in Lakeland. I have two brothers, Leanrod, who lives in Washington, D.C.—I don't know what he's doing there. Then there is Elmore C. who works in the Dietitian Department at the Colored Veterans Hospital, Tuskegee, Alabama. Now don't you think I should be proud of my family?

"Father has been dead some time now, but all of us childrens have looked after mother and we own our own home on Orange Street in Lakeland."

A call from the front room interrupted Corneal. William had finished his bath and wanted me to relate his life history. Corneal followed me into the front room, bringing her sewing along. She seated herself on a bench in front of the dresser while William talked.

"I was born November 28, 1903 at Ocala, Florida. My parents names

1116

-3-

so I stopped to talk with them. I asked for William Jackson whom I wanted to see, and they told me he was under the car fixing the front spring. From his position, he yelled up that he would be out as soon as he finished.

He emerged in a few minutes, and as he lived diagonally across the road from where he was working, he invited me to the house to talk and visit.

When we arrived at the little weather-board quarter house, William called his wife Corneal, and introduced us. Like William she was small in stature, but. I found her pleasant and neatly dressed.

Inside the house she invited me to come in the kitchen where she was busy making a house coat, adding that she had moved her sewing machine in there to be near the warmth of the kitchen stove. She proudly showed me the pattern she was copying from a catalog, and held up the bright material for me to admire.

"This will be pretty when it's finished," she said. "You see it calls for 16 gores in the skirt?"

William excused himself, after heating a bucket of water by submerging an electric heater in the bucket for five minutes, and retired to the next room to take a bath. Corneal explained that bathing was accomplished done in a galvanized tub because they didn't have a bathroom.

While we were waiting for William to finish, I explained to Corneal the reason for my visit, and asked her how she learned to sew so well. She said: "My mother was a seamstress, and when I was small I started to sew. Later on in life after I finished the grammar school I worked for Mr. Adderly, who ran a tailoring establishment on North Florida Avenue in Lakeland. There I learned how to tailor under his instructions, and now I make nearly all the clothes for the neighbors here in the quarters, and

1115

-2-

she had to sit on it all day. She pointed out that even the rickety chair was wired together.

Down the road from the school, men and women loitered in the sun before the doors of their quarters talking and laughing. Other women were bent busily over wash tubs, while their men sat nearby or cleaned and trimmed lawns. One man burned dead grass off a small plot in preparation to making a garden. The sound of chattering tongues filled the air. One woman who bent over her wash tub gossiped with a neighbor on a front porch across the road: "When my husband come in this mawnin he had changed his color." This brough hoots of laughter. He was sitting by her side when she called to her friend, and I noticed that his complexion was as dark as it had ever been. Later I discovered that the men had been called out the night before to stand in water as they mended a 12 inch water line, a possible reason for his color condition.

Then the woman across the road looked up, placed her hands on her hip and yelled: "Child my back is so stiff from pickin dem strawberries. If I could catch Polly (meaning the bolita) I wouldn't pick another berry." This brought more laughter. Then I heard the washer-woman exclaim: "Great Lawd! I thought I was washin a table cloth. Bless goodness, if dis here woman ain't gone and tuk a table cloth and made a dress out of it." This brought the other women clustering about, including her friend from across the way. Exclamations were made and opinions passed concerning the idea and color of the dress in question. Then I heard the woman who was washing say: "My husband better not buy me no table cloth, or I'se gwine to do that same trick. Dis here white woman has gone and larn me somethin."

Further along the road I observed several men around a Model-A Ford,

1114

FL-18 995

January 20, 1939 William and Corneal Jackson (Negro) #14 Eaton Park. Lakeland, Florida (Phosphate Miner) Paul Diggs, writer (Negro) Veronica E. Huss, reviser

WILLIAM AND CORNEAL JACKSON

At Eaton Park, six miles from Lakeland, Florida, off the Bartow road #2 and across from the Ruth Alderman Airport, I found the Negro quarters of the Southern Phosphate Corporation. At one time this section of the country was the heart of the mining activities, but now operations are located at Sand Gully, beginning on the outskirts of South Lakeland.

Situated in the center of the high mounds left by the process of phosphate mining, and partially surrounded by miniature lakes made by these same excavations, were 28 houses, including one for single men. Similar in construction, painted white and trimmed in green, they faced both sides of the road entering the quarters.

Guarding the main entrance off road #2 were two filling stations. Behind the one to the right was a small weatherboarded building, harmoniously painted white and green and serving the dual purpose of school and church. A small space of ground on the south side of the school was used as a playground. Near the front door a heavy piece of iron was suspended between two posts. When struck it resounded loudly, calling children and adults alike. The interior of this building was not ceiled. The blackboards, made from painted beaver-board, were nailed to the walls. The teacher, Edith McFall, used a homemade desk and bench. The day of my visit she had borrowed a chair to use, stating that the bench made her back tired when

1113

FL-28

Jacksonville, Florida 28 East Bay Street Rev. W.C. Sale (White) Mrs. Lillian Steadman, writer Veronica E. Huss and Robert Edwards, revisers

REVEREND W.C. SALE

For 16 years the Reverend W.C. Sale has "been a well known figure in the religious life of Jacksonville. He was pastor of the Margaret Street Baptist church for l4 years, and now conducts the Jacksonville Citadel Mission at 28 East Bay Street, where he serves refreshments twice daily after the services to anyone attending, and coffee throughout the day. He also conducts WPA adult education classes in the Mission.

He is six feet tall, weighs I50 pounds, and is a slender muscular type. His high forehead is topped with thick dark brown hair sprinkled with gray. He wears glasses, and his heavy eyebrows shade clear blue eyes. Neatly attired, his tie, handkerchief and suit make a harmonious combination.

The Mission consists of one room on the second floor of an old commercial structure one block from the waterfront. The walls of the room are very dingy and so also is the furniture, although it is well arranged. A large one-gallon coffee pot of blue enamel shows signs of constant use. A piano, the most impressive piece of furniture in the room, shows little sign of wear. In this room, one frequently hears the creaking stairs in the old building.

"At present I am using one large room not only as a classroom and em-

1291

2.

ployment agency but as a place where hungry men may come and eat; where tired men may sit and rest; and where troubled men may tell their needs.

"This is no church, no hotel lobby, nor is it a flop-house; it is a spot where men can feel free to come and find immediate aid. I am proud of the fact that help is instantly given with no prolonged investigation. This present location, which I recently acquired, is ideal because it is convenient to the greatest number who might seek aid. Being near the harbor and only a few blocks from the heart of the city, I am able to help men in all walks of life. I plan to redecorate the Mission and expect to be able to sectire a smaller adjoining room for use as a kitchen."

I explained the purpose of my interview, and he readily responded: "I will be glad to share whatever material of value I can furnish.

"I will tell you the story of my life in one sentence. I was born in Alabama, reared in Tennessee, an Oregon exile, a Virginian by adoption, a Kentuckian by permission, an overseas chaplain, and a Floridian by migration. But I have stayed, and not gone north in the summer; I have stuck or maybe I am stuck, perhaps both.

"My father and mother married shortly after the War between the States, and reared seven girls and three boys on a farm. All learned self-support, self-respect, and self-control. We owned our own home, and helped father pay for it. I made the last payment on it one year after his death in 1904. You know it is easier for thrifty parents to rear a large family than it is to rear a small one—that is, it used to be, and I believe it is yet. It should be the ambition of every young married couple to have 18 children.

"The Sales for several generations have pointed with pride to lawyers, doctors and preachers in their ranks. The pastor of the First Methodist

1292

3.

church in this city back in 1893 was my father's first cousin of whom he often spoke with pride, and I understand that Rev. J.C. Sale was a good preacher. Many of his family still live in Florida today. Judge Sale lives in Bronson, Florida. My people came from the British Isles by way of Virginia, thence to the South and West. There are so few of us that we are willing to claim kin when we meet.

"I went through grammar school in Tennessee and later took five years in the Union University, Jackson, Tennessee, with special courses in oratory and theology, graduating in June, 1904." At this point Mr. Sale shows me the gold star he wears on his watch chain, the gift of the faculty for being an honor student.

"A few years later while pastor in Richmond, Va., I took two years of special work in Union Theological Seminary, an excellent Presbyterian school. That is unusual for a Baptist to attend a Seminary of another denomination, but I found it to be a good thing. It makes one broader, more considerate, and a better thinker. I seriously doubt that our present school system is turning out educated boys and girls. They all go through the mill and graduate. I do not see how they do it. But I presume education has heen so popularized that it has become a game and they play the thing through. Then they make a larger appeal to the eye by means of maps, charts, pictures, and demonstrations than they once did. I think I have heard that about 85 percent of what we learn comes through the eye.

"One must he ambitious, with high ideals, in order to make the grade in life. Much of this depends upon vision. 'Where there is no vision the people perish.' I made my response to the first awakening of conscience. I answered the call of God! To he a Christian! To be a minister! To live

1293

4.

for others! I have had many experiences in what is known as the spiritfilled life.

"My ambition has never been to accumulate wealth. I like the good things of life, but have always expected them to come as a result of sacrificial services for others. I have understood that if one lives for others he need not fear; he will be cared for. But I have learned that one must be a good financier if he succeeds in life. One must keep the home fires burning if he is to entertain strangers. Certainly one must live within his income and not try to keep up with the crowd. One must either own a home or pay rent if he never owns a car. I have owned two cars that I bought and paid for and wore out. I am convinced that twothirds of the people driving cars do not need them, and would be better off without them. This is evidently true of people living in the city where transportation is easily accessible.

"When you speak of income you make me laugh. It is better to laugh, though, than to cry. Our first income in 1905 was $50 per month, and we lived in a furnished home. That was out in Heppner, Oregon, this side of the Cascade Range of mountains, 5,000 feet above sea level in the arid section of the West, where one feels most excellent, but where your dreams are a long time coming true. But if you go from the South to the Pacific Coast you must learn as quickly as possible to fit in.

"At one time my income was $4,000 per year, but like all the rest I had my reverses. The hardest pull financially of my life has been during my sojourn in Jacksonville. But I guess I am to blame. If I had hustled for a larger church it would have been different. But I am stronger because of my struggles. I would say that not less than $100 a month will provide adequately for a husband and wife today in Jacksonville. I know

1294

5.

many live on less than that, but it is a hard pull.

"The supreme right of man is the right to live and the right to work, and the right to show the marks of a man. Nothing is more honorable than work. We should never he satisfied with our system in the social order, until it provides every eligible man with work. Capital and labor must cooperate, with this slogan, 'work for every man and every man at work.' I was taught to work, and have worked ever since. I do not work for the amount of money I receive but for the joy there is in it, for the good I may be able to do, for what I may be able to accomplish through the work.

"My mission work is soul-satisfying and gives me a complete feeling of effort well spent. When I lie down in my bed at night, perhaps a little weary from the physical strain of the day, I am able to find full compensation when I review the events of the day and know that tonight there are fewer discouraged, depressed and hungry men because of my work.

"The earnest desire of my life has been to relieve suffering humanity and to meet the needs of my brother-man. In this field I am able to reach the man furtherest down—the man that won't come to church is the hungry man, and the man made bitter because of some possible experience with a church-goer, and the man that can't make a decent appearance because of unemployment.

"Christ went after the man that was furtherest down and that is my aim, but the churches are not after that class today, they want a welldressed crowd on parade. I am not sure that you will find very much Christianity, of the primitive type, among the churches today. Christ was moved with compassion for the multitudes. I am wondering what Christ thinks of the churches of this age.

1295