1992OH01.17 Ellish
Frankfort’s Craw Oral History Project
Interview with Henry and Margaret Ellis
August 1, 1991.
Conducted by James Wallace
© 1991 Kentucky Oral History Commission
Kentucky Historical Society
Kentucky Oral History Commission
100 W. Broadway ( Frankfort, KY 40601
502-564-1792 ( (fax) 502-564-0475 ( history.ky.gov
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should be corroborated with the original audio recording if possible.The following interview is an unrehearsed interview with
Henry and Margaret Ellis for "Frankfort's 'Craw:' An
African-American Community Remembered." The interview was
conducted by James E. Wallace in Frankfort, Kentucky, August 1,
1991.
[An interview with Henry and Margaret Ellis]
WALLACE: I was born in England. My mom and dad are from
Kentucky, but Dad was in Air Force . . .
ELLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: . . . stationed over there with Mom.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And I was raised there for a few months, and, then,
they came back to Jefferson County, and I grew up in Jefferson
County in a section of the county called Fern Creek.
ELLIS: I've heard of that, yeah.
WALLACE: It's out in . . . out in the south end near that big
GE plant that they got out there. I assume your wife wants to be
here to talk with us. I can just wait until she . . .
ELLIS: She'll be right on down.
WALLACE: Okay.
[Interruption in Tape]
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ELLIS: And I have to sleep with it every night anyway.
WALLACE: Oh, really.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: I like the noises they . . . [Laughter - Ellis]
MRS. ELLIS: That was Matti. That was Matti.
ELLIS: Oh, it was.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. And she's still upset and she's called her
niece. She lost her son this evening.
WALLACE: Oh, no.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: It's not Ms. Tillman, is it?
MRS. ELLIS: Matti Tillman?
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: That's her.
WALLACE: Oh. She lost her son.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: There's been more tragedy lately.
MRS. ELLIS: I'm telling you. If it wasn't . . .
ELLIS: I was at the cemetery three days last week.
WALLACE: You know, I was going to go talk to Ms. Oglesby and,
uh, her daughter died.
MRS. ELLIS: That was my . . . that was my . . . might as well
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say my child because I was with her with every child she had and
it hit me, I'm telling you.
WALLACE: And so . . .
MRS. ELLIS: I ain't got over it yet.
WALLACE: . . . so horrible to happen at the wedding.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh. I'm telling you, I ain't got over it yet.
I . . .
WALLACE: And, then, Sam Parker's boy died?
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. I'm telling you . . .
ELLIS: Got shot through the heart.
WALLACE: Is that what happened?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Shot through the heart.
WALLACE: Oh, no. I didn't know what . . . I just read that he
had died away.
ELLIS: Umhumm. In Louisville.
WALLACE: There's just so much tragedy. I was going to
interview, uh, Helen Taylor over on Third Street. I think that's
the right name.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And her hip, she has an artificial hip . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, she's in the hospital.
�
WALLACE: She's back in the hospital. And, then, I talked to,
uh, Jimmy Graham. I was going to talk to Paul, but his mother is
real bad.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Real bad.
ELLIS: Is she in the hospital up in [inaudible]?
MRS. ELLIS: No, she's still back up Cardinal Hill, ain't she?
WALLACE: I think she has. Now, I saw her the evening I went
over and talked to Jimmy, but they said she'd had a stroke or
something or something . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Another one, uh-huh.
WALLACE: Or something real bad there.
MRS. ELLIS: I'll tell you . . .
WALLACE: There's just been tragedy.
MRS. ELLIS: I'm telling you.
WALLACE: Tragedy after tragedy.
MRS. ELLIS: That was Matti. And, of course, she and I belong to
the same church. Well, we've been friends for years and years.
Of course, I'm older than they are, and they just sort of lean on
my shoulder.
WALLACE: Well, I'll try not to take up . . .
MRS. ELLIS: But she's still upset and crying and going on and
she can't get ahold of the children's mother so the children
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know. The children was up there.
WALLACE: Yeah. Ahh. I'll try not to take up too much of your
time.
MRS. ELLIS: That's all right.
WALLACE: Let me . . . let me say. Today is, uh, Thursday,
August the 1st . . .
MRS. ELLIS: First.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: And we're here at the home of Henry and Margaret
Ellis. Are you all kin to "Buddy"?
MRS. ELLIS: No.
ELLIS: No, no, no relation at all.
MRS. ELLIS: Different set of Ellises.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay. A different set of Ellises.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: I called and was going to talk to his step-mother
and, uh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Mother Ellis.
WALLACE: Yes. And, uh, she has had tragedy in her family,
too. So, I didn't get a chance to really talk . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Well, that's "Buddy's" [James B. Ellis] wife died.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: You know she's almost 90 years old?
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WALLACE: And she was very pleasant . . .
MRS. ELLIS: She was my second-grade teacher.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: She was my schoolteacher, too.
WALLACE: Over at Mayo-Underwood?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: When we came from Clinton Street [School].
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: I went one year at Clinton Street [School] in the
kindergarten.
WALLACE: That . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And they had the school finished down here, and,
then, I went in the second grade in the new school.
WALLACE: School.
MRS. ELLIS: Ms. Naomi was my teacher.
WALLACE: Yeah. The Clinton Street . . .
ELLIS: Now, where the State Office Building is now . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: . . . that used to be the state prison.
WALLACE: Yeah.
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ELLIS: Okay. The school was . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Was behind the prison.
WALLACE: Was behind the prison.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay. I never knew exactly where it was.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: What did it look like?
MRS. ELLIS: The school?
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: It was a big . . .
WALLACE: Was it wood?
MRS. ELLIS: . . . uh, white . . . no, a concrete building.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Rock . . . rock, you would say.
ELLIS: Stone-like, yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Stone, umhumm.
WALLACE: Didn't it get torn down in '28 [1928] or '29 [1929]
or something, or they moved over to Mayo . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Moved out of Clinton. They moved . . . oh, I was in
the second grade when they moved over there. So, . . .
ELLIS: That was . . .
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MRS. ELLIS: What's on that tombstone . . . I mean, that stone?
Is it '29 [1929]? . . .
ELLIS: I got the stone. I don't know. I'd have to turn it
over. I don't . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Thirty . . . 19 . . .
ELLIS: '32 [1932], I believe, or '33 [1933], something like
that.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: I remember it because I know I was about . . .
ELLIS: I got the corner stone that come out of that school.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
ELLIS: Yeah, umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: I was about this tall. I remember it well because
we just had a ball when they was dedicating it. And they brought
old man Mayo [Professor William H. Mayo] . . . Mayo, that's who
it was named after.
WALLACE: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: And Dr. Underwood [Dr. E. E. Underwood], you could
see Doc. I can remember it like it was yesterday.
ELLIS: That's who the school was named after.
WALLACE: Who was Mayo, now? Was he . . .
MRS. ELLIS: He was the professor.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay. Had he taught at Clinton?
�
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. He was the professor of Clinton. He was the
professor . . . now, I . . . see, now, did he start out with us?
No. He didn't start out with us. He was too sick . . . Spencer
Blanton [William S. Blanton, first principal of Mayo-Underwood
School] started out. He got sick and . . .
ELLIS: And Underwood was a doctor, see.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: He got sick and Spencer Blanton took it over.
WALLACE: I see.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Well, let me start, uh, with you, ma'am. Are you a
native of Frankfort?
MRS. ELLIS: No. I came when I was 18 months old.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: [Laughing] So, I guess I am.
WALLACE: Where were you born, then?
MRS. ELLIS: I was born in Harlan.
WALLACE: Harlan?
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: But my daddy and them was natives of here. My
mother was from Harlan, but my daddy is from Frankfort.
WALLACE: What led . . . Daddy was coming back to be with his
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people or work opportunities . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. My mother . . .
ELLIS: They lived in Detroit, didn't they, and came back to
. . .
MRS. ELLIS: And came back, un-huh. They came back to have me.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay. And you, sir, were you a native of
Frankfort?
ELLIS: I am, umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: He was born on Wilkinson Street, wasn't you?
ELLIS: Yes, I lived here, but I left here when I was a kid,
a baby rather, and went to . . . I lived in Lexington a little
bit. But I don't know too much about that, though. But I lived
in Shelbyville.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: Then, I came from Shelbyville back here.
WALLACE: When did you come back to Frankfort?
ELLIS: I was seven years old when I came back to Frankfort.
I'm 67 now. It was 60 years ago. [Laughter]
MRS. ELLIS: And I was 18 months old. I was 70 in . . .
[Laughter] I'll be 70 in October, so, . . .
WALLACE: So, you were in Frankfort in 1921, then, right?
�
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, umhumm, or right after, '22 [1922], right
after.
WALLACE: And you would have been in 1931 or '32 [1932]?
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: What were your parents' names, sir?
ELLIS: Evelyn Ellis and Henry Ellis.
WALLACE: And your parents' names?
MRS. ELLIS: Margaret Howard and Hobart Howard. His name was
James, but they called him Hobart. But my aunt and uncle raised
me. Uh, Idelle and Jim Taylor raised me.
ELLIS: You've probably heard of him, ain't you?
WALLACE: Who now?
ELLIS: Jim Taylor.
WALLACE: Jim Taylor. No, I haven't. Nobody has really
discussed him with me.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Well, that's who raised me. We lived on
Washington Street.
WALLACE: Whereabouts on . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And my mother stayed, too. I mean, we stayed, but
they practically raised me because my mother had to work.
WALLACE: Where did she work?
MRS. ELLIS: At the hotel, Capitol Hotel.
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WALLACE: Did, uh . . . where did your father work?
MRS. ELLIS: My father, he went back to Detroit.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: So, Mamma had to raise you all. And, then, your
parents, sir, did they both have to work also?
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, but . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Everybody had to work. [Laughter - Mrs. Ellis,
Wallace]
ELLIS: Yeah, they did because we all were here, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Like she said, her uncle raised her.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, of course, that was the same with my mother and
father, you know.
WALLACE: Well, that's . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . what a lot of people have told me, that mammas
and daddies both had to work.
MRS. ELLIS: Sure. We didn't bring . . .
ELLIS: And Jim Taylor, uh, uh, you'll run across that name
somewhere else again. He was a kind of tall fellow, stayed
dressed up all the time. He worked for, uh . . .
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MRS. ELLIS: Ralph Mills.
ELLIS: Ralph Mills up here.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: At the grain mill . . .
MRS. ELLIS: No, not that one.
WALLACE: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: He worked for the one with the construction.
ELLIS: They were brothers, weren't they?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Ralph and Emmett . . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Oh, okay. Uh, was the mill down by the river?
ELLIS: No, right up here in the center of the road.
MRS. ELLIS: The chair factory was, and, so, we called that the
mill.
WALLACE: Oh, okay.
ELLIS: Okay, I'm sorry.
MRS. ELLIS: We called that the mill, too.
WALLACE: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: At that time people did.
WALLACE: Yeah, they were . . .
MRS. ELLIS: The chair factory, yes, it was down by the river.
ELLIS: And the hemp factory.
WALLACE: Yeah. Now, the hemp factory . . .
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MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. The chair factory was right there on the
corner of . . . of Wilkinson and Clinton.
WALLACE: Well, as you were growing up as a . . . as a young
girl, uh, what . . . what kind of, uh, recreational opportunities
did you have? Uh, did you have much free time to play with your
friends? I'm interested in the life of youngsters growing up in
Frankfort.
MRS. ELLIS: Did we have much free time?
WALLACE: Yes.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, but we . . . what we did, we did our work.
WALLACE: What kind of work?
MRS. ELLIS: We did . . . I mean, we did our home work . . .
ELLIS: Had chores around the house.
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, we did our chores around the house. We
brought our kindling and wood in and we brought our coal in.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And we got our home work, and, then, we'd play. We
was all outside playing. Then, on nice days, we'd go down in the
school yard.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And we'd play. And, then, a lot of times, we'd go
on the sandbar and we'd play. So, uh, we . . . we had just good
clean recreation, you know.
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ELLIS: And at eight o'clock, you was home.
MRS. ELLIS: But at eight o'clock, you was home. And, then,
another . . .
ELLIS: And don't . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, another good part about it, we were all
neighbors.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And friends. And this time of year, all of the old
folks would be on their porches.
WALLACE: Sitting . . .
MRS. ELLIS: So, we would be playing ball or what-not, but we'd
mind anybody. If we got out of line any way, somebody from
somebody's porch would holler at us.
WALLACE: So, everybody was your mamma and daddy . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
ELLIS: Right.
MRS. ELLIS: And, like, if we went to the store and if we was
playing along from the store and had our things, why, they would
say, "Now, you know they're waiting on you." [Laughter - Ellis]
Well, you know what I mean. And nobody ever . . . because I know
they had . . . at one time they had an old loft on Church Street,
Mary Kathryn and them, back of their house. And every day after
school, we would go by it . . . we would go there . . .
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WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: . . . and play. So, they had told us not to go
up this ladder . . .
WALLACE: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: . . . on the loft. But we would. We'd go up there
and we'd jump and we'd do it. We'd do it every day. There was
an old lady across the street, named Ms. Ginny Vinegar. And she
would holler at us, "I told you all about it." So, one day when
we come down the ladder and, oh, she whupped every one of us.
[Laughter - Wallace] And she gave us all a spanking. And, me, I
went home crying. "What's wrong with you?" "Old Ginny Vinegar
whupped us." Then, I got another whupping . . . [laughter -
Wallace] because I called her Old Ginny Vinegar, you know, you
know. I mean, we had a good childhood life, I would say,
because, after all, we all had manners. We all had more . . .
you know what I mean?
WALLACE: It sounds like your parents were pretty strict on
you.
ELLIS: They were.
MRS. ELLIS: They were.
ELLIS: And other parents, too.
MRS. ELLIS: They were.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
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ELLIS: Minding everybody. Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am; you better
had.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Did they push you all as far as your education, they
wanted you all . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, you got your lessons and your home work when
you come home.
WALLACE: So, you both went to Mayo-Underwood?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, if you didn't get them then, after
supper, you got in there with that home work and you didn't go to
bed until you got it either.
ELLIS: And I was fortunate going to school. I lived all
around the school.
MRS. ELLIS: I did, too.
ELLIS: I lived in front of it, behind it and all. I could
be at home and hear the bell ring in the morning and run over
[laughter - Wallace] and wouldn't be late . . . I mean, run to
school and wouldn't be tardy, you know.
MRS. ELLIS: Me, too. All I had to do was cut through Dudley
Street.
WALLACE: Well, did you all . . . did your parents own homes or
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you all rented in the area?
MRS. ELLIS: Well, we . . . Uncle Jim and them owned their home.
ELLIS: They owned theirs.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: We rented, yeah.
WALLACE: Did . . . as far as the home that you grew up on
Washington Street, can you describe it for me, what it looked
like? Well, did it have electric and indoor plumbing and
facilities?
MRS. ELLIS: Well, in later years. We were like everybody else,
at first we didn't.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, of course, we had a nice big concrete
porch built on.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, when the sewers come down through, why,
then, we had the flush toilets.
WALLACE: Yeah. When would that have been?
MRS. ELLIS: That you sat on and the water met you . . .
WALLACE: Yeah. Was that up in the thirties [1930's] or do you
know when all of the sewers and all of the facilities came in?
MRS. ELLIS: That was . . .
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ELLIS: That was in '37 [1937] . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That was in the thirties [1930's], yeah, because the
flood . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: . . . was at '37 [1937]. So, it had to be in the
thirties [1930's].
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: The first toilets, you got up off them and they
flushed.
WALLACE: Oh, just as you stand up, it would flush?
ELLIS: Yeah, uh-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I've heard . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, later on, I guess it must have been in
the fifties [1950's] . . . no, the forties [1940's] because Uncle
Jimmy died in '50 [1950]. So, it had to be in the forties
[1940's] when we got the inside, uh, bath . . .
WALLACE: Facilities.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, facilities.
ELLIS: Everybody in the Bottom had, you know, outside
toilets.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Just about, outside.
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MRS. ELLIS: Or in that area.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: They had them on the end of their porch or, you
know, they were outdoors.
WALLACE: Yeah. I talked to one fellow, he's an elderly white
fellow, Goebel McCoy. And he lived on Wilkinson Street on the
river side, oh, right across from Mayo-Underwood, in that area.
And they did not have indoor water.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: They had a spigot outside.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: And two or three families, he said, would use . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That's right because I had an aunt that lived down
there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Then, all of the sewers ran into the river.
WALLACE: Yeah. But, yet, a lot of people have told me as
kids, they still went down to that river and jumped in and
played and . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, swam right on.
WALLACE: . . . swam right across.
MRS. ELLIS: They'd throw you in. [Laughter - Wallace, Ms.
Ellis] They would paddle our butt, I'm telling you.
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ELLIS: And I was living on Center Street . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And every one of them could swim, too. They'd go
out in them trees on them ropes . . .
WALLACE: Yeah, and jump in there.
MRS. ELLIS: And we'd go down there and watch them. Oh, Lord, we
thought they was heroes. [Laughter - Wallace]
ELLIS: I was living on Center Street during the '37 [1937]
flood.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: A two-story house, and the water got up to the second
floor and we came out the second story in a boat.
WALLACE: Good grief.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: It seems like to me everybody . . . I mean, the flood
would drive them out, but they always came back.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, they always, see . . .
ELLIS: It wouldn't get that high.
MRS. ELLIS: Even before we had the '37 [1937] flood . . .
ELLIS: It was just, oh, something like that ain't going to
happen . . . it wasn't going to happen to me . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Before they had the '37 [1937] flood, they always
called it the high rise, umhumm.
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WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: They never did call it a flood. We always had a
high rise, but now, it wouldn't get in our house because we lived
right next to Hill Street.
WALLACE: So, you were up high enough . . .
ELLIS: Oh, they had a porch near as high as this ceiling.
MRS. ELLIS: And our porch was up high. But, now, it would get
to our third step.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: You know. But over across the street from us . . .
ELLIS: Them little houses, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: The lower houses, it would get up . . .
WALLACE: In there.
MRS. ELLIS: . . . to there. But they'd clean them out.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Everybody would clean out their house and, uh, make
a big fire and scrub the floors and things . . .
ELLIS: And move right back in.
MRS. ELLIS: And different things and go right on back in. And
nobody wasn't sick either.
WALLACE: Ahh. Why would they come back? They . . . they
either didn't have any other place to go . . .
ELLIS: No, nowhere to go.
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WALLACE: They had to come back . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Because you had nowhere else, you know.
WALLACE: . . . in any respect?
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, down in there, a lot of people owned
their own homes. So, they wasn't just going to leave them.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: See, Ms. Johnson and them on the corner, they owned
theirs. Uncle Jim and them next to them owned theirs. Ms. Clay,
lived next door, owned theirs.
ELLIS: Ms. Helen owned theirs.
MRS. ELLIS: Ms. Helen Love owned hers. Ms. Emma Glass lived
right on the corner there.
ELLIS: They were nice houses.
WALLACE: People . . .
MRS. ELLIS: See, people owned their houses. Old Ms. Utterback
had a house across the street that she had rented. But right
from there, Mr. Bob Smith owned his house. Ms., uh, Simpson, Maw
Simpson that died, see, they owned about two houses and the
Greenwoods owned their home. Ms. Patsy Jackson owned her home.
WALLACE: So, there was a large number of property owners
living there.
MRS. ELLIS: See, the [inaudible] . . . see, those people owned
their homes.
�
ELLIS: Have you heard the name John Buckner?
WALLACE: Sure.
ELLIS: He owned half of the Bottom. And, of course, he
owned a home over on Second Street. It's still there, a great
big house now.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And he had all of that rented out down there, you
know.
WALLACE: They said he took pretty good care of his places.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, he did.
WALLACE: But people like maybe Dulin Moss or Charlie Duvall or
somebody might not be quite as good about it.
MRS. ELLIS: And Ms. Utterback, don't leave her out.
ELLIS: He was a carpenter, and he would buy up old houses
and stack that lumber over there and kept his houses in good
shape; John Buckner did, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. Ms. Gill, Henrietta, rented from him.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. She lived right across the street from me.
WALLACE: I guess the houses that were in bad shape were
probably tenant houses owned by people who did not live in the
area and did not . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
ELLIS: Right, right.
�
MRS. ELLIS: That's right. Ms. Hattie Twyman and all of them,
the Samuels, all of them, Ms. Holmes, Dr. Underwood, all of those
people . . . you owned your home.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, a lot of times, we didn't have places
here and a lot of them worked in private families and saved and
got their homes.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Would you say it would be fair to say that
the neighborhood was integrated with whites and blacks living in
the same streets . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . or maybe in the same apartment buildings . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Mostly, mostly it was.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, a white man . . .
ELLIS: Down on the Wilkinson Street section . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And across . . .
ELLIS: . . . the white and black right along in there
together.
MRS. ELLIS: Across from us was whites and blacks. Old man Mack
Washington . . . or Mack . . . old man Mack . . . I never did
know what old man Mack's last name . . . he owned that house on
the corner there. Then, the house right behind him, that was
�
white.
WALLACE: Did people, whites and blacks, socially interact or
pretty much stayed off . . .
MRS. ELLIS: We all played together.
WALLACE: Ahh. So, you had friends that were white . . .
ELLIS: Oh, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, Lord. We had . . . they come down off of Fort
Hill and we'd play and have a ball shooting marbles and things.
And, then, they didn't do like they done now. Everybody . . .
parents, somebody would give us a potato and all, then, we'd have
doll dinners . . . [Laugher - Wallace] Yeah, we. . . . we . . .
we never did until here in, oh, late now. On Wilkinson Street,
in later years where my mother lived, uh, what's his name, you
know, that worked for the . . . for the gas company.
ELLIS: Baldy, we call him, or . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Baldy and them, and, then, you know, uh . . .
ELLIS: He's a white fellow. He works for the electric
company.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh, they lived next door to Mother and all.
ELLIS: The Binghams.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, Bingham lived across the street. That was on
Wilkinson Street. Yeah, they was all . . . all mixed up down
�
there.
ELLIS: Yeah, Baldy lived next door to me.
WALLACE: That's the thing that interested me is you have
people . . . an integrated neighborhood, people living in harmony
long before there was civil rights and all of the movement to
integrate . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Well, yeah.
WALLACE: You had a community that's integrated.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right. That's right.
ELLIS: Yeah, Baldy lived next door to me. We'd sit down
here and talk and walk around here and talk, you know.
MRS. ELLIS: You know, then, people treated each other right.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And, now, it's . . . it's . . .
WALLACE: It's more distance between . . .
MRS. ELLIS: It's distance and no morals or nothing. It's just .
. .
ELLIS: Everybody is mean now. Everybody is mean.
MRS. ELLIS: Everybody is mean.
ELLIS: Carrying a grudge for something . . .
MRS. ELLIS: We were brought up to . . .
WALLACE: Looking out for themselves.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. We were brought up to respect people, you
�
know, to look out for each other. We had . . . everybody's door
key fit the same person's door.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Those old skeleton keys.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
ELLIS: You didn't have to lock your doors.
MRS. ELLIS: When Ms. Lena and them was going away somewhere,
they'll look out for my house over there. Along about dark,
they'd go over there and open the door and check and see, you
know . . .
WALLACE: So, there was a neighborliness of people looking out
after each other.
MRS. ELLIS: And if anybody was sick, we went in and sat with
them if they lived by theirself. Many a-time the little girl
that carried me and we'd go and sit with these . . . Ms. Lizzie
Parker, Sam's grandmother.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: She lived around on Hill Street. We'd go around
there and sit with her nine and ten o'clock, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: If I wanted a door key, I'd go over there and
�
[knocking] "Can I borrow you key, can I borrow your key? Come on
and unlock my house so I can get on back in it." [Laughter -
Wallace, Ellis]
WALLACE: It's hard to imagine a time of so much trust, you
know.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, nobody is going to steal nothing from nobody .
. .
MRS. ELLIS: And everybody helped each other.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you. On transportation, when you
were growing up, did your families have cars early on or did you
walk . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Mine did.
ELLIS: My dad had a car, too.
MRS. ELLIS: My uncle had an old Studebaker. Couldn't drive it a
lick. We had a driver. [Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: Well, Ms. . . . who was it, uh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Russell Lewis used to drive us everywhere.
WALLACE: "Buddy Ellis" used to drive Dr. Underwood.
ELLIS: Dr. Underwood.
MRS. ELLIS: Dr. Underwood.
WALLACE: And didn't somebody drive, uh, oh, it was one of the
teachers that couldn't drive. I can't think of her name. I had
�
a story . . .
ELLIS: Alice Samuels?
WALLACE: It might have been Alice Samuels.
MRS. ELLIS: No, she walked.
ELLIS: Well, she couldn't drive and in later years, she
bought her . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, but, now, he ain't talking about her. He's
talking about . . .
ELLIS: Had a car and couldn't drive one.
WALLACE: I can't remember, but I heard that story.
MRS. ELLIS: They used to come and get Ms. Case where she worked
with . . .
ELLIS: Well, she didn't need no car because she worked for
the Irens [Irion], on the . . . lived over on the . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And they brought her to work.
ELLIS: Yeah. They'd bring her and take her. To school, if
they had programs or anything, they'd still bring her and take
her. Well, she lived with them, in other words. She lived with
them.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you one thing. A lot of people I've
talked to either had nicknames or . . . or their friends had
nicknames. And, uh, it struck me as it's . . . it's important to
have a nickname, almost it's like, uh, like you're accepted into
�
the group. Like, well, "Uncle Do", "Doughbelly".
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: "Shineboy".
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: Or "Squeezer".
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: "Black Cat" Graham.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Did you have a nickname or . . .
ELLIS: No, I didn't have any. Uh, uh, but just about
everybody else. We have a boy now, we call him "Slugger".
Everybody had a nickname, really. Right now, right now, it's
amazing that . . . that, uh, uh, some people we know now . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That we don't actually know their real name.
ELLIS: When they die, if they don't put in parenthesis their
nickname, we . . .
MRS. ELLIS: It passes us up.
WALLACE: Well, like, "Shineboy", nobody I could find . . .
ELLIS: I know his name.
WALLACE: What?
ELLIS: John Apollo [Alfred Pollard].
WALLACE: Pollard?
�
ELLIS: John Apollo.
WALLACE: John Apollo.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Ahh. He was out of the mountains, now, wasn't he?
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Out of Harlan.
WALLACE: Let's see, and there's "Corn Puddin'" Chiles.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: He was a resident from here, yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah. A barber, I believe.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Judge or "Pap" Samuels. Let's see, oh, there's just
so many of them, it's hard to remember.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, there's just a world of them down here.
ELLIS: Nicknames.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: Why the name Craw? Now, you said something earlier,
but I didn't get it on tape.
MRS. ELLIS: They said years ago when it was raining hard, the
streets down there would be just full of crawfish.
WALLACE: Crawfish. Well, did the people of the area who lived
down in there, did they refer to it as Craw or was that sort of .
�
. . you didn't do that? It was a stigma . . .
ELLIS: Well, just an area.
MRS. ELLIS: It was just an area . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: . . . where that low part where those that didn't
have no sewers or nothing, that's what . . . Uncle Jim and them
said they would all come up from the . . . from the river.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Call themselves upgrading it, I guess. Then, they
say the Bottom.
WALLACE: The Bottom.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: All right. Then, after the . . . the '37 [1937]
flood, well, the kind of upper class didn't get no water, or just
a little water. All right. And, then, they [those flooded out]
were [called] "flood rats".
WALLACE: The "flood rats".
ELLIS: All right. Then, when they began to get into
everybody's house, [then] they was "refugees".
WALLACE: Refugees [Laughter] That's good.
ELLIS: And that prison, it had, uh, about half full of water
. . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
�
ELLIS: And those prisoners, they were breaking out and they
were . . .
WALLACE: They were afraid of drowning.
ELLIS: Trying to get out, trying to get out.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: I heard them hollering.
ELLIS: And up here at the . . . you know where the Human
Resource building is now? They had that all blocked off and all
of them prisoners was up there.
WALLACE: Ahh, moved them up there. Well, when you try to
define the limits or the boundaries of the Bottom, is it
Wilkinson Street and the river on the west? Would you go as far
as Hill Street or how . . . how far north would you go when
you're talking about the Bottom? Is it Mero or do you go all the
way up to Hill . . .
ELLIS: Well . . .
WALLACE: . . . on the boundary of it?
ELLIS: I would say from, uh, from Mero, uh, from Mero to Ann
Street. Then, from Ann back to Broadway. Wouldn't you say that?
Because everything was on this side of Broadway.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Everything was on, uh, north of the side of
the railroad tracks.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
�
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Would you go as far east as . . . as St. Clair? You
said Ann. That's . . .
ELLIS: That's . . . that's Broadway . . . I mean, no, uh,
well it's . . .
MRS. ELLIS: No.
ELLIS: Right up from the . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Well, it's on this side of the track, I'm trying to
say to you.
WALLACE: Yeah. I was trying to . . . we've got the track of
the Southern . . .
MRS. ELLIS: He's talking about going this a-way.
WALLACE: I'm talking about going east. How far east would you
go? You . . . you've got the west boundary. That's the river.
You've got the south. That's the railroad tracks. You've got
the north, which you said is about Mero Street. How far east
would you go, and you said . . .
MRS. ELLIS: North would have been clean down to Hill Street.
ELLIS: No, east . . .
WALLACE: Down to Hill? All the way to Hill?
ELLIS: East . . . east would be, uh, High Street because I
lived on High Street.
�
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. But he's talking about covering the area . .
.
ELLIS: That's a . . . it's a square there.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: He's talking about covering the area . . .
ELLIS: Isn't that what you're talking about?
WALLACE: Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to make a square out of it.
You'd go as far . . .
ELLIS: I'd say High Street . . .
WALLACE: . . . east as High?
ELLIS: From High Street to Broadway . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Wilkinson Street.
WALLACE: Street, and, then, up north to . . .
ELLIS: To Hill Street.
WALLACE: Street.
ELLIS: That's . . . that's taking in where all of the blacks
lived.
WALLACE: Lived.
ELLIS: Am I right?
WALLACE: Well, you must have lived close to Jimmy Calhoun
then, all of the Calhouns.
ELLIS: I lived right across from them. They lived . . .
�
where the Post Office is right now?
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: That's where they lived. I lived right across the
street from them. That's High Street.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. That's right.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: He and I talked for three hours. He is a character.
MRS. ELLIS: Isn't he something else?
WALLACE: He . . . he was telling me the day the Calhoun boys
struck oil; that one of the brothers had snuck in and dug a . . .
dug a little trench and ran a 30-foot section of pipe.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: They had a pump and pumped oil through this little
pipe and it started coming out of the ground, and they thought
that they had hit oil in their back yard. [Laughter - Mrs. Ellis]
MRS. ELLIS: They was always doing . . . their mother gave me
music lessons.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
MRS. ELLIS: She could play a piano and could sing.
ELLIS: Well, you know where the Post Office is now?
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: All right. You've noticed that big house right
�
across from there?
WALLACE: Sure.
ELLIS: All right. Mr. Brown, a black fellow lived there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: He's a contractor. He and his wife lived in that big
house there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And they had two sons.
WALLACE: Okay.
ELLIS: And one of their sons in later years was the
principal of Mayo-Underwood High School.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: What was his first name, do you all . . .
MRS. ELLIS: James, Jr., Brown, umhumm.
WALLACE: James Brown, okay. I've heard . . .
MRS. ELLIS: He was our freshman teacher, and we used to tell him
all the time . . . because he . . . he was, he was really
educated. And we didn't know what he was talking about half the
time. And we said, "You've got too much education to be teaching
us." [Laughter - Wallace] "Shoot, we don't know what you're
saying." [Laughter - Wallace]
ELLIS: Yeah. We rented from, uh, uh, what was he, a
�
senator? The next house down . . . where was that, where we
lived?
MRS. ELLIS: Where, upon High Street?
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Elizabeth Lindsey and them?
ELLIS: No, coming back down on this side, Professor Brown's
house. Well, they've got it rented . . .
MRS. ELLIS: One time, Dr. . . . Dr. Anderson. Dr. Anderson and
his son got to be a [state] senator.
ELLIS: Okay. That's who we rented from.
MRS. ELLIS: Dr. Anderson, umhumm. But I can't think of
Anderson's first name. But Dr. Anderson lived there, yes.
ELLIS: Okay. That's who . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And that's whose . . . that's whose house you all
lived in . . .
ELLIS: Yeah. His son got to be a senator.
MRS. ELLIS: Dr. Anderson, uh-huh.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, uh-huh, yeah.
WALLACE: As far as when you were growing up and going to
school, did you, uh, do any after-school jobs to earn money?
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, indeedy.
WALLACE: What did you do, ma'am?
�
MRS. ELLIS: I worked at Beauchamp's Boarding House and washed
them dishes. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Was that just to earn . . .
MRS. ELLIS: A dollar and a half. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Oh, my goodness. A dollar and a half a week or . . .
MRS. ELLIS: When I first went up there, she gave me a dollar and
a half. And, then, I guess she seen I was going to come regular.
Then, I'd have to go down there and get her cigars and things,
and, then, she raised me to 2.50.
WALLACE: About what period of time was this, the thirties
[1930's], or when would you . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Let's see. I can count from . . . I was in the . .
. I was in the eighth grade and going into freshman.
WALLACE: That would have been probably the thirties [1930's].
MRS. ELLIS: Thirties [1930's], un-huh, in the thirties [1930's],
un-huh.
WALLACE: Did you do that because you needed . . . needed to
earn it for the family?
MRS. ELLIS: They'd do that . . . we did it because our families
were . . . should not . . . no. I still got my allowance.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: But nobody is supposed to take care of you. You're
supposed to learn how to do on your own. That's what you were
�
taught then.
WALLACE: Ahh. So, the money that you earned, you got to keep
and to use?
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, yes, yes.
WALLACE: Okay. Did you also have to work, sir?
ELLIS: Yeah. Now, . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Now, sometimes they'd borrow. See, if you . . .
ELLIS: Every afternoon, I was working at the Capitol Hotel.
That's where the State National Bank is now.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: I bellhopped there. I shined shoes there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, uh, really, uh, I made more money shining shoes
there than I did working for the telephone company when I did get
a job. [Laughter - Wallace] Ten cents a shoeshine. And I would
. . . we would have school savings at school, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And I'd have more money than anybody. I'd go up
there every evening and pick up five or six dollars. Then, that
was a lot of money.
WALLACE: How old were you, do you remember?
ELLIS: I was 16 . . . no, 14 [years old].
WALLACE: Un-huh.
�
ELLIS: Give my mother some, and I would keep some. And I
didn't drink. I didn't smoke. Smoke, my mother went along with.
It kept money out of the family, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Until I got up to some size. When I was 18 years
old, I went in the Army, see.
WALLACE: Ahh. So, you . . . as soon as you got out of school,
then, you almost went right in.
MRS. ELLIS: He wasn't out.
ELLIS: I went right . . .
MRS. ELLIS: He didn't finish. He was drafted.
ELLIS: I got two deferments. I got . . . when I was in
school and I got a deferment until I finished school, and, then,
no sooner than I got it, I looked back and they was right there
at the door waiting on me, [laughter - Wallace] and took me right
on in.
WALLACE: Picked you up and took you out the door. [Laughter]
Which branch of the service did you go in?
ELLIS: I was a quartermaster.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: I went to England, France, Germany and Belgium and
the South Pacific which was Manila . . . I mean, that was war
time.
�
WALLACE: You went . . . you saw service in both theaters,
then, European and . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . Asian.
MRS. ELLIS: He said when he'd pull his socks off, they'd be
rotten.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: I was telling her, I would haul supplies and
gasoline, everything that went to the front line.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: I would go through . . . I'll tell you how close I
was behind the fighting. I'd go through these little towns . . .
well, they was big towns over there; running around dead people,
dead horses, dogs and things in the road, just going on.
WALLACE: Oh. Taking supplies up to the front.
ELLIS: Right now, it seems like a dream. You know, it don't
seem like . . .
WALLACE: When did you get out of service, then?
ELLIS: Forty-five [1945].
WALLACE: Forty-five [1945]. So, you came back to Frankfort
after you got out?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: A lot of the vets went north. What led you to stay
�
in Frankfort?
ELLIS: Well, that's where all of my people were, and I had
never been out of town until I went in the Army and, then, I
[laughing] . . . came right on back to Frankfort here.
WALLACE: I see. So many of the black vets went north, and,
then, they came back. A lot of them came back . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . after they had worked up there for a while.
How did you two meet?
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, Lord.
ELLIS: School mates.
WALLACE: Oh, you all . . . that's right. You went to school
together.
ELLIS: Went to Mayo-Underwood school.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Were you childhood sweethearts?
MRS. ELLIS: No, oh, no.
ELLIS: She knew more. She knew more than I did then.
[Laughter] In later years, I caught up with her.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: And got her, too. See what I mean? We've been
married quite awhile . . .
WALLACE: Let me ask you a few other things.
�
ELLIS: Yeah, we went to school together.
WALLACE: When . . . when you were going to school and thinking
about your life after school and what you were going to do, what
. . . what kind of career aspirations did you have, ma'am? I
mean, what did you want to do with your life after school?
MRS. ELLIS: I wanted to be . . . I really always wanted to be a
teacher.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: But when I finished school, I didn't . . . I just
didn't . . . I just didn't feel . . . I don't know. I just
decided there was other things I wanted to try.
WALLACE: Un-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: So, that's just . . . just what I did.
WALLACE: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, I worked at Wright-Patterson Field, too.
WALLACE: Oh, Wright-Pat, the Air Force base?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: I worked at the officers' quarters during the war,
you know. No, there was just, you know, different things I
wanted to do afterwards. And, of course, I'm glad now that I
didn't take . . . go in no teaching thing.
WALLACE: Yeah. It's a hard life for a teacher.
[End of Tape #1, Side #1]
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[Begin Tape #1, Side #2]
WALLACE: . . . profession to get into.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Annie Mary, now, Annie Mary, she went on
through with hers. She's . . . she's a teacher. And Marilyn
Marie, she's a teacher. Now, I don't know. Edna always . . .
Edna Trimble wanted to be one. I guess she is. I don't know. I
haven't heard no more. She might be dead. I don't know.
WALLACE: And people speak very highly of the teachers like Ms.
Samuels and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Ms. Chase and . . .
ELLIS: They were really . . . really educated people with
all kinds of degrees.
MRS. ELLIS: And they . . . one thing about it . . .
WALLACE: And looked up to by . . .
MRS. ELLIS: One thing about it, they had concern for you.
WALLACE: How did they express that concern?
MRS. ELLIS: You know, teachers, they made you. I mean, if they
saw you were getting behind or something, they'd . . . they'd
work with you, you know.
ELLIS: They'd stay at school late.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: They'd stay in school and work with you.
WALLACE: I'll tell you a story Ms. [Henrietta] Gill told me.
�
She wanted to take typing and every . . . all of the typewriters
were taken up. And her teacher had a portable typewriter. And
every day when her teacher came to school, she carried that
portable typewriter . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . .. so Ms. Gill would get to sit in on the class
and type.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh, yeah.
WALLACE: Plus after school.
MRS. ELLIS: That's how, you know . . . and just like Ms. Laura
Chase, if you were in her room and you wrote real bad, you know,
and things, why, then, she started you on the pen . . . didn't
care where we were, she started you on the penmanship, you know.
WALLACE: And worked with you until you . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Until somebody could read your writing.
WALLACE: . . . caught up. What kinds of social activities
took place at Mayo-Underwood? What kind of . . . did they have
dances?
MRS. ELLIS: We had socials, they called them then, you know.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: We didn't call them dances. We had socials and Ms.
Holmes would chaperone and Ms. . . . we had a home economic
teacher, she . . .
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ELLIS: Had a good basketball team.
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, had a good basketball team.
WALLACE: Did you play basketball in school?
ELLIS: I did. They were good. They drew a crowd. Then,
after the basketball game, we would have a social.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh.
ELLIS: All right, at ten o'clock you still had to go home.
Your mamma was out there waiting on you and your dad was out
there waiting on you. [Laughter]
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, they was looking at you dancing.
WALLACE: Somebody told me that the mammas would come . . .
[laughter - Mrs. Ellis] in the balcony and look down at you.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. And, you know, we were still writing notes.
(Laughter]
WALLACE: It's so different today.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Oh, my.
WALLACE: They said the more diplomatic mammas and daddies
would wait outside the building.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughter]
WALLACE: But there was some that would stand . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Right up there in that balcony.
WALLACE: So, uh, I've heard that they used to put on plays,
�
too. That was something . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, we had plays, un-huh.
WALLACE: . . . that Jack Robb . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: . . . and others would put on.
MRS. ELLIS: And Jack had a dancing school.
WALLACE: Oh, he had a dancing school?
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh, upstairs in his mamma's place, because I
used to belong to it.
WALLACE: Would he teach dance to the kids?
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh, un-huh.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: He was supposed to be a fabulous entertainer.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh.
ELLIS: He was a good entertainer, a good piano player, too.
MRS. ELLIS: He didn't charge us . . . he didn't charge us but a
quarter.
WALLACE: Did you all take dancing lessons?
MRS. ELLIS: I did.
ELLIS: I didn't, she did.
WALLACE: Ahh. We used to take what they called cotillion
lessons. It's the same kind of thing.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
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WALLACE: I always hated it when the girls had to pick the
boys. [Laughter] Always some little girl about that tall would
come over and pick you. I remember it.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. We had . . . we had a lot of activities.
WALLACE: Well, when you got out of service and came back, what
kind of career did you go into? Was that the telephone . . .
ELLIS: No, I worked at Frankfort Drug Store for five years.
Then, I worked at the . . . Glenn's . . . Glenn's . . . I kept
changing jobs, more money.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: More days off, holidays like that. I went to Glenn's
Grocery Store and I worked there about three [years]. And, then,
I came back to Frankfort Drug.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, then, I went to the telephone company from
there. That was in 1950.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: And I worked at the telephone company 32 years.
WALLACE: Ahh. South Central Bell.
ELLIS: I retired from South Central Bell, umhumm.
WALLACE: Okay. And did you work also during the period, this
period of time?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, I worked for years. I worked all the time. I
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ain't been long stopped. But, uh . . .
WALLACE: But you're both retired now.
ELLIS: Yeah, umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, umhumm.
WALLACE: Uh, . . .
MRS. ELLIS: See, I finally took up home nursing, you know,
nursing people.
WALLACE: Ahh. Whereabouts did you all go to church? Did you
go to Corinthian Baptist or . . .
ELLIS: I went to the Holiness Church. The church right here
on the corner, you're talking about.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: And I went to St. John's. Is it on there?
WALLACE: The AME, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: I went there, and I still go there now.
WALLACE: There's St. Clair coming into Clinton. So, St.
John's would be . . . wait a second. Let me get it right. Where
does Lewis come in?
ELLIS: Mero. It should be in between here, shouldn't it?
WALLACE: Here it is. Here's Lewis . . . St. John's AME, right
there on the corner.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, that's where I went.
ELLIS: That's still there. That church is still there.
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MRS. ELLIS: That's where I went and that's where I still go.
WALLACE: Can you describe the inside of the Holiness Church to
me, what it looked like?
ELLIS: It . . . it wasn't no modern church. It was a new
church.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: They built it new. It wasn't no modern church. It
had regular benches and . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: . . . when they built it . . .
MRS. ELLIS: They built a nice church, though.
ELLIS: . . . it was a nice church.
MRS. ELLIS: And it had a nice basement.
ELLIS: It wasn't modern like it is now, you know. It had
nice benches . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And a nice basement and everything, un-huh.
WALLACE: How large of a membership did they have?
ELLIS: Oh, buddy. I'd say it was about . . . then, I guess,
what, about 150?
WALLACE: That's a good size.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Or a hundred . . .
MRS. ELLIS: I'd say about a hundred.
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WALLACE: Well, somebody told me they had a . . . a . . . a
woman minister there.
ELLIS: That's right, Mother . . .
MRS. ELLIS: They did.
ELLIS: . . . Jones they called her.
WALLACE: Mother Jones.
MRS. ELLIS: Mother Jones, un-huh. They started in a little
small church.
ELLIS: Started in a house.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
MRS. ELLIS: Started in a house, and, they moved to a smaller
church. They built the smaller church, and, then, they built the
big church on the corner.
WALLACE: Was the house and the smaller church also down in the
Bottom?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Right beside.
MRS. ELLIS: They were side by side.
WALLACE: Was it . . .
MRS. ELLIS: They never did get rid of the other property.
WALLACE: Un-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: They just built another church.
WALLACE: When you say holiness, I get an image of speaking in
�
tongues . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Right.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . and laying hands on . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: . . . and faith healing and that kind of thing.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Uh, did that church . . . when urban renewal came
through, did they reestablish themselves someplace else? Are
they still in existence?
MRS. ELLIS: On Wallace Avenue.
ELLIS: Un-huh. She'll tell you.
MRS. ELLIS: They went on Wallace Avenue.
WALLACE: Oh, I know . . . across from that garage?
MRS. ELLIS: They had meetings at our church for a while.
ELLIS: No. It was behind that garage, okay; you're right.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Behind that filling station, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: They had a fire.
MRS. ELLIS: Then, they had meetings at our church for a while.
WALLACE: Oh, at St. John's AME?
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh, and, then, until they bought that place.
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ELLIS: They found this one.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh. And, then, they bought that place out on
Wallace. And, then, uh, they changed names. And now they're
down on Warsaw, ain't it?
WALLACE: Yeah. I think that's what I was referring to.
MRS. ELLIS: That's the same church. That's the same church.
WALLACE: That's the same church.
MRS. ELLIS: Same church.
ELLIS: Now, they're building a new church out on, uh, uh,
uh, Leestown . . . no, you know, uh, going out . . . what's the
name of that going out . . .
WALLACE: Georgetown Road, isn't it?
ELLIS: No, down there at the Resource building.
MRS. ELLIS: No.
WALLACE: Oh, uh . . .
ELLIS: Glenn's Creek.
WALLACE: Glenn's Creek.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: They've got a lot out there and they're building a
new church out there now.
WALLACE: It seems like to me the church played a large role in
the black community.
�
MRS. ELLIS: It did because we went to church or you didn't go
nowhere else.
ELLIS: There were three . . . at one time, there were four
churches down there.
WALLACE: Well . . . okay. Corinthian, St. John's, the Bethel
Temple . . .
MRS. ELLIS: First Baptist.
ELLIS: First Baptist.
WALLACE: First Baptist.
ELLIS: And, then, Sister Staples, they had a church.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, on Clinton.
ELLIS: On Clinton Street.
WALLACE: Now, where was . . . where was her church on Clinton?
MRS. ELLIS: It was between . . . it was between Wilkinson and,
uh . . .
ELLIS: Clinton, I think, Clinton and, uh, uh, uh, Center.
MRS. ELLIS: Center Street, un-huh.
WALLACE: Okay. Here's . . . there's Wilkinson and here's
Center coming in.
ELLIS: All right. Let's see, where's Clinton at?
MRS. ELLIS: It was on the . . . let's see . . .
WALLACE: Here's Clinton.
ELLIS: It was on the right . . .
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MRS. ELLIS: It was on the right-hand side.
ELLIS: Second house. Right in this building, I'd say here.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: And it sat back.
WALLACE: Okay.
ELLIS: A big two-story building.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh, and it sat back.
WALLACE: Yeah. Well, that's it right there, then.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Was that holiness or . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: That was a holiness. And Sister, what was her name,
Sister . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Staples.
WALLACE: Staples, okay.
ELLIS: Boy, I remember the last time because, uh, uh, uh,
a big get-together there. Man, they had a big time . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And people would be all . . . oh, we would go there.
ELLIS: You couldn't get in the place. They'd be all in the
street and all . . .
MRS. ELLIS: After we'd leave . . . after we left our church . .
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. then, we had night services, and after we left our church, and,
uh, we'd go to Sister Staples and, stand out . . .
ELLIS: Couldn't get in. You'd have to stand on the outside.
WALLACE: It was that . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, uh, she left, she left and went back to
Detroit. And, then, after she left from there and when we'd get
out of our church, then, we'd go to Henry and them's church
because they didn't let out until ten or eleven o'clock.
WALLACE: Well, I've heard . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And we'd all go because we had friends that belonged
to that church, too. So, we'd go to that church.
WALLACE: Were there any white members of these churches?
ELLIS: Yeah, Brother Perkins.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, there is now.
ELLIS: He helped to build that church. He put a lot of
money in that church.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, uh, . . .
WALLACE: I've heard they sing beautiful anthems and have
music.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, yeah. And, see, his wife, Brother Perkins'
wife is the cause of them being in the church they're in now.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
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WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: And them other gentlemen and Brother John, they
retired and went back to Detroit, Michigan to an old . . . I
mean, old saints home.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: But, now, they both have . . .
WALLACE: Gone on?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: . . . passed.
WALLACE: So, they came down . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And they turned it over to . . . what is his name?
ELLIS: Reverend Owens.
MRS. ELLIS: Reverend Owens.
ELLIS: From Indianapolis, Indiana.
WALLACE: Red Owens?
ELLIS: Reverend Owens.
MRS. ELLIS: Reverend Owens, umhumm.
WALLACE: Reverend Owens. Is he still here in the community?
MRS. ELLIS: No. He's gone.
ELLIS: No. He's not even here now.
MRS. ELLIS: He turned it over to a younger preacher. He began
to get failing.
WALLACE: The Joneses came down from Detroit specifically to
�
take that mission?
ELLIS: No. They came from Lancaster. Wasn't it Lancaster,
Kentucky?
MRS. ELLIS: I think it was Lancaster. No, and they . . . just
kept coming to this church and they finally . . .
ELLIS: I thought they came from Lancaster.
MRS. ELLIS: They did.
ELLIS: Huh?
MRS. ELLIS: They did.
WALLACE: Well, it just . . . it struck me how important the
church is and that women played a large role in leadership in the
church.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes . . .
WALLACE: And you don't find that in white churches as much as
black.
MRS. ELLIS: Right, un-huh.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: Like women ushers, the women elders. I think Ms.
Holmes said she was on the trustees of St. John's AME.
MRS. ELLIS: She is, St. John's, my church. She belongs to my
church.
WALLACE: Which I guess . . . I don't really know why the
�
whites don't put their women in leader . . . or let their women
assume the leadership roles, but they don't seem to as much as
the black.
MRS. ELLIS: As much as blacks, uh-uh.
WALLACE: What kind of . . . did they have women's auxiliary
groups at the church?
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, yes, yes.
WALLACE: Like WMU and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: We have, uh, we have, uh, Hospitality, and, then, we
have . . . we've got, uh . . . you know, Henry. I can't even . .
. the one that's got the money. What's it called?
ELLIS: Women play a big role in it right now.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, we . . . we've got a lot of . . . we've got
a lot. And, then, we have the steward's board. We just have a
lot of, you know . . . now, this time, we haven't . . . next
Sunday, we have . . . we're not just going to have women's day
like we've been doing. We're going to have men's and women's day
combined.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: And we're having these people come in from Tennessee
and bring a busload in.
WALLACE: To lead the service and activities.
MRS. ELLIS: Un-huh.
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WALLACE: Well, let me ask you. I . . . I talked to Henry
Sanders and George Simmons and we got to talking about the NAACP
Chapter in Frankfort and, oh, the sit-ins they had at some of the
restaurants to try to get the restaurants to open up and Juniper
Hills' swim pool and, uh, the Frankfort Drug Store. There's a
legal case between the Frankfort Drug Store and the NAACP about
service at the counter there.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Were you all active in any of the . . .
ELLIS: Well, I worked there then.
WALLACE: Oh, you were working there at the time?
ELLIS: Yeah. They had a . . . [Laughter - Mrs. Ellis]
WALLACE: You probably know the inside story on that.
ELLIS: Well, the Fitzgerald Drug, they had a . . . a
fountain, too. Well, they had taken theirs out.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Well, as far as intregra- . . . integration around
Frankfort, it wasn't . . . wasn't bad at all.
MRS. ELLIS: What they're talking about is what they were getting
against so that you could go in there.
ELLIS: Yeah. Like I said, everybody knowed everybody. But
there would be different stores that didn't want to integrate,
�
you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Were you working at Frankfort Drug when they
. . . when they had the lawsuit between, uh, I guess it was the
NAACP and Frankfort Drug about service there at the counter, or
had you already left and were working some other place?
ELLIS: I believe I had already gone because it would . . .
well, then, there wasn't but one black person that came in there
then and that was Jack Robb's son. He looked like a white boy.
He could go in there.
WALLACE: Yeah, he was very light . . .
ELLIS: He'd come in and sit down just right with the rest of
them and nobody paid no attention. But, no, I wasn't there,
then, I guess. I had gone.
WALLACE: So, you all weren't active in the local NAACP or
participated in . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Henry and I went to one or two meetings, but we kept
saying . . . we just kept putting it off and putting it off.
WALLACE: Oh.
MRS. ELLIS: And I just really hadn't, but our granddaughter, she
had gone.
WALLACE: Let me . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Carla belongs.
WALLACE: I have the names of some . . .
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MRS. ELLIS: But since she's been going to college, I don't think
she's been too active in it . . .
WALLACE: Well, they said . . .
MRS. ELLIS: . . . This year . . . last year or something.
WALLACE: . . . the Frankfort chapter sort of got revitalized
when the urban renewal project came in because a lot of people
got together and tried to block the urban renewal.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: It was sort of what sparked them up.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I've got some names of . . .
MRS. ELLIS: But we didn't have enough money. I was in it then.
They didn't have enough . . . we didn't have enough money to
fight it. They got a lawyer and things from Louisville, but it
didn't . . .
WALLACE: Well, that's . . . maybe I'll switch over to urban
renewal just for a little while. Uh, you mentioned the lawyers.
I heard that they brought in a couple of lawyers. Uh, there was
Julius Knippenberg and J. S. Carroll were hired to try and fight
the project.
MRS. ELLIS: Project, umhumm.
WALLACE: But I never heard what became of . . . I don't know
�
if they fought . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Who did? Who did?
WALLACE: What?
MRS. ELLIS: Who did ever hear of what . . .
WALLACE: Nobody has told me yet.
MRS. ELLIS: They did what they wanted to and that was it.
WALLACE: Well, see, somebody told me the property owners were
contributing hundreds of dollars . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Of dollars to . . . to try to stop it, but it . . .
it didn't do any good because they were trying to save . . .
really trying to save the Corinthian Church, too.
WALLACE: Oh, really? They made special efforts to save
Corinthian?
MRS. ELLIS: Well, you know, to save their property, too, but, I
mean, you know, they still wanted the church and all and the
school.
WALLACE: Mayo-Underwood, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: But, see, and . . .
WALLACE: Nothing came. Well, there was a petition . . .
MRS. ELLIS: See, they had, uh, well, they had . . . they had so
many people against them that had money.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: They had been planning it all along for years.
�
WALLACE: Were any blacks involved?
MRS. ELLIS: And when they got them in there, that was it.
WALLACE: Were any blacks involved in the planning of the urban
renewal?
MRS. ELLIS: No, because . . . no, you know there weren't.
WALLACE: Yeah, I haven't found . . .
MRS. ELLIS: No, no, you know there wasn't; no, indeed.
WALLACE: I haven't found . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Because, uh, one thing about it, this . . . this,
you know, since you've been here you know this is a political
thing.
WALLACE: Yeah. Well, let me ask you . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And if you don't stand in with the right people . .
.
WALLACE: You're out.
MRS. ELLIS: You're . . . you're out.
WALLACE: Do you remember when you found out about the project,
how you found out? Did a friend tell you or you read it in the
newspaper or did you go to the public hearings that they had?
MRS. ELLIS: They didn't have none when they first started it.
WALLACE: Oh, really. When did it first start, do you remember
offhand?
MRS. ELLIS: No, I don't. All I know is that every time they'd
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try to get a piece of land, that's what they did.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, that's when the plans really began to
form.
WALLACE: When they started buying up . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Because they bought . . . you know Mr. Richard
Anderson died.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And they bought around there on Hill Street, that
property.
ELLIS: All they want is a foothold and then they can go on
from there . . .
MRS. ELLIS: All they want is a foothold.
WALLACE: Well, see, I didn't think the original project was
supposed to include Hill Street and that area north of Mero. I
thought the . . . when they started, it was just going to be down
sort of in what was the heart of . . . of Bottom, in . . . in
that . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And that's what everybody thought, but when they
started and got started, they got everything.
WALLACE: Why did they keep expanding the area? I mean . . .
MRS. ELLIS: See, they tore down . . . see they were doing it . .
.
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ELLIS: Like I said, getting old houses, old houses and never
. . .
MRS. ELLIS: They were doing it. They were doing it all along
under cover.
WALLACE: A little bit . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, and the Planning Board and all of them were
having meetings. Nobody knew it. If you worked with somebody
that was in there and all, then, they would tell you a little bit
about what was going on.
WALLACE: So, they might tip off a friend who worked for them,
a black woman or a black man who worked . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Right, they'd work for them and that's the way some
of them knew.
WALLACE: Knew.
MRS. ELLIS: Because they said that's the way a whole lot of ways
and another lady knew was through where she worked.
WALLACE: Worked. Ahh, okay. Well, they circulated . . . the
property owners down there circulated a petition to get . . .
MRS. ELLIS: See, they tore down all of the different places at
different times. They didn't just come and tear down . . .
ELLIS: And tear the whole thing down, un-huh.
WALLACE: Just little bits and pieces.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, until you was almost forced. They'd come and
�
offer you a price for your property. You was almost forced.
WALLACE: Well, did some people hold out for a better price?
ELLIS: They did, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: They did.
WALLACE: Were you all . . . did you all own a house at that
time down there?
MRS. ELLIS: No, my aunt and uncle did.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: But she kept holding out.
WALLACE: Did she get . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And she also knew somebody.
WALLACE: Ahh. That helped her a bit, I'd say.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Well, did she get a price that she was satisfied with
by holding out?
MRS. ELLIS: She died, bless her heart.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: I'm glad.
WALLACE: Before it was all over?
MRS. ELLIS: Before it was over, yeah.
WALLACE: One person said . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Because she would . . . it would have killed her
anyhow. It was killing her anyhow. That was her everyday talk.
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WALLACE: Well, see, a lot of people told me that they felt
some of the elderly people, their passing on was sped up by this
project.
MRS. ELLIS: It was, it was. Ms. Hattie Green wasn't . . . She
said . . . She even said, "There's no way in the world that I
can come back at my age, and my husband is gone." See, he had
died, you know.
WALLACE: So many of them owned their homes and they were
elderly and they couldn't get enough money to buy . . .
MRS. ELLIS: No, no.
WALLACE: So, they . . . I know . . . a couple of people told
me they had to go back into debt . . .
MRS. ELLIS: To get another place.
WALLACE: . . . to get another home.
ELLIS: You almost have to do that now.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: If they buy your house, you go down there and you
still have to borrow money to go along with it.
MRS. ELLIS: And, see, they're still running around grasping it.
They grasped all of this property up here.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Now look at it.
WALLACE: Yeah.
�
MRS. ELLIS: They've used all they need to use and now look at
it.
ELLIS: They're trying to sell it back.
MRS. ELLIS: Now, if you try to buy it back, you can't build
nothing on it.
WALLACE: No.
MRS. ELLIS: So, why do you want a piece of land?
WALLACE: Well, did . . . did you all, uh, do anything to
resist . . . I mean, did you attend any of the public hearings or
sign any of the petitions or any way voice your protest against
the project or . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, we did, yes.
WALLACE: What . . . what ways did you all express your
opinion?
MRS. ELLIS: Well, they had meetings, and, of course, when we had
the . . . they had the papers and, of course, we . . . you know,
we was against it . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: That's all you could do . . . and, of course, they
had the speakings and all. That's all you could do.
WALLACE: Well, when . . . when they had the speakings, did you
all or your friends stand up and express any opinions about the
project or what . . . what did you all hear at these meetings?
�
What kind of concerns did the neighborhood . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Well, they would just come in with the plan of what
they had.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And what they were doing and how it would benefit
you and everything. It didn't. But, anyway, that's what they
said. And . . .
WALLACE: What kind of things were they telling you?
MRS. ELLIS: That, uh, you know, you'd live in a better place
and, you know, and so forth. That's what they were telling you.
WALLACE: Did they tell you you could buy back in and come
back?
ELLIS: No.
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, no, no. They . . . they . . . they expressed a
plan that . . . that . . . they never did say exactly what they
were going to do down there, but everybody knowed that the state
wanted it. So, that's all you can make out of it.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: The state wanted it. And they said the state was
going to come through.
WALLACE: Ahh. Well, see, one of the things I was led to
believe was when they originally . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And Mr. Mills and them knew that the state wanted
�
it. They said that . . .
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, well, sure.
WALLACE: Mr. Mills, you say?
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. And all of the big people. They knew what
they were doing; they're political.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: You know it's political because if you work for the
state . . . I worked for the state . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: When I got on and I never did have an interview.
WALLACE: You mean nobody ever came and interviewed you?
MRS. ELLIS: I . . . I never even went and got it. I never even
went to nobody to interview. [Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: It's all who you know.
MRS. ELLIS: I went to my lawyer and he called up on the
telephone and told me to go to work over at the state office, you
know. You see what I'm telling you?
ELLIS: I put an application . . .
WALLACE: Yeah, I know how things can work if you've got the
right people.
ELLIS: I put an application in at the state and never have
heard from it right now, and my brother came up where I was
�
working . . . of course, I worked for the Highway Commissioner,
you know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And he told me he needed a job and he got on the
phone and called over the state [inaudible] and said, "I'm
sending a man over there, put him to work."
WALLACE: Ahh, and that's all there was to it.
ELLIS: I still ain't heard from my application yet.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, it's just according to who you know, I'm
telling you.
WALLACE: Well, I think you mentioned one time you all had to
move around two or three times after this project started.
MRS. ELLIS: Sure. I lived on the corner at the time, and, uh,
the people that owned the house that I lived in at that time,
Professor Condon and them, they lived in Dayton. And they were
sort of holding out as long as they could and all. And, uh,
well, anyway, they finally, uh, had to give in. There wasn't no
other choice. So, then, they moved me from there . . . my mother
and all of us lived there, and we had six rooms, two halls and a
bath and all. And my mother died during that December and all
before it was . . . before that spring. And they sold it out in
that spring. And they moved me from there because I was by
�
myself at the time.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And in a four-room; and all of this furniture and
stuff, I had to get rid of.
WALLACE: I've heard that from a lot of people; that you'd keep
moving and losing things.
MRS. ELLIS: And pull it and carry it and lose it.
ELLIS: Well, the people with families, that's who they were
trying to replace first.
MRS. ELLIS: That's who they would take.
ELLIS: If you didn't have no family, they wasn't worried
about you.
MRS. ELLIS: If you didn't have a, you was . . . they wasn't
worried about you, no, no.
WALLACE: So, single people, they just . . .
MRS. ELLIS: I stood one day in line until . . . went in one
morning at nine o'clock and stood in that line. And when I got
out, it was about 1:30. And they told me when they got to me,
they asked me how many was in my family and everything. And I
told them, and they said, "Well, you can find someplace. We're
getting the ones with a family and that's on the welfare."
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: Sure did. And what-chu-ma-call-it, Little Curtis,
�
that was there and Jack was there. Of course, they're all dead
now.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: And . . . but we were the ones that didn't have
these big families and everything. So, Jack went on to live with
his father, Frank, un-huh.
WALLACE: So, if you were single and by yourself, you were on
your own then.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: I mean, they weren't really helping you.
MRS. ELLIS: No. And, like, if you had anything, uh, any income,
I was working and making so much, that was a no-no.
WALLACE: No-no in what sense? They . . .
MRS. ELLIS: I mean for . . . for help.
WALLACE: Ahh. So, at one point, I was told they would pay
relocation assistance. They'd give you some money if you had to
move, and help you move. Did you get any kind of assistance when
you were moving from apartment to apartment?
MRS. ELLIS: I got somebody to help to move my things because I
didn't want everybody breaking my things up. And, then, another
thing about it, uh, they kept writing me letters, but I ain't
never got no check till today and I'm ready to die. [Laughter -
Wallace, Ellis]
�
WALLACE: They never gave you any kind of compensation?
MRS. ELLIS: I ain't got none yet. I filled out the papers and
things for them.
WALLACE: Them. But they never did follow through on it.
MRS. ELLIS: No.
WALLACE: Did you have any dealings with, uh, Frank Lewis or
Charles Perry?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, I had; the old bastard.
WALLACE: Lewis or Perry?
ELLIS: Both.
WALLACE: Both of them? See, Perry I called and he refused to
. . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, he was nasty anyway.
WALLACE: Well, he . . .
MRS. ELLIS: They both didn't do none of us right.
WALLACE: Well, see, I had one fellow tell me, and I won't tell
you his name . . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: But he said, uh, he was surprised that those men
weren't killed.
MRS. ELLIS: Now, you better believe it.
WALLACE: Because there was a lot of people who had relatives
out of town . . .
�
MRS. ELLIS: Well, that second time I had to move, if I'd had a
gun, I would have used it . . .
WALLACE: That their relatives would come back and they . . .
they were so distressed to see what was happening to their
families down in the area . . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . that there was really some hard feelings
towards . . .
MRS. ELLIS: There certainly was.
WALLACE: . . . towards some of those people.
MRS. ELLIS: And Frank Lewis was a big liar.
WALLACE: What kind of lies . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That's why I'm telling you, I'm ready to die now.
He was the one that filled them papers out and I never did get
nothing.
WALLACE: What kind of lies were you told?
MRS. ELLIS: I mean, what they were going to . . . what they were
supposed to do.
WALLACE: Do.
MRS. ELLIS: I just . . . they never did do it, not for me.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Or Little Curtis or none of us.
WALLACE: Well, a lot of people . . . it's funny; they still
�
have very bitter feelings . . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: It's been 30 years . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: . . . since this has . . . and they still have hard
feelings.
MRS. ELLIS: And he come here with nothing. He come to Frankfort
with nothing. His pants was just as raggedy in the back as they
could be.
WALLACE: Mr. Lewis's?
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Mr. Lewis's. [Laughing]
WALLACE: I have yet to call him. I've been sort of waiting.
I wanted to talk . . .
MRS. ELLIS: He'd probably tell you a bunch of lies, but, anyway,
go on and call him.
WALLACE: Well, I'm trying to get everybody's viewpoints.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I'm going to give everybody a chance to sound out . .
.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, I mean, really, we just wasn't treated right.
We wasn't.
�
WALLACE: You . . . treated right in the sense of told the
truth, given compensation for your . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And it looks like if you told the truth about what
you're supposed to get . . .
ELLIS: You don't get nothing.
MRS. ELLIS: . . . you don't get nothing.
WALLACE: Well, they were supposed to go from house to house .
. .
MRS. ELLIS: Because they'd pocket that money. You know it?
WALLACE: Oh, really?
MRS. ELLIS: Sure, they had to because, uh, they made like that
they had so much for this.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, everybody didn't get it to do what they had to
do. So, where's the money?
WALLACE: Where did that money go? And I don't know. I have
yet to see any records that . . . [Laughing - Ellis]
MRS. ELLIS: See, that's what I mean. But, I mean, we're not
dumb. We're not dumb people. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Somebody was making out on that.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah.
WALLACE: So, as far as, uh, public housing, were you all
eligible or even interested in public housing if it had been made
�
available to you?
ELLIS: Well, it was the same way. You had to have a family.
WALLACE: You had to have a family. You could not . . .
MRS. ELLIS: At that time. You sure did.
ELLIS: And even getting in the housing projects, you know.
MRS. ELLIS: And Henry's got a sister's been in one ever since
it's opened.
WALLACE: Which? Is she over in Riverview or, uh, oh, what's
the one up behind KSU, Sutterlin?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, that's where Margaret lives, up on Douglas,
yeah.
ELLIS: Douglas Avenue, ain't it?
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: They owned a house on Mero Street, too, see, during
that time.
MRS. ELLIS: They owned one and they had to move.
ELLIS: They had a two-story house there and they sold it.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And, then, she went into public housing after they
sold their house?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, yeah
ELLIS: Right. Been down there ever since.
�
MRS. ELLIS: See, because Margaret has eight children.
WALLACE: Ahh, my goodness.
MRS. ELLIS: She had two away from home.
ELLIS: And one guy . . .
MRS. ELLIS: One grown. There wasn't nobody grown but Barbara
and Leland. That's all . . .
ELLIS: One guy had another big family and they . . . you
know how the houses are. You come in two doors, one on one side.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Two different houses. They knocked the wall out and
put one family in there.
MRS. ELLIS: And made it big enough for them.
WALLACE: Ahh, in the public housing unit?
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Yeah. Ms. [Henrietta] Gill told me that, uh, she and
her daughter, they shoved her into a unit that was so small they
had to put their bed sideways . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Sure did, sure did, sure did put them right up in
there.
WALLACE: So, a lot of people . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Nowhere to put your furniture.
WALLACE: They might have gone from a big house to a small . .
�
. . a small and they lost, like you said, they had to sell rooms
of furniture because they had no place . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Give it away, you know, you do whatever you could.
WALLACE: Well, supposedly the federal government was going to
make low-interest housing loans available.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, yes.
WALLACE: Do you know of anybody who got any or did . . .
nobody I've talked to ever qualified for one of those loans.
ELLIS: Well, right now, they've got them right now. But
every time you get a raise, your rent goes up.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: That's right over here, Prince Hall Manor.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And they know before you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: I don't know how they find out, but . . . [Laughing]
WALLACE: They do. Well, I've heard that from people. Anytime
you got a salary increase, your rent went up.
ELLIS: That's right.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Well, let me . . . let me switch away from this urban
renewal for a while other than to find out when you all left . .
. when did you all finally move out of the Bottom area, do you
�
remember?
ELLIS: Let's see. I moved out when . . . because we weren't
married then.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: We weren't married then. I moved out in 1962.
WALLACE: Okay. Were you there for the . . .
ELLIS: I mean, yeah, '61 [1961].
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Right here where I'm now.
WALLACE: Oh, you moved right to here?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And when did you . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. And I went to Lexington with the white
people and worked. And, then . . . I was trying to think. I
went to . . . I went to . . . with Lawyer Davis and them to Ohio.
That's when I moved out, wasn't it?
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: But I was trying to think of what year that was. It
had to be in the fifties [1950's], didn't it?
ELLIS: No, it was sixties [1960's].
MRS. ELLIS: The sixties [1960's] because it was after the flood.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: The '62 [1962] flood?
�
ELLIS: Sixty-two [1962].
MRS. ELLIS: After the '62 [1962] flood.
ELLIS: Sixty-two [1962] . . .
MRS. ELLIS: I'd say it was about in '63 [1963] I moved out
because I went to, uh, I didn't go back. I went to [phone
ringing] I went to, uh, Ohio to work with Ms. Davis and them.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: I was glad to get out here. Every year at the . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: We had to move up or move out. And the last time I
went out to my mother's . . . I was living here then and they
were living on Wilkinson Street.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: One day I cut a hole in the ceiling and began to pull
their stuff upstairs.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And, uh, I had . . . when I went, I didn't have my
boots on, but when I . . . but while I was in there, I had to put
them on.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: And when I come out, water was up to my knees.
WALLACE: So, you were pulling furniture up through a hole in
the ceiling?
�
ELLIS: Up through the ceiling to upstairs.
WALLACE: In the '62 [1962] flood or was that . . . was that
the '62 [1962] or the . . .
ELLIS: That was the '62 [1962], yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And that saved a whole lot of her stuff.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, I guess I left from down there about '63
[1963].
WALLACE: Sixty-three [1963].
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Because after . . . when Ms. Davis and them
. . . I moved with them up there and helped them to get
straightened out. And, of course, I come on back home. But I
stayed up there. But I never did go back down there because me
and my cousins and all, we got through, got rid of all of that
stuff.
WALLACE: I'll ask you one last question about the urban
renewal and, then, I've got a few other things and, then, I'll
leave you in peace. Why did they pick that area of town for the
urban renewal?
MRS. ELLIS: Because of the river. You see what they're doing
now, don't you?
WALLACE: What, with the river or . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, and all of that. You see what they're doing.
�
WALLACE: I'm missing you here. I'm not following you.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, I mean, they had . . . they wanted a river
view. They want the state . . .
WALLACE: And they wanted to develop that whole area.
MRS. ELLIS: . . . and all and they want it all in that area.
WALLACE: I see what you're saying.
MRS. ELLIS: And they've got it all in that area.
WALLACE: So, you think that was the motive all along; they
wanted that . . .
MRS. ELLIS: See, they've got that all in that area. And they're
coming on down, you watch what I tell you.
WALLACE: Umhumm, yeah. They're . . . they're . . .
MRS. ELLIS: I might not live to see it, but . . .
ELLIS: And they . . .
MRS. ELLIS: . . . you will because, I mean, younger. But you
watch just what I tell you of how much the state is going to
have.
WALLACE: Have. Oh, they're buying up lots of stuff now.
MRS. ELLIS: Because, see, they're thinking about out here. And
here, we sit out in the country.
WALLACE: Oh, the state is thinking about buying up . . .
MRS. ELLIS: They're building . . . going to building things all
up in here.
�
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: In 1978, they had high water here again, and, uh,
they had a tractor, a flat tractor and trailer, down there after
the flood, full of pumps.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And they would bring them pumps out every so often
trying to keep that water out of the project. They had a 24-hour
guard out there keeping changing the motors, but they kept it up,
you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. They came within, like, a foot of cresting . .
.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . over that . . . that floodwall down there.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. See, we, uh, we, uh, all very religious and
we're liable yet to still get to live and to see them all washed
over that wall down there. [Laughter - Wallace] We still
believe in our black heritage. [Laughter - Wallace]
ELLIS: During the '37 [1937] flood . . .
MRS. ELLIS: We still believe there is a God. [Laughter -
Wallace]
WALLACE: And if there is, it will wash that whole thing away.
ELLIS: During the '37 [1937] flood, it was up with the
electric wires, up to the pole, way up yonder. Now, you know . .
�
.
MRS. ELLIS: So, then, you know it can still do something.
WALLACE: Well, I was talking to Ms. Berry over at the corner
of Hoge and Holmes Street.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: And she said she's living for the day when that Tower
sinks into a wet spring that she thinks is right under it.
[Laughter - Mrs. Ellis] It's going to go all the way down.
MRS. ELLIS: Sure, sure, un-huh. It's nothing but water down
there.
WALLACE: Well, she said . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And how do they think they're going to outlive it?
WALLACE: She had friends that refuse to go back down.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: They will not set foot down there they're still so
angry about what happened.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, un-huh. The onliest time I'm ever in the Plaza
is when they have something for the church.
WALLACE: If there was a . . . a Bottom today, if all of this
was mysteriously back where it was, would you live there again?
Would you go back?
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: I certainly would.
�
ELLIS: I sure would, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Why, certainly. We lived like people and all of
these people are like animals everywhere else.
ELLIS: Sure would.
WALLACE: Well, let me . . .
[End of Tape #1, Side #2]
[Begin Tape #2, Side #1]
WALLACE: . . . memories of it.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: I've got some names of . . . of women who lived in
that area who were . . . well, African-American and white women.
Uh, Mamma Bryant. Do you have any remembrances of Mamma Bryant?
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. Bless her heart.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: They said she could cook like you . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: That, uh, uh, I tell you. Mr. [James] Calhoun told
me that sometimes she'd cook up extra food and her specialty
supposedly was chicken . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Chicken pot pies, or fried chicken, I guess it was
maybe. And she'd hang a lantern off of her front porch . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
�
WALLACE: And he calls it a festival.
ELLIS: Festival, uh-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right. That's what she done.
WALLACE: I had never heard of festival.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: And you could go . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That's what we always called it, festivals.
WALLACE: . . . and buy . . . buy a little bit.
ELLIS: Chicken pies, pigs feet, everything, you know.
WALLACE: And he said sometimes you'd go down that street and
there'd be three or four . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Why, yes.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And you could go . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And on Washington Street, there would be Ms. Patsy
Jackson and, uh-huh.
ELLIS: There was a whole lot of times . . . let me tell you
something. A whole lot of times, white people wouldn't come down
there, but they would send somebody down there to get them some,
you know. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Yeah. Well, somebody told me he used to make money.
He'd pick up three or four dinners in his wagon . . .
ELLIS: Wagon.
�
WALLACE: . . . and take them to people who was either scared
or didn't want to be . . . come down there . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . or nothing like that.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Uh, Ida Howard. Ida Howard, white woman, somewhat
questionable reputation.
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, you know Ida Howard was, Henry.
ELLIS: Lived down there on the . . .
MRS. ELLIS: She used to live on . . .
WALLACE: Hill Street.
ELLIS: Yeah, Hill and Washington.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Sure, yeah.
WALLACE: She had a questionable reputation. Let's put it that
way.
ELLIS: Right. Okay. Now, you're right. [Laughter] Yeah,
but she was sharp, though.
WALLACE: A smart woman?
MRS. ELLIS: She was sharp, honey. She would dress, honey. She
was sharp because us little kids, we . . . that was something for
us to see . . .
�
WALLACE: To see her come down the street?
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, because, honey, she wore them clothes.
WALLACE: Finery, finery.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Uh, let me see who else. Eva Cox.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh, that's . . . old Miss Eva, that's my old
buddy.
ELLIS: "Squeezer" Brown, could you hear something, he had
an old banjo he'd play.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And he'd come down the street and you'd hear him
saying, oh, Eva Cox, oh, Eva Cox. Boy, she would run him every
which way. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Jimmy Calhoun was trying to remember the lyrics of
that song. He could not remember . . .
MRS. ELLIS: What was that he'd sing about Ms. Eva, Henry?
ELLIS: Oh, he had Ms. Eva Cox. Boy and she'd run him every
time they'd come down there.
MRS. ELLIS: He's asking what was the lyrics.
WALLACE: Do you remember any of the words . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Do you remember the lyrics?
�
WALLACE: . . . of that song?
ELLIS: Uh-uh.
WALLACE: But, uh . . .
ELLIS: No, I don't.
MRS. ELLIS: He'd have it all rhymed up together.
WALLACE: Together. But she, uh, supposedly made money from
selling baseball tickets.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Go door to door and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and you'd pick a couple of teams . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . and if your teams came in high end . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . uh, you could also bet the races, I think.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: She was lucky. She was lucky, too.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right. She was lucky, too.
WALLACE: Oh. She said- . . . somebody told me if you started
winning too much from her, she wouldn't come back by your place
no more. [Laughter]
MRS. ELLIS: That's true. I remember that.
ELLIS: She saw . . .
�
WALLACE: She was another . . . go ahead.
ELLIS: She saw a friend of mine, she was talking about a
baseball ticket. She said, "Hey, Junior, want some of this
stuff?" He'd say, "No, Ms. Eva, not today." [Laughter] But she
was talking about a baseball ticket, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. She could connect you up with people, too.
She was a matchmaker . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . I guess, is a way of putting things.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: But they said that she sort of looked a little dirty
maybe like she wasn't the most . . .
ELLIS: In her . . . in her, uh, old age because she was
sharp as a tack . . .
MRS. ELLIS: In her old age.
ELLIS: Like I tell you, she had a big house there, two
houses.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Fence painted green, a big bulldog and she was a nice
looking woman herself.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: In her younger days. Of course, age, you know.
ELLIS: What age does . . .
�
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: And that's what happened. Age took a toll.
WALLACE: Toll, umhumm. Uh, let's see. Ms. Nellie Harris. Do
you remember Ms. Harris?
ELLIS: Yeah, I remember her. [Laughter]
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: I don't know anything about her. I just know names.
Tell me a name and I . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: She lived on Washington Street.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Now, is that the same as Maggie Harris?
MRS. ELLIS: No.
ELLIS: No. There was a Maggie Harris.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: There was a Maggie who was sort of the equivalent of
Ida Howard, I think . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Uh-huh, right, right.
WALLACE: Sort of . . . yeah. Same kind of thing.
ELLIS: Right. Well, you put the right words in there.
[Laughter]
WALLACE: Yeah. I mean, I think it was Ms. [Henrietta] Gill
said, "Oh, the stories I could tell you." And I said, "Oh, you
�
don't have to . . . " [Laughter]
MRS. ELLIS: You're sure right there.
WALLACE: Yeah, because I don't want to put anybody on the
spot.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-uh.
WALLACE: Grace Sarven, a white woman married to, uh, oh, what
was . . . Harvey Sarven. They used to call him "Twenty Grand".
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, yeah.
ELLIS: He had a restaurant down there.
MRS. ELLIS: I knowed Grace's name, but I never did know what
"Twenty Grand's" name was.
ELLIS: "Twenty Grand" had a restaurant down there.
WALLACE: Harvey, Harvey Sarven.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, what about that? I knowed Grace, but I never
did know "Twenty Grand's" name.
WALLACE: They said she used to . . . she wouldn't smoke a
cigar, but she had a cigar with her most of the time.
MRS. ELLIS: All of the time, umhumm.
WALLACE: Yeah. They ran . . . what was the name of their
place? It wasn't Tiptoe, was it? Blue Moon?
ELLIS: Was it the Blue Moon? No, Estill Bryant run the Blue
Moon, didn't he?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
�
ELLIS: Oh, what was the name of it? They just called it
"Twenty Grand", I thought.
WALLACE: "Twenty Grand"?
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
ELLIS: Uh-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: That's all I ever knowed.
WALLACE: Now, would . . . would blacks go into like "Twenty
Grand's" place . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . or was that a white joint?
ELLIS: It was a white joint.
WALLACE: A white joint.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, a white joint.
WALLACE: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: But, then right across . . .
ELLIS: It was right across from the Kozy Korner here.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Okay. Let's see, Kozy . . . now, didn't . . . there
was a place called the Red Brick.
MRS. ELLIS: That used to be Kozy Korner.
WALLACE: That used to be Kozy Korner.
ELLIS: Yeah.
�
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Because Will . . . didn't Will Wren have the Kozy
Korner?
ELLIS: No.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-uh, James Linton.
ELLIS: James Linstrom and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: James Linstrom.
ELLIS: . . . "Tubba" Marshall.
MRS. ELLIS: And "Tubba" Marshall.
WALLACE: Marshall.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: That's when they named it Kozy Korner. When there
was the Red Brick, Mr. Steve Minor . . . and who else ran that
Red Brick? Somebody else ran it before that, when they called it
the Red Brick. And, then, after "Tubba" got it, they called it
the Kozy Korner.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Do you all remember Julia Miles?
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Willie Miles' wife?
�
ELLIS: Willie Miles . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, she worked for Dr. Coleman for years.
ELLIS: I lived next door to him almost, on the street.
WALLACE: The story I heard was that they used to have the
dump, the city had the dump down by the river.
ELLIS: Right behind where I lived.
WALLACE: And they moved . . . moved it out and they were
thinking about bringing it back in. And Ms. Miles got up . . . I
guess it was in front of the City Council or some group and she
gave this real impassioned speech about, "You're having us come
into your homes and work for you and you want us to stay clean,
and you're going to put this dump in our back yard with rats and
fleas . . ."
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, that's her, uh-huh. She would talk,
[laughing] I tell you.
WALLACE: They said she was very outspoken.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: She was a secretary for . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And Dr. Coleman would stand right in behind her with
everything, too.
ELLIS: She was a secretary for a dentist . . .
WALLACE: Doctor . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
�
ELLIS: . . . in the McClure Building.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: I think at one time Dr. Coleman was mayor, I
believe, and he'd stand right in behind her. She worked for him.
WALLACE: Oh, Dr. Coleman was a white doctor?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah, okay. He was mayor; he was.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Dorothy Wright. Dorothy Wright. Louise Evans.
ELLIS: Yeah. Wasn't that Ms. Catherine's mother? What was
her name, Elizabeth?
MRS. ELLIS: Elizabeth Evans.
ELLIS: Elizabeth Evans, yeah.
WALLACE: Bessie Anderson.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, Miss Bessie, umhumm.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Don't know anything. Nannie Oliver. Nannie Oliver.
ELLIS: That's one I ought to know.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh. Let me tell you what I'm talking about.
They . . .
ELLIS: They have a joke about that.
�
MRS. ELLIS: Henry, that's on tape.
WALLACE: I think I've heard this one. "What are we going to
do with Little Willie"?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: "What am I going to do with Little Willie"?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughter]
WALLACE: "Take him to the work house." [Laughter - Ellis]
Somebody . . . somebody done told me that one. [Laughter]
MRS. ELLIS: Boy, he'd come from the work house ever morning at
seven sharp.
ELLIS: To go to school, going to school.
MRS. ELLIS: She had him just as clean and dressed up.
[Laughter] Coming from the work house to go to school.
[Laughter] Come right down toward . . . by our house.
WALLACE: Yeah. She apparently bootlegged a little bit.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Well, one of the ladies I talked to said she made
home brew and it was a way to make money.
ELLIS: That's right.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: She said the whites would come out to her house and
they'd come around and get a sandwich or get some brew . . .
�
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . and the police knew and everybody knew. And
they'd just . . . it was . . .
MRS. ELLIS: You know . . .
ELLIS: The police didn't bother you then unless you were
fighting or arguing or something like that.
MRS. ELLIS: Or something like that. They didn't, you know, and
the thing about it, times were hard.
WALLACE: You had to get by.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. You know, times were hard.
WALLACE: Well, I'd heard that story about, uh, Willie Oliver.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. "What am I going to do with Little Willie"?
[Laughter]
WALLACE: Ms. Matt Hardin.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. She was a sweet little lady.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you a little bit about, uh,
politics. Did you all ever attend any of the rallies that they .
. . they said they used to . . . white . . . black politicians
would come in and they'd have a big speech and maybe have food or
have alcohol and, you know, speechify and try to get votes. Did
you all ever attend any rallies?
ELLIS: I didn't.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, I . . . he didn't, but I . . . I was in that
�
political, now.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
MRS. ELLIS: I mean, uh-huh, because, see, when . . . when you
work for the state, then, you went to them rallies. I told you
about that time we was supposed to go to that rally up in the old
state house yard. Chandler.
WALLACE: "Happy" Chandler [A.B. "Happy" Chandler].
MRS. ELLIS: "Happy" Chandler. Well, we went to the first one.
And the next one, we didn't go to it. So, when he got in, we all
got letters special delivery firing us.
WALLACE: For not . . .
MRS. ELLIS: At that time, you was putting in pennies. So, we
was going to put our pennies in. So, Mr. Leslie Marshall was
living then. He was [inaudible]. So, we called and said, "Well,
we got fired because we didn't go to the rally and your man got
in." So, he said, "Don't" . . . "We're going to go put in and
get our pennies." He said, "Well, don't worry about it. Just go
on in tomorrow." And, uh, I don't know what he did, but we went
on to work the next night and, uh, it was dropped. And, then,
when I . . . when I was coming up, we went to rallies over
Perkins' Garage. You know, where they'd have the speaking.
Well, at that time, though, they wanted it, all black, to be, uh,
Republicans, you know. You wasn't a black Democrat, wasn't
�
supposed to be.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: When you got the state job, you had to change . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, sure you did.
ELLIS: . . . your politics, you see.
MRS. ELLIS: And, so, that's the way that my uncle worked for . .
. for Mills and some of his friends worked for Perkins.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: So, and Perkins and Mills was good friends. So,
therefore, whoever got in, they didn't . . . but I remember a
time if you didn't vote the way you was supposed to, you didn't
have no job.
WALLACE: Yeah. You were out.
MRS. ELLIS: Then, of course, they came . . . I was on there at
the time they put the merit system out.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: That was after Louis Nunn came in, wasn't it, in '67
[1967]? He fired a bunch . . . oh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . fired them left and right.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And, then, the merit system came in about '69 [1969]
�
or '70 [1970] or '71 [1971].
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: About the time Louis left office.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Do you all remember Will Castleman [William S.
Castleman]?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: He controlled the Bottom.
WALLACE: How did he control the Bottom?
ELLIS: Everything he said went.
WALLACE: He had power uptown?
ELLIS: He had power uptown.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, he did.
ELLIS: He'd shoot a guy down there and they'd come pick him
up. And in 15 minutes, he's walking back down the street.
WALLACE: Yeah. I heard that Will [William S. Castleman] was a
man that if you got in a scrape, you could go to him . . .
ELLIS: He was the man to see.
WALLACE: . . . and he could get you out.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: That, uh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: He had some power uptown.
ELLIS: And he would walk in there and said, "Hey, you, get
�
out of here." No questions asked. The guy would come on out of
there, you know.
WALLACE: Well, I've heard, and it could be wrong, that, uh,
when Dr. Berry got shot . . .
ELLIS: He didn't kill him.
WALLACE: Somebody . . . well, one of the fellows I talked to
agrees with you.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: He said, Castleman [William S. Castleman] didn't kill
him.
ELLIS: No.
WALLACE: There was another man there that actually killed Dr.
Berry.
ELLIS: That's right. He took the blame, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. But he . . . Castleman supposedly, if you
needed the Bottom to win an election, if you could work with Will
[William S. Castleman] and Will was for you, he could turn the
vote.
MRS. ELLIS: He could turn the vote.
ELLIS: Yeah, that's right.
WALLACE: I mean, what kind of incentives would they offer you
to vote . . . I mean, would Castleman come to your house and say,
"Now, we need you for so-and-so." We need you to turn out for
�
whoever, you know, was running?
MRS. ELLIS: He went off for . . .
ELLIS: I don't know what kind of incentives they had . . .
MRS. ELLIS: I don't know, because all I ever knowed that . . .
is . . . is he would ask you for that man.
WALLACE: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh. Now, I don't know, you know, because I
never did work the polls or anything. So, . . .
WALLACE: See, Jo Beauchamp, I don't know if you know Jo . . .
ELLIS: Oh, he's around here now.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah. I went up to his house . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: He just got out of the hospital not too long ago. He
said when he was 12 years old, they packed him and a bunch of his
buddies in a car and took them over to the polls and they signed
in, you know.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Gave them each a dollar, and he never saw a ballot.
[Laughter]
ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughter]
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. They were crooked. They were crooked, you
know. Politics was crooked.
�
ELLIS: Jo [Beauchamp] has been running with us ever since
there was a Jo Beauchamp.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: We went to Cincinnati not to awful long ago and he
was right in there with the crowd. Only white man in there,
along with the crowd. Went right on with them, you know.
WALLACE: Hey, we had a lot of fun. He . . . he said his
cousin voted nine times for the same guy. [Laughter] They drove
him around from precinct to precinct.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. You know, politics was crooked.
WALLACE: Yeah. Well, they said that
MRS. ELLIS: Ain't much better now.
WALLACE: Yeah. They said that . . . that there was
vote-buying in the Bottom or people would receive alcohol or
money to vote a certain way.
ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: Uh, do you remember a man or heard of a man by the
name of John Fallis?
ELLIS: Yeah. Now, her mother sat for them, sit for . . .
MRS. ELLIS: My mother worked for them.
WALLACE: Your mother worked for the Fallises?
MRS. ELLIS: My mother used to work with . . .
�
ELLIS: They lived down on Wilkinson Street, Wilkinson and,
uh, uh, Hill Street.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Did she work at his store? Is that . . .
MRS. ELLIS: No, she worked in his home.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay. What kind of a man was John Fallis?
MRS. ELLIS: I don't know. He was before my time . . . I mean, I
was little, you know.
ELLIS: The only times I can hear about John Fallis, he was a
good guy. They say he was a good guy, but he didn't take nothing
off of nobody and nobody didn't fool with him. He didn't fool
with nobody.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. I used to hear mother say that, you know,
because mother . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Here comes John Fallis. Everybody was . . . even the
police was scared of him.
MRS. ELLIS: Mother used to baby-sit . . .
ELLIS: Have you heard that?
WALLACE: Yes.
MRS. ELLIS: Mother used to baby-sit for him, but that was for
his first wife, the old boys.
ELLIS: There was another guy here in Frankfort. They called
�
him "Red Jim". He was a black guy. John Fallis was scared of
him.
WALLACE: What was his . . . the black guy's name, "Red" . . .
ELLIS: "Red Jim".
WALLACE: The last name "Jim"?
ELLIS: "Jim".
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: No, that's what they called him was "Red Jim".
ELLIS: That's what they called him, "Red Jim".
MRS. ELLIS: But, now, I don't know what his name was.
ELLIS: Mr. Fallis didn't fool with him.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: He would everybody but "Red Jim". [Laughing]
WALLACE: He was scared of "Red".
ELLIS: He was scared of "Red Jim", yeah.
WALLACE: Well, I heard, uh . . . now, Bixie [Benjamin] Fallis,
I never met Bixie [Benjamin Fallis] . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Bixie [Benjamin] Fallis?
ELLIS: Bixie Fallis.
WALLACE: Bixie and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Well, now, that's who my mother and them used to
nurse when they were little.
WALLACE: Ahh. So, your mama looked after Bixie . . .
�
MRS. ELLIS: See, he had two wives. And his last wife was named
Anna Mae, and that's who the younger children are by.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: There was two boys of them, was Bixie and what was
the other one . . .
ELLIS: Carlos or Ishmael?
MRS. ELLIS: Carlos. Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Carlos. Well, the first . . . the first woman, uh, .
. .
MRS. ELLIS: I used to hear mother talk about her.
WALLACE: Fallis's first wife was sort of a religious lady.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: That used to preach and lay hands and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: But Anna Mae Blackwell was the second wife.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, actually, they sort of overlapped a little bit
there.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, umhumm.
WALLACE: If I remember right.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Was Ishmael a Fallis?
MRS. ELLIS: Who?
�
ELLIS: Ishmael?
MRS. ELLIS: I don't know.
ELLIS: I think there was . . . Bixie [Benjamin], Grover
Ishmael, the youngest one?
WALLACE: Yeah. The youngest one is Ishmael.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: But that was by his second wife.
WALLACE: That was his second wife.
ELLIS: Okay.
MRS. ELLIS: That was his second wife. I'm talking about Bixie
and them, the first wife.
WALLACE: Bixie [Benjamin] and Carlos.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: There was a girl, there was a daughter . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: But she died. She got killed in a car wreck when she
was about 23 or 22. R. T. Brooks' wife is the daughter of that
girl . . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . actually the granddaughter of John Fallis.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, yeah.
WALLACE: And they've got some pictures of Fallis and stories
�
about him. He was a good man. He's sort of a sweet and bitter.
He was good to people . . . he could . . . he could give you
credit at his store or give you coal; but, at the same time, like
you said, you crossed him, buddy, you better be . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . you better be crossing him and leaving town.
MRS. ELLIS: I've heard my mother say the same thing.
ELLIS: That's right, that's right.
MRS. ELLIS: She said in the house, they tiptoed.
WALLACE: When you talk about men who were politically powerful
like Castleman [William S. Castleman] and, uh, oh, there's others
down there, I guess. I can't think of any of the names. But did
they derive their power from their ability to do favors like get
jobs or get you out of trouble or . . . or were they good
speakers, public speakers? I mean, what was the source of their
power?
MRS. ELLIS: We don't know.
ELLIS: I don't know, but . . . but . . . but Castleman
[William S. Castleman], he could get you out of anything.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, he ain't talking about . . .
ELLIS: Oh, you ain't talking about that?
MRS. ELLIS: He was talking about them speaking.
ELLIS: Oh.
�
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: I don't know about that.
MRS. ELLIS: I don't remember none of them having no speeches.
WALLACE: Speaking abilities.
MRS. ELLIS: I don't know what their power was.
ELLIS: Did you have Dr. Berry? Have you heard anything
about him?
WALLACE: Yeah. I've got a whole section. I'm talking you
guys into the ground. I don't mean to be doing that. But I've
got a list of cards here with the names of . . . of businessmen
like Dr. Berry, Dr. Biggerstaff.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I think he was a dentist.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Dr. Withers.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Dr. Gay.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: He was a dentist.
WALLACE: Did you all . . . who was your all's . . . who was
your family physician?
ELLIS: Well, we went to Dr. Berry.
�
WALLACE: Dr. Berry?
ELLIS: And the doctor . . . well, baby . . . Dr. Coleman was
the baby doctor.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, I guess, I went to all of them, went to Dr.
Berry, Dr. Underwood.
ELLIS: He was a good doctor.
MRS. ELLIS: At one time, they all used to sort of work together
because I remember one time I was really sick and Dr. Underwood
got Dr. Washington, you know, and he had him . . .
ELLIS: Doctor . . . Dr. Coleman would never send nobody a
bill. He said, "They know they owe me. They'll pay me." He
never would send a bill to nobody.
WALLACE: Yeah. I've heard a lot of good things about Dr.
Coleman.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, uh-huh.
WALLACE: Now, uh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Dr. Darnell.
WALLACE: The city used to . . . Dr. Darnell used to doctor a
lot of people and the city paid him some money.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: And he'd go to, like, the poor white's homes and
doctor on them.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, umhumm.
�
WALLACE: I heard that. Dr. Holmes.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Did you all . . .
ELLIS: He just died here last year.
WALLACE: Yeah, not too long ago.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I went and talked to Helen Holmes.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: His wife.
WALLACE: She's nice.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: George Taylor. [Inaudible] to whites and blacks. Do
you all have any remembrances of George Taylor or the liquor
store?
MRS. ELLIS: I used to work for his mother.
ELLIS: George Taylor?
WALLACE: Oh, you did?
ELLIS: George Taylor started out working for Charlie Duvall
delivering beer.
WALLACE: You were working for Duvall?
ELLIS: No.
WALLACE: No, he was, okay.
ELLIS: And, uh, at that time, you couldn't distribute and
�
sell . . . uh, well, he had a . . . you couldn't distribute it
and sell it through, something like that. You know what I mean?
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, he put George Taylor in business.
WALLACE: Ahh, to get around that law.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: So, he'd have somebody . . .
ELLIS: And George owned this whiskey store right out here .
. .
MRS. ELLIS: And that's where George Taylor got his . . .
ELLIS: That's how he got his start, you know.
WALLACE: He only has the one store left, I think, now.
ELLIS: Yeah. He sold the one out on Holmes Street.
WALLACE: Street. And his son is still alive, isn't he?
MRS. ELLIS: Little George.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Little George.
MRS. ELLIS: I didn't think he'd be alive this long. I felt like
killing him, you know; but . . . he was [inaudible].
WALLACE: What about Charlie Duvall? Do you all have any
remembrances of Charlie?
ELLIS: That's who, uh, . . . George worked for Charlie
�
Duvall.
WALLACE: Duvall.
ELLIS: He was the beer distributor.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: He supplied most of the pop and liquor to the joints
down there, didn't he?
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
WALLACE: That was his . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Dulin Moss.
ELLIS: Now, that's the guy . . .
MRS. ELLIS: He's still walking. He's dead, but he's up there
walking. [Laughter - Wallace]
ELLIS: That's a guy that you would see . . . if you would
see him, you'd say, "Oh, there's that poor man, who was that poor
man come by here?" He dressed with an old cap on, old dirty
clothes and things on, but he was a good lawyer. He'd get you a
divorce right quick.
WALLACE: They said he was so tight . . .
ELLIS: He was, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . he'd pick up, uh, like . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Papers, anything.
�
WALLACE: . . . pouches that chewing tobacco would come in.
He'd pick them up . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Anything, pick up anything.
ELLIS: I would take groceries up to his house and a case of
beer, and he'd come up to the store. Glenn was running the
store. And he'd say, "Now, I ain't paying for no beer. I'm
paying for groceries. I don't know how you're going to get your
money out of that beer." But she did. She paid for all of that,
you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. I had heard that he was one that really didn't
keep his places up . . .
MRS. ELLIS: No, he didn't, no.
ELLIS: No.
WALLACE: He might stuff cardboard in a hole.
MRS. ELLIS: Why, he'd take a big bank book and put it over a
hole and go on. [Laughter] Throw a little paint on it. The
wind would come in it just the same as two and two. He didn't do
nothing.
WALLACE: Antonio Papa.
MRS. ELLIS: Ahh . . .
ELLIS: He made ice cream.
MRS. ELLIS: I come up with his girls. We all played.
ELLIS: You could get a big bowl of ice cream like that for a
�
nickel.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Homemade ice cream, you know.
WALLACE: They said he used to have a push cart, and, then, he
went up to, like, a horse-drawn wagon.
ELLIS: Wagon.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Wagon, and, then, he finally got a motor car.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. They was just like us. They lived right
there on the corner of Mero and, uh, St. Clair.
WALLACE: Well, there's still some of them girls in town.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. I see the oldest one every now and then.
ELLIS: I seen them.
WALLACE: I'm going to see her. She might talk to me. I'd
like to talk to her because a lot of people have very favorable
remembrances of Tony Papa.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Thomas "Black Cat" Graham.
MRS. ELLIS: Old Thomas. [Laughter - Ellis] Poor old "Cat".
ELLIS: That's Jimmy Graham's daddy.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: The one she was talking about over here. Jimmy and
Paul.
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WALLACE: Jimmy . . . Jimmy came . . . he was pretty honest.
He said, "I guess you'd have to call my daddy a hustler, a
hustler". And he was . . . said he could pitch baseball.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. He could play baseball.
WALLACE: If he'd a been in the big league days . . .
MRS. ELLIS: He'd made money.
WALLACE: He'd made . . . and he did pitch for a black team.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Frankfort Merchants or something like that.
MRS. ELLIS: Something like that, uh-huh.
WALLACE: Did you all go to the baseball games that Black . . .
ELLIS: Not then because Thomas was a whole lot older than
me because he was a man when I was a kid, you know.
MRS. ELLIS: We were not allowed outside the door.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: He was a great fisherman, too.
WALLACE: A fisherman?
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay. I'd never heard that.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Everything in the world.
ELLIS: Yeah. Oh. He sold minnows. He had a little pool in
his back yard in the ground and he sold the minnows, fishing
equipment, you know what I mean, now.
�
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: He never had none till in his later years, then, he
got to working in one of them whiskey stores up there.
WALLACE: Yeah. He worked, uh, at Haydon's Beer Garden, I
think is one of the places he might have worked.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, umhumm. That was when I was younger then.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: But, then, he worked for George Taylor later on.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Mike Deakins.
ELLIS: I remember him, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Do you remember him, Henry?
ELLIS: Sure, I remember him.
MRS. ELLIS: I do, too.
ELLIS: Sure, I remember him.
MRS. ELLIS: He wasn't but about that tall.
ELLIS: . . . where the, uh, uh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. He wasn't but about that tall.
ELLIS: No, he was a little short guy. I remember Mike
Deakins.
WALLACE: Well, didn't . . . didn't George . . . didn't . . .
he bought out Deakins, didn't he? Isn't that the way that
worked?
�
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: George . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: George Taylor did.
ELLIS: George Taylor did.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Mike commenced to getting sick.
WALLACE: Ahh.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Now, Mike's place was more for blacks, wasn't it? I
mean, his . . .
ELLIS: It wasn't.
MRS. ELLIS: It wasn't.
ELLIS: It was white.
WALLACE: White?
ELLIS: For Mike Deakins?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: White.
MRS. ELLIS: Was it?
WALLACE: White, okay.
ELLIS: Yes, it was.
MRS. ELLIS: I don't know because I wasn't allowed up there
nohow.
WALLACE: Yeah. I imagine you didn't . . . your mama wouldn't
�
let you. "Frog" [Huston K. Woods] Wood's, "Frog" Wood's Grocery.
ELLIS: Made a fortune here in Frankfort. There was two
brothers . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And he had two . . . and he had two . . . he had two
bushel baskets of, uh, of food when they started out.
WALLACE: Oh, really? Is that all they had?
MRS. ELLIS: They didn't hardly have nothing in that store when
they started out.
ELLIS: Went down on Wilkinson Street and bought up two
houses back there and built a big stone building.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: When they started out on Mero, they didn't hardly
have nothing in it. And, then . . .then, they would get rabbits
and all of that and hang them out and sell them, you know, and
all, and they began to get up on their feet.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Carried a paper looked like that, with money. He'd
cash any kind of check, bonds or anything.
WALLACE: You could cash it at his store?
ELLIS: Right at the store.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Anything.
WALLACE: One of the things I've heard, it was very important
�
to offer credit; that a lot of people did business on credit.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: That you'd pay a little bit every week on . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: . . . your bill . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That's right, uh-huh, that's right.
ELLIS: Get what you want.
WALLACE: Blacks in particular. You had to have credit.
MRS. ELLIS: You had to have credit.
ELLIS: Right.
MRS. ELLIS: And that's the way "Frog" got on his feet.
WALLACE: By launching out with . . .
MRS. ELLIS: By carrying you.
ELLIS: Didn't have no register, cash register then. It was
done by pencils. But, now, you go in these stores and got a list
of groceries, they don't know how you got to pick it up with a
pencil now, you know.
WALLACE: He just had a piece of paper and a tab . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And mark it up on the tab.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
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WALLACE: That was the days of delivery boys, wasn't it?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, he had delivery boys after . . . after they
was there and Jimmy used to laugh about it all the time. He
hired, uh, a delivery boy and, then, Jimmy said, "Now, you're
really working up, ain't you?" He said . . .
ELLIS: Cash Barnett worked there one time.
MRS. ELLIS: And he'd tell young Jimmy, say, "Yeah, really . . .
I've worked up off of your, uh, uh, laughing." Say, yeah.
WALLACE: Here's a name you might . . . Alex Gordon.
ELLIS: Alex Gordon.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: He had a place down there, too.
WALLACE: Do you have any remembrances of Alex?
ELLIS: Huh?
WALLACE: Was Alex, uh . . .
ELLIS: He killed my uncle, I think. Wasn't that Uncle Will
Davis? He killed my uncle down there.
WALLACE: I heard that, that . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . there was a conflict over some money, I think,
and he walked up and your uncle was on the porch or something.
And he shot him and killed him.
ELLIS: He ran a little old beer place there, too, see.
�
WALLACE: Humm.
MRS. ELLIS: He run a store, too.
ELLIS: Uh-huh, a store, too.
WALLACE: So, he started out in the grocery business and then
went into the liquor.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I heard he and "Shineboy" got into it one time and
were shooting at each other on the street.
MRS. ELLIS: No lie.
WALLACE: That . . . that Gordon was a man that he could be
very violent on occasions.
ELLIS: "Shineboy" was, too.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: "Shineboy" [Inaudible].
MRS. ELLIS: And he could scare you, too.
ELLIS: "Shineboy" could, too, because . . . yeah.
"Shineboy" kept [inaudible].
WALLACE: He'd steal money?
MRS. ELLIS: I mean . . . no.
ELLIS: [Inaudible] that we were talking about, you know it?
WALLACE: Yeah.
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ELLIS: "Shineboy"?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. He, uh . . .
ELLIS: He had two pistols. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Oh.
MRS. ELLIS: He was sort of like, uh, uh . . . Alex Gordon was
something like on the [inaudible]. If he didn't get you, some of
these others would.
WALLACE: Would. They'd sort of look out after each other and
. . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . protect each other.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Hello, Sweetheart.
ELLIS: That's my . . . that's my granddaughter.
WALLACE: Oh, I'm sorry.
VOICE: Hi. How you do?
WALLACE: Good to see you. "Tubba" Marshall [Ellsworth
Marshall, Sr.].
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: He was a politician, I guess, in . . . or a . . .
ELLIS: He worked on the railroad. He retired on the . . .
on the railroad, on the diner car here.
WALLACE: He also ran for office, didn't he?
�
ELLIS: Big fat . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Great big fat fellow.
MRS. ELLIS: What did "Tubba" run for? He did run for something.
ELLIS: Was it City Commissioner or . . .
WALLACE: City Council or something.
ELLIS: Something.
MRS. ELLIS: Or something. Yeah, I remember him running for
something.
WALLACE: But, then, his big thing was they said he was . . .
used to call ball games. He was a . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, yeah. Had a great big old bell he . . .
ELLIS: Cow bell. [Laughter - Mrs. Ellis]
WALLACE: Cow bell?
MRS. ELLIS: Cow bell and, boy, we'd have the most fun.
ELLIS: We'd go to them basketball game and he'd take that
cow bell. Boy, he was beating it and he was just making more
noise than anything, you know. [Laughter - Wallace] He's got a
bunch of sons around here now and his wife, she had, uh . . .
what, about . . . how many kids they got, nine?
MRS. ELLIS: I guess so, Henry.
ELLIS: Always on the [inaudible].
MRS. ELLIS: I don't know.
�
WALLACE: [Laughing] I talked to Ellsworth Marshall, Jr.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: I had a good time talking to him. We . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Let's see, Charles . . .
MRS. ELLIS: It's good to talk about them old times.
WALLACE: Yeah. Oh, everybody enjoyed it.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Charles "Corn Puddin" Chiles.
MRS. ELLIS: Old "Corn Puddin".
ELLIS: He died in Dayton, Ohio.
WALLACE: They said he was full of mischief.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, he was. Umhumm.
WALLACE: The story I heard on him was there was a big
political rally and L. Boone Hampton came down to speechify, and
"Pap" Samuels was sort of MC-ing it, you know. He was in charge.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And "Corn Puddin" kept bugging "Pap" to go ahead and
give him some whiskey. He wanted some whiskey. "Pap" said, "No,
we're going to talk and, then, you're going to get something to
drink." So, "Corn Puddin" went back and he got some liquor and
he put a big shoofly in it.
MRS. ELLIS: That's what he was doing. Mother told him, said,
�
"You all going to kill somebody with that." [Laughter]
WALLACE: And, so, he took that liquor back to "Pap" and said,
"Well, you didn't give me nothing to drink, but I don't hold it
again- . . . here, you go ahead and have some of mi- . . ." And
"Pap" slugged that down and he got up on the platform and he
started to . . . started his speech. And, all of a sudden he
grabbed the seat of his pants and said, "Oh, Lord, somebody done
shooflied me." [Laughter] And ran out of there and didn't . . .
didn't come back because . . . well, he was . . . he was in that
trouble. He was hurting.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right. He was in trouble.
WALLACE: But, uh, that's the story. Do you all know any other
stories on "Corn Puddin"?
MRS. ELLIS: No.
ELLIS: More than Cass, I know that. [Laughter]
MRS. ELLIS: He was, I'll tell you.
ELLIS: A real character here.
WALLACE: Jack Robb.
ELLIS: That was the undertaker.
WALLACE: Jack Robb, he eventually worked for the urban renewal
as a . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, he did.
WALLACE: . . . relocation officer and . . . .
�
MRS. ELLIS: He finally got in that, you know. He . . . to try
to help the people.
WALLACE: People.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
ELLIS: Jack was smart, too. He had a lot of influence, too.
He . . .
WALLACE: He was . . . he was well known in the white community
and accepted, as well as the black community.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Now, he . . .
WALLACE: You're right. But he got in that urban renewal to
try and help . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Just to try to help, you know.
WALLACE: Straighten it out.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
ELLIS: He played all the time, too. He played for
everything, all the engagements, around the white places, you
know, everywhere.
WALLACE: Jack . . . Jack Robb Trio. I've heard that he had a
little . . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Earl Tracy. Earl Tracy.
ELLIS: Yes.
�
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Umhumm. He was prominent in the
neighborhood.
WALLACE: He had a cab company at one time.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And Bob and, uh . . . oh, his two nephews.
ELLIS: Rob and Henry.
WALLACE: Robert and Henry used to drive for him.
MRS. ELLIS: And his brother, John.
WALLACE: He worked for the Harrods, I think, at one time, Earl
did.
ELLIS: Uh-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: But they said that, uh, he had some influence in . .
. political influence, I guess.
MRS. ELLIS: He did. He did.
WALLACE: Let's see. We talked a little bit about "Shineboy".
They said . . . and this could be wrong about him . . . that he
had done a stint in prison, that he had . . . that might have
been Thomas Jefferson, maybe. I don't know.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Yeah.
WALLACE: That he had come out of . . . Jeff ran a restaurant
for a while.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, he did.
�
ELLIS: Yeah. He was a treacherous . . . he was a
treacherous man.
MRS. ELLIS: He would practice.
ELLIS: Very treacherous. Good person.
MRS. ELLIS: He didn't bother you.
ELLIS: He was a good person, no mind. And he wouldn't let
nobody bother you either.
WALLACE: But if you bothered him . . .
ELLIS: Oh, Lord.
WALLACE: . . . he could be . . .
ELLIS: You had problems. But he'd come down there.
Somebody come up a raising sand and he'll come over, "Hey, leave
that man alone. He ain't done nothing." And that's what he
meant, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. Yeah, I'd heard, uh, Thomas Jefferson . . .
old Bixie [Benjamin] Fallis' first wife . . . now this is, it
came close to a riot one time. I don't know if you all were
here, but Bixie [Benjamin] Fallis' first wife was a woman of
somewhat questionable reputation.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: And she claimed that she had been insulted by some
blacks.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
�
WALLACE: And Bixie [Benjamin] and Carlos and all their people
came down in there ready to get blood and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yes, they did.
WALLACE: . . . got into it. And Thomas . . . Jeff hit Bixie
over the head with a coal shovel, is what I heard.
MRS. ELLIS: Boy he got that shovel . . .
ELLIS: I was standing . . .
MRS. ELLIS: . . . and he did, he had that terrible . . . you
could here that shovel.
ELLIS: I was standing as close to him as I am you.
MRS. ELLIS: He was [inaudible].
ELLIS: He carries [inaudible].
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: [Inaudible], he had that shovel down like that and he
drawed back and hit Bixie [Benjamin] and Bixie just fell just
like that.
WALLACE: Well, Bixie . . . either Bixie [Benjamin] or Carlos
had a pipe or something and was swinging left and right.
ELLIS: Well, the junk yard up there then had all them old
iron and stuff out of that junk yard, you know, and, uh . . .
WALLACE: Well, the story I heard, and this is a woman that
told me and it involves the use of a profanity; so . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
�
WALLACE: . . . you'll have to excuse me, but she said that
white girl, Bixie's [Benjamin] wife, was strutting her stuff down
there and, uh, and . . . I don't mean to be offensive . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And had been, oh, yes.
WALLACE: . . . and said, uh, "You know you niggers want my
white ummh . . ."
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. That's what she said.
WALLACE: And none of the blacks responded. So, she got
insulted because they had rejected her.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: And went home and told Bixie [Benjamin] that . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Sure did.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . some sexual things to her . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: And that's what sta- . . . that's the story I heard.
MRS. ELLIS: And it is and they fought, too.
WALLACE: But somebody said that people were buying up weapons
and bullets and it looked like . . .
MRS. ELLIS: We was . . . they thought there was going to be a
whole lot to it that night.
ELLIS: When he hit Bixie [Benjamin] with that shovel, it
�
rung like a dinnerbell, buddy, and down he went and . . . I was .
. . I was up there that night.
WALLACE: What kept it from getting into a shooting kind of
thing?
MRS. ELLIS: Well, then, finally, the police began to arrive and
things and . . . and, uh, then, I . . . I . . . I knowed they
said they thought that Jeff was going to light it up, too; so, it
kind of, you know . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, Cass, you know, he went on [inaudible].
WALLACE: Straightened things out up there?
MRS. ELLIS: So, it kind of . . .
ELLIS: Cass, he was standing there in the door. He walked
out there. He walked . . . he wasn't scared of nobody. He
walked right out in there. Shoot him, he'd shoot you right back,
you know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: So, you know, it kind . . .
WALLACE: Do you all remember what year this was? Nobody has
ever been able to . . . they think it's after the war that it
happened.
ELLIS: It was.
MRS. ELLIS: It was after the war because, oh, Henry never got
�
her home.
ELLIS: Well, yeah, it was after the war because I didn't go
up in the Bottom till I did come out of the . . . out of the war,
you know.
MRS. ELLIS: No, I didn't neither, uh-uh.
WALLACE: So, nobody really kn- . . . maybe '46 [1946] or '47
[1947].
MRS. ELLIS: I believe it was later than that. I believe it was
before that flood we had, before that '62 [1962]; don't you?
ELLIS: I don't know. Because I got out of the service in 19
. . . uh, 19 . . . '35 [1935].
MRS. ELLIS: My mother died in . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, I got out in '35 [1935].
MRS. ELLIS: Let me see. It might have been . . . Mother died in
'56 [1956] and she was still living when all that . . .
WALLACE: Ah. So, this was the fifties [1950's].
MRS. ELLIS: Because I remember some of them coming running, you
know, and was telling about it.
WALLACE: Ah. So, she was still alive when all that happened.
It had to have been after '56 [1956], then, is what you're
saying?
MRS. ELLIS: Uh . . .
ELLIS: Charles Fields could probably tell you because he was
�
there that night with Samuels. He left right then.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Now, he . . . he'd remember, uh-huh.
ELLIS: He's my brother-in-law, yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah. I've got a call in to him.
MRS. ELLIS: So, he'd probably keep . . . remember just exactly
when it was.
ELLIS: Charles Fields, uh-huh.
WALLACE: Well, that was probably one of the most explosive
incidents I've heard of.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, it was. It was.
WALLACE: That's coming as close to a race riot as you . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Right, uh-huh.
WALLACE: . . . as you could come. Uh, Henry Mack. I think
he's still alive.
ELLIS: Yeah. He was our . . .
MRS. ELLIS: He was [inaudible] everything. [Laughter]
ELLIS: Yeah. He was . . . he was American Legion's
secretary here.
WALLACE: Ah, okay. But I think it was Mack was running the
pool room or something, wasn't . . .
[End of Tape #2, Side #1]
[Begin Tape #2, Side #2]
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WALLACE: . . . ah, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh. We had two . . . two blacks, uh, working in
there. I don't want that [inaudible].
ELLIS: I saw Mr. Mack yesterday.
WALLACE: I've been trying to get hold of him. I thought he
might like to talk. I don't know if it's . . . that's his kind
of think or not, but I thought I might call him and see if he
wanted to.
ELLIS: Well, he's in the telephone book.
WALLACE: Yeah. I've called him a couple of times. I never
can catch him home. He's . . .
ELLIS: No. He's . . . every time I look at home I can't
find him, but, uh, a lot of times I'll go over to the club over
there in the cave.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And he's there all the time. Every time I don't have
my keys, I can't find him. So . . . [Laughter - Wallace-
WALLACE: Oh, let's see.
MRS. ELLIS: Does smoke bother you?
WALLACE: No. No, my grandfather used to smoke like a
smokestack.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, then, I'll smoke a cigarette. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Go ahead. Elizabeth Oglesby?
�
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah. Her daughter just died, Margaret.
WALLACE: Yeah. Used to run a beautician shop.
ELLIS: That's right.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Down on Washington Street.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
ELLIS: No, Clinton Street.
WALLACE: Clinton Street. Clinton Street.
ELLIS: Clinton Street, uh-huh.
WALLACE: But, uh, I really don't know of too many black-owned
and operated businesses.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, she run a beautician . . .
WALLACE: And she had her own business and . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: And Mr. Oglesby used to come home every weekend and
come past. He worked down in Louisville.
ELLIS: When we was talking about "Squeezer" Brown . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: All right, now, his wife ran a barber shop down
there.
WALLACE: His wife?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
�
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Ah, I didn't know that. What was her name?
MRS. ELLIS: Ms. Anna Becker.
ELLIS: Anna Becker, yeah.
WALLACE: Anna Becker.
MRS. ELLIS: Anna Becker Brown. That was "Squeezer's" wife.
WALLACE: I had not heard that. [Laughter - Ellis] And she ran
a barber . . .
MRS. ELLIS: You had never heard that?
WALLACE: No.
ELLIS: She was rough, too, see. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Oh, was she?
ELLIS: She was rough, wasn't she? [Inaudible] right now
come in there, you know. [Laughter]
MRS. ELLIS: She was nice, though.
ELLIS: Yeah, in the barber shop.
WALLACE: And that was "Squeezer" Brown's wife?
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: That's the first time I . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. That song was to her. They'd stand and sing
in front of the barber shop and . . .
WALLACE: Where was her shop?
�
MRS. ELLIS: On the corner of Clin- . . . on the Corner of
Clinton and Washington.
WALLACE: Okay. Now, you all told me something I had never
heard. [Laughter - Ellis]
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: That seems funny because "Squeezer" is usually
portrayed as sort of a nice, friendly kind of quiet . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Well, see, they . . . they . . . they separated.
They didn't . . .
WALLACE: Not a rough kind of guy.
ELLIS: No, he wasn't rough at all.
MRS. ELLIS: They separated, you know.
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: But he'd go up there and play to her. [Laughter]
WALLACE: He'd go there and play to . . . [laughing]
ELLIS: "Squeezer" wasn't rough at all.
MRS. ELLIS: No. Uh-uh.
WALLACE: But you make his wife sound like she might have been
a little . . . the rough one of the two of them. Will Wren.
Will Wren.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: He ran a restaurant.
ELLIS: Big Will Wren, they called him.
�
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And they said . . . the story I heard, they used to
tease him, and he was a big man, that he made his hamburgers on
his stomach.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: They had to tease him about that.
ELLIS: Ten cent. Go get a hamburger, 10 cents. Tomatoes,
onions, yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Margaret worked for him.
WALLACE: Oh, really? You worked for Will? [Laughter - Ellis]
Yeah, he was supposed to be quite a cook, real good cook.
MRS. ELLIS: He was.
WALLACE: Real good cook. Uh, a couple of, uh . . . I'm going
on pretty long. I have a bad habit of doing this. When you want
me to leave, you say . . .
ELLIS: Well, we're not . . . yeah, we're not going . . .
MRS. ELLIS: No.
ELLIS: [Inaudible] about that. We're not going anywhere
here.
WALLACE: If you have any rem- . . . now, I've got the names of
some joints and some places that are not joints that are just
restaurant kind of places.
�
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Do you have any remembrances of the Tiger Inn?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Tiger Inn.
ELLIS: That was a little . . . that was a little
after-school restaurant.
MRS. ELLIS: At first, uh-huh.
ELLIS: At first.
WALLACE: You lived in it, you see . . .
ELLIS: That was on Mero . . .
MRS. ELLIS: All us kids, you know, and they had a . . .
ELLIS: That was on, uh, uh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: . . . fountain.
ELLIS: Mero and Washington, right on the corner.
WALLACE: Yeah. Well, I've heard that children would . . . on
their lunch time, would go over there and get lunch.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, and chili.
ELLIS: Butter beans, [inaudible].
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Bottle of pop, muffins.
MRS. ELLIS: Muffins. And a lot of times, we'd go and get . . .
ELLIS: Listen to the Victrola. [Laughter - Wallace]
�
MRS. ELLIS: We'd go get his muffins, go to "Shineboy's" and eat
it. We'd eat our beans over there, and our muffins at the
Tiger's Inn.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: We'd go to "Shineboy's" and get our chili.
WALLACE: Ah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. That was our school hangout.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: He had a soda fountain in there.
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: The Tiger's Inn did.
ELLIS: It was white marble along the top of it, about like
that, about that thick, about that wide.
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
ELLIS: I got some over in there. When they threw that buil-
. . . when they tore down the building, I went in and got some.
I said, "I'll keep it for a keepsake."
WALLACE: Yeah. Yeah, that was . . . I read a letter that, uh,
Mr. Atkins wrote. He said, "I've been in business since 1937,
for 31 years, up until 1968." And he said it's . . . something
like, "the saddest day of my life. I can't get another license
to sell malted beverages . . ."
MRS. ELLIS: Selling, no.
�
WALLACE: ". . . and I don't know whether
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: ". . . that's because I'm black or what, but I can't
and I'm going out of business." And they auctioned . . .
MRS. ELLIS: They fought hard for that, too. They fought hard
for it.
WALLACE: To take . . .
ELLIS: He was a little hump-backed fellow, and there was a
lot of guys that played . . . that Ella Fitzgerald, I imagine you
heard of her.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: The drummer, that Chick Webb?
WALLACE: Chick Webb.
ELLIS: And that was the drummer. And he looked just like
Chick Webb.
WALLACE: Ah.
ELLIS: And somebody that didn't know, you know, came in and
asked him, was it Chick Webb? [Laughter - Wallace] Oh, man,
that made him mad. [Laughter]
ELLIS: He looked just like Chick Webb, didn't he?
WALLACE: Well, did he own that place outright, or didn't he
and Cal- . . .
MRS. ELLIS: No. Buckner owned it.
�
WALLACE: Buckner owned the building?
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
ELLIS: He owned the business, him and Professor Condy.
WALLACE: Ah, okay.
ELLIS: Ran it for him.
WALLACE: I heard they named it Tiger Inn because they used to
be the Clinton Street Tigers . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: . . . and, then, it was the Mayo-Underwood . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Underwood, uh-huh.
WALLACE: . . . Tigers and, then, they named it Tiger Inn.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh. Tiger's Inn.
WALLACE: Sort of the equivalent of Pete's Corner, but for the
black children.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. We was in there one time, he was running
us. . . yeah. He hollered, "Quieten down." [Laughter - Wallace]
And, then, we'd go home . . . I never will forget. They had
some record. I said I wasn't going to never forget that record.
But it was a snappy record, and we would sing this record, you
know. Ah, we'd go home and we'd forget it. And we'd go home and
we'd sing that thing. "Now, where did you hear that at?" "We
heard it at Tiger's Inn." [Laughter]
WALLACE: How about, uh . . . well, let's see . . . the 99
�
Club?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: That stayed open all night.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: You could go down there on a Friday night and be
right there on Monday morning. [Laughter - Wallace] It was
upstairs.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Great big place, uh-huh.
WALLACE: What did it look like on the inside?
MRS. ELLIS: They had nice food, nice restaurant.
ELLIS: On the inside?
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Nice.
ELLIS: Well, there was just a long counter, a few chairs,
few tables.
MRS. ELLIS: Tables.
ELLIS: And few chairs.
MRS. ELLIS: Few, but it was nice.
WALLACE: Could you dance? I mean, did they have music and a
dance floor?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Uh-huh. He had a little floor up there, uh-huh.
�
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: They said . . . I've heard that Saturday night or
Friday night is the thing to do was go down in the Bottom and you
could drive your car down the street and not unroll the window,
but you could hear the music from all . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. That's what we used to do all the time.
WALLACE: . . . from all the places, and never even go in them.
MRS. ELLIS: No. Just hear the music.
WALLACE: People would gather on the street corner.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm, and just talk.
ELLIS: See, [inaudible], you could get lost down there
looking for somebody because, by the time they go in one
restaurant and you go in another, you know how you do it. Just
missing each other like that.
WALLACE: But the streets would be packed with people.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: Packed with people.
MRS. ELLIS: Right. You didn't hear no whole lot of . . .
ELLIS: Cussing and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Cussing and all that. You didn't hear that.
ELLIS: No gambling on the street. [Sound of telephone
ringing. Mrs. Ellis answered.]
WALLACE: Do you remember a place called the Silver Slipper?
�
ELLIS: What?
WALLACE: Silver Slipper, ever heard of that?
ELLIS: Silver Slipper.
WALLACE: Or the White Spot?
ELLIS: Do you remember Silver Slipper?
WALLACE: Oh, that's okay. I don't want to interrupt her phone
call.
ELLIS: Playhouse Inn, you have it down there?
WALLACE: No. Playhouse Inn, no.
ELLIS: That was on Clinton Street.
WALLACE: Ah. When was it running, after the war?
ELLIS: Yeah. It was about the same time all this here was
going on. They called it the Playhouse Inn. Walter Mays ran it.
WALLACE: Walter Mays?
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: No, I had not heard of that. That's a new one on me.
Those na- . . . those places came in and out of business so
quick.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And they changed names and that's . . . that's the
thing that makes it hard to keep track of.
ELLIS: Yeah, it does. Umhumm.
WALLACE: Let's see. There was a place called the Little
�
Restaurant. Have you heard of that?
ELLIS: Little Restaurant. Now, where was that? Is that a .
. .
WALLACE: I don't know. I don't know really where it was. Uh,
the Blue Moon?
ELLIS: Yeah. They were on Clinton Street. That was a white
place.
WALLACE: That's, uh . . .
ELLIS: Estill Brown, I believe . . . didn't he run that?
WALLACE: Estill Smith used to . . .
ELLIS: Estill Smith.
WALLACE: . . . used to run the Peachtree.
ELLIS: Uh, okay. Yeah, okay. Peachtree Inn. All right,
that was on Washington Street, Peachtree was. The Blue Moon was
on, uh, uh . . . Clinton and Gaines Alley.
WALLACE: Clinton and Gaines Alley?
ELLIS: Yeah. Right on that corner there, uh-huh.
WALLACE: Okay. Well, here's . . . [Mrs. Ellis returned.]
MRS. ELLIS: What was, Henry?
WALLACE: Clinton and Gaines. Here's Clinton and there's
Gaines Alley coming in.
ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: And the Blue Moon was . . .
�
ELLIS: Right along in here.
WALLACE: Ah, okay.
ELLIS: It might not have been on the corner. Anyways, it
was right along in here.
MRS. ELLIS: No. It was about the second door or something like
that.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: The Sky Blue. Sky Blue Inn.
MRS. ELLIS: It was . . . what . . . you know, Jack worked for
that man. That's what they named it, changed the name of it.
WALLACE: Ed Fincel used to have that place, is what I've been
told.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. That was down there where Fincel [Fincel
Brothers Meat Market] used to have that meat market.
ELLIS: Oh, okay. And where the church used to be here.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Umhumm.
ELLIS: It was on Clinton Street, too, you know.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: The Tiptoe Inn. Les Humphrey used to run it.
ELLIS: You [inaudible]. Yeah, that was right across from
the Playhouse Inn, wasn't it? Wasn't that . . .
MRS. ELLIS: That was right across from Bixie [Benjamin Fallis]
and them, wasn't it?
�
ELLIS: Tiptoe Inn?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. You know, that restaurant sat back in
there?
ELLIS: You see, Estill Smith had a place up there.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. But he went out of that and after he went out
of there, it was Tiptoe Inn, wasn't it?
ELLIS: I don't know.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: The Stagg Bar. Stagg Bar.
ELLIS: I think that's right up in town.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh. I don't know anything about that.
ELLIS: That was . . .
WALLACE: That might have been early on.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Forrest Moore's liquor store was on Broadway
someplace.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. It was on Broadway right there at Madison
Street, right across from the Old Statehouse.
WALLACE: Ah, okay. So, here's Broadway and Madison. That
would have been right on the corner.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
ELLIS: That's that [inaudible] thing.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh. And I'll tell you what . . . what's in
�
there now?
ELLIS: Beauty salon, ain't it?
MRS. ELLIS: A beauty salon, uh-huh.
WALLACE: Ah, okay.
MRS. ELLIS: Where that beauty salon, that used to be Forrest
Moore.
WALLACE: When you think about, uh, men who had a reputation
for being tough, or men you didn't want to cross, are there any
names that come to mind that we haven't . . . we've talked about
a lot of men with those . . . that kind of reputation. But do
you remember any of the names of . . .
MRS. ELLIS: No. When they all died out, we didn't have no more.
WALLACE: Most of them were gone by the war, you'd say?
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Umhumm.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: That's what a lot of people have told me. They said
. . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. They [inaudible]. When they died out, that
was it.
WALLACE: It. That after prohibition ended, say, in the
mid-thirties and . . . that the area sort of quieted down.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: It was rougher earlier on and then got quiet.
�
ELLIS: Yeah, because I was real small, was on Washington
Street, and they had the Eight Mile House. Well, I didn't know
nothing about that too much. In fact, I couldn't go around there
anyway and I just heard about it, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. I heard . . . I've heard of the Eight Mile
House. As a matter of fact, uh, I think . . . now, here's
Tiger's Inn.
ELLIS: It was right in behind Tiger's.
MRS. ELLIS: It was down there. It was behind Tiger's.
ELLIS: Right behind Tiger's Inn.
WALLACE: On the same side of the street?
MRS. ELLIS: Same side, uh-huh.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: Sort of a place you'd go to meet, uh . . .
ELLIS: Well, there was a little of everything there.
[Laughing]
WALLACE: Yeah. You've got . . . but I never understood why
they called it Eight Mile House.
MRS. ELLIS: Well, who did? Whoever . . . we never did. Now,
the old folks wondered about that.
WALLACE: Yeah. The only story I ever heard was there was a
place, as you go toward Louisville, about St. Matthews, there was
a place called the Eight Mile.
�
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And it was between two . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And they think maybe somehow that name have got over
. . .
MRS. ELLIS: Somebody [inaudible], took to him, uh-huh.
WALLACE: . . . got over here. That's the only story I've ever
heard.
MRS. ELLIS: Because I've heard the old folks wonder why it was,
you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. And nobody . . . nobody has been able to tell
me that yet.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-uh.
WALLACE: Would you say that Bottom was a violent place?
ELLIS: No. I wouldn't say it, but I could sa- . . . I will
say that, uh, uh, you could get almost anything you wanted down
through there; fights, argument, friendship, anything you wanted.
Don't bother nobody . . . didn't bother anybody, nobody didn't
bother you, you know.
WALLACE: It's, I guess, what you were looking to find when you
went in there.
ELLIS: That's right.
�
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Well, you know, people didn't just stand
out and . . . and . . . for an argument or nothing like that.
You just . . . whatever . . .
ELLIS: Most all the white people were [inaudible] they know
of, they speak and go on. Uh, you know. I mean, that one guy
they called Miller . . . Miller, uh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Miller Cox.
ELLIS: Miller Cox. You ever heard his name called?
WALLACE: No.
ELLIS: He was a white guy and he cut his hair just like a
Mohawk Indian. And, uh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Miller was a sight.
ELLIS: He was rough, rough. Now, he hung around the black
more than he did the white.
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
ELLIS: He would fight anybody. I don't care who it was.
[Laughter] But he was an awful good guy, really.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Miller Cox.
WALLACE: The other story I heard is that . . . [Sound of
telephone ringing. Mrs. Ellis answered.]
MRS. ELLIS: This phone is going crazy.
WALLACE: . . . that there was violence that came into the
�
community.
ELLIS: Right. That's right. And, of course, that way . . .
that way, everybody helped everybody. You know what I mean. It
was just, uh . . .
WALLACE: But like people from South Frankfort, even people
from outside of Frankfort altogether, would come down and get
liquored up at a joint and they would be the source of the
trouble. And, then, they'd get out of there and Bottom would get
stuck with the reputation of be- . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Well, that . . . that's it.
ELLIS: Yeah. People on the south, they come over here and
fight among themselves. Then, go back on the south side.
WALLACE: Umhumm. And the reputation . . .
ELLIS: Prominent people, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. And the reputation would be over there. Why,
they had the biggest fight up in the Bottom last night. And
nobody in the Bottom had been fighting. [Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: Well, I've heard of . . . of . . . of several, I
guess, sort of dramatic incidents where there was murder. The
murder of a black cab driver by the name of, uh, Ray.
ELLIS: Ray.
WALLACE: And Sal- . . . I've heard that, uh . . . several
stories on that, that, uh, apparently some gal . . . a gal was
�
attracted to him that another man was interested in, and this man
set Ray up and had him murdered.
ELLIS: That's right.
MRS. ELLIS: [Inaudible].
ELLIS: Because that other guy worked at Fincel's [Fincel
Brothers Meat Market] meat store on St. Clair Street. He was a
Collins. He got killed.
MRS. ELLIS: I think they set him up, too.
ELLIS: They set him up. And weighted him down in the river,
you know, to . . .
WALLACE: Yeah. But like, uh . . . well, when you mentioned
that Alex had killed your uncle.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Uh, this is the first that . . . he was involved in
more than one murder from what . . . he went into a store . . .
and this cou- . . . I could be wrong on this. And there was a
black clerk at the store. It was a liquor store. And,
apparently, there was a dispute over Alex owing some money for
some liquor, and he came back and shot this guy and killed him.
So, I had heard several stories on him, as far as violence, acts
of violence.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Yeah. Yeah. I told you he was like the
Mafia.
�
WALLACE: Yeah. But those are very isolated incidents.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: I mean, they're very dramatic, but they're isolated,
to my mind.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: One of the things I read in a newspaper which I
disagree with and, maybe, you'll agree with it or disagree. I
don't know. They . . . somebody said that Bottom, parts of it,
were a red-light district.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. But it wasn't.
ELLIS: Well, what it was, uh, it was just certain houses.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: That, uh . . . and if you didn't know where they
were, you didn't go. Didn't know where they were.
MRS. ELLIS: You wasn't in no red-light district.
ELLIS: They didn't solic- . . . you know, on the street.
You just had . . . uh, in other words, more or less a rooming
house right.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Go in there.
WALLACE: A place where you could rendezvous, I guess.
ELLIS: Yeah, uh-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
�
WALLACE: Well, like you said earlier, things went on, but they
went on behind closed doors.
MRS. ELLIS: Doors. That's right.
WALLACE: And you didn't . . . you didn't see it on the street.
And unless you knew where it was going on, you . . . you wouldn't
know it.
MRS. ELLIS: You didn't know it.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: And, then, another thing, if you wasn't around the
people that talked what this, all this was going on, you know.
Because I remember one time when I was small and they were
talking about a lady and, uh, she was nice to me and always we'd
go to ice plant for old people. And, uh, I picked up her ice,
you know, and all, and I . . . one day, I said, "Ms. Annie gave
me such-and-such because I brought her some ice back." And, uh,
they'd look at each other, the old folks would.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: You know. And, uh, I said, "Well, she called me."
Well, that's all I could say, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: And, uh, but, they wouldn't just come right out and
tell you what went on, you know.
ELLIS: And my auntie worked at one of those places and, uh .
�
. . uh, and she . . . lady there and she was . . . called me.
And I was a little kid, you know, but I couldn't get no further
than the front door. That's where I met her, at the front door,
and that's what I'd give her, and I left there right then; never
did get inside.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Well, one of the ladies I talked to, her
aunt had worked at what she called a house of assignation.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And I always felt so dumb, because I didn't know what
that . . . I had to go back and look up what that word meant.
And she knew I didn't know, and she was looking at . . . but she
said, uh, I guess her aunt worked there because she like
beautiful things.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And it was a way to make money, to get the kinds of
things she wanted.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Yes. Yes.
WALLACE: And, the story she told me, she said like on the
court, County Court days, and this is the early days, they'd . .
. uh, farmers and people would drive in their herds of cows or
pigs and get them slaughtered and they'd get money, and the first
places they'd go to . . .
�
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . was over there. Or the river men would ride
rafts of logs down out of the river.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Umhumm.
WALLACE: And this was, like, the twenties [1920's], early
twenties [1920's].
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. I've heard old people talk about it, you
know.
WALLACE: And they would get money and that's . . . that's
where they'd head, right there.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Well, even white Frankfort.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And I'm sure that, uh, the police must have known
what was going on.
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, you know they did. They knowed. They knew what
went on.
WALLACE: They had to have been . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Half of them was in it.
WALLACE: They had to have been persuaded to . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And half of them was in it. [Laughter - Mr. Ellis]
WALLACE: Involved in . . .
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MRS. ELLIS: You know, but they didn't want to be, you know,
brought. Because I know a white lady lived across the street
from us, she was uh, uh . . . and they all knew it and they'd
ride by there and . . . and, "Bess, how you doing?" You know.
They knew what was going on.
WALLACE: But they looked the other way because they . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . received some incentive, maybe, to look the
other way.
MRS. ELLIS: Why, she'd send us kids to the store. But it was
like Henry said, we never got no further than her door. She'd
meet us when we'd come back and give us a quarter and, uh . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: She was in with everybody that was in every kind of
business. A lot of times, she'd have a big thing of cookies to
give us, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: And all, but she never let us in.
WALLACE: Well, one of the things that . . . and it's a very
pleasing thing to me . . . is that you might have somebody
involved in something that was, you know, a little outside the
law; but people didn't pass judgment on them because they were
doing that.
�
MRS. ELLIS: No, they didn't.
ELLIS: Uh-uh.
WALLACE: I mean, they might meet you on the street and they'd
talk to you and they were good to you and you were . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Then, that's right.
WALLACE: And that was their business and, you know.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. And you went right on.
ELLIS: And Ms. Samuels, she lived right in the Bottom. All
right, she lived about two doors behind Kozy Korner.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: All right, she had a real nice house there, too. She
come out and she'd come right up on that stoop inside. They
would get out of the way, tip their hat to her, and no problem.
WALLACE: Umhumm. Well . . .
ELLIS: Only if somebody said something.
MRS. ELLIS: She'd talk to everybody going up the steps.
ELLIS: They couldn't understand that. They couldn't
understand that, you know.
WALLACE: Well, Ms. Holmes told me, uh, the story, she said
that one of the fellows down there said, "Ms. Holmes, you just
tell us when you're coming and we'll be sure that there's no
problems, and you just let us know and everything will be all
right."
�
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: So . . . now, I sort of agree with you all. You only
found trouble if you went looking for it.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
ELLIS: That's right. Uh-huh.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Well, I've just about gone . . . I've talked you poor
people into the ground, but [laughter - Mr. Ellis] Was there any
questions you thought I'd ask you about but I haven't asked;
anything you felt you were going to be talking about and we
didn't wind up talking about?
MRS. ELLIS: No.
ELLIS: No. I can't think of anything that . . .
WALLACE: Well, I've enjoyed myself and, if you . . . when I
get this paper written, I'll send you all a copy. And, if you'd
like copies of the interview, I can get you copies of the tape,
if you'd like them for your . . . for whatever reason. I can do
that for you.
MRS. ELLIS: Okay. All right.
WALLACE: And, uh, I'd like to see and maybe you all can give
me some advice on this. We have a photographer on our staff, and
I'd like to set up a couple of days where you can bring your
pictures in and have them copied and you leave with your
�
originals. You don't have to leave your . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: And the copies would become part of the collection of
the Kentucky Historical Society.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. That would be wonderful.
ELLIS: Okay.
WALLACE: Because we don't have very many images of black life
in Frankfort.
MRS. ELLIS: I know it, and what you do have is not . . .
WALLACE: Not particularly good.
MRS. ELLIS: No, it's not.
WALLACE: Do you think, if we publicized it thorough maybe
church bulletins and through the people I've talked to in my
project, that the folks would respond to that?
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. I really think they would.
ELLIS: I think . . . because it is a memory. I imagine that
. . .
MRS. ELLIS: Because they were really disgusted at the time that
they had that big write-up in the paper. You know, about the
Bottom.
WALLACE: Which time was that?
MRS. ELLIS: It's been a long time, you know. They had . . . you
remember, they had a big write-up about it. And everybody was
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just really disgusted with it.
ELLIS: And that brings back old memories, too, because a
whole lot of things you remember if you see certain things you .
. .
WALLACE: A picture, yeah.
ELLIS: [Inaudible].
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm. Yes. Yes.
WALLACE: Well, I tell you, that write-up that you're talking
about, seems like after that came out, then, they had an article
with "Papa Jazz" Berry.
MRS. ELLIS: I got it.
WALLACE: Yeah. I've got a copy of that one myself. Now, I .
. . I didn't see the . . . the first article, the one that got
everybody mad; but I've seen "Papa Jazz's" article.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: But the one you're talking about, I think was an
interview with a white policeman and all he talked about was
violence and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: And . . . and, then . . .
ELLIS: Yeah. What he done, yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: And I believe [inaudible] Hines was in that, too,
wasn't he?
ELLIS: Who?
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MRS. ELLIS: Hines.
ELLIS: Uh, I don't know whether he [inaudible].
MRS. ELLIS: I know. But I know it was an upsetting article. I
know everybody was just really on their toes about it. Umhumm.
WALLACE: That. And there were several editorials. I think,
uh, Mr. [James] Calhoun wrote a response and George Simmons, I
think . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Yeah.
WALLACE: A lot of people got upset about it.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. Yes, because it wasn't true. I mean, just,
really, all of it was not.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And you can't take and just put something in, just
in a . . . just like that everybody was just a bunch of slobs
that worked . . . that lived down there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: And that wasn't so. Because we were church-going
people. We were . . . you know, and we were trying to hold up a
community.
WALLACE: And the other thing that I think is wrong is they
said everybody down there was poor. But you had middle class,
you had teachers and doctors and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. We had . . . we had . . . yeah, why sure.
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ELLIS: Dentists, undertakers.
MRS. ELLIS: And was helping the ones that was poorer than us,
you know. And, uh, I . . . you know, I never could . . . of
course, we understood that most of the jobs that you could get
then or our parents could get then were in private families.
WALLACE: A lot of people have told me that.
MRS. ELLIS: And so, that was the only thing, you know, and they
might . . .
WALLACE: Particularly, for black women. That was a real . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh, and they always sort of helped there
because, if our parents did the laundry or anything and we taken
it home, we had to go around the back to take it. You know.
I've seen Nickels Bakery and all. My people washed and ironed
for them. When I carried the things, why, we had to go to the
back. Luther Miles and all of them, see.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Now, that was the only thing that made you know that
you was working for them.
WALLACE: Yeah. We've come a far distance from that time.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. Uh-huh.
ELLIS: Oh boy.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: Well, the story . . .
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MRS. ELLIS: We come.
WALLACE: Yeah. The story I heard is . . .
MRS. ELLIS: We've still got some that . . . [Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: Got a ways . . .
MRS. ELLIS: . . . would rather you use their back door than
their front.
WALLACE: I hope that number is dwindling, though. I hope it's
a smaller number. Well, the story I heard is that whites would
pull up in the car with laundry and wouldn't ever get out of the
car. A black woman . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Would go by and get it . . . get it.
WALLACE: Get it. And . . .
MRS. ELLIS: I've done it a many a day.
WALLACE: Either because they were afraid or they just didn't
want to get out of their cars.
MRS. ELLIS: They didn't want to get out.
WALLACE: And, then, they'd come back later in the day to pick
it up.
MRS. ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: As a matter of fact, I was interviewing one woman and
a white man came to the door and dropped his shirt to be altered.
There are still people making their livings . . .
MRS. ELLIS: I've done it. Yes.
�
WALLACE: Cleaning, sewing and . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . like that kind of thing. Anna Mae . . . uh,
Ms. McClain, I don't know if you all know her.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: She wrote me a beautiful four-page letter and she
says on rent collection day, she remembered this beautiful
attired white gal would come down on, I guess, it was Sunday
afternoon or something, and come by and pick up the rent once a
week. And, uh, you had to have your rent ready.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes.
WALLACE: You paid by the week.
MRS. ELLIS: Paid by the week.
ELLIS: Yeah. Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Something like $3 or $4 a week.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, that's right.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Something on that. Which was . . . it doesn't sound
like a lot to a young person, but mammas and daddies weren't
making too much more.
MRS. ELLIS: No. You didn't get but $2 and $2.50 for the
laundry.
ELLIS: A dollar a week, uh, you know.
�
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
ELLIS: Salary wasn't nothing no way.
MRS. ELLIS: No, Lord.
WALLACE: So, everybody had to work to . . . to make the ends
meet.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. Uh-huh. But, you know what? I'm sort of
glad.
WALLACE: Why?
MRS. ELLIS: When we were coming up that we learned how to work.
Look how many youngsters we got now that don't want to work.
ELLIS: These youngsters ain't going to work now.
WALLACE: Turn up their nose at a job.
MRS. ELLIS: They feel like you owe them something, you know, and
they don't think about trying to make a living for them own
selves. Or that they're going to have to. That was our parents'
thing. If we're not here, you're going to have to.
WALLACE: To make it.
MRS. ELLIS: To make it.
WALLACE: Yeah. So, growing up . . .
MRS. ELLIS: But we hope it will be better when you all get older
than it was for us.
WALLACE: I remember "Papa Jazz", in his article, said, uh,
"These young people got so many opportunities we never had . . ."
�
MRS. ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: . . . and yet they don't realize, you know, and
don't take advantage of them much.
MRS. ELLIS: That's right. That's right.
WALLACE: I would have liked to have talked to him.
MRS. ELLIS: The kids . . . the kids get a big kick out of . . .
ELLIS: He was a good conversationalist.
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, Lord, he'd have . . . he'd have you here till 12
o'clock. [Laughter - Mr. Ellis] He'd be talking to you till 12
o'clock. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Well, if there was one person that . . . or two or
three, that I must talk to, that I shouldn't miss, who would you
recommend that I should try and talk to who lived it and knows
it? Is there anybody that I should try and get hold of that . .
.
MRS. ELLIS: Lord, Honey, there's so many of our people that's
gone, you know, that could really . . .
ELLIS: The older ones, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: I was looking through my auxiliary list the other
night. Uh, for '72 [1972] . . . I'm going back through them.
And from '72 [1972] up until '82 [1982], we had 91 members of the
American Legion Auxiliary. And do you know practically all those
�
people are gone.
WALLACE: Gone on in ten years.
ELLIS: The ones that are left are so old, they couldn't . .
.
MRS. ELLIS: In ten years' time.
ELLIS: Like Ms. Ella. She's 97 years old and she was very
active at that age. She walks all the time.
WALLACE: I saw her up at the Senior Citizens, up on the west
side of town there.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: I met her and spoke with her.
MRS. ELLIS: And I've got about ten now that's down and that we
have to go to. I'm really supposed to have 41; but, since that
time, I've lost three of them. So, I mean, it's just a few now.
WALLACE: Very few. I've got calls in to . . . well, like,
Mary Chenault, trying to . . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Now, she can tell you a lot.
WALLACE: Yeah. She seems a little reluctant right now. It's
. . . it's hard to build up trust because I'm not known to all
these people. I'm . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Well, I . . . I have talked with you; so . . . we go
to the same church. She sings in the choir.
�
WALLACE: Well, say a good word in my behalf, if you . . .
MRS. ELLIS: So, I will.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: So, I'll tell her that I've talked with you.
ELLIS: She's older than we are.
MRS. ELLIS: Yes. She's older than we are.
ELLIS: And she can remember more than . . .
WALLACE: I called Bertie Samuels and she said her memory isn't
too good any more.
MRS. ELLIS: It isn't. It isn't.
WALLACE: And, uh . . .
MRS. ELLIS: She's one my auxiliary.
ELLIS: [Inaudible].
WALLACE: Dorothy Wilson.
MRS. ELLIS: Oh, well, she [inaudible].
ELLIS: She's almost senile now. She's pretty bad, I think,
yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, she's one. She . . . she ju- . . .
WALLACE: Yeah. The doctor told her not to drive any more.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: She doesn't remember much.
WALLACE: The gal that plays the organ for, uh, Corinthian
�
Baptist, uh . . .
ELLIS: Crank?
WALLACE: Crank.
ELLIS: Crank, uh-huh.
WALLACE: Said, maybe, talk to her.
MRS. ELLIS: Crank [inaudible].
ELLIS: Josephine Crank.
WALLACE: Josephine Crank.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: Somebody said I might want to talk to her.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
WALLACE: I've been trying to get hold of, like, Henry Mack and
Sam Parker.
MRS. ELLIS: Now, that's who you need to get hold to.
WALLACE: Henry?
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. I'll tell him. I'll say, "The man wants to
talk to you and he wants to talk about old times."
WALLACE: Well, let him know I'm trying to find him. I'll tell
you what, let me give you one of my business cards.
MRS. ELLIS: Okay.
ELLIS: That's right. I see him. See him all the time.
MRS. ELLIS: I'll tell him. Then, he might look you up.
ELLIS: Yeah, because he's down at the American Legion all
�
the time, you know. Well, he's our Secretary, I'll tell you.
WALLACE: I'll tell you, that was a crime. That beautiful
building they had and, then, they had to relocate and, now, the
building they've got ain't near what it was.
MRS. ELLIS: Why, no. Why, no, indeed. Nowhere near. You know,
that . . . that is one thing that should have been saved, too.
ELLIS: Thank you.
WALLACE: Oh, that was a great . . .
MRS. ELLIS: For a landmark, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. Yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: They're saving everything up on the other end, the
Lindsey's house and everything; and that's not too far from
there. What's the reason it couldn't have been saved?
WALLACE: It could have been. There was nothing . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Why, sure.
WALLACE: . . . nothing really wrong with that building.
MRS. ELLIS: No.
WALLACE: But, see, they stripped out that whole area, and, you
know, they didn't build the first building back there until about
1963 when that post office . . .
MRS. ELLIS: They certainly didn't. That's right.
WALLACE: When that came back in. So, there was a period there
of about six or seven years when they ripped everything out and
not nothing went back.
MRS. ELLIS: Nothing, that's right.
WALLACE: The biggest lie was when they said, "We're going to
build all this housing back in there and people can come back
in." And the only housing that ever got built was that Riverview
Terrace that's 30 units.
ELLIS: Riverview?
WALLACE: Right where Wilkinson and Hill used to run in, up on
the hill.
MRS. ELLIS: Uh-huh.
ELLIS: Down the hill.
MRS. ELLIS: That's the only thing.
WALLACE: So, I think a great injustice was done.
MRS. ELLIS: It was. It was just awful. And, now, you see,
they're trying to beat more. Now, here they come meddling out
here.
WALLACE: Well, see, Mr. [James] Calhoun was telling me, if
they build that South Frankfort floodwall, he's going to have to
move again.
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: The story he says, "I thought I made it to King's
row. They jumped me all over the place and I thought I'd finally
made it to King's row."
�
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah, where you wouldn't be bothered.
WALLACE: And he said, "I ain't there yet."
MRS. ELLIS: No.
WALLACE: "I ain't there yet."
MRS. ELLIS: No.
ELLIS: You know, he put that trailer in there. There wasn't
supposed to be no trailer there, but he put it in there and they
just let him . . . let it stay there. And I told him, if I was
he, I'd left the wheels on it and every time the water come up,
I'd a hooked it and pulled it out of there. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Yeah. He said he's been pretty lucky. He hadn't got
too much water in there. Seventy-eight [1978] . . .
ELLIS: It's always been covered.
WALLACE: Yeah. Seventy-eight [1978] got him, I think.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, I'll let you all go and, uh, I'll send you a
copy of the paper and these . . . these tapes. And I do
appreciate your time.
MRS. ELLIS: Why, we enjoyed talking to you.
WALLACE: I had a good . . . I hope you had a good time.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I hope you did.
MRS. ELLIS: I did. I had a good time talking to you.
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[Interruption in tape]
ELLIS: . . . been over to help with him. Black help. His
cook, his chauffeur, his butler and everything.
WALLACE: Over from Versailles?
ELLIS: Had him over to the mansion, that's . . . yeah.
MRS. ELLIS: We went to school with him.
WALLACE: Oh, really? Yeah.
ELLIS: And everything. The family were Hunters and, uh, of
course, one of them was in my class and I think one was in
Margaret's class. There were three girls.
WALLACE: The story I heard about "Happy" and the Bottom was
when he was running in '55 [1955], his second term.
ELLIS: He came down into one of the places and set everybody
up with drinks, threw $50 down on the bar and said, "Get
everybody what they want." And he was patting backs and shaking
hands and politicking. And that's the only "Happy"-related
story. We had a big . . . used to talk about everybody was going
to walk on that carpet, that $20,000-something carpet that . . .
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Yeah. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Said, "When I'm Governor, everybody's going to walk
on that carpet."
MRS. ELLIS: Yeah. Yeah.
WALLACE: Remember that?
�
MRS. ELLIS: I remember that.
WALLACE: Well, I'll get out of your hair.
[End of Interview]
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