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Nora Faires: And sort of some basic information and then we can go into
more open ended questions.
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Evelyn Brooks: Mhm. Um, let me tell-- you don't have one yet, do you?
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Faires: Why don't we start just by getting your name. Brooks: Evelyn
Johnson Brooks. Faires: Evelyn Johnson Brooks. Brooks: I usually use just
the J.
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Faires: And your address?
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Brooks: 107 West 14th Avenue. Homestead, Pennsylvania. Faires: Your phone?
Brooks: 461 8772.
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Brooks: The phone number here is-- Do you want that? Faires: Phone, yeah.
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Brooks: 461 8533. Now you were askin' me for my home address. Faires:
Right. Brooks: Okay. Faires: And what's the address here? It's Ninth
Street.
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Brooks: 131. Faires: 131. Brooks: East Ninth.
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Faires: East Ninth.
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Faires: Should I call you at home, or?
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Brooks: Yes. Faires: I think it's more comfortable for you.
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Faires: And where were you born? Brooks: In Homestead, Pennsylvania. Where
did you live in Homestead?
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Brooks: At the time of my birth, I lived in the area that was designated
as the ward. It was below the main drag. And a-- what we call an alley off
Dickson Street. It was Gold Way. In 1917, my parents built a brick six room
home on the hill. Lynn Street, between 12th and 13th. It's a street that
runs from 12th to 15th. Um, I lived there until I marry, uh, when I first
married, for two weeks, I went back to live in the ward. They had not torn
it out. That was just for a two weeks period because this was where my
husband was living and we stayed there for two weeks. Then I moved from
there to 12th Avenue, which was not too far from my parents home. I stayed
there for seven years and then I moved from there to a house that was owned
by my church that was on 13th right off Glen Street. So I'm not far from my
parents again. And I stayed there for ten years. And in 1954, my husband
and I purchased the home that we are living in-- began proceedings to
purchase the home we were living in at 107 West 14th, which is not far from
Lynn Street. So that's where I lived.
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Faires: And what is your occupation? What do you do?
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Brooks: I'm employed by the United Methodist Church Union as the director
of Community Development. And I know people want to know, what do you do
with community development? I guess it's more or less-- community
development is more or less a-- a another name for community organizing.
Uh. The title was, when I first started working with the agency, I was a
preschool teacher and I, at that time very innocently, I borrowed the title
as a social worker because I was working in a social work setting, but that
was almost heresy to borrow the title of a social worker if it was not
your, you had not earned it academically. Um, I did go to school and I had
never received a social work degree, but I do have an undergraduate degree,
BA in sociology, so, uh, I'm just a community development.
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Faires: And do you belong to the Methodist Church?
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Brooks: No, I'm a Baptist. Everybody's amazed with that.
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Faires: And do you have a church here in town? Brooks: Oh, yes.
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Brooks: I belong to the Clark Memorial Baptist Church. When I was employed
by the Methodist Church Union, they never asked me what my-- And I
appreciate that because at that time, if the requirement had been that I
had to, uh, leave my church, if I had to join the Methodist Church to be
employed by-- to be employed, I wouldn't have done it. But I have grown
since that time and I don't feel that it's very important what tag is on
you, whether you're Methodist and Baptist. So-- but at that time. I would
not have I, I don't.
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Brooks: I just couldn't work for you if I had to join Methodist church.
Because at that time, I shared with my parents did that well-- Well, I
believed everybody was-- You didn't have to be a Baptist to be willing. To
accept it. That's what I meant. Uh, well, I didn't share fully with my
parents that Baptists and Methodists didn't have any common ground. And I,
I, I listen to too closely fellow Methodists.
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Faires: Is that the church that your parents belong to as well? Brooks:
Clark Memorial Baptist, yes. Faires: Mhm.
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Brooks: They lived in that neighborhood. When they died, they were
Baptist.
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Faires: Why don't we talk a little bit about your parents, ma'am?
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Brooks: You want to know about my parents? My parents were natives of
Virginia, although they did not know-- they were not from the same section.
My father was from a little place about 27 miles from Charlottesville. It
was called Falvers [ph], Virginia. He was one of, I guess, about eight
brothers and sisters. My mother was born and reared in Lynchburg, Virginia.
That was further south. It is near to Roanoke or Richmond. They met in
Pennsylvania and they met at a church. My mother was one of six. Her three,
two brothers and a sister had died prior to her coming to Pennsylvania. But
eventually her mother and the remaining brother and sister came to the area
and the family ties remain very close. In fact, when my grandmother became
senile, she stayed for a portion of the time with my mother. She alternated
between the two daughters. My father was employed in the local steel mill.
He reached the highest position that a Black man at that time could attain
a position of being a first helper. My mother never worked outside of the
home after she married. She had worked previously, but I suppose was eleven
living children under her care she really and truly didn't have the time to
anymore. But sometimes people look at me and amazing that my mother never
had to go out and work after she married.
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Faires: When did they come to Pennsylvania?
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Brooks: In the early 1900s. They were married in 1905. So my father came
to Pennsylvania. I think prior to my mother. I think he must have come
around about 1896 or something like that. And then my mother around about
1900, and they were married in 1905, and they observed their 50th wedding
anniversary in 1955.
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Brooks: My father died one year later. My mother followed in death three
years later.
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Brooks: They were very-- We have-- had a very, very close family. My
father was the breadwinner and the head of his household. My mother
remained in the home and performed her wifely duties as a very obedient, I
suppose, wife at that time. Did-- shed manage the household very well. Uh,
there was always food on the table and there were always shoes on our feet
and clothes on our backs. And all 11 of us graduated from the local
Homestead High school. My oldest brother graduated in 1924 from the local
high school. And that was a day of celebration in our family and it was a,
uh, a-- a goal I think, for the-- the ten, the younger ones because some of
the ten were not even born when he graduated. But we really and truly were
inspired by his accomplishment. He graduated from the University of
Pittsburgh in 1926 as a chemist.
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Brooks: And-- This has always amused me since I've learned now that
maybe-- I don't know whether he took any educational courses or not, but
there was a job vacancy at a-- the Lynchburg Seminary and College and a
friend of his was attending there and he told him, James, they need an
instructor in chemistry at the seminary. How about you apply? And he did.
And he taught at the seminary for about three and a half years and he said
it was a very fine job.
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Faires: Which was back with your-- near your mother's family.
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Brooks: Yes. Yes. He had an opportunity to visit all the places my mother
told us about. Uh, and like, uh, Rocky Mountain, that was just a suburb of
Lynchburg.
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Brooks: So he taught in my mother's hometown at the Lynchburg Seminary and
College.
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Faires: Did either your father or your mother tell you much about growing
up in-- in Virginia?
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Brooks: My father spoke more-- Both of them did. My father lived in a more
rural area-- area than my mother did. Uh, my father. Well, both my mother--
my mother did not have a stepfather, but my father did have a stepfather.
His father died at a-- during-- he was very young when his father died, and
his mother remarried. Uh, from what I gather in his conversation, he had a
very responsible and good stepfather. Uh, at that time, children were
needed to work in the fields. Well in the-- yes, I suppose it was the
fields. So I think my father had about a sixth grade, seventh grade
education, but he-- both of them were able to grasp what was being taught
very, very well. Um, he spoke very often of how teachers came into the
community and the influence they had on his life. His mother had ambitions
for them becoming responsible people. Uh, one of his brothers was a
minister. Another was a carpenter. And another was a barber. My father had
no particular profession. He was the only one of them who was employed in
the steel mill.
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Faires: Do you know why he came to Pennsylvania? Brooks: Looking for
employment. He came to Pennsylvania for employment. I don't recall whether
he was the first of his family to come.
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Faires: Did he come right to Homestead initially?
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Brooks: No, he came-- initially, he went to McKeesport. He settled in
McKeesport and told an untruth about his age and was employed in the mill.
I think he was-- he might have been around 18 when he came here, but I
think the age was 21 for employment, being employed, and no one was willing
to demand him-- they didn't demand a birth certificate, which I doubt
_________[??] anyway. He got the employment and of course all this came
out. There was a difference in his age when he passed, on insurance
policies and what he had said before. The desire for gainful employment
brought him to _____[??].
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Faires: This was-- then he went from McKeesport. When did he come to
Homestead?
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Brooks: Around 1902 and lived in-- at that time there were, what I
gathered, there were a number of rooming houses or batches where mill men
stayed. And there he made contact with-- He met 3 or 4 men. Remained family
friends throughout his life. Family lives.
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Faires: And they also worked at the mill?
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Brooks: They worked at the mill and achieved the same position that he
did. I could name. Melvin Good's father, Joe _____[??], Joseph Dorsey and
Fred Alexander, they all achieved the same position. Very responsible
people, men who built homes in the community or bought property.
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Faires: They were all from-- were they all from the South?
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Brooks: All from the South. Uh, one-- One might not have been. There was
always some doubt as to where his whereabouts. There used to be a time
that, uh, uh, Black people wanted to be-- Some wanted to be anything other
than, uh, a Black person and, uh, some Northerners and some of them still
hold this that, uh, people from the South were not as smart as those who
were from the North. And some people viewed it as a stigma to say that they
were from the South. So the one-- one person said that he was a
Pennsylvanian, used to be a good big thing for a Black person to say they
were a Pennsylvanian. Now, what the status was, I don't know. But say you,
well.
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Brooks: You were just a little different. And some people. You were born
in the North. But, uh, this-- the others, all the others claimed and did
not deny that they had come from the South.
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Faires: This was a time of great influx of Blacks to homestead.
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Brooks: Yes, because of the steel mill.
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Faires: Did he ever talk about that?
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Brooks: The-- the influx of Blacks coming to the steel mill? Yes. I've
heard him mention, uh, the time they had the strike in the local steel
mill. Because I remember then he purchased a-- a gun.
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Faires: Which strike was--
Brooks: That-- I think that was about 1920. I think that was about, around
1920. He purchased a gun for protection. But he never used it. He never had
to use it. But it seems as though that was the thing to do at that time.
But I'm sure I'm correct in saying.
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Brooks: Remembering that he crossed the picket lines and went on into the
mill. That was [unintelligible].
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Brooks: And he worked, was pensioned from the mill, received the pension
from the mill after having worked there. I think he worked there 25 or 30
years. But my father was, lived on his pension for over 25 years. He was
the pension fund and he lived on his pension, which was not excess.
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Faires: Can you tell me much about the jobs you did in the mill?
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Brooks: Work on the furnace which required--
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Brooks: Well, as I recall, it required not so much strength as it did
courage to go in every day and face the intense heat that was required to
make the steel. I heard him talk about the instructions that he gave to
younger men who were his second or third helper. Many of them were trained
by him to become first helpers. He talked about the danger that was
involved in going into the mill. I was always-- I always wondered why my
father never wore summer underwear. Year round, he wore the long underwear.
He wore high top shoes. He wore a felt hat. Never wore a straw hat and
never at no time set down at the dinner table or breakfast table without
his coat. Always sat in his coat.
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Brooks: He could not stand, I suppose, because he worked in this intense
heat. My mother used to fret a lot of times. She used to like to throw up
the bedroom windows, you know, so that during the summer anyway. But my
father could not stand and he grabbed them. And I always, I always believed
it was because he worked in the mill and being around the intense heat and
coming away from that, his pores would be opening. Be exposed to it. Now,
that's what my mother never explained to us why he did. But it wasn't the
same weight of underwear that he wore, but it was the same style. I imagine
he changed the weight, but it was always the same. He talked about-- he did
not view laying off as a way of life. He was required-- at one time the men
worked the ten hours in the mill. If his job required that, he worked 10,
12, he did. Of course, they were paid for the overtime when the mills went
on the eight hours. I can never remember my father being off the job
because he was ill, or because he just didn't want to go.
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Brooks: Or that he had something else to do. His job was very, very
important to him. I did hear him say that if he had his life to live over,
he would have lived in a more relaxed fashion because he did not take a
vacation during the time that he worked. He-- as I said, he did not just
lay off to lay off. I remember my mother saying it looked like the schedule
always required him to work on the family holidays. And I remember my
mother saying that. She called him Rob. His name was Robert, but she called
him Rob. Rob, if you're not here for the next Christmas dinner or I don't
know whether it's Christmas or Thanksgiving, she said, I'm just not going
to cook dinner. We'll just use-- we'll just have the usual dinner will be
no extra. And I don't know how my father arranged it, but I know he was
home for the Thanksgiving and it wasn't because he was out in the street.
It was because his job. The schedule of the job. But he did arrange to be
home for family dinners after that. Um, he was very well known in the area.
He gave you the impression that he might have been. Many people mistook him
for a minister.
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Brooks: But he wasn't. He was very tall, very imposing, very soft spoken.
Was quite different from my mother. And my mother was the type of person
who hit first and-- Maybe you could explain later. But my father would
listen to you. There was-- There were always two sides to a question as far
as my father was concerned. And you had the privilege of explaining to him
what your position in a certain situation might be and where he was not a
man easily persuaded or who might think that my children can do no wrong,
but he would listen and you could explain to him why you choose to do a
certain thing or why are you reacting in this certain way.
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Brooks: But that didn't work with Mother. If you did it and it wasn't in
keeping with what she thought was becoming--
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Faires: Was he active in the community?
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Brooks: Very active. He was a trustee in his church, a president of his
men's Bible class. And these two positions he held with a lot of
distinction. Was an avid Bible student, and we have talked about this often
other peers, my own peers in the community whose parents were active in our
church, because that's where all the activity was and that's all there was
for us to do, to go to church, our parents, families. And but we didn't
have to. You know how some kids are embarrassed when their parents might
appear in public, but we were never embarrassed because our parents, I
think, had the advantage, took advantage of our schooling. They learned
from us. Uh, and it was very important in our home that we talk correctly
in our home. You learn it in school and you put it to practice at home and
the way you performed in public, you-- the same way at home. This is when
children who are not too articulate and who this answer in 1 or 2 words. I
said, Well, that didn't happen in our home. You had an opportunity to
really and truly express yourself and if not to express yourself, but if
you were going to-- at our dinner table, everybody had an opportunity to
talk and you didn't have to fight for your opportunities. The conversation
went so that everybody had opportunity to talk and we all always sit down
as a family. We used to become very, very angry.
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Brooks: After my father. Oh, even before he retired, he-- Father was a
salesman, and I think he sold everything but ladies corsets. He would sell,
you know. Products similar to what-- you've heard, what-- what-- household
products. Or he sold those. I think he sold the same products. He sold the
vegetables and that sort of thing. And if you ever heard of a huckster?
Well, he was more or less a huckster.
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Faires: This was your father as well.
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Brooks: But this was the-- what he did after his job at the mill. He was a
great talker. Um, it wasn't uncommon for my father particularly on Saturday
night. He selling and not to come home until 6 or 7:00. 6:00 was our dinner
hour. And we were not allowed to eat until my father came home. And I been
hungry many times. So we had to wait until my father came. Uh, my mother
never allowed us to open the paper. Maybe that's why I throw the paper all
over the floor when I read. When I read a newspaper. It's horrible. But we
weren't allowed to touch the newspaper until my father came. We did not eat
until my father came. Uh, when my brothers and sisters started working and
they were supplementing the family income, if my father weren't home, meals
could be eaten. But while we were growing up and he was the only
breadwinner. We respected my mother. We couldn't have disrespected my
father because my mother would never allowed it because she was benefiting
herself. And I really, truly appreciate this because I have a thing about
how fathers are treated in some homes. And I really and truly feel that
it's the mothers. Prerogative. It's mother's responsibility to get that
respect. Because if she doesn't, the kids aren't going to do it.
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Faires: What about her background?
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Brooks: Her background is a little different from my father's because she
was brought up in the city. And the exposures that-- cultural exposures
that she had were more than my father. My mother did do domestic service
before as I said before, she was married.
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Faires: Oh, excuse me. Was that here, or--
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Brooks: Yes, in the Pittsburgh area.
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Faires: As well? How old was she when she came, I guess?
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Brooks: I know that-- possibly it was about, I think she was around about
18 when she came. Faires: And she worked around Lynchburg first?
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Brooks: Not too much. No. She came to this area. A relative had come
before that time. And when she came, she stayed with the relative until she
found employment. And when she found employment, then she stayed on the job
where she worked. She always sought employment in a very, very-- well--
Well, I would say in a upper middle class family rather than a-- she never
worked for anyone who was not middle class America. She never was employed
in a Jewish home. Never. Oh, the employment was mostly in the Shadyside
area. I heard her refer to maybe 2 or 3 families for whom she worked. One
of the families is the Dillwers [??]. She do work for the Dillwers. Over in
the-- They live in the Shadyside area.
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Brooks: Oh, my mother liked beautiful things. But she did not have a soft
voice. My mother-- and I inherited her voice. My mother had a very
demanding or commanding voice, a very handsome woman. When I recall, my
first recollection of my mother was a medium-- medium stature, but of,
well, well-built something like I-- But I'm told that my mother, my
coloring is darker than my mother's. Uh, she had a very, very-- we had-- I
have to laugh--
