Anonymous. Female. Member of Sephardic Jewish Community

Anonymous Jewish woman shares her history and memories with us today:

Originally the Bikur Cholim Synagogue. Photo by Madeline Crowley

 I had a best friend who was Chinese and friends who were Black. We didn’t know there were differences between people; we just played together. The Depression was a happy time even though everyone was poor because everyone felt they were in it together. People didn’t think about what they didn’t have. It was easier, I think, to get along because there wasn’t such focus on material things as there is today coming from TV and the Internet. We were always happy to be out playing together. We enjoyed being together.
That’s all we needed.

About Anonymous:

Anonymous remembers a time before the blare of TV and the constant roar of cars when the Central Area was a village of small shopkeepers where people gathered together to talk and play as the primary form of shared, joyful entertainment.

Anonymous on the Central Area:

I guess I should start at the beginning. The first Jewish settlers in Seattle were Ashkenazim (Jews of Eastern European or German descent) who arrived in the late 1800s. My family is Sephardic from Turkey (Jews originating from Spain, Portugal or North Africa) my uncles came to Seattle in 1909 and my father joined them in 1911. My mother came after World War One in 1920.

Now, don’t forget it was a different life over in Turkey. When my Dad first came over to America he did shoeshine for a while. A lot of the Turkish men when they first came they did shoe shine and shoe repair. Whatever it took to provide.

The Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities were pretty separate before World War II, we had different synagogues and different traditions and food. There’s a big difference between their practices and ours. After the war, there was intermarriage and we learned their dishes and they learned ours; it was a very rich time.

It was a very Jewish community but we had non-Jewish neighbors that we were very close to and don’t forget there were three churches within a few blocks.  We lived around Irish, Italian, Turkish, German and Russian families in one apartment building. Everyone spoke broken English and we spoke Ladino at home. The children were all first generation Americans.

My father really discouraged us from speaking Ladino, ‘We’re in America, we speak English’ which was a point of contention with my mother.

I was a few years old; I remember that apartment and my crib. It was so crowded in that apartment that the crib was against a mirror. I was looking in it while the neighbor women were over. They got together every day for coffee. I overhead them talking about the ‘bogeyman.’ They said, beware there was a burglar, a bogeyman, in the neighborhood. I remember looking into that mirror and seeing the reflection. I was old enough to know that the bogeyman sounded scary.

When I was about three years old, I remember my Mom sent me down the side stairs to the apartment below with a bowl of melon seeds wanted for a recipe. Kids in those days were very capable, they followed orders and they delivered. If they were asked to do something they could handle it.

We learned from our neighbors. It was a real education for us, it was a benefit to see and appreciate different ways. We understood how different cultures had different ideas. The differences made us happy and appreciative. Once we moved to a house, we loved to go to our neighbors. We loved the smells of the kitchens.  We loved even the Christmas tradition of the Italians.

It was a wonderful neighborhood, very diverse neighborhood; we were surrounded by great neighbors. One neighbor was Swedish, she had lots of cats, too many cats. The lady behind us, her landlord was Chinese, and she had two tenants who were Jewish.

Japanese Neighbors and Internment

We especially loved our Japanese neighbor and her doll collection. They had a beautiful garden, and they were very good to us. They loved us very much. They gifted us with candy bars and once when I was sick she brought me a doll. We stayed in touch with them after they left to the internment camp and after they returned. When they got back they came to the same house, living three generations in the same house.

They had a newborn when they came back, my mother crocheted a baby blanket and delivered it to their wonderful house. The daughter-in-law was crippled with arthritis and she suffered in the camps. There was no heat. She died shortly after coming back.

In the letters I have from the Internment camps, they always talked about how there was no heat. The girls I went to school with wrote about how cold it was and the lack of privacy. It was an ugly time. We had to say goodbye to our friends and we couldn’t understand why.

The Depression

Yet, everybody was in the same boat during the Depression, we felt rich compared to some who didn’t have – they would come to school without socks. It was a sad time, really. But for the most part our parents were very resilient and they worked hard to provide for their children. Work was very tough to find.

It’s hard to roll all this out, there are so many years to cover, and times were so different.

It was wonderful then because we were a family. We had the support of both parents, we had meals together, we went to school; we had regular hours. My mother didn’t work. It was very difficult to find a job in those days. My Dad would wait for a phone call to be a helper here or there, there were times when he would earn just a dollar a day.

We lived then in an apartment building on 23^rd Avenue. There was a great house next to it, and a house next door. This was the Japanese family’s house. The people on the other side were Italian. They’d never seen or met Jewish people before but they became very good friends. My mother and her became like sisters.  We’ve stayed in touch all these years. Their youngest daughter would get us in trouble, because we were little kids and she put makeup on us. My father thought she was a juvenile delinquent because she’d put make-up on us. He didn’t believe in makeup or anything like that.

It sounds like your father maybe because of language difficulties was picking up work here and there. Was that the case?

He was not lazy, he worked at any job he could get, shipyard, lumber mill; he delivered coal. Anytime they’d raise rent, we’d move. And let me tell you, moving was not fun because you couldn’t afford to replace anything. The linoleum rug wasn’t expensive but you would roll it up and take it to the new house. Any fuel in the shed, like wood or coal, had to be bagged and taken because you couldn’t afford to leave it. 

In about 1939, we moved to our last house in the neighborhood. It was nice house with nice porch; trees and a lot of space had a long driveway and a garage. We had wonderful Italian neighbors who had a garden. We were always talking over the fence. They had boys and we always played together, so it was a very neighborly. It was a nice neighborhood. Everything you needed was pretty close in all these different stores. We would walk to get what we needed. We didn’t have a car.

The Neighborhood House

It was so convenient in the neighborhood, we’d walk to school, and after school we had the Settlement House. It was run by the council of Jewish women.

About the Neighborhood House 

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It is now the Neighborhood House, it was key to our growing up. They had drama, tap dancing, crafts, and summer adventure programs. You’d bring a quarter for the bus and then ride to Seward Park or Lincoln Beach and we’d sing on the bus.

The Settlement House was open all summer and during the school year too. You could walk there, it was safe, kids walked everywhere then. It was open to neighborhood kids, the program itself was not necessarily Jewish. It was driven by the needs of kids. We learned to block print. We learned to decorate ashtrays with shells. There were plays to see. Also, there were Doctors and Dentists who volunteered time there.

The Japanese had a similar program for kids off of Rainier Avenue. We mixed at school. Nobody looked at anybody else and said, he’s Japanese or he’s Chinese. We knew he was Japanese but nobody thought about him or her being yellow or brown or whatever.

Here’s a picture of my 4^th grade class; this would be in 1938-39. It’s a big range of happy healthy kids. We used to drink our milk and our cocoa. This was my friend (points to a smiling girl), she was the happiest; she just bubbled. Her family was Japanese. It made you feel good to be her friend, just to get a hello from her. They lived around the corner.

It sounds like among the children there was little sense of difference.

During the Depression everyone was in the same boat, parents were struggling. People were taking night jobs, or day jobs, my father at this point was a security person at the Pike Place Market. He worked there for a while. Then he worked at a shipyard.

We didn’t have a phone. People generally didn’t have phones. If you wanted to get a message to someone, you walked. The first phones were a party line. You would have one ring while someone else had a double ring. If someone had been on the phone for a long time, you’d pick up the phone and hear them talking. They’d say, ‘I’m on the phone now, when I’m done, I’m done.’ You knew exactly whose voice it was because you knew them from the neighborhood.

Back then, there were no cars, no telephones. But now even people on public assistance have their nails done. To each his own. They have cellular phones. I don’t know how they pay for it, even on my simple cell phone I have to pay monthly for it. It’s ridiculous. It’s going to break the bank.

Neighborhood Shops & Businesses

The great thing about the neighborhood then was all the little businesses on Jackson Street. There was a pharmacy on 27^th Avenue called Weeds. We used to call him Dr. Weeds because he was so good. He had lineament, Sloan’s lineament. They would display it with a horse and his owner. That meant it was good for the horse, so it was good for you. It was for aches and pains, for arthritis. Mr. Weeds had his own lineament from turpentine and it guaranteed relief. A little turpentine won’t hurt a bit, you’d rub it on aching joints. He could take care of anything. He was the clinic.

There was a Department store that work-clothes, shoes, and oilcloths. At one time, people would put oil-cloth on their table.  You just wipe it clean. You’d change it two or three times a year for the change of seasons. They had wonderful patterns. And people would stand around in the store and try to figure out what pattern they wanted for their table.

Then there was Masin’s Furniture. It was a little store. Mr. Masin had everything there, he’d pick up salvage from train wrecks or whatever. That was a destination.

 There was also a gas station, a bakery and a movie house called the Mt. Baker Movie house. It’s a church now. A lot of these places now are churches.

At the movies they had a four-hour program. Your parent’s would give you a dime and a bag with a sandwich for your lunch.  Then, you’d sit and watch four hours of movies. Of course, in those days there was nothing risqué in the movies. Still, nothing was censored for children. The Movie Tone News showed the war, it was always stale as far as news goes. Then, there was a cartoon. No one checked on us. Kids were responsible and it was a safe place.

On that block there was Selig’s, a linens store. He was Martin Selig’s father, the son who became a real estate man, a developer.

And then you had Grinspan’s. He had everything from suits and hats to linoleum rugs and paint. He went through phases, he had all kinds of things.

Then, there was a Supermart by an Italian man and a Willner’s that sold shoes and clothes. And then next to that were yard goods. Yards of fabric, bolts of cloth, embroidery materials, dolls. I got a big mama doll from there. People made their own clothes and curtains, people were sewing in those days.

Jackson Street was so great with all those shops. Yesler Way had the library and the fire station that offered boxing for the boys. There were those Queen Anne houses across the street. On Yesler Way there was a Turkish confectionery, he had these big copper bowls, and he’d make this great candy. All those recipes have been lost. On the way home from school all the kids would stop there. He had ‘Lucky Bites.’ If you got a pink one, you could get another one. If you got a white one, you didn’t get another one. 

He made the best yogurt too. People would bring their yogurt culture and he’d make the yogurt. Next door, there was a card room for men playing cards. They’d go in there with their ‘kosquettas,’ playing both cards and middle-eastern board games. They’d be in there smoking and playing cards. Then the wives would send runners there looking for the husbands to get them to come home.

There was a bakery across from the Yesler Library and a butcher. People would bring their chickens, killed ritually, then pluck the feathers and take them to the butcher for the Sabbath. They’d tie the legs of the chicken together and hang them from hooks. On Jefferson Street they had the live chickens in cages and you could pick out the one you wanted.

Family Nights at the Movies

We were very, very lucky to have that community. We went to the theatres on Tuesday night. There was a mass exodus to the Madrona Theatre on family night. Everyone was there but no one robbed our houses. They had Captain Marvel serials for the kids, it was just a different time.

That was before the Television. God help us, after that it changed. We never had a phonograph record so we decided when we were getting a TV we’d get one with a record player. So, we had to go buy records. My mother’s cousin had a Victrola and we thought she was rich.

We also made good use of the Parks. All we had to do was ring up somebody or pass the word, there was a network and everybody knew to meet at the Park in Madrona for a picnic. There were no plastic containers and no paper products, so you’d bring pots and pans tied up with a dishtowel. You’d bring watermelon and put it in the baby buggy and walk it down the park.

We had such food. In our tradition we celebrate the cycles of life so we’d celebrate births and weddings; we’d put on a wonderful party.

Many families gathering and all bringing their own food? That sounds like so much fun.

This happened all the time, all summer long, except for a certain period when the Jews are in mourning because of the destruction of the temple. Then you don’t go to the beaches for that time, for about three weeks. We were mostly celebrating life cycles together from birth to death and that kept everybody busy.

Then there was the war. Everybody pitched in and volunteered for the war effort. The families hung little flags in the windows so you knew who had somebody overseas. When anybody lost a son they put up a gold star. We had three gold stars in a few blocks, two on 24 and one on 26^th. We lost four men, Albert, Meyer, Sam & Izzie.

It was a different life, another century. In that one area there was only one Catholic, the rest were all Jewish. Yet, on 25^th Avenue there were all kinds, Irish, and one guy who made a living sharpening tools, but he drank so much and didn’t work at that too often. He had pedals for his sharpener, like a bicycle, when he got thirsty he’d work, but his poor wife, she worked. She worked hard. She had to have a job.

It was another life. It is another world now. It was easy flying. When we went downtown to the tearooms we'd wear gloves. Now downtown you see flip-flops and short shorts.

Is it sad to remember how things were and see where they are now?

No, that’s where it is. It’s not my show. After you turn 80, and you just look at things like ‘That’s their show now, it’s not the way I would want; it’s the way it is.’ What I hate is the greed and the dishonesty from the top down. My mother used to say if my mother is sleeping with the king who do I complain to…

When I go back to the old neighborhood, I feel welcome there even though it’s changed so much. In my mind, it still is what it was, you see? I still feel the street itself even though it has changed. It changed a lot but there’s still something about it.

After your father died… is that why you left the neighborhood?

No, were there for 25 years. We didn’t leave ‘til 1964. In ‘64 the whole community moved, the synagogue moved over to Lakewood.

You have to understand it was the 1960s and things changed. It wasn’t safe. A lot of people who could afford to move had already moved. It was not comfortable; you weren’t comfortable walking (on the street). Also, the younger people who had married, they didn’t buy in the old neighborhood. They bought in other neighborhoods.

The neighborhood was so cohesive during the depression, what changed in the 1960s?

Times change. The area changed, it was not the same neighborhood. Things started to change after the war, after the Second World War a lot of the people who had served in the Armed Forces had been to Europe and so they’d been in the world. When they started to marry, they’d branched out. They didn’t want the old neighborhood. They wanted to be further from the synagogues and so forth.

I’ve been in my new neighborhood for 49 years. I was one of the last to leave the old neighborhood.  

There was a demographic change so it was not safe. Remember Mr. Pratt? He was assassinated; someone shot him at his front door. There was a civil unrest.

We were the last ones here and the businesses that had been here for 40 years were not getting business anymore.

Was this the time when there were a lot of fires set in the neighborhood?

It was just unrest. You had no control over your property. You were afraid to talk to anybody. It was civil unrest and for those of us who were left, it was very uncomfortable. It wasn’t demonstrations on the street, but I was afraid. Whereas before, you could take the bus at night and walk through the Garfield campus to come home.

It was a very unsafe feeling. We weren’t broken into or anything like that. I should back up because we were in the house in 1963 and were celebrating a certain holiday. The family went upstairs with the children and all of the sudden rocks came through the window in the bedroom. The window shade started to spin. The children started to cry. I got on the phone and called the police department. And I had to say, “I don’t want you to ignore this call. You have to come over here now because we feel threated. I don’t know what will happen next.

It was probably night so you have had no idea who’d done it.

It was night, the lights were on next door and the lights were on in the church across the street. I told the police, ‘You have to come now, we are not safe here.’ The police at that time, they’d gotten so that they wouldn’t respond to emergencies. They’d wait for it to die down because they didn’t want to get caught in the cross-fire.

There were shootings?

Yes, there were shootings in the area. They’d wait for things to die down and so I told them, ‘We have no guns. We want you to come and check this out.’ The police came and sat in our chair and said, ‘the only thing we can suggest to you is that you move.’ We’d been there 25 years.

Douglas Chin mentioned in an earlier interview that people were throwing rocks at people on the street from passing cars.

My mother would go to the grocery store two blocks south of where we lived and I called to say, “How’s your day going?” And she said, “I’m done, I’m not going to go to the grocery store anymore because the kids are throwing rocks at me.” And then that this happened (at our house) in September. I moved to my new house in November.

And there was something else going on then, what was called ‘block busting.’ The realtors, real estate companies would come to your house and scare you out of your wits, saying, ‘it’s not safe for you to live here and we suggest you sell while you still can get money for your house.’ Anyone with property was moving.

[Anonymous came to this project via Washington State Jewish Historical Society]

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Jacqueline Lawson. Geneologist, Co-founder Black Heritage Society

Jackie Lawson has worked ceaselessly as an archivist and with the Black Heritage Society. She shares her memories of the Central Area with us:

Jacqueline Lawson. Photo: Madeline Crowley

When did you live in the Central Area?

If the Central Area includes Madison Valley, I’ve lived there since I was born. We first lived on 26th Ave, then we moved to the 400 block of 29th Ave. N. That house is still there.

So you grew up in that house?

Yes.

What was the neighborhood like when you were a child?

It was probably pretty much the same because I know some of the people that still live there. But there were several nationalities, I guess you could say, living there. The boys across the street and next-door were Swedish and Norwegian. My best girlfriend was English, her mother actually was from England, although my friend was born here. My other best girlfriend was Italian. It was quite a variety of cultures. The people next door were Nicholsons; they were from Norway.

Did the children play together?

Oh, yes! We didn’t go into each other’s homes. That was one thing that none of the parents, my parents or their parents, would allow. We weren’t allowed to go into the houses. We played outside in the streets. We did a lot of ‘kick the can’ and all of those childish games.

 

Why do you think people didn’t go into each other’s houses?

Family Portrait. Collection: Jacquelyn Lawson

I have no idea. I didn’t know at the time. In my case, as the years went by first I would first have to know the parents, and the parents would have to know me. Now, I was allowed into the little English girl’s house next-door because she was right across (from us) we shared a driveway. We knew her well enough. My parents knew her parents well enough. I think that was the only home I was in. Maybe once I was in Joanne’s house; she was Italian. Joanne’s parents I knew very well. He was a shoemaker right on 29th off what is now Martin Luther King Avenue. He had a shoe making place there so he was very well known in the neighborhood. Maybe I went in Marianna Sandi’s once, but I was scared to go in there. I didn’t really know her parents.

Why were you afraid to go into that house? Was it a dark house, or…

No, her uncle or her father, I forgot which, had this really deep voice and it used to frighten me. He was a very good friend of my uncle’s. Oh, he was a big man. He just kind of scared me. You know how little kids are.

What’s your happiest memory of that time?

I don’t have any “happiest,” it was just a good time. Fun times.

How did people celebrate birthdays back then?

Probably it’s the same as people do now. I don’t think birthdays are much of a surprise but we always had our birthday cake. In later years, I was never one for cakes and cookies and things, so my mother started baking a chocolate pie. That was my birthday thing. We’d just have birthday parties, you know, in the house at home, just with your family.

Where did you go to school?

I started off going to Harrison Elementary, it was four blocks down the hill from our house which is now MLK Way. I went there through the fourth grade. It only had four grades. After the fourth grade then I transferred to Longfellow.

That’s quite a walk up the hill.

Yes, it was.

Were you the eldest? 

No, I was the baby.

Family Home. Collection: Jacquelyn Lawson

 

So you would walk with your brothers and sisters.

No, by myself. The other neighborhood kids also walked. When I was in the sixth or seventh grade I was one of the patrol girls, so one of my patrol girl buddies who lived on the other side of Madison St, we would meet and we’d start walking up the hill and when we got to the main streets we’d have to stop and wait for the little kids and help them across the street.

You were born in 1928?

Yes.

So you were in the sixth grade in…?

That would be the mid to late 1930s, I guess.

Were you aware, as a child, of the Great Depression at all?

I was affected by it, although I didn’t realize it was the Depression. We always shopped at the Goodwill. Daddy taught me how to put soles on shoes. We had an old foot form that my grandfather had used when he was a shoe maker or a shoe repairer. My clothes were always homemade, my dresses and everything. I never thought about our lives as being deprived. We all wore second-hand clothes and hand-me-downs. It was just the way it was with everybody.

Do you remember your mom making you clothes? Would you get excited?

Only the one dress, I have a picture of it. She and I are standing in front of the big ol’ car. She has on her Sunday clothes and her little hat, and I’m standing there with my hands on my hips. I was so proud of that little dress with the ruffles. Usually they were made out of a stock pattern; we had the same pattern. Yet, I never had dresses made out of flour sacks. I think I may have had underclothes made out of them. The dresses were always very inexpensive little flowery prints. Different dresses in the same pattern. I still never thought about us as being poor.

Where did you go to church?

The First A.M.E. My grandfather was one of the Trustees, one of the founders of the Church. The original stone on the church, I don’t know what they’ve done with it, his name was on it. As was his brother-in-law, who is also his wife’s brother-in-law.

Replacement Foundation Stone. Photo: Madeline Crowley

So they probably knew the Gaytons?

The Gaytons lived next door to the church at that time

They did? Where the school is?

There were two houses there. The minister lived in the one and the Gaytons lived in the other. Those houses I’m sure are gone. They were very old at the time I was young.

The current city boundaries for the Central Area don’t include the First A.M.E.

Well, the First A.M.E. was out of the way.

First A.M.E. Photo: Madeline Crowley

Yeah, the city considers that Capitol Hill. But you can’t really account for the history of that community without the First A.M.E.

In fact in my book, “Let’s Take a Walk,” I put it in as an extra note because the walk described ended at the top of the hill on 19th Ave. or 20th, so I had to add, “Farther down is First AME.”

You went to high school at Garfield High. What year did you graduate?

1946. 

So then you were you in school when your Japanese classmates would have all disappeared (due to internment/incarceration)?

I was in grade school at that time.  I remember I was at Longfellow and the principal had called us to an assembly. He announced that our Japanese neighbors were going to be sent away. We didn’t know why or understand it. I remember all of us started crying, and that’s all I remember about it. I think that was like 1942.

Did you have any friends that were in your neighborhood that were Japanese?

Oh yeah, we had a lot. My friends were younger but some of the older kids were Japanese. One of the boys from the neighborhood, it was rumored that he went back and joined the Japanese Navy. The Kosakas were Japanese, Yuji and Aibo, those were their nicknames, they had longer names. They were very close friends with my brothers, I mean Yuji was my brother’s best friend.

Meany School Portrait. Collection: Jacqueline Lawson

Interestingly enough, in the late 1970s my mother started going to Senior Services or something having to do with her rent. Her agent was Yuji who had come back from internment. Here was Yuji. It was exciting for all of us to know that some of the kids did get ahead.

Do you know what happened to the Japanese houses and businesses during Internment?

I couldn’t help you at all. I was young. I know that one group of Japanese friends had the big grocery store right where the new MLK Ave cuts across Madison Street.

They either lived right there at Arthur Place and East Madison or across Madison, which would have been 27th Ave. There were several Japanese families that lived there. I don’t know about their businesses, I don’t know about their homes, I just don’t.

That store that I’m talking about wasn’t taken over by anybody, it was just demolished by 

the city.

MLK Way was built that early? I always figured it came much later.

Oh, it probably did. I don’t remember that well, I hadn’t paid that much attention to it until I start doing research on my own.

Collection: Jacqueline Lawson.

What do you remember of Garfield High?

Well, I suppose we all had our little cliques. Those of us in the pictures I’ve shown you, most of those young ladies and gentlemen, we grew up together through the years so we just stuck together. Although, I did get into trouble with them after a while. When I was a Senior I was appointed, not asked if I wanted to, but appointed on the Girls’ Advisory board. So, I became a ‘Policeman’, so to speak, and I lost some friends. Even my best girl friends stopped speaking to me for a while, because I was going around spying on people.

What were you supposed to look for, short skirts?

Oh no, no. Nothing like that. The big thing was smoking and skipping school, those kinds of things. I have no idea what I did, all I know is Priscilla didn’t like me for a while and it really hurt my feelings. I hate to say it, but I didn’t particularly have fun in high school.

Why?

I was so very shy. I just stuck with my close friends. I was pretty studious. I didn’t read a whole lot but my main intent was to get good grades and make my dad proud of me. I can’t say I didn’t get into trouble that my parents didn’t know about (I’ll never tell you, though). Yeah, we had some sneaky times, my best girlfriend Priscilla and I, but that’s water under the bridge.

What do you think your dad’s dreams were for you?

Well, after high school it was just to try to decide what I was going to do. I had one sister who was a nurse. She had to leave the city (Seattle) because they wouldn’t teach black nurses at the University of Washington at that time.  She had to find another school. My other sister was married by that time and she was working for a doctor in Portland. My Daddy’s dream was that I had to do something in the medical field. We just had two choices, I decided I was either going be a dietician or a pharmacist. That was his dream.

The Family Together. Collection: Jacquelyn Lawson

 What was your dream?

To get out of school… and to get married. I eventually flunked, you know. I flunked the first year at University.

You were studying nutrition?

No, for both majors, I had to study Chemistry, Botany… Anyway, I had to take three sciences. It was just too much for me. At the same time, I had met my husband-to-be, so I was cutting classes. I didn’t want to go there anyway, so I ended up going to Broadway Edison (which is now Seattle Community College). I took a clerical course, a secretarial course and finished it with flying colors. A two-year course and I finished in 6 months. That’s how I knew I was meant to be, something along those lines.

I tried while, I think it was still when I was going to university, I decided I wasn’t going to make it, I’d try to take Physician’s Assistant course. So I went to technical college up in Renton for Med. I was fine. I kept going to the classes every day, until the day they brought in the dog to be autopsied. I walked out and I never returned. So I knew I wasn’t supposed to be in the medical field at all.

What was it about the dog?

Autopsy. Cutting it up!

So it wasn’t that it was a dog.

Oh no, anything, eww!

Garfield High School. Collection Jacqueline Lawson.

 Where did you and your husband settle?

We first lived in the Douglas Apartments. I forget what they’re called now, on 24th right off Madison. We stayed there through the birth of our first child, then we started looking for a home, looking for a place to call home. One of the first places we looked was up on Beacon Hill right off of Beacon Ave.

What year was this, roughly?

This would have been… let’s see, Gwennie was born in 1950. So it would have been ’51, ’52.

There was still redlining (real estate racial restrictions) in place.

We didn’t realize that at the time but we found out. The guy said, “I won’t sell to color which hurt me deeply (colored people, a term at the time for African-American). Then we came back to the Central Area and started looking and found a darling little house that is still there; it is still a darling little house. We stayed there through the birth of the second child. I think we were there through the birth of the third one too. Little two-bedroom cracker box, right on MLK Way and Jefferson. It’s still there, little square house on the corner. I think they’ve added onto it.

Jefferson & MLK Way. Photo: Madeline Crowley

So, it’s right smack on the corner.

Right on the corner. You can look right across to Powell Barnett Park. Back then, it was a playfield, back in the days of the Mardi Gras (Nightclub), which we can talk about later if you want. When it was hot, they used to come over and drink out of our faucet, sit on our lawn and stuff.

‘They’ being kids?

Yeah, the kids in the neighborhood. There weren’t that many at that time, they didn’t have that big of a track team at the time. Barnett Park was part of Garfield High then, it was one of their first little tracks.

Then we decided we needed a bigger place, because we had two boys and a girl, and one bedroom.

What year roughly?

Ronnie was born in 1952, Michael wasn’t born until ’58, so it would be about ’58. We did what a lot of people do, a terrible decision, we sold our place before we were able to find another place. It was rush, rush, rush. We found another house, but it wasn’t going to be available for another two months. I took off a month from work and started looking and found a rented house right around the corner. So we didn’t have to go far, we moved in there, it was terrible, but it was temporary. We were there about two months until our home opened. It’s right on Cherry St., between 30th and 31st. It has a driveway. That was our home. We were there around 8 years.

Jackie and her husband, Officer Lawson. Collection: Jackie Lawson

 

Right in the middle of the block?

Just about.

I think there’s a woman who has a little beauty salon in the basement of that house now.

That’s what I had been telling people! I know she did, I remember when she opened that up.

When we lived there the kids used to sit up on the lawn and watch the Panthers March past.

Cherry St. past 31st Ave. Photo: Madeline Crowley

The Panthers come up in almost every interview and it’s really interesting in that everybody has a different take. People who knew them were very comfortable. And other people who didn’t know them were terrified.

Oh, yeah.

And then, do you know William Lowe? He’s involved at the First AME. He was a student of Carver’s at Garfield so he’s got to be about 20 years younger (than Carver). But he said for him and for his family...

Carver? I knew when he was born.

I bet he was a cute baby.

I just know his brother said, “Another baby brother!”

Mr. Lowe was saying that from his family’s point of view, while they understood the anger, they felt that Martin Luther King’s ideas were correct and productive while the Panther’s way not productive. I would love to hear how you and your family felt about that.

We had different opinions. I was nervous because my daughter went to school with them; she knew them. They were her friends, and when they walk by you can’t wave to them because they were scary. My husband had to arrest them. He said that he was on their good side, because I forgot if it was Aaron, it might have been Aaron.

Elmer’s the one Gwennie went to school with. So it had to be Aaron. My husband said he brought him a candy bar once. He said that Aaron said, “Don’t mess around with Officer Lawson, he bought me a candy bar.” Walt (her husband) always told me that I would always be protected.

Jackie with her husband and daughter Gwen. Collection: Jackie Lawson

The Panthers liked him as a policeman. Even when we moved out of the neighborhood he didn’t have any fear for us. We stayed in one place eight years each time. We stayed in three places eight years.

I didn’t know any of them but they just didn’t bother me. The only time that I was bothered was when down the hill right on Cherry on MLK Way and closer to 23rd Ave. they had set some fires and that upset me (1968 unrest).

Now what year was it that what’s-his-name (Stokley Carmichael) from the Panthers came here and spoke at Garfield?

I think that was around 1968.

Whenever it was, I asked my Mom if she wanted to go and she said, ‘Sure’. We went to Garfield High. It just didn’t bother me that they were up there on top with their guns. I just thought, ‘Well, that’s pretty cool; it didn’t bother me at all. We went in there and enjoyed whatever was being said. We got up and sang “We Shall Overcome.” And (from that) my mother learned… I don’t remember her saying ‘Colored’ or ‘Negro’ after that. We were Black. That really surprised me, you know, coming from my mother who was from the old, old school.

Your mother would have been about how old at that point?

She’s a year older than the year, whatever it was. If it was 1967 she would have been 68.

That’s interesting; William Lowe talked about that a bit too. Before the Panthers and James Brown the word ‘Black’ was considered an insult in his family. After, it was a point of pride.

People of my mother’s age and older would ask if someone said, “I saw this lady down the street,” they would say, “Is she one of us?” That was the way it was put. “Was she one of them, or was she one of us?”

Right. Would “them” have been a lot of people? Did it include the Japanese, and the Jewish?

Oh no, they were “Japanese,” or something like that. Or otherwise, “Yes they were one of us.” Newspapers did a lot of that talking about “them” and “us.”

But did “them” mean anybody who wasn’t black or did it mean only white?

They weren’t really caring about that; they just wanted to know if they were one of us.

It was a way of defining if you were part of the black community.

There was another phrase that was used but I can’t remember.

I had another thing that happened to me in grade school. Back in the day we had, ‘I Am An American Day’. Have you heard of that? I don’t know if this was before Pearl Harbor (the attack on...), anyway we had this assembly. They picked out different children from different races by colors. We were supposed to get up and say, “I am an American.” Now, I forgot what I was. I think I was a member of the brown race. “I am an American. I am a member of the brown race. I am American.” In my recollections, I’ve often wondered who was representing the Black race? Was there a yellow race? I don’t remember. All I remember was what I was supposed to say. Isn’t that funny? Just a little kid.

Within the community as it defined itself, was there much difference between people who were light and people who were very dark?

Not in my group. Not at all.

That’s good, because that’s an unfairness as well. You can’t help who’s in your bloodline.

In the late 60’s, Dee Goto, talked about how their family left the area in the late ‘60s because they were afraid. Doug Chin’s family left at the same time. I spoke to an Anonymous woman from the Sephardic community. Her family left because there were rocks thrown through their windows.

Your family stayed, why were all these other people so afraid? Did the crime rate really go up?

Oh, I don’t know about the crime rate. I think it was again the, probably due to the Panthers. Got to love the Panthers, but, I’m sorry, it was probably them. Now, we left but not because of that.

My children hate the idea that we moved so far out. We moved out to Bangor Street out there in the Rainier neighborhood. There is a bank there. I remember when I agreed to move I had to go up there and my sister went with me. That’s another story. While we were in there the bank was robbed and we didn’t know it until they left.

Well, that turned out well.

We stayed up there until Walt retired from the Seattle Police Department and started working for Law Enforcement’s Assistance Administration and got an offer to go with the main office back in DC. So, again we had been in the office eight years, so then we moved back east.

So you don’t remember the 1960s and ‘70s being a particularly troubled time?

No, I think as I said Walt (picture with Sidney Poitier) pretty much put me at ease. The main thing that concerned me over those years was that I was raising the kids almost alone because he worked long hours. He’d work extra shifts. He worked all holidays. He was never home for Christmas morning. His reason for doing that was to get promoted, so he went from a Patrolman to a Sergeant to a Captain. I mean, in his mind it was all worth it. I wasn’t a very good policeman’s wife. Anyway, no, I wasn’t really affected by what happened in the neighborhood. I never went on a demonstration march. My daughter probably did, I don’t know if she would have, they didn’t dislike her.

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Did you work during any of this time?

Always! Now where was I working? I’m trying to think if I was working at Boeing when we first got married. Isn’t that awful? I can’t remember. Yeah, I worked at Boeing for a couple of years. In fact, I often regret not accepting a position there. I was working in the print shop and my boss wanted to get me promoted and so I was promoted to replace her. I was just too scared and so shy, I’m not a boss-type person, but I could have been the first black supervisor back in those days. I worked at Boeing for two and a half years and the kids were going to school for part of that time. That was before Michael was born, I think. Winnie and Ronnie, the two older kids, were actually living with my parents. I would go to work and then pick them up on weekends. When Michael came along, I think he stayed with my mother-in-law. I had a baby sitter who lived right next door to one of the girls I rode in the carpool with to Boeing with. Then after a while, I found a job at Harborview Hospital. I became the Secretary to the Head of the Cardiology department. Dr. Cobb was also a University Professor.

A couple of years after I started working for him he started Medic One with the Fire Chief. I worked for Dr. Cobb for about 11 years but quit because of doctor’s orders. It was too much pressure, because I was taking work at home. Me, who didn’t want to be in the medical field, was a medical transcriptionist at home. I was doing that at home, Walt was working nights and it was just too much. My doctor said “You need to quit.” I’ll never forget that day I went in and I said, ‘Dr. Cobb, I have to quit today’. He wouldn’t speak to me for a while. Long time.

When did you get involved with the Black Historical Society?

It’s the Black Heritage Society, it’s alright though, even members say that, even people on the board, I’ve heard them say that. Let me think. Oh, I was one of the founders, that’s how I became involved. Esther (Mumford) called me. My husband and I went I think to the first meeting over at Esther’s house. I was supposed to even be on the constitution committee I think. And I went to the first meeting and I think I went to two more, and then we moved back east. So I stayed in touch and everything.

And then, you’re still coming in and working on that…

Yeah, I’ve been every position they had: President, Secretary, Vice President, Treasurer... I got involved in the collection, I was on the collection committee with Eula Helen, she just passed away. We started the collections. Esther had been collecting things for years. The original organization had been storing things away in closets and under the beds and stuff. Eula and I went and got all those things in storage.

And now all those things are stored through MOHAI (Museum of History & Industry).

They’ve always been. When I came back, when did I come back? 1990. When I first came back, I wanted to live close to the archives and to MOHAI. So I started volunteering at each place immediately. While I was working at the archives… I came here from Denver… I moved around quite a bit after my husband passed away. I’d been in Denver for about three years by then. While in Denver I joined an organization called the Black Family Search Group. They now call it after us, the Black Genealogy Search Group. They stole our name, I stole their name and their idea, because when I got back to Seattle I started the Black Genealogy Research Group here. Anyway, what else.

So you were doing a project from the 1930s...

The Black Heritage Society got a grant to do this Heritage Project… Oh, I remember what happened with that. I was so embarrassed. I had to go before the 4Culture board, , they were all sitting on the dais up there. I got nervous and my mouth was quivering and somebody had to help me say the words, because I was so excited about being able to do this, and nervous about having to be in front of these strangers - who really couldn’t understand anyway.

The oral histories, it was interesting reading it. I think there were only two or three of us transcribing it and reading their transcriptions. In the project in the 1940s, I was one of those interviews, one of those narrators. And we were so boring. Our life was boring, I think. I had one of the interviewers tell me that, she said, “You guys, all you did was you went to church, you went to Sunday school, you had picnics, you had family dinners and parties with your families. Maybe you played cards. You never went out anywhere, unless your parents were with you.” You know, that was our life.

A musician told me, “You know, within the black community there’s the people who are outand the people who are at home.”

Right. Exactly, exactly. Although you might have within the families differences, because my sisters were 8, 10, and 9, and 11 years older than me, so they were among those who got out. One of the favorite things was, (my sister) Dorothy would say, “Daddy, I’m going out for a while.“ He’d ask, “Where are you going.” She’d say, “Oh, just up the hill.” Well, from where we lived, up the hill was where the Mardi Gras and Birdland Nightclubs were. Both buildings were also theaters during their years.

So would she go dancing or would she just go to the theater?

I don’t know what Dorothy did. I never asked her. As time went by, she’d have to take ‘the baby’ with her. The baby was our sister who was two years younger than Dorothy. They always called her Baby.

That would be interesting too. Are they still around?

No, no. They passed away. Juanita just passed away a couple years ago. 

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This project was supported in part by 4culture's Heritage Program