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Transcription: [00:39:54]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Valentino?

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
No! Oh, Valentino came on later.
[00:39:39]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Cross Talk]] [[inaudible]].

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
[[Cross Talk]] [[inaudible]].
[00:40:04]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
You know Valentino came on later.
[00:40:06]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Was it-- [[Cross Talk]]

SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Who was the athletic star?

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
[[Cross Talk]] Douglas Fairbanks.

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
[[Cross Talk]] That's what I was tryin' to think
[00:40:13]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
[[Cross Talk]] of his last--

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
[[Cross Talk]] Douglas Fairbanks, Junior-- Senior.
[00:40:16]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Douglas Fairbanks, Senior?
[00:40:18]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Yeah, but in this picture he is shown with Anita somebody. [[Laughs]].
[00:40:26]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Did you ever see westerns that were called, "Bullseye," or "Bullet"
[00:40:34]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
with Noble Johnson; an actor, Noble Johnson?
[00:40:40]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
No.

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Was there music in the theater?
[00:40:43]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Yes, with a player piano. [[Laughs]]
[00:40:50]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Yeah. They had a lit piano back then.
[00:40:54]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
And the music was the kinda music they had out awhile.
[00:40:59]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
And did you go with your friends from the neighborhood?
[00:41:03]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Oh, yeah! But I was always sittin' with the grown-ups
[00:41:14]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
I didn't sit with the children cause they's talking,
[00:41:18]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
cause I wanted to look and see, cause you had to read it.
[00:41:22]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Was the audience really noisy at the Westerns?

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Hum?

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Was the audience really noisy at the Westerns?
[00:41:31]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
No, not where I sat.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Cross Talk]] They sat-- They sat quietly.
[00:41:35]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
[[Laughing]] The heck with you. No, cause the grown-ups were busy
[00:41:39]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
tryin' to get the sense of the thing, readin' on the screens,
[00:41:43]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
See, we didn't have no talkin', silent [[inaudible]].

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Um hum.
[00:41:47]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
You had to read it for yourself and try to fix it in your mind.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Um huh.
[00:41:54]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Was the theater large? Was the balcony and--
[00:42:00]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
[[inaudible]] [[Laughing]] It was just one floor,
[00:42:06]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
and there was low; it was slanted floor.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Um huh.
[00:42:13]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And were there Blacks only in the the theater,
[00:42:17]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
or did Whites also attend that theater?
[00:42:21]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Oh, ah. In that theater, in that section,
[00:42:25]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
it was mostly Black people that went in there.
[00:42:32]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
In later years, when they opened up the Orpheum,
[00:42:37]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
I went to the theater on Main Street, on the east side of Main Street.
[00:42:49]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
I didn't go over that but two pictures because you had to get your ticket and
[00:42:56]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
go round in the attic, and go upstairs from the outside, and I didn't go there.
[00:43:05]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
But when they opened the Orpheum, well, and you could go in from Beale St.
[00:43:12]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
[[background noise]] and go, you know,
[00:43:16]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
around and go up in the upper part of the theater.
[00:43:22]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
When the first opened it, they had plays and movies,
[00:43:28]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
and that I attended regularly, but the only time I was on Beale St.,
[00:43:35]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
to the theater in that section,
[00:43:39]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
it was under the supervision of Lucille Rhine Wood.
[00:43:44]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
I'm sorry. Would you repeat that name?
{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Huh?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Could you repeat that name?
[00:43:49]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Lucille Rhine R-H-I-N-E. Later she married Mr. Wood,
[00:43:56]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
because at one time, teachers couldn't be married here in Memphis.
[00:44:02]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
They weren't any better when I was in Elementary School, you couldn't be married in Houston.
[00:44:10]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Huh. Some wide changes have been made since I been --
[00:44:18]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
And you were saying that Lucille Rhine was; what was her position?
[00:44:22]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Huh?

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Lucille Rhine, you said that she was supervising what?
[00:44:26]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
She was a music teacher, and she went with that from her--
[00:44:32]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Miss Lucille Washington was a relative of hers.
[00:44:38]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
She was a supervisor of Music at the [[?]] schools.
[00:44:45]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
And Lucille wound up to be a teacher at the high school and a supervisor.
[00:44:55]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
But when she started off, she was just out of high school,
[00:45:03]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
and she would give little operettas,
[00:45:06]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
from curable stories, and they would stage them at
[00:45:13]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
the end of a term, at the Daisy Theater,
[00:45:18]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
and we could go to the Daisy
[00:45:24]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
under her supervision with teachers and things.
[00:45:29]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And whenever we went down there,
[00:45:33]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
those people that were in that rough section,
[00:45:38]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
they wouldn't give those children any trouble like folks do now.
[00:45:42]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
But normally you wouldn't go to The Daisy because it was too rough?
[00:45:46]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Ordinarily, because the people
[00:45:51]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
all around there, you know, [[?]],
[00:45:55]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Beale Street, you're talking--
[00:45:56]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
Uh huh. It was REALLY Beale Street! [[Laughs]]
[00:46:00]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
And this is something you decided yourself, or your mother and your uncle decided?
[00:46:05]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
My mother and her mother decided.
[00:46:09]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
My mother married George Greenlaw
[00:46:13]

{SPEAKER name="Lula Adams"}
on January 21, 19 and 18 [[1918]].
[00:46:18]

Transcription Notes:
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Anita Page starred in "Our Modern Maidens", along with Joan Crawford. Talks about Houston, Tennessee where she attended Elementary School. Lula is talking about Memphis, Tennessee. Theaters mentioned: The Orpheum and The Daisy. ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-03-28 13:31:06 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-03-29 16:50:22 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-03-30 18:35:18