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Transcription: [00:16:04]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
No, this was just local, ya know, just like all local.
[00:16:08]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mhm, none of the people who came in, say,
[00:16:11]

{SILENCE}
[00:16:16]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
the actresses, or actors, there were no, there were no social engagements arranged--

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
No.
{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
around them.
[00:16:26]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
You were telling us before about the film that was made at your grandmother's house. Could you tell us about that again?
[00:16:34]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Well, well, really it's like I said, I was away on vacation, but when I got-- came back, when I came home,
[00:16:40]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
everybody saw me, "Oh, you know, they had a film! Micheaux was here, and they made a film in your grandmother's house! They made a film in your grandmother's house!
[00:16:47]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
I said, "What? It was my grandfather's, too," but everybody say it was my grandmother's house. [[Laughing]]
[00:16:51]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
So then, she told me, she said, "Well, yes, they used the living room."
[00:16:57]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Well, off the living room was a sun parlor and the the library, and then the dining room, but there's a large, uh, reception hall, like I said, with a fireplace.
[00:17:05]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
But they only used the living room, and the stairway was wide, ya know.
[00:17:11]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
The fireplace was in there, and the landing upstairs, you go to-- you went to her bedroom.
[00:17:18]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Everything in hers. Brings back, ya know?
[[Laughing by all]]
[00:17:21]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Listen, when I think of this women's lib, uh, my grandmother must have been ahead of her time because, I guess, she was ahead her--
00:17:29]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
but most-- [[interrupted]] I don't mean in, uh, in slurs, but most black people are cultured to me because
[00:17:37]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
that's what I said, you said and I did, were head of their household.
[00:17:41]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Both how the money was spent, what they do or what they could do or what they couldn't do.
[00:17:46]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Umm.

{SILENCE}
[00:17:49

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
So, I mean, when I see one and they knew about checkbooks, they knew about savings, and everything, ya know.
[00:17:57]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Do you know how the movie people got to know your grandmother?
[00:18:01]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
No, I don't. I don't know who or when they came to Roanoke, or who recommended or, ya know,
[00:18:07

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
how they were, how she was approached or anything. But all I know when I came back, there was all the talking [[unintelligible]].
[00:18:16]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Was your house like all the others on the street? Was it much [[Cross Talk]] nicer or--

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
[[Cross Talk]] No.
[00:18:19]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Well, all the house in that day, this-- Wells Avenue, Gilmer Avenue,

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
[[softly spoken]] and I missed the Patton area: 6th Avenue, 7th Avenue,--
[00:18:36]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Well there really weren't any brick homes. But they were all nice, very nice.
[00:18:43]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And everybody kept their yard [[inaudible]]. And uh, Sunday people would dress their best and go to church, or whatever, ya know?
[00:18:53]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And they were all working class people, home, ya know, at home or in business.
[00:19:00]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
His mother was a teacher in the school system, then kindergarten at home.
[00:19:05]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
My son graduated fr--[[chuckling]] his mother--
[00:19:09]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
[[laughter]] Can I show you a picture?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Sure!

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Sure. That would be nice.
[00:19:12]

{SPEAKER name=Theresa Holmes"}
His mother, she had their little Commencement,
[00:19:15]

{SILENCE} [[They are looking at the photo]]
[00:19:17]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
[[Laughs]] AW!!! How dear!
[00:19:20]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
and he had a little speech to say,
[00:19:24]

[[Pearl and Louise speaking softly in background]]
[00:19:27]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
So, uh, ok, but uh they were like a-- So, I really don't know
[00:19:36]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
when we were talking about, ya know, what uh, who talked to her, how he got in touch, ya know, about it.
[00:19:45]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
But if he were walking down the street, would he have noticed your grandmother's house as being different --
[00:19:50]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Well, I don't know, like I said, the neighborhoods have deteriorated like the most everything now, ya know,
[00:19:57]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
and all over the United States , in a certain sense, and this neighborhood is considered one of the finest.
[00:20:07]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And my grandmother's house set back; a wide long-- a wide porch.
[00:20:13]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And in the summer, she had that jar there and the one in the hallway set on the porch, which someone broke the top off of it.
[00:20:20]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And she had a large fern. She had, what ya call a "green thumb."
[00:20:24]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
she and my grandfather. And it was a large house, say 14 rooms, larger living room, sun porch,
[00:20:34]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
a library, dining room, kitchen, and bedrooms upstairs, bath up and down and back porches.
[00:20:40]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
How many children were there?
[00:20:42]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Only my mother.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mmm.
[00:20:44]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And my mother and me, we were spoiled! [[Laughs]]
[00:20:48]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Laughter]]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Did, did you live with your mother and you lived with your grandmother, then?
[00:20:50]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
My grandmother.

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Mmm.
[00:20:51]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
It's like I said, she and father separated. She wasn't going to go back, she gonna stay home with momma. Then she married.
[00:20:58]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Were the other houses around here 14 rooms, as well?
[00:21:02]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Well that's not quite 14 but it's a large house.
[00:21:06]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And this house is exactly [[background noise]] the way it was when we moved; this house was here when we moved over here on Gilman.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm hmm.
[00:21:14]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And the house Mr. Heller's house, they were-- that was a family-- Those houses are packed--
[00:21:21]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
I'm going to say most of them, but some of them where they were then, that's when we moved over here, in the 20s.
[00:21:28]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
And you were saying that her house was set back.
[[Cross Talk]] It had a little yard in the front?

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
[[Cross Talk]] Yeah, it was set back.
[00:21:33]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Oh, it was a lot of yard. Her yard was larger than this yard.
[00:21:37]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
It was divided in three parts. It was like here a "v", and then two sides.
[00:21:42]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And then the side on the right, on the left was very narrow, and the back was large, behind was large.
[00:21:52]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Did they have a car?
[00:21:53]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Oh, yes. We had a car. I think the first one was a Chandler. [[mixed laughter]]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Chandler. [[Laughs]]
[00:21:58]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And then the next one they had was a [[Noon?]], and the last one was a Packard. You don't hear those names no more.
[00:22:06]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
It sounds like there were two generations of families living in that house?
[00:22:13]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Well, uh, my grandmother uh-- My mother married-- Well, my mother married 3--
[00:22:21]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Well, my mother married my father and they divorced,
[00:22:24]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
and then my mother married a Mr. Hostin from, um, Moundsville and then my mother divorced,
[00:22:31]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
then my mother moved away in 38', and she came back and got her divorce from Mr. Johnson.
[00:22:39]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And after my grandmother died, she married again Mr. Fox, and then she moved here. [[Laughs]]
[00:22:49]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
But getting back to the homes; every house on this street, and any wedding in the black community, they had to go right up and down this street, and blow and honk.

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
[[Laughs]]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Any wedding.
[00:23:04]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
But this all over from Wells all the way back to where the hospital; Chestnut perhaps; the houses, if they were small,
[00:23:12]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
they were nice, but everyone kept the house nice.
[00:23:17]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
In the later years, in the 30's, then they started to building brick.
[00:23:22]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
I think Dr. Plater built a brick house cross from the 1st Baptist Church,
[00:23:30]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
the old First Baptist Church, which it's not there anymore; it's been demolished.
[00:23:34]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And, uh, Dr. [[Lowell?]] built the brick house down the street,
[00:23:40]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
but most homes were not brick, but they were well kept and well, [[nice?]].
[00:23:47]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And now we are all poor [[background noise]] and can't keep it up, but we have. [[Laughs]] [[unintelligible]]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser and Louise Spence"}
[[laughter]]
[00:23:54]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Do you know if, um, if your grandmother was paid for the use of her house?
[00:24:00]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
I really don't know.
[00:24:01]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
She didn't talked about it much?
[00:24:03]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
She never talked about it. She would just, ya know, it was experience, and she was just happy
[00:24:09]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
to have, ya know, compensated someone like that. [[Cross Talk]] She was like that.

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
[[Cross Talk]] Would she-- She was-- Um huh.
[00:24:14]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
They were both were. My grandfather was a railroad man. He worked for Norfolk & Western.
[00:24:20]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
He was a Pullman Porter for 44 years.
[00:24:22]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
And so, uh, like I say, uh, anything in the depression, [[background noise]] it really didn't strike us too much,
[00:24:32]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
ya know, because we always had.
[00:24:35]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Do you know that Oscar Micheaux, the film maker, used to be a Pullman Porter, as well?
[00:24:41]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Is that so?
[00:24:42]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
I wonder if that is how he made the connections with your grandfather?
[00:24:44]

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
I don't know, maybe so!
[00:24:48]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
That was a much earlier --
[00:24:50]

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-04-08 09:37:38