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00:16:29
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Transcription: [00:16:29]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Nobody at all. I have seen Pearl Bailey. I seen her dance and perform. I seen Bill Robinson dance and perform, but I didn't-- never shook hands with them.
[00:16:42]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
No I meant earlier.
[00:16:45]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No.
[00:16:47]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
You never knew any of the performers.
[00:16:49]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
We didn't have many. Bill Robinson and Pearl Bailey, that was about the earliest ones. And we didn't have much--
[00:16:55]

{SPEAKER name= Unknown}
Can I interrupt a minute while I'm here and tell them about Aunt Patty?
[00:17:00]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Talk about your-- when you lived
[00:17:02]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
When I came to Brooklyn?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yes.
[00:17:03]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
When I came to Brooklyn, it was 1917 then. And when we came here, we got a taxi at the Pennsylvania Station.
[00:17:15]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I was bringing my father was down here 'cause he was losing his eyesight. And the guy took us in the taxi and rode us all around, and around, and around, and around, and charged my father a whole lotta money.
[00:17:25]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
'Cause we didn't know where we were going [[laughter]].
[00:17:27]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And I came here from Aunt Patty, and I lived with my-- Joe's mother.
[00:17:36]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
You don't know Joe. You know Joe?

[00:17:38]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you give us her name?

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
[[Cross talk]] Joe's mother. I lived--
[00:17:40]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Cross talk]] What was her name?

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Huh? Yeah-
[00:17:42]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Give us her name?
[00:17:43]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Ah, Hattie Johnson. And Joe Johnson. I lived with Joe and Hattie, Moses and Hattie Johnson.
[00:17:55]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And we had ah-- We lived on Cumberland Street. Now, All those houses are torn down now on Cumberland Street; downtown Brooklyn.
[00:18:03]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And uh, I--
[00:18:07]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
She was very, very good to me. I had the hall bedroom, 2 dollars and 50 cents a week,
[00:18:16]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
with my clothes washed and ironed and breakfast every morning. [[laughter]]
[00:18:20]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[laughs]] That was family, though.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Huh? It was family.
[00:18:23]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
That was family.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
All family.
[00:18:25]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
All family. There's Hattie, and--oh a lot of us lived together. All the relatives lived in this big house. Now they've torn those houses down for the Long Island-- uh
[00:18:33]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
--was gonna build something, and they never did. They were extending their railroad but they never did. And uh--
[00:18:41]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
II don't know. It was a different life altogether. You could go to the store. You'd take 5 dollars; you'd get your m-- roast for Sunday;
[00:18:52]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
a quart of milk was six cents; and a pound of fig bars was fifteen cents.
[00:19:00]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
A pound of butter was 25¢, and coffee was 25 or 30¢ a pound.
[00:19:08]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And bread; a nice loaf of A&P Raisin Bread - 8¢. Now it's a dollar twen-- 59. [[laughs]]
[00:19:18]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
$1.59 now! And it was a different life altogether.
[00:19:26]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
What did you do for entertainment?

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Mmm?
[00:19:27]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
What did you do for entertainment?
[00:19:29]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Entertainment? I-- this house was called the get-together house.
[00:19:37]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
II had a piano, and my daughter, they would get together, and they would come,
[00:19:46]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and they would sing and dance. And they would have-- Everything was home life.
[00:19:54]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
It was so different without the television, because you would have clubs, more clubs. And we would play a lot of cards.
[00:20:03]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Now, we'd play a lot of cards, but the children had parties.
[00:20:09]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They would come in here on Saturday night, and they would take up the rug and move all my furniture out my living room,
[00:20:16]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and tell me they're gonna have a Jump.
[00:20:21]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They'd bring potato chips and crackers, or something, and soda,
[00:20:28]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and they'd play the piano, and sing and dance.
[00:20:33]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And that was the entertainment. There was no-- uh-- And then there were more clubs. There were more home entertainments.
[00:20:40]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
The churches had a lot of clubs. It was-- It was better living than now.
[00:20:46]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mmm-hmmm.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Because now everybody-- And there was no cars.
[00:20:50]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
You could come up here on this street and you have a car, and you'd be the only car in the street.
[00:20:58]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
There was no cars. The people did not have cars. They did not have anything.
[00:21:03]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
When I went to ANS's to work, there was no colored colleague in the store. And when I went upstairs--
[00:21:15]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
At first, I worked downstairs. And when I went up to the third floor,
[00:21:21]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and when I went in the place, I said, "Good Morning!" And nobody spoke.
[00:21:29]


Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-28 16:11:02 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-28 20:54:23 Needs to have shorter segments in some places. NEED TO FIX.