Saturday, July 5, 2008

Oral History

The Museum has recorded oral histories from the following individuals:
View the table of contents now.

Courtney Brooks
Although Courtney Brooks worked for the Records Center of the General Accounting Office, his real interests as an adult were in activities that he started in childhood. One was a drummer in the Armstrong High School Band. The other was playing sports in the neighborhood. He played in his own band, the Courtney Brooks All Stars, and others all around the country. In 1946 he started a semi-pro football team, the Alexandria Rams, which was integrated by 1951. A decade later he started a football team for boys coming out of high school. He was also instrumental in starting a baseball league for youth. In all of these, he experience and moved along, the shift from segregation to integration. Today he is still helping his neighbors by volunteering at a food mission, directing the Blues Society, and organizing neighborhood festivals.

Mabel Burts
Mabel Burts has fond memories of her neighborhood around St. Asaph and Franklin Sts. where she was raised by an extended family, including her grandmother who had been a slave. She worked at the torpedo factory and Ft. Belvoir's Army Hospital. She has been very active at her church assisting in many social activities and benefit programs.

Mary Child
Mary Moss Child was born in the early twentieth century and has lived in Alexandria since 1938. She volunteered for the Alexandria Boys and Girls Club and became Personnel director for the City in 1955. The city had about 800 employees, by her estimate, at that time. At first each department offered different benefits. Mrs. Child oversaw benefit restructuring so that they were more equal across the board.

Joseph and Carol Dodd
Joseph Dodd, with help from wife Carol, tells us about growing up on South Royal Street about his schools, playmates, the neighborhood, and the city market among other things. Together they comment about Alexandria's different neighborhoods, such as Old Town, Del Ray, and Rosemont, throughout the years.

Gladys "Dani" Lail
Gladys Lail, known to her friends as "Dani" was born in 1911 and grew up in Hume Springs outside of Alexandria, Virginia. She discusses what life was like while she was growing up and how the town has changed since her childhood. She discusses the progress that the city has made and what she thinks about the differences in the city that she grew up in but in some aspects does not recognize anymore.

Mabel Lyles
Mabel Lyles spent her early childhood with her mother's family in the rural countryside of Spotsylvania County, VA. She tells stories of washing clothes in the stream there and going to school in a one room schoolhouse. She was able to attend Virginia Union University in Richmond on scholarship and went on to become a teacher. She moved to a segregated Alexandria in 1950 where she taught school and served her church in Christian Education and other activities.

Helen Miller
Helen Miller proudly traces the history of civil rights for African Americans through her own family. Her grandfather, himself the son of a slave owner, was one of the first black residents of Aurora Hills. Her father was a cook at the Capitol and "kept his place" in spite of the many famous people he saw each day. Because of his steady job he was able to buy a house for his family when his children were small. Helen, and many others, marched and participated in sit-ins in order to open libraries, restaurants, banks, and ABC stores to blacks, as customers as well as employees. She marched for city jobs in the Fire, Health, and Police Departments. She pioneered as one of the first black graduates of the Police Academy. Her daughter was one of the first black bank tellers in the City. In addition, she tells us delightful stories about her childhood - swimming in the Potomac, the fire at the Vinegar Factory, and bootleggers during prohibition.

Harold Payne
Harold Payne was born in Alexandria and lived here all his life. His family moved often to different neighborhoods so he has great stories about many different areas of the city. He was a member of the Lions' Club for forty five years.

Charles Sampson
Charles Sampson was born in Alexandria and lived here all his life. He was a member of the fire department from 1937 until his retirement in 1975. As a result, he knew the streets, businesses, and landmarks of Alexandria like the back of his hand. He carefully kept a collection of photos and mementos from his career which he has donated to the Alexandria Library and is now available in its Special Collections.

John and Mary Sullivan
John and Mary Sullivan live in the Del Ray area of Alexandria. John grew up there and Mary has lived there since her marriage in 1946. They describe the businesses and families of their neighborhood, and what it was like for their children in the fifties and sixties as they were growing up. John had a long career with the FBI. Mary was a homemaker, a community and church volunteer, and also held some professional positions. They are a couple who has seen the neighborhood change throughout the years.

John Ticer
John Ticer was born in 1923 in his family's house in Alexandria, and has never lived farther than seven blocks from there. He has lived in his current house for 37 years. Both of his parents also grew up in Alexandria, and while he was growing up here, Mr. Ticers father was on the City Council, served as mayor, and had a long career with the railroad. John attended the old Washington School, now the Campagna Center, the old Jefferson School which has been torn down, George Washington High School, and graduated from the University of Virginia. He worked as a soda jerk at Nicklin's Drugstore, served as an enlisted man in World War II, and worked for Westinghouse Electric and Atlantic Research Corporation. He and his wife Patsy have served on the City Council, and Mrs. Ticer is now a senator in the Virginia General Assembly. John continues to have an active interest in Alexandria's history.

Shirley Grimm Warthen
Shirley Grimm Warthen describes her childhood growing up in the 1930's and 1940's in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria. She had a special attachment to the city because her dad was one of its policemen. As the youngest of six children, she saw a larger view of life through her siblings, even experiencing World War II through the death of a brother. She describes walking to school, enjoying life at its best at the roller skating rink, going to the movies at the Palm Theater, and other common activities.

Buster Williams
Charles K. (Buster) Williams was born in Alexandria in 1908 and has lived here all his life. He attended elementary school at St. Josephs and Parker Gray, then went to high school in Washington D.C. because there were no secondary schools in the city for African Americans at that time. Some of the jobs that he talks about are hauling ice on an ice cart, boot black at a local barber shop, truck driver and delivery person for Virginia Public Service, working at the White House, and barnstorming as a semi-pro baseball player. He has fond memories of growing up in a small city as a child.

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