Valentine’s Day 1890s

I promised a Valentine’s Day post and I’m delivering on that promise, even if it’s a day late. In my defense, yesterday started at 5:30 AM when I began to roll, cut, sprinkle sugar and bake 236 heart-shaped sugar cookies which I dropped off for family and friends in addition to appointments and getting my business newsletter out. I headed to bed a little after 2:30 AM today so my own Valentine’s Day was a long one, but not nearly as long as the search for clarity in one mystery of what I call the Great Harry Stilson Adventure.

Several years ago, I found my great-grandfather’s journal. Harry Stilson was a complex man: streetcar driver, photographer, student of hypnosis and codes. Much of his journal was written in strange symbols that I had no idea how to decipher! He even taught the symbols to his son, Leon, who corresponded with his father in code. I reached out to the Smithsonian and a National Guard historian for help, No response. Then Richard Nolde offered to tackle the mystery. To my delight, he broke the code! Entries from latter years included a description of a risqué photo of a woman seated on the streetcar with her dress exposing her KNEES (shocking) but most of his earlier notations were related to Harry Stilson’s courtship of Mary Perry. Among the diary entries were these: “Miss Perry said she did not care to go home tonight when I asked her.” Sunday: “Spent the evening with Miss Perry. Oh so agreeably!” November 2nd Wednesday: “I asked her to wait till night and let me take her home.” Thursday 3: “Mary and I had quite a love scene in old house. I love her dearly but she only gives me what any girl may, her respect as a friend. I will win her love if possible.” Tuesday: “Wrote letters to Miss Perry.” November 18th 1892: “The gentle maiden thought she could give me no assurance of love did give me a kiss volantaraly and without asking. She gave her permission to correspond and said when it[‘]s possible for us to meet she would not be backward in letting me know.” “Mary came in with Johnnie after the meeting was well underway. I did not have to look around to see who it was. My heart beat hard enough.” November 23rd 1892: “Received a letter from Mary appointing tomorrow evening as a time for me to call on her at her home.”

“I asked George for a horse and took Miss Perry for a ride. Went through town and she got some parafine and glucose to make taffy with. The long way home short enough.” That particular entry struck me because Miss Perry (later Mrs. Stilson) supported her family at age 14 by selling candy. She sold taffy and popcorn to river boats on Michigan’s Grand River while the family lived in a tent. Harry was hurt by her reluctance to be courted but I doubt he understood the responsibility Mary bore.  By age 19, she had been teaching school for more than five years. Marriage just wasn’t a priority. Poor Harry. One entry announced: “Received a letter from Mary which gave me oh so much pleasure. Making everything look so much brighter.” Harry took comfort in that progress and eventually won Mary over.

Reading my great-grandfather’s private thoughts during his courtship of my great-grandmother is touching and a little unsettling. It’s a rare peek into life in the late 1800s with descriptions of activities as well as romantic adventures and I wouldn’t have those glimpses if not for Richard’s decoding talents.

Life was more prosaic in the late 1800s with romance given little significance. Even during the early 1900s, weddings usually lacked lavish gowns, flowers, and parties. My maternal grandparents got married in my grandmother’s living room at 7:00 AM with a few family and friends walking to the house in the early morning light. They held the ceremony early in order to catch a train for a very short honeymoon.  Just making a living was all-consuming and romantic gestures rare so Harry’s revelations about yearning for the petite Mary Perry were uncommon as were written proclamations of devotion in the form of a valentine.

 Valentines were a novelty when Harry was courting Mary and early cards were lovely. Mary Stilson saved many of hers and I display them every year because they are so charming but I learned on NPR that there were also Victorian valentines called “vinegar Valentines” and they were mean. (https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/02/13/vinegar-valentines) They were sent anonymously (for good reason) to businesses or individuals, mostly women. The suffragette cause was a common theme: “A vote from me you will not get, I don’t want a preaching suffragette” but looks, temperament , and intelligence were all subjects for ridicule. Actually, those vinegar valentines could have been written in 2024. They’re that nasty. I prefer the valentines my great-grandmother saved, many from her students, and I think you will, too. Mary Perry Stilson’s students offered their teacher declarations of love that she stored in a tin and kept all her life. That trait continued through generations and I have valentines ranging from 1904, through the 1940s, to 1962, til now. Many are homemade, with ratty yellowed lace and misspelled messages of love and all are cherished.  No vinegar valentines for us…

Richmond’s working black folks, early 1900s

Richmond In Sight is a treasure during Black History Month. My great-grandfather, Harry Stilson, was a Richmond streetcar motorman (driver) whose usual route was Jackson Ward, built by African Americans and Jewish immigrants, and his camera rode by him every day. His collection of 5,000 images and movies inspired me to create Richmond In Sight, a non-profit, to preserve and share Harry’s images and oral histories from the people of Jackson Ward and other Richmond neighborhoods. In my last post, I mentioned how crucial Richmond’s black workers were to the development of our infrastructure. This truck is parked in front of Shockett’s Store on Leigh near Allen. That block no longer exists but the cement pipes were destined for sewer or water lines somewhere in the city and could well still be in service.

I’m no expert on water lines or road work but Harry wrote that the photograph below was Belmont Avenue and I’m guessing they are installing water or sewer pipes.

This picture, also Belmont Avenue, is cool but, again, I’m not sure what they’re doing. Sidewalk installation? But why the ladder on the porch roof unless it’s not related to the road work? Ideas, anyone?

Cobblestone work in the block of 1700 Leigh Street shows two one-level homes in the background and they are still there. I wouldn’t have identified the location (or known the houses were still standing) if not for my friend Barky Haggins. Mr. Barky’s knowledge of the area tipped me off to where another dozen photos were taken. Harry Stilson took a lot of photographs in that block so it must have been a streetcar stop.

I love this image of what looks like a cement mixer. I keep going down the rabbit hole trying to locate E L Thompson Co. I really need a Hill Directory (Richmond phone book from back then) but I haven’t found any for sale. Next door is a pool parlor and while I found a billiards hall on a Sanborn Fire Insurance map in the 300 block of Broad (looks like the number 352 on the building), the street numbers don’t match so I give up. It’s not worth a trip to the Library of Virginia. I really need a Hill Directory!

The Export Leaf Tobacco Building at Lombardy and Leigh was built in 1919 and Harry recorded the construction site below. Hartshorn College, the first black woman’s school in the United States to confer baccalaureate degrees, was also at that intersection and Harry photographed his streetcar and a horse-drawn wagon there with a Hartshorn dorm in the background. Perhaps a reader can identify the machinery being transported by wagon.

You’ve seen both of these folks (below) before but they are among my favorites. They are hard-working residents of Richmond, most likely in Jackson Ward. Harry used the first picture as a post card and labeled it “fresh fish & oysters, Richard Willis, Richmond, VA.” I’ve tried to find someone related to Richard Willis and the Richard Willis, “laborer,” listed in a 1920 Census record is probably the right one but Willis is a common name. I lost him after that Census.

Harry’s journal mentions several cooks (“head cook”, etc.) and I’ve always called this woman “cook with an attitude.” It seems to fit.

My book, On the West Clay Line: Jackson Ward, Carver, & Newtowne, shares images and oral histories of so many Richmond families. If you are interested in that book or others, or just want to see more of Harry Stilson’s view from his Richmond streetcar, go to www.richmondinsight.com. Do you live in or near Richmond? I offer programs at no charge for groups. If you’re part of a church or synagogue, community center, school, civic group, or whatever, get in touch and we’ll arrange a presentation where you can see more of Harry Stilson’s Richmond. And check back for more Richmond Views posts. I think I’ll stick a Valentine one in the middle of Black History Month before going back to Richmond’s African-American residents that Harry Stilson documented along his streetcar route. As much as I love Jackson Ward and the folks Harry knew there, it’s only fitting that his family’s Valentines are shared in Black History Month. 

MLK & equality through Harry’s lens

This blog has been silent for almost a year. Its focus is Harris Stilson, my great-grandfather, a Richmond streetcar operator and amateur photographer in the early 1900s. People flagged down his streetcar and asked him to take their photo. He developed the film at night and delivered pictures on his route the next day, images that I inherited, some 5,000 of them, which I share in books and programs. I usually don’t write about myself but if you have followed this blog and Richmond In Sight, maybe you deserve an explanation.

For the last two years, my sister and I shared caregiving of our mother. My sister is a hospice nurse working nights and, as a real estate broker, I could manage business while spending most of the week at my Mom’s so we made it work. Her increasing lack of mobility frustrated Mom so when she said “I’ve been thinking,” my sister and I knew we were in trouble. It meant Mama had a project… which meant that WE had work to do. Her last ‘projects’ consisted of me writing a book on the women in our family, I Come from Strong Women, and a children’s book based on a true event and illustrated by her great-grandchildren so I’ve been busy. Access to the Stilson collection was limited while I was with my mother so the blog was neglected. I hope to do better in the future.

Mom died Labor Day weekend (appropriately) and since then, I’ve felt her nudging me back to Richmond In Sight work so here we are, at Martin Luther King Day, with me evaluating racial equality in Harry Stilson’s time and now. Has there been progress?

After World War I, black soldiers returned home expecting a different America, without segregation or restrictions in employment and housing. Instead, even the monument to those killed in war on the Boulevard (now Arthur Ashe Boulevard) demonstrated segregation, as seen in Harry’s photograph, and Jim Crow continued. Today’s military is integrated but discrimination persists. Progress… but still a ways to go.

African Americans have always contributed significantly to Richmond’s economy and infrastructure, despite being underpaid. Harry’s photographs of folks at work offer a sometimes startling glimpse into the tools and trades of the early 1900s. Carrying bricks or laundry on your head? My great-grandfather captured both, with the laundress photo hand-tinted. Harry documented laundry deliveries by goat carts, one photo with Harry’s shadow visible, and I love the the wagon below. Laundry work usually fell to black women and even Maggie Walker’s mother took in wash to support her family. It was an occupation for people of color and primarily women of color, a double excuse for low pay.   

The adopted son of the Kingan’s Abattoir manager (in white coat) contacted me when the photo below ran in the newspaper. He spoke proudly of that career. Richmond slaughterhouses depended on the labor of black men. My oral history sources assure me that abattoir work was “good work” but they always mention the stench, mud, and exhausting labor that accompanied those prized jobs. I don’t know what that coveted pay was back then but the median income of black families in 2021 was 35% less than whites, down from a discrepancy of 24% in 2019. The black-white income disparity has increased steadily since 1970, evidence of a stunning failure to rectify financial inequality in the United States.

Those workers and other black Richmonders were determined that their children receive an education, critical to enhancing one’s life. Irma Dillard related her mother’s story about Mr. Stilson. I was astonished that a streetcar man who died in 1934 was so notable that stories were passed through families about him and his kindness.  Harry watched out for these Armstrong students, often subjects of his photographs, but they were from more-affluent families. Goldbug Wilson’s father was a wealthy businessman and Irma Rainey’s daughter, Irma Dillard, became an attorney. Below are pictured Irma Rainey (with glasses), Goldbug Wilson, Robinette Anderson and others. Someone described Clay Avenue to me as “Strivers’ Avenue” because its residents were “striving” to improve their lives.

Daughters went to Hartshorn, the first black women’s college in America to give a baccalaureate degree, at Lombardy and Leigh, where Maggie Walker Governor School is now, and sons attended Virginia Union, or “Union” as much of Jackson Ward calls it even today. Hartshorn teacher Miss Julia Elwin was mentioned in Harry’s journal several times while Union was distinguished among schools as first to hire black teachers. Virginia Union is one of five Historic Black Colleges (HBCs) in the Commonwealth but the national ratio of white to black students isn’t good. In 2022, undergraduate enrollment of black students was 10.6% of total enrollment. Financial disparity between black and white households affects all facets of life, including educational opportunities, now just as it did in 1920.

Restaurants and other venues were restricted by Jim Crow law. Harry labeled this Shockoe Bottom business as “Japanese Restaurant” but it was more likely Chinese. Regardless, this photo has been used by a Richmond school teacher to illustrate segregation to her class. I’m thankful that those students, like my own grandchildren, find the concept difficult to grasp. As far as my granddaughters are concerned, friends are friends. Because of them, I still cling to hope for our future.   

I’m proud that my great-grandfather was also friends with persons of color, that his journal mentions visiting black friends at home, that he promoted integration in a 1909 speech he gave to a women’s literary group, suggesting that schools and churches combine students so that they would become “familiar” and therefore learn to respect each other. I found that handwritten speech and share a bit of it below. Harry’s attitude was rare in the early 1900s but over a century later, we need more than speeches. We need acts, laws, a change of heart. We need a dream. One that doesn’t materialize, then fade, never completely fulfilled, and we need it now.

MLK Day & Harry Stilson

I haven’t posted recently for a few reasons, including foot surgeries that reduce me to crawling upstairs for access to the Stilson photos but Martin Luther King Day requires an effort. Reading past MLK posts, one quote struck me. In relating our experience on the streets of D.C. streets at the first Obama inauguration, I described my mom, sister, and I crowding with others to listen on a radio to the president’s speech. He said it was time to “choose our history.” So many are trying to edit history and restrict what is taught these days but that was not what President Obama was talking about. He was imploring our country to become the more perfect nation our forefathers dreamed of, even as their own lives were imperfect in many ways. They couldn’t envision a world where other races and genders were equal, where ALL, not just all men, are created equal. The direction we’re headed in scares me. Limitations on voting, women’s rights, and other issues threatens to hurl us backwards into times of segregation and barriers, when I was a kid and beyond. Back to the days of my great-grandfather, Harry Stilson: Richmond streetcar motorman, amateur photographer and radical.

Some photos and stories I post are ‘reruns’ because I inherited photographs and papers from Harry but he didn’t realize that a century later I would share his life with the world. He didn’t document events as fully or with as many photos as I would have wanted. He didn’t explain or identify or even choose his subjects as I would have liked. I wish I had a picture of Maggie Walker, who he must have known, because his streetcar stopped near her bank and he was in her neighborhood daily but if he did, it didn’t survive. What survived is a tiny bit of his letters and writings and nearly 5,000 photographs but with them, we can piece together a man who marched to a different drummer in the early 1900s, one comfortable on the streets of Jackson Ward, Richmond’s African-American and Jewish neighborhood and even in the houses of the black folks he knew. In a way, Harry was choosing his own history.

Jackson Ward was also choosing its history. That’s where Richmond’s first black schools were created, where black businesses, such as Maggie Walker’s St. Luke Pennysaving Bank, were making history. Hartshorn College was the first African-American women’s school in the United States to award baccalaureate degrees and it stood where Maggie Walker Governor’s School is located today, at Lombardy and Leigh. Although students weren’t allowed to ride streetcars, Harry knew students and teachers and interacted with them in ways other middle-aged white men didn’t. In the Hartshorn group below, students posed with their tatting (like crocheting) and the other picture includes their teacher, Miss Julia Elwin. Hartshorn had white teachers but Virginia Union University, across the “trestle” from Hartshorn, made history by employing black professors. Harry didn’t identify any of his images as being at “Union” as its older alumni call it, but Percy Jones of New York, posed on the trestle with Virginia Union buildings in the background. Irma Dillard’s father was best friends with Percy and she identified him as well as her mother’s friends from Armstrong High School that Harry photographed often.

One Armstrong student, Maggie Lena Walker was an anomaly in her time. The daughter of a laundry woman and former slave, she taught school and was an officer in the Independent Order of St. Luke. That fraternal society offered insurance and provided social services not available to African Americans. She went on to be a successful business woman and the first African-American female bank president in America. Her St. Luke Pennysaving Bank, corner of First & Marshall Streets, is visible behind the streetcar in this Stilson image. That bank later became Consolidated Bank & Trust. Maggie Walker influenced other aspects of life, including creating the Richmond Council of Colored Women in 1912. Her home in Jackson Ward is part of the National Park Service and is open to the public. I always learn something new when I’m there and it’s well worth a visit.

The folks who attended Jackson Ward’s schools were choosing their history by reaching for a better life. They went on to be architects, business owners, preachers, and teachers. Often, their parents were illiterate and working as laborers and laundry women but those parents were determined that their children achieve more. They collected money to start schools when there were no public schools in Richmond (especially for black kids!) and they sacrificed for their children to be educated and able to vote. All of their children, including females. I remember one of my oral history sources calling Clay Street “Strivers’ Street” because the families living there were striving for a better life. Choosing their history.

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, perhaps we can choose our history. Not editing the past and cleaning up the nation’s shames and sins but determining a path forward for all. Harry Stilson wrote a speech in 1909 about such a path. He submitted it to a magazine but it was rejected because its content wasn’t “acceptable.” He suggested “common schools and churches” (integration) and offered the idea that if students became “more familiar” with “those of a different tint,” that they would become “better citizens of this great nation, having more respect for each other and less strife.” I am thankful that Harry’s hand-written talk survived and that I can share it. It’s an example of how we can choose our history even when our ideas aren’t popular. Even when ridiculed or criticized. We can still choose our history but we have to choose it well.

One of my favorite photos: Harry’s son, Don Stilson & friend in the back yard on Gilbert Street. Pigeon coop in background.

Rainy (or fair) State fairs

It almost always rains at Virginia State fair time. While a hurricane like Ian isn’t common, rainy fair visits are. I’m not sure if Harry Stilson only went to the fair on sunny days or if the weather was more merciful a century ago but his photographs reflect good weather so, on this rainy Ian-impacted day, let’s pretend it’s sunny and visit the Virginia State Fair, Richmond, Virginia, 1920s.

Some of the photographs I inherited and use in my Richmond In Sight programs and books weren’t taken by my great-grandfather, Harris Stilson, but by his son, Leon, who shared his father’s photography obsession. In addition to photographs, I have some amazing movies of the fair, which I include in my “movie night” programs. If your organization is in the Richmond area, my presentations and movie showings are free. Just get in touch and we’ll see what we can arrange.

Harry’s journal and letters are evidence that he attended the fair not only every year but multiple times each year. I have a cousin, Anne Soffee, who is just as passionate about the fair. She and Harry would have been great friends. When we were kids, we were required to visit the exhibits before we hit the rides so we’ll keep that rule. Curles Neck Dairy was located along Harry’s streetcar route and he took several shots of the farm’s cows. The Henrico Boys’ Club cattle weren’t left out of the picture, either. And hey, is that the VCU ram?

 Machinery always interested Harry and his movies reflected that. He has a fairly long segment of exhibits and demonstrations of tractors and other equipment. Maybe the grader was used to prepare the race track. I often wonder if any of the horses in his movies or photographs went on to equine fame.

And now the fun stuff…shows and rides. The high dive into a tiny tank of water is enough to make your stomach hurt and you have to wonder how these ladies swam in such a limited area but the crowd seemed to like it. Some of the rides are the same as those at the fair today and perhaps even the actual rides of Harry’s time (gulp!). Bill “Bojangles” Robinson came home to Richmond often and I wish I could see the dancing man below better. Pretty sure it’s not “Bojangles” but he wasn’t a big star yet and ya just never know.

I have so many more great images of the fair that Harry and his family witnessed. He captured several shows, bands (not sure why when his movies were silent), and one of my favorites: the performer in the last picture. My recent foot surgery prevented me from smelling the onions, peppers, and sausages, from checking out the animals and my brother & his daughters’ entries of photography and art, from overseeing the midway from the top of the ferris wheel or getting sticky from cotton candy or a candy apple this year. I’ll have to make do with a visit to the Virginia State Fair 1919-1923. Come one, come all…

Spanish Influenza & Richmond

Risking repetition of a 2016 post, I decided to write again about the 1918 Influenza and past health crises as the world finds hope in vaccines. Discussing vaccines recently with my granddaughters, they informed me that they wanted “the one that’s only one shot.”  I told them about getting my polio vaccination in the form of a sugar cube and they immediately decided that was how they wanted their COVID-19 vaccination. Who knows? They’re starting tests on kids and COVID vaccines now so sugar cubes or another less-dreaded inoculation than shots could be possible in the future.

Diphtheria was a dreaded disease that vaccinations virtually eliminated. I found this booklet entitled “Train Ticket to No-Diphtheria-Town on the Health Road” filled out with my aunt’s name. In 1913, the Schick skin test was developed but only came to the United States in 1923. It offered a simple mass immunization and I suppose the “Train Ticket” was designed to inspire participation in the immunization programs. Maybe we should advertise vaccinations as train tickets. A lot of people are behaving like spoiled kids about vaccines so a campaign on their level might work.  

My great-grandfather, Harry Stilson, documented what was called the Spanish Influenza in his journal. Usually he simply called it the influenza and rightfully so. As with our current pandemic, the name Spanish Influenza was politically motivated. The world was at war. No one knew where the virus originated but to prevent panic, warring countries restricted news of illnesses and death. Neutral Spain, however, was more transparent and became the target of misinformation that Spain was the epicenter with more cases than other countries. This was not true. Fifty million died of the 1918 Influenza worldwide, more than died in WWI battles.

Returning soldiers spread the illness but sometimes our soldiers arrived home to find that loved ones had died from influenza while they fought in France. Such was the case of Ralph Goode. His son Clyde recalled:  “He didn’t know it…he was on the ship coming back and found out when he got home. “ Among the soldiers who died of influenza in France was Richmonder Otis P. Robinson of Jackson Ward. He wrote his sister Carrie Harris: “Dear Sister, pray for me or pray to God in Heaven is better than anything else I know. May God bless you and be with you til we meet again.” Circumstances like these echo the isolation of COVID patients today, dying without loved ones near.

A poignant illustration of this is illustrated in the set of burial at sea photographs Harry developed for a naval officer he met in Norfolk while on vacation. I researched A.V. Boykins who died of pneumonia which could have been caused by influenza. The timing and circumstances match.

Influenza dominated life in Richmond and I shared stories of that in my book, From Richmond to France. Times were hard and Dolores Miller reported that Bliley’s Funeral Home gave bread and eggs to families struggling to feed their children. One day her Elam relatives went for provisions. They described halls lined with bodies in an overwhelmed funeral home. As the children walked between corpses, they swore “one of the bodies sat up just like it was alive.” That was the story passed down through the family, at least. One fact is certainly true. Burying the dead was a massive job.

Dolores’ family was mentioned in Harry’s journal often because the Elams rented a house that he owned next door. He captured them in photographs and wrote that an Elam daughter had survived the influenza. Others didn’t make it.  Harry noted: “Fri 10/25/18 Spanish Influenza the end of Willie McCloud last night.” I assumed (wrongly) that this was a Richmond man Harry knew. Instead, William McCloud was a black cook who died in Norfolk of “Pneumonic type Spanish Influenza” and was buried in the “col cemetery” in Norfolk so he must have been a relative or friend of one of Harry’s African-American acquaintances. Harry’s streetcar route in Jackson Ward offered him a glimpse into black lives rarely experienced by a middle-aged white man in the early 1900s. I often go down a rabbit hole following a name in Harry’s papers. Tracking names in Harry Stilson’s journals and on photographs sometimes leads to unusual discoveries, like the fact that my friend Dolores’ family lived next door to my family, but many, like this example of Willie McCloud, end with more questions than answers. How did Harry know Willie?

One example of how prevalent the flu was and how it seeped into all facets of life is this little verse my father repeated to me: “I had a little bird, his name was Enza. I opened the window and IN-FLU-ENZA!” No one knew how the virus spread but assumed it was air-borne so this ditty may have been a warning. Masks were worn and, back then, it wasn’t a political statement but comprehension that your life (and others’) could depend on the protection of a mask.

A vaccine didn’t end the 1918 Influenza. We’ve learned from that historic pandemic how to prevent viral spread if we just use common sense and we’re so much more fortunate today. We have vaccines and knowledge. Harry Stilson never mentioned how he responded to the threat posed by his work as a streetcar motorman. He suffered respiratory illnesses so the fact that he survived despite constant interactions with the public indicates that he took precautions. We can do the same. Like Richmonders in 1918-1919, wear a mask. Keep socially distant. We’re far better off than they were: we can get a vaccine. Do it. Let’s be at least as responsible as Richmonders a century ago.

Norma’s Diphtheria Train vaccination record

Essential Workers, circa 1918

Harry Stilson captured Richmond’s African-American residents at work: a man carrying bricks on his head, a woman with laundry basket balanced on her head, men in Gunn Lumber Yard. All these and more were ordinary people on the streets of Jackson Ward and other parts of Richmond in a time when those activities weren’t exceptional or photo-worthy of commemorating. However, my great-grandfather did commemorate those working folks, often naming them and telling their stories. Around Richard Willis’ photograph, Harry wrote his name, the fact that he had “Fresh fish and oysters” and his comment “I didn’t know any other way to carry them.” To end Black History Month, here are just a few of the black people who worked to feed the city, to maintain its streets, and to supply its residents with clean clothes. We’ve honored essential workers who have kept us fed and functional during the Pandemic so let’s celebrate essential workers of the early 1900s.

Someone, probably my grandmother, hand-tinted this photograph of a laundry woman carrying her baskets of clean laundry. Harry noted in his journal that he took “Snapshot at a young colored woman standing on bank near end of W. Leigh with a basket of clean clothes on ground” which I haven’t found but I wonder if perhaps this was another version of her.

This cobblestone work was in the 1700 block of Leigh Street. I know this because the two one-story houses in the background are still there. Mr. Barky Haggins identified that spot in several of Harry’s pictures and sure enough, when Harry said he took pictures at “1738 Leigh Street,” he did.

Harry’s son, my great-uncle Leon Stilson, worked at Gunn Lumber Yard for a while. I have his reference from them when he was looking for another job. Leon also had a camera and he may have taken these instead of Harry.  Either way, W S Gunn & Company was at Marshall & Kinney in Jackson Ward.  

I’ve shared this image a few times but it’s one of my favorites. I call it “Cook with an Attitude” and it could be the “Sue Coleman colored head cook at Bowe & Calhoun” as Harry described her.

Richmond’s abbatoires (slaughter houses) were a significant part of its economy. I’ve been told many stories about working at Kingan’s, from the son of the manager in one of Harry’s photographs to the nieces of a worker who walked them over boards to avoid the mud on visits. Not sure why a slaughterhouse would be a fun visit but those ladies told me that working at Kingan’s was a really big deal, steady pay.

Steady pay or not, these are some of the people who kept Richmond running a century ago. Black history month shouldn’t be relegated to a single month. We needed these folks every day of every year back when Harry Stilson was motorman on the streetcar and we need the same kind of hard workers to get us through the Pandemic. Essential workers, 1918 and 2021. They’re, well, essential.

Jackson Ward’s schools in Harry’s time

As promised, this post describes what we call K-12 schools, although that loosely defines Richmond education in Harry Stilson’s time. Much of the following is from my book, On the West Clay Line: Jackson Ward, Carver and Newtowne West, which combines my great-grandfather’s photography with stories collected from people who grew up in those neighborhoods. Jackson Ward was built by African Americans and Jewish immigrants and offers a historically rich culture. If you’re curious, my books are available on the Richmond in Sight website, www.richmondinsight.com.

Family on Moore Street, First Union Church in background, Hartshorn Memorial College in far distance behind children

Most of Jackson Ward’s earlier African-American residents were uneducated. Free or slave, literacy was a rare gift in the 1800s and education a strong priority among the parents of black children. Education was so precious that sacrifices were made willingly so that teachers and facilities were available for future generations. There was no public education in Richmond before the early 1900s for either race. It was common practice to hold classes in private residences with casual arrangements of ages and schedules. Not good enough, said parents in Jackson Ward, so fundraising and political arm-twisting began at various levels.

” Miss Rubin Lee Moore” was written on this photo, Mrs. Hilda Warden identified her as a “childhood friend” who lived on Clay

Their efforts resulted in the construction of Booker T. Washington School at 21 East Leigh Street, the oldest public school building in Richmond. It was established as a black high school in the 1890’s. Armstrong High School, designed by Charles Russell (119 W. Leigh) was the only Richmond high school built specifically for African Americans until the late 1930’s and currently houses the Richmond Public Schools Adult Career Development Center.

In my last post, I introduced you to Irma Dillard, whose mother told her about Mr. Stilson and how he watched out for her friends, high school kids at Armstrong High School. Recalling her mother’s stories, Irma Dillard explained, “Originally there was a one room Newtowne School on Moore Street. And it was one room, a public school. She went to Moore School. It was not Carver. Moore School is the very old building back of Carver, literally abandoned now. I don’t know if it’s still standing.” It was, last time I drove down to look for it.

Irma Rainey (later Dillard), Robinette Anderson, Goldbug Wilson and other Armstrong students

It appears that Harry Stilson was close to a lot of the kids in Jackson Ward. On the back of one photo he wrote “A colored friend behind school” and the location has been tentatively identified as Moore Street School. Behind the curtsying girl is an outhouse. Gender-separated toilet facilities weren’t an issue back then. Everyone used the same outhouse.

“A colored friend behind school”

Irma Dillard’s mother’s friend, Wesley Carter, lived in the 1400 block of Moore Street so he also attended Moore Street School. “…and then Carver, then Armstrong High School.” Wesley Carter was an alumnus of an unusual school program in Richmond, “open air” or “fresh air” classes. Ella Flowers described open air members as “those who were thin and they thought they had tuberculosis.” Others mentioned respiratory illnesses or malnutrition but those students sat in classrooms with the windows open year round because it was believed to be beneficial to their health. Children wore coats as they shivered at their desks. Wesley Carter complained, “Let me tell you something about Moore Street School. They didn’t call it rheumatic fever back then but I had some fever and I stayed in a wheelchaiar all summer because I was very weak so they put me in what you call open air class. With windows wide open. Cold!”

We might want to reconsider those fresh air classes. Wesley Carter died at nearly 105 and other Jackson Ward “open air kids” whose oral histories I collected lived into their late 90s.

There were other schools besides Moore Street School. Ellalee Flowers’ sister, Laverne Fountain, recalled: “I started at Navy Hill. Then Booker T. I thought I was going from there to Armstrong but they’d built (Maggie) Walker the year before…I had to walk from 8^th Street up to Walker but I got home in a hurry because those Newtowne kids chased us home every day. We didn’t have backpacks, we had our books like this (demonstrating holding books) “…but there was a classmate whose father was a minister so he had a car. We had to walk up to where Armstrong was and if they were still there, we could all pile in just like piling into a phone booth.”

Ruby Walker named her schools: “Elba, Moore, Armstrong. Elba was 1000 W. Marshall Street, across from the T&E Laundry.” In those days, Armstrong was in the building where Benjamin Graves School is now, across the street from the Armory, now the Black History Museum. According to my oral history sources, students walked over to the Armory for gym.

Many of those students from Armstrong and Maggie Walker, like Wesley Carter, later attended Virginia Union or Virginia State University. They fulfilled the dreams of the parents who sacrificed to build schools and provide teachers so that their children could be educated. Think of how parents long for schools to be opened as we endure the Pandemic. That’s the kind of desire that spurred African American parents of Jackson Ward to donate precious funds and efforts to create environments where their children could learn. That’s the kind of determination that we celebrate during Black History Month and always.

Hartshorn, Virginia Union & Harry

Black History Month is a good time to remember the significant role in education that Richmond has played. Virginia Union University (“Union” to its older alumni) is probably familiar to you but did you know that Richmond was home to the first African American women’s college to award baccalaureate degrees in the United States? As my grandmother would say “tis so.” Hartshorn Memorial College, funded by Joseph C. Hartshorn to honor his wife Rachel, was established in 1883, holding classes in the basement of Ebenezer Baptist Church on Leigh Street until the campus was complete. I once gave a program in that same basement, sharing Hartshorn pictures. Hartshorn was located at Lombardy & Leigh, where Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School now stands. My great-grandfather, Harry Stilson, had a streetcar route with a stop at Hartshorn, considered Newtowne West back then, I suppose. Today most people refer to area simply as Jackson Ward. The Carver neighborhood wasn’t called that until George W. Carver School was built in 1951, and, while the name Newtowne is rarely used, talk with any elderly residents of the area and you’ll hear very specific descriptions of where places were. This map is from my book, On the West Clay Line. No time to find the map so I just took a picture with my phone but it might clarify neighborhoods. The point is this: Harry was at Hartshorn, Harry never went anywhere without his camera, and Harry took a lot of photos of the ladies and buildings of Hartshorn. Those magnificent structures were demolished but, thanks to Harry, we can revisit a piece of educational history.

Stilson’s streetcar conductor, Mr. Epperson, at Hartshorn College during WWI

Richmond didn’t offer much in public education back then, for whites or blacks. My next blog entry will explore education for younger black kids in Richmond but Hartshorn actually offered both college and high school. Harry’s journal entry naming two girls was a surprising discovery. I found a photo of two girls and a journal entry with two names, Maude E. Brown and Iva Carter. I called Virginia Union to see if they were students and was told, yes, high school students.

Maude E. Brown & Iva Carter, high school students at Hartshorn

Several of my oral history sources had relatives that attended Hartshorn College. School rules were strict: no streetcar rides, no dating, no sweets. Temperance was supported, corsets were discouraged. I’m OK with no drinking or corsets but no sweets? The curriculum was geared to academics but health and homemaking skills were also taught, as evidenced by this photo of Miss Elwin’s class and their tatting, a form of lace-making.  Hartshorn’s innovative “model classroom program” was similar to today’s student teaching programs.   

Hartshorn students working on their tatting

Harry’s journal frustrates me because he mentions so many intriguing photos that either didn’t survive or are unidentifiable to me. On May 31, 1918, he wrote that he took photos of “Dr. and Mrs. Rigler in front of Hartshorn.” That would be Geoffrey W. Rigler, president of Hartshorn and the archivist at VUU sent me his photo hoping I could identify Harry’s picture. I doubt Dr. Rigler would look kindly on the man climbing out of the girls’ first floor dorm room that Harry captured on film. You can’t see it without a high resolution view but he’s there so the no dating rule was obviously broken at least once.  

First floor left corner…man climbing out of dorm window. Harry’s tripod is at fence line

The teaching staff was white, like Miss Julia Elwin. Harry took several photos of her, with her classes and in her rose garden. I am still trying to locate the garden pictures but I did find her in the 1920 U.S. Census. Julia Maria Elwin, born in Maine, teaching at 1600 Leigh Street. Yup, that would be her.   

Miss Julia Elwin seated with her students, Hartshorn College, 1920

The “Union” in Virginia Union University’s name is appropriate because the school is literally a union of nine schools, including Hartshorn, which merged with the larger facility in 1932. In its infancy, Virginia Union offered a unified educational system with an unusual feature: its power plant generated its own power and water supply and the adjacent Agricultural Training School housed pigs, chickens, cows, and horses. Students were expected to maintain the plant and tend the farm which supplied the University and supplied income. They worked construction as well. Virginia granite, cut and laid by students, created an impressive Romanesque Revival campus with an unusual agricultural component. Virginia Union is credited with hiring the first black staff and instructors in a Southern institution, among them architect, Charles Russell.  This wagon may have carried stock to or from Virginia Union.

Bull in wagon in front of Hartshorn College

One amazing part of my Richmond In Sight adventure is how often Harry’s photographic subjects have relatives still here who can share stories about the people in Stilson photographs, nearly a century later. An article in the Richmond Times Dispatch led me to Irma Dillard and I surprised her with pictures of her mother, Irma Rainey Dillard, and friends that Harry took. Irma Dillard identified them including her dad’s friend, Percy Jones, from New York, posing on the trestle between Hartshorn and Union.  

Percy Jones on trestle, Virginia Union University behind him

Those students are gone now but their children often followed them into higher education and better lives. Many of Virginia Union’s alumni can point to generations of Union students and one of my very favorite people was Wesley Carter, who held the title “Oldest Virginia Union alumnus” for years. He took classes there and attended events til the end of his life. He had a special seat in most buildings including the cafeteria where he ate often and students knew not to take his seat. When I expressed surprise that, at 103, he communicated through email, he proudly informed me: “I took computer classes at Union.  They give me free classes, you know.” As well they should. Anyone eager to continue his education into his 90s and beyond deserves free classes. Dr. Carter was engaged with learning and sharing that knowledge until the end of his life, just two months shy of 105. And when he died, his memorial service was held at his beloved Union. What a testament to the power of education and the determination of Richmond’s African-Americans to learn.

Wesley Carter introducing Kitty Snow at an Astoria Beneficial Club dinner

MLK Day after Jan. 6

I’m not sure what to write on this holiday celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King. My heart is broken after the events of January 6^th and, while optimism is a core characteristic of mine, I’m having a hard time feeling hopeful. I’ve shared posts about how my family has volunteered in political activities for both parties and shown memorabilia from past campaigns and elections and parts of Harry Stilson’s speech of 1907, titled “Pride of Tint” where he advocated integration of schools, churches and other aspects of life as the path to what he called “familiarity” between races and faiths which he believed would inspire respect and would lead to a better America. In light of the attack on the Capitol, it seems that we are far from the respect that my great-grandfather dreamed of.

My eyes land on one of the thousands of Stilson items I inherited: a small jewelry box of the Capitol, a souvenir from decades, perhaps even a century ago.  Someone in my family cherished it and rightfully so. That symbol of democracy is sacred and it was desecrated by domestic terrorists, demanding death to our vice president, lawmakers, police officers, incited to violence by the very person who should embody our ideals. Images of that mob of thousands was a striking reminder of past events that brought multitudes to those streets, among them the March on Washington where Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech and the first Obama inauguration. The first was a peaceful protest, the second a celebration of history being made. Inaugerations are normally exciting. The streets of Washington should be preparing to celebrate the endurance of our “American experiment,” the peaceful transition of one administration to another. It’s a declaration that America has voted and that vote is honored. Until January 6^th. The contrast is stunning and heartbreaking.

I was almost twelve when I listened to Dr. King’s vision for equality on the radio but I was in D.C., on the street, along with my mom and sister when Barak Obama called for a “new era of responsibility.” Thank goodness for radios because again I heard historic words on a radio. We listened to his speech on a woman’s transistor radio, crowded closely to hear. My white-haired mom and an elderly black man, a young man from Australia, the rest of us various ages and races. All focused on the promise of a more perfect union as we were reminded why we were there and what we were charged with. President Obama’s charge to the nation is even more relevant today:

“On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.  On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.  We remain a young nation.  But in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.  The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation:  the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”  

One phrase strikes me as particularly profound, that the time has come to “choose our better history.” Lord knows our country’s image has suffered incredible damage by recent actions and words but we can choose our better history. We can hold those guilty of insurrection and tarnishing our sacred symbol of democracy accountable. We can say “enough.” We can come together to protect each other, to respect each other, to fufill the dream that Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned for America. Instead of a city under siege, the streets of Washington should be teeming with people with dreams, hopes, ideas. Like the small Capitol jewelry box, the “American experiment” can be preserved and cherished for the future. Barriers can come down, streets opened to share what democracy looks like. Instead of a call for change, “This is what democracy looks like!” can be and endorsement. Celebrations on the streets of our Capital will return. We’ll choose our better history and create a more perfect union.  I know we can.

H