Eva Haynes

TAPE 1/SIDE 1
MISSIAEN: This is Eva Haynes who lives at 629 South Carolina Avenue. We’re going to start talking about your early memories, about your childhood when you were growing up. So can you tell me where you were born?
MRS. HAYNES: I was born in LaGrange, North Carolina, in the Lenoir county [in 1920].
MISSIAEN: Did you go to the elementary school there?
MRS. HAYNES: I attended elementary school, maybe a couple years before my parents moved to DC, cause down there you only started school when you was about six or seven. They didn’t have kindergarten and all that.
MISSIAEN: Uh-huh.
MRS. HAYNES: We moved up here in 1932.
MISSIAEN: And did you go to elementary school in the District?
MRS. HAYNES: And we attended the elementary schools here in the District. We first lived at Foggy Bottom.
MISSIAEN: Oh, Foggy Bottom?
MRS. HAYNES: Yes. For a short while and then my parents moved up in, I call it the heart of Northwest, Vermont Avenue, Northwest. And we lived in that area for many years cause Vermont Avenue, then on Twelfth Street, and then we lived on Eleventh and R.
MISSIAEN: Eleventh and R.
MRS. HAYNES: Uh-huh.
MISSIAEN: And did you attend
MRS. HAYNES: And I attended Garrison Elementary School.
MISSIAEN: You went on to junior high?
MRS. HAYNES: Went on to junior high which was Shaw and that was at Seventh Street, Seventh and Rhode Island Avenue. And then I left, after I graduated from Shaw, I went to Armstrong. That was at First and O, I think.
MISSIAEN: Is Armstrong High School still there?
MRS. HAYNES: Yes, it’s there, but it’s turned into something else now.
MISSIAEN: It’s not a high school now.
MRS. HAYNES: No, it’s not, uh-huh.
MISSIAEN: And then after high school?
MRS. HAYNES: After high school, well, while I was deciding where to go, what to do, I went to Dennison, and that was on T Street, 1300 block of T Street, Northwest. And I took up drafting. And after that, I was, got a job in the government as a clerk. I worked for the General Accounting Office for three years.
MISSIAEN: And you told me that your parents eventually moved to Capitol Hill. When, you remember when that was?
MRS. HAYNES: Well, it was in the first part of 1949, I think around January of 1949. And I guess after we moved here for about six months that my father became ill. The doctors said he wasn’t able to go back to work because they didn’t expect him to live and they said he would never walk again.
MISSIAEN: You told me he had been interested, injured in a construction accident.
MRS. HAYNES: Yes. At the time he was in it, he was working at the National Art Gallery, down, what’s, Sixth and Pennsylvania Avenue?
MISSIAEN: Uh-huh.
MRS. HAYNES: Right. And there, he was a foreman down for the art gallery, uh-huh. And, so, me and my family, we was in here with them to help out, by them just purchasing, you know, this place. My mother was still working.
MISSIAEN: Where did your mother work?
MRS. HAYNES: Well, she was at Manhattan on Fourteenth Street, but they closed up and the she went to Arcade Sunshine. That’s off of Georgia Avenue and Lamont, I believe it was, I’m not quite sure.
MISSIAEN: You had said earlier that this was Manhattan Laundry, right?
MRS. HAYNES: Yea. It was Manhattan Laundry and it was on Fourteenth Street, near Fourteenth and W.
MISSIAEN: And then she switched over to—
MRS. HAYNES: to Arcade Sunshine, uh-huh.
MISSIAEN: You said that your father had not been expected to recover after this accident, but he did live for sometime after that?
MRS. HAYNES: Oh, yea. Well, the only thing, it got better, but then he came down with something else, cause he really had asthma. And he had a lot of asthma attacks, you know, and, uh-huh, his blood just dwindled away. Going to the doctors and everything, it still wasn’t building back up, you know.
MISSIAEN: What did you think of the Capitol Hill neighborhood when you first moved here?
MRS. HAYNES: Oh, well, I thought it was very nice, because it was near transportation and it was near stores. We didn’t have to go too far in order to get something and if you wanted to go to other parts of the city, I mean, you just walked down to the corner and catch the trolleys.
MISSIAEN: Do you remember if your family had a car at that time?
MRS. HAYNES: No. We didn’t have a car in DC, but we had a car in North Carolina. My father had a car in North Carolina, but after he got up here, he didn’t drive up here, uh-huh.
MISSIAEN: And then did your children enrolled in elementary school here on Capitol Hill.
MRS. HAYNES: Yes. They was enrolled in Giddings Elementary School. And they all graduated from Giddings and some went to Hine, cause they remodeled Hine, you know. Some went to Hines and, of course, my youngest daughter, like I said, went to Elliott in the special program.
MISSIAEN: Right. You had mentioned there were a number of National Honor Scholars in that group.
MRS. HAYNES: Yes. Well, the Board of Education, they checked around and they picked, it was twenty-one kids, and they said it would be an experimental thing. And they made up a class and they all went to Elliott. And the first year there, nineteen out of the twenty-one was inducted into the National Honor Society.
MISSIAEN: That’s impressive. Very good progress.
MRS. HAYNES: Right, right. But they were always going on trips. [Laughter.] All, so many places that they had an opportunity to go, you know: New York, Canada, Philadelphia and Virginia, you know, that, all that went along with their studies, part of their curriculum.
MISSIAEN: Did the Supreme Court decision on segregation make a difference in the schools that you could see right away.
MRS. HAYNES: No. It took a little time, because when the kids started to Hines, and it was predominantly white, and then they started phasing out the white, they started moving out of DC anyway, a lot of them, and by time my younger ones got there, it was almost predominately black.
MISSIAEN: And where did your children go to high school?
MRS. HAYNES: Three of them graduated from Eastern, and two from Dunbar and one from McKinley.
MISSIAEN: When you first moved in to help your parents, who were your neighbors? Do you remember who your neighbors were?
MRS. HAYNES: I don’t remember them people’s names. Maybe they were all black because couple of doors, not the first house, but the next house the lady kept two of my kids while I was working.
MISSIAEN: Ok.
MRS. HAYNES: They babysitter for me, but then my number two son, he didn’t like to be there. So when he would come from Giddings he would climb the back fence, cause he knew my father was here. And if my father wasn’t home, then he would go back and go around to our church, over there by Tyler School and he would go over there and he would find his granddaddy. So the lady, finally, she decided that she would go down to the park and wait for him, but he would come to the corner, and if he see her, he’d turn around and go back around the block. [Laughter.]
MISSIAEN: [Laugher.] This is the son that had a lot of adventures, was he the one that went over and played chess?
MRS. HAYNES: Yea. That’s the one that played chess and he—
MISSIAEN: You want to tell me that, again, that story about how you walked in there one day and the owner said something about your son coming in?
MRS. HAYNES: He told my husband that my son was coming in there after ten o’clock at night and we all was supposed to be asleep in the bed, but I don’t know, he’s out some way and went around there, cause he was interested in chess and to get some more pointers and everything, you know, cause the man had some beautiful chess figures, you know, upon the wall and everything. Yep. He was very adventurous because he played the congos, the bongos and he, I don’t know whether you heard of the Concho African dances. They had a place down on Eighth Street, down near the Navy Yard. That’s where they started out. And so he went down and helped them to get a grant in order to start this you know, African dances and things. And he stayed with them a long time. Concho died about, I think it’s been about two years now, going on two years that Concho has died. His wife—
MISSIAEN: Concho, Concho was the name of the person who—
MRS. HAYNES: —who was in charge and his wife has taken to go with the dances, you know. I think they still have rehearsal or somewhere in some school in the other part of Southeast. And they had played over here at the Eastern Market in the Market Gallery. So he’s been over there playing, uh-huh. And my granddaughter that’s he and she had been over there. They had dances, dances over there and the kids performed and that particular son, he has been with Concho at the St. Mark and they had programs down there and they danced and played the drums and so forth.
MISSIAEN: Is this the son who still lives with you?
MRS. HAYNES: No. That’s the one that had passed away. And he also—
MISSIAEN: I’m sorry. I get confused.
MRS. HAYNES: Yea. He always, also ran, it was some position that Marion Barry and some of the other people was running for and he told me that he was running too. I said, How can you run for what—I forgot what they were running for—but he said that, Well, he knew he wasn’t going to win, but he just wanted to see how it feel [laughter] to be running for some big position, you know. Uh-huh, I had pictures of him taken, that he had taken with Marion Barry and some other people.
MISSIAEN: What was his name?
MRS. HAYNES: James, James Haynes.
MISSIAEN: And he was the one who worked at the Friendship House for a while.
MRS. HAYNES: He the one, yea, he was Junior Director over at the Friendship House, yes. And he also, when they built the Potomac Gardens when they were first building over there, well he worked around there. He was an assistant to the, you know—
MISSIAEN: You mentioned that he would go over to the church to look for your father when he left the school when he was still at Giddings.
MRS. HAYNES: Right, yea.
MISSIAEN: still in, then he was, You had also mentioned that your parents were influential in getting that church established. Could you tell me about that?
MRS. HAYNES: Well, like I said, it was two sets of Parkers.
MISSIAEN: Ok.
MRS. HAYNES: My parents was Parkers. Their last name was Parker. And they met up with the other set of Parkers that lived up Northwest and they was trying to find a Free Will Baptist church which they couldn’t find so they decided that they would start another mission, they call itself… They formed a club a Willing Workers Club first and then they started making plans to start a mission. And they eventually, in 1935, they decided they would branch out with this little mission, because at first my parents, they joined Vermont Avenue Baptist Church and that’s where the rest of us, you know, was members Vermont Avenue. And they secured other ministers until they was able to elect a minister for the church. Of course, they moved around to different places, and the first real church home that they was buying was 1106 W Street, Northwest. The other place they had rented, you know, uh-huh. And so, after that, then we got the place over here, sixty-five, 1965, the one on 754 Eleventh Street, Southeast.
MISSIAEN: What were your parents names?
MRS. HAYNES: Elijah and Lucy Parker.
MISSIAEN: I understand your mother was very well-known around the neighborhood.
MRS. HAYNES: Oh, she was, she was, she loved to talk. And just like over to the Eastern Market, they used to have stands on the outside and they bring all this, I say, country stuff, meats and things and they would have on the outside and the, they used to have live chickens. I don’t know whether you remember that.
MISSIAEN: Oh, I can, we used to kill our own chickens when I was growing up.
MRS. HAYNES: Oh, ok. So you, yea, they had a place up to Fifth and Florida that market up there, they also had em up there, you know. And just like, when I got ready for Thanksgiving, your turkey bird, you go round and pick him out and they would kill him for you. But my mother, by coming form North Carolina and they had chickens there. But they would bring the chicken home, and I see my mother many time and take that chicken and wring his neck and put him in a basket or something, and I’d be gone.
[Hearty laughter by both through this chicken-wringing conversation.]
MISSIAEN: So you didn’t ever followed your mother’s tradition.
MRS. HAYNES: No, No, uh, uh [indicating strong no]. I think I was the one mostly afraid of everything. Then the others, they just ventured on out—my brothers and sister.
MISSIAEN: You mentioned Eastern Market. I know you still do a lot of our shopping there, at Eastern Market?
MRS. HAYNES: Yes. Yes, a lot of my shopping. Still do.
MISSIAEN: Which stands do you like best?
MRS. HAYNES: Oh, well, I go to Glasgow Brothers. Yea, cause they been there for a long time. And I miss my friends that used to wait on me for, one of them named Bob. He just went home one day and was tired and they found him. He was dead. And then, now I go to, I get some things from Melvin and Chris and the stand, what I think the man’s name is Canalo. It used to be Mr. Miller that had that. Cause I used to get bacon and stuff from him.
MISSIAEN: Ok.
MRS. HAYNES: But now, somebody else has that stand.
MISSIAEN: And were there other places around through the neighborhood where you went shopping?
MRS. HAYNES: Oh, yea. I could go to the Safeways. There was two Safeways, one over across from the market and the other on Seventh Street. I shopped a lot in the District Hardware store and then there used to be another hardware on Pennsylvania Avenue, near where Mr. Henry is, but I forgot the name of that one. I used to shop in there a lot too.
MISSIAEN: Right. Was it called the Grand?
MRS. HAYNES: I believe it was. I think so.
MISSIAEN: I’ve been here a while myself.
MRS. HAYNES: Ohhhh. So I see. Oh. You live over in this neighborhood?
MISSIAEN: Well, when I first moved here, I lived on Sixth and East Capitol.
MRS. HAYNES: Oh, ok.
MISSIAEN: Lived there for about eight years. Then we bought the house here on South Carolina. You mentioned there were also a corner market on Sixth and E right around the corner.
MRS. HAYNES: Sixth and E. It’s a house now, they made into a house.
MISSIAEN: That market kept moving around?
MRS. HAYNES: And then they moved to Seventh and E on the corner there. So that’s a house. And then the last place they were was on Seventh, I mean, Eighth and E, where Ophelia’s Flower shop is. It was there for a while.
MISSIAEN: And the—
MRS. HAYNES: So then they went out of business.
MISSIAEN: the man who ran that, you told me what his name was?
MRS. HAYNES: Ben, Ben, yea.
MISSIAEN: And it was a family-run place.
MRS. HAYNES: I believe it was a family thing.
MISSIAEN: You mentioned you worked for a while for three years and then you—
MRS. HAYNES: Yes, for three years for the General Accounting Office and then started families and things, and so I went back to work and in 1950. I was there, I started with the ‘50 Census.
MISSIAEN: Where was your office?
MRS. HAYNES: At the Census Bureau, in Suitland, Maryland.
MISSIAEN: Did you have any trouble getting to work out there?
MRS. HAYNES: No, cause the buses used to come from downtown then they stopped them from coming from downtown and we had to catch them at Potomac Avenue or Minnesota Avenue. But, then when we started to catch Potomac Avenue until they built it for the Metro station and that’s when we got started catching. And they would take us early in the morning take us on the ground because the way the building is situated, it’s the back of the building that faces Suitland Road. The front of the building is up in, you know, like the court yard.
MISSIAEN: How long did you work for the Census Bureau?
MRS. HAYNES: Thirty years, out there.
MISSIAEN: We mentioned briefly your neighbors, the Gray family.
MRS. HAYNES: Well, they were Hawkins.
MISSIAEN: They were Hawkins.
MRS. HAYNES: Yea. First Miss Hawkins. Well, they never had any children. They was there when we moved here. And they didn’t have any children but they raised three-fourths of boys.
MISSIAEN: Oh. Ok. And that’s house
MRS. HAYNES: 627.
MISSIAEN: 627?
MRS. HAYNES: Uh-huh, yep. And the house next to that, it was apartment, but they changed that to a house, you know.
MISSIAEN: Were there a lot of children on the block?
MRS. HAYNES: Oh yea.
MISSIAEN: Do you remember some of the ones your children played with?
MRS. HAYNES: Well, down there, by way where the Gleasons live. In those two houses, they was quite, one family was called the Neal family and I think it was about nineteen head of them. [Laughter.] And then, then the mother, she took on three of her grandchildren that she was keeping. So it was really a lot of them. She’s still living as far as I know.
MISSIAEN: Mrs. Neal?
MRS. HAYNES: Mrs. Neal, yes.
MISSIAEN: And so they must have lived about, that must have been about 645.
MRS. HAYNES: Yea. Right along there. And then, the Jones used to live on the other side of Miss Nelson and a girl I saw the other night, she said she lived 661, but said her name was Edwards. She said she used to play with my niece. But I don’t remember that part. And then that big house on the corner, red brick, that was like a rooming house, you know. They had a lot of different people living in there.
MISSIAEN: I guess there were a lot of rooming houses in the neighborhood at that time.
MRS. HAYNES: Right, right, right. And then the green house, the little green house [#641], lady was living in, Miss Pope. And she never had any children, but, of course, when her husband passed, he was a service man, then she was still there. But she stayed there until she got so she couldn’t function much by herself. Cause my father used to go down there and go to the store for her and do things for her. But then she had somebody that was kin to her husband but it was a distant cousin. So they came from Virginia and got her and took her to Virginia. Well, the house was sold.
MISSIAEN: So it sounds like there were a lot of African American families living on the block in the 1950s..
MRS. HAYNES: Oh, yea, yea, yea. All among the men. Mr. Young, the house that has been added on to, this real tall [#637], it’s not, after these little three small houses, the Young’s lived in there. The man that remodeled that house, he used to play with my boys. They put a thing over to the Friendship House. They used to play basketball. They go play basketball, you know, until they stopped it, cause everybody, in later years, and they were tearing up so much stuff, you know. But, I think this man, he helped remodel other houses around in this area.
MISSIAEN: That was Mr. Young?
MRS. HAYNES: No. That wasn’t Mr. Young. Mr. Young was too old.
MISSIAEN: Mr. Young was too old for that.
[Laughter by both.]
MRS. HAYNES: Yea. Mr. Young was too old and he’d peek around there, and he couldn’t half see at times, and his wife would go to the hairdresser and he would be looking at her to see if she had her hair dyed or anything.
MISSIAEN: So—
MRS. HAYNES: He—yes, yes, yes. And everybody on the block would chastise other people’s kids, you know.
MISSIAEN: Everyone look out for each other.
MRS. HAYNES: Looked out for other people’s kids, uh-huh. And then the Fogel’s, they lived down, you know where that garage is in the back?
MISSIAEN: Yes.
MRS. HAYNES: Right down there. Ok, the first house, the Fogel’s, there was a lot up there.
MISSIAEN: So they lived in the house beyond the garage [#607].
MRS. HAYNES: And then around on Sixth Street all up and down, they were a lot of African Americans, all the way down and down by the Navy Yard. We used to go over to the Garfield Park and take the kids down there to play. They did have a few swings and things down there. But I haven’t been by there since they remodeled. They tell me it’s real nice down there now.
MISSIAEN: Yes, it does look nice. So there was a lot socializing among the neighbors on the block.
MRS. HAYNES: Yes, yes there was.
MISSIAEN: What about the really hot spells in the summer. How did people deal with that?
MRS. HAYNES: With the hot spells? I think most of us stayed on in the house, but the kids, they was up and down the street playing. It didn’t seem to bother them. But like during the summer, at the times that, I wasn’t working, and, of course, I had some swings and things in the back yard I had some kids from the block to come in, they come in and my daughter the one I told you graduated from McKinley, she was in elementary school then, but she always said she wanted to be a teacher. But, anyway, she would teach the kids, and I was showing some arts and crafts, you know make little things and keep them off the street, uh-huh. I’d take my sewing machine out the back and [chuckle].
MISSIAEN: Did you do a lot of sewing?
MRS. HAYNES: I don’t do any now. Not if I can help. Only cause of my hands, you know, and, of course, my eyes getting kinda dim. I can’t see how to thread a needle. I call one of my sons or something. They’ll thread the needle. I don’t know, all of that just left me.
MISSIAEN: But you did when you were younger?
MRS. HAYNES: Yes. Oh, yes. I used to make most of my clothes. And then when I had started having children, I did a lot of sewing for them. I’d go downtown and buy something and bring it home and redecorate for them. Yes.
END OF TAPE 1/SIDE 1
TAPE 1/SIDE 2
MISSIAEN: You’re still active in the New Hope Free Will Baptist Church?
MRS. HAYNES: Yes…I sing with the choir now. I was singing with the Gospel Chorus but our new Pastor we have now, she decided to cut that group out. And so I sing with the Senior Choir. I was singing with the Gospel Chorus Senior Choir. I work with the Missionaries Department, and I’m also a member of the…we did have separate clubs but this year we decided to combine all the clubs together and call it one thing.  So we called it the Web Ministry. And I belong to that.
MISSIAEN: And what kind of things does the Mission Group or the Ministry do?
MRS. HAYNES: Oh, we do a lot. We give out baskets. Right now, our Church we are going to three nursing homes. J.B. Johnson, the Grant Park and Washington …I forget the rest of the Washington Place Center.  They’re going now … some of our missionaries are going out tonight to go to the Grant Park and the Washington. On Thursday night, they’re taking gifts to J.B. Johnson. We go to the hospitals and visit our sick members or anybody else that we know about. And then, well the Church is….somebody is in need or something we help them out.
MISSIAEN: Does the church have a large number of members?
MRS. HAYNES: Well, we had a man minister and so well he’s been gone over two years and some people haven’t got adjusted to the woman…she’s a good teacher…cause we have her in bible class…and she’s really up with the bible and explaining things and everything but see when you become a full time minister it’s a big job and it’s a large responsibility. When people been used to a man all the time…well a lot of churches have women nowadays. And so I guess they’ve got almost about 300 or something like that.
MISSIAEN: So this is the first woman minister at the New Hope Church?
MRS. HAYNES: Yes. She is the first ordained minister of our Free Will Conference.
MISSIAEN: Oh, OK.
MRS. HAYNES: She is the first ordained one. Now we have other female ministers, but she’s the first one that was ordained into a church.
MISSIAEN: And “ordained” means that she did a lot of university education. That’s what’s required.
MRS. HAYNES: Right. She’s still in school. She’s at Howard now.
MISSIAEN: How is the membership in the church changed over the time that you’ve been going. You’ve obviously been going there for a long time.
MRS. HAYNES: Well, yes I’ve been going for a long time. We started out with a few and then it would build up. When you make other changes then like they drop off and you start to rebuild again. And so it’s just been up and down or whatever. At the time when my father was living and everything, we had about over 500 members or something. But after he died and some of the other older members deacons and things passed away the people started drifting.
MISSIAEN: And did most of the church members live on Capitol Hill?
MRS. HAYNES: No. Some lived in Virginia. A whole lot of them live in Maryland.
MISSIAEN: But did they have roots on Capitol Hill? Is that how they happened to know about the church?
MRS. HAYNES: Well, now some of them used to live around in the Potomac Gardens in that area and they come over to the church and so when, I don’t get the man’s name that had the church before we got it. He was a black minister. When he left, some of the people stayed, and they became a part of our church now. Some of our relatives and friends talk about it and everything. Two weeks ago Sunday, we have a library at the church, and they dedicated to my niece in her honor.
MISSIAEN: This is the niece who passed away?
MRS. HAYNES: Yes, [Lucille] Parker.  And—
MISSIAEN: You mentioned that your niece was a minister. Am I correct about that?
MRS. HAYNES: Yes, she was a minister. She had a local license before she passed. She was a musician too.
MISSIAEN: Then did she have a church where she was a minister?
MRS. HAYNES: We have women ministers.
MISSIAEN: Can you remember how historical events  affected the neighborhood? Do you remember what it was like at the end of World War II?
MRS. HAYNES: World War II… I was living up on Rhode Island Avenue at that particular time and it was really something. That’s when the depression and all that was going on and stuff rationed and we had a lot of corner stores but some of them had to close because they wasn't getting any business and everything. On the whole, that’s why a lot of women and so forth got a chance to go into the government because they were taking the men, drafting the men and so some women got in there and stayed and went on up the ladder.
Back to school.. I think Roosevelt started the WPA, I think that’s what they called it the WPA.
MISSIAEN: Did any of your family members participate in the Second World War? Fight in the Second World War?
MRS. HAYNES: No. My father’s brother, but he lived in North Carolina. My son, my oldest son, he was in Vietnam for two years.
MISSIAEN: What’s your oldest son’s name?
MRS. HAYNES: Reginald. He was in Vietnam for two years. Soon after he got out of high school he was working for the Federal Reserve Board and of course he was drafted. They gave him eight weeks training and sent him straight to Vietnam. And I, well, I guess that’s where I got my high blood pressure and everything cause it was really kind of rough.  So when he came back then they took him back to his job at the Federal Reserve. He worked in the duplicating section and… but he’s retired now.
MISSIAEN: He’s retired!  A young man like that.
MRS. HAYNES: He’s been retired. It’s been over a year, almost two years. He always told me if they abolished his job that he was going to quit and so he wound up with 33 years of service counting the military service. He had 33 years of service.
MISSIAEN: Do you have a granddaughter who lives with you? Does he have a daughter?  I see him with a little girl sometimes.
MRS. HAYNES: Oh that’s my other son’s daughter. My oldest son doesn’t have any children. My youngest son didn’t have any children.  My oldest daughter didn’t have any children. That’s my third son. He has a granddaughter. She used to be going over to Friendship House since she was a little girl.
MISSIAEN: Has Friendship House always had programs for children?
MRS. HAYNES: I been trying to think about that because I don’t think at first when my parents lived here that it was. But later on I think it started taking on children. I think at the time this place was dedicated.….
MISSIAEN: The Friendship House Association has been around for a long time. Since early 1900’s but they acquired this property through a gift, I think, during the Depression in the 1930’s.
MRS. HAYNES: And my youngest daughter. She used to babysit neighbors when the other race was moving in and having children. She used to babysit in the neighborhood. She had her first babysitting job when she was nine years old. Lady next door had a baby. When the lady had her first child she was in China and she said that they had the baby in the morning and in the evening they were up going about their work and everything. We couldn’t believe that. So when she had the second child she came home and she asked me if my daughter could come sit over there with the baby. I didn’t know what to say. She said all…….she wanted to go somewhere. So I let her go over there. But of course I was still back here watching. She got along fine. She started recommending her to other people for babysitting and then when it started—I don’t remember if you lived around here or not when they started the Wee Care.
MISSIAEN: Oh yes I remember that.
MRS. HAYNES: It’s still … I think they’re down on North Carolina Avenue now somewhere
MISSIAEN: Are they …what’s the one at the Church of the Brethren?
MRS. HAYNES: Are they with the Church of the Brethren?
MISSIAEN: I think that they may be at the Church of the Brethren…but they changed the name but I think it’s the one at the Church of the Brethren now. They moved around all over.
MRS. HAYNES: They moved around because just across the street there the lady…they had my daughter over there babysitting. I think she was taking care of four or five kids.
MISSIAEN: And this was part of the Wee Care Day Care?
MRS. HAYNES: Wee Care Day Care Center. Of course, when she went down to take the license or whatever she passed but then they told her she was too young. She had to be 21.
MISSIAEN: What’s your youngest daughter’s name?
MRS. HAYNES: Margaret. She’s Margaret Davis now.   My number two son and my number two daughter. They were very active in a lot of things. They were always into something. Now she’s still going to school. After the children got grown they went to school and she went back to school. She went to Juniorr College in Tennessee and she graduated with honors. She’s in the Who’s Who Book of people in the Junior Colleges, and then she got a scholarship and she went to East Tennessee State and two years ago—three years ago—she graduated from there. She got her degree in Criminal Justice. She graduated Magna Cum Laude.
MISSIAEN: Just so I can understand the time here….when was your youngest daughter born?
MRS. HAYNES: January the 9th, 1954.
MISSIAEN: 1954, ok. So it was the early ‘60’s that she was starting to babysit for people on this block.
MRS. HAYNES: Yes.
MISSIAEN: Do you remember the names of the families? The one that came back from China. Do you remember that?
MRS. HAYNES: No I can’t remember because…the lady, she’s been back here. She lives in New York now, but her and first husband divorced and the kids, the two girls, are with the father out in Colorado. But she was living in NewYork. So that everybody that came back, they come and see if we’re still here.
MISSIAEN: So you’ve been on the block just about as long as Mrs. Nelson.
MRS. HAYNES: No, not as long as Mrs. Nelson, but almost.
MISSIAEN: So I it was about the mid-‘60s is when the people started changing on the block.
MRS. HAYNES: Right. They start changing.
MISSIAEN: More African American families were moving out and white families…
MRS. HAYNES: They were moving out. They were coming in and they was remodeling houses. The property over here and then they started selling them.
MISSIAEN: You had mentioned that there were never any African American families living on the other side of the street. Were there any white families that lived there for a long time that you…
MRS. HAYNES: Oh yes. Some were there a long time. When we first moved here. I don’t know. They were getting old. Some started getting sick. Then they started moving out.
MISSIAEN: I guess the Everett Family lived here for a quite a while. That was Sally’s [Collis’s] parents.
MRS. HAYNES: They were there when we moved in. There were a lot of grandchildren. Sally and all them.
MISSIAEN: Did you know Mr. or Mrs. Everett? Did you know Sally’s parents?
MRS. HAYNES: I knew her mother.
MISSIAEN: You seem to like living in this neighborhood.
MRS. HAYNES: It’s nice.
MISSIAEN: Is there anything you don’t like about the neighborhood?
MRS. HAYNES: No.
MISSIAEN: I was very unhappy when they closed that Safeway over by Eastern Market.
MRS. HAYNES: Now that really got next to me when they closed that Safeway. It moved over there to 14th Street. I could just walk there and take my little shopping cart and get what I wanted and come on back. They were so nice over there at that Safeway. Before my mother passed, when she’d get her check, they would cash her check for her. Then when she got so she couldn’t go out there, she’d give it to my youngest son and he would take it out there. They knew her and they would cash it for and he’d come back and count it out to her. They were honoring my mother at church and they had made this money tree and all this money was on this money tree and she was so happy and everything she took the tree out to the Safeway and showed it to the people and one of the cashiers…I forget this man’s name…he was looking at… he said, “Oh, my, Ms. Parker,” he said, “I see something else on this besides dollar bills. There’s a five dollar bill and I see a ten dollar bill.” When I came home that evening from work, my mother had unwrapped all that money off that tree cause she saw a couple of dollars and she thought that was all there was, by they’re telling them out there she wanted to see what else… She unwrapped all that money off that tree.
MISSIAEN: You mentioned your mother lived to a ripe old age.
MRS. HAYNES: She was 89 when she passed.
MISSIAEN: What year was that?
MRS. HAYNES: 1983.
MISSIAEN: So she would have been born…
MRS. HAYNES: 1890 something.
MISSIAEN: Is there anything else you think we should talk about? Any other memories of the neighborhood?
MRS. HAYNES: I don’t know. You know all about the stores, the theaters and things.
MISSIAEN: Mention the movie theaters. Tell me about the movie theaters that were here.
MRS. HAYNES: There was the Penn.  That’s where the Penn Building is now. And on this side I think it was the Grand Avenue. Then of course, the one around on Eighth Street which is the church now. I forget the name of that one. The children used to go there. The dime store used to be where the Bread and Chocolate is.
MISSIAEN: Did you ever do any shopping down at the A & P? There was an A & P Store on 12th Street.
MRS. HAYNES: 12th Street. No. I didn’t go to the A & P.
MISSIAEN: I see you going out a lot each day. Do you have certain places where you go now? You go to the Market, I know that.
MRS. HAYNES: We go to the Market. We go to the CVS. CVS used to serve food. They had a counter. They served food. They cut all of that out. That’s all…just round in the neighborhood.
MISSIAEN: Do you go over to Eighth Street? Is there anything ….
MRS. HAYNES: Miller’s Furniture Company used to be where the Foot Locker.  The bank used to be where Pay-Less is.
MISSIAEN: You mentioned there was a bakery on Eighth Street.
MRS. HAYNES: Yes, Stephanie’s, that used to be across from the Marine Barracks.
MISSIAEN: That was called Stephanie’s?
MRS. HAYNES: Stephanie’s.
MISSIAEN: Did you have any favorite items that you liked to get at Stephanie’s?
MRS. HAYNES: All good pies and they had ice cream too. They had rolls. I used to buy rolls at Sherrill’s up there on Pennsylvania Avenue. Holiday time I’d get the rolls from there.
MISSIAEN: Yes, that’s another thing I really miss.
MRS. HAYNES: Let me see. What else? So much has changed around here. It’s hard to keep up.
MISSIAEN: I’ve been here a little over 30 years and I can see a lot of the changes.
Do you remember what happened in the neighbothood at the time Kennedy died? Do you remember where you were when Kennedy died?
MRS. HAYNES: I was at work.  It was terrible. Everybody just stopped everything. The whole building stopped. People were crying and crying…they just had to let us go home. Yes, it was such a shock..
MISSIAEN: Did you go back to work the next day or did people take more time off?
MRS. HAYNES: Some did and some went back.
MISSIAEN: But the office was open.
MRS. HAYNES: Right.
MISSIAEN: What about when Martin Luther King was killed?
MRS. HAYNES: Yes. We were at Church that night. And when we came out they said things were on fire. It was terrible. That was another terrible thing. We were just lucky be cause we didn’t know whether they were going to burn the church. There was so much burning but they didn’t bother and we were able to get home and then for a while my mother wanted to go up to the Fifth and Florida Market and we’d walk up there. She get her cart. We’d walk up there to the Market and get stuff and come back. Really a tragic thing to see buildings burned out. People’s lives were taken at that time, it’s devastating.
MISSIAEN: But the area around here, there was no damage?
MRS. HAYNES: It wasn’t…no real damage like there was other places. Up at Eighth and H and all…some of those buildings up there, I don’t think there are still some buildings up there that haven’t had something done to them.
MISSIAEN: I don’t think H Street has ever been ….Did you ever go over to do any shopping on H Street? What kind of shops did they have over there?
MRS. HAYNES: There was a dime store up there I used to go to and I’m trying to think of what was right there on that corner where they’ve got something like a Foot Locker. I was trying to think of what was there before. There was a men’s store up there.
MISSIAEN: Men’s Clothing?
MRS. HAYNES: I think that’s in the 900 block Men that are hard to fit. Heavy men and all this and that. You could go there and get stuff for them.  They had some dress shops…New York something…they had lots of clothes and things all up and down there.
MISSIAEN: I’m going to go ahead and turn the recorder off now.
END OF INTERVIEW

‍