Arlene Pope and Stephen "Steve" Pope

Recorded October 4, 2019 Archived October 4, 2019 38:00 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id: mby019261

Description

Arlene J. Pope (87) and her son, Stephen "Steve" Pope (65), talk about Arlene's visits with her grandparents in Memphis as a child; the work of their Aunt Dora Todd, who was a key educator in Memphis; and their family's genealogy.

Subject Log / Time Code

AP remembers going to visit her grandparents in Memphis from Chicago as a child.
AP and SP talk about AP's grandmother cooking on a wood-burning stove.
SP talks about his Aunt Dora, who taught at Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis.
AP remembers her Aunt Dora teaching her to tell time.
SP talks about his paternal great-grandfather, a white man named Sam Roarke, and researching him.
AP and SP talk about AP's paternal family.
AP talks about her siblings and the next generation.

Participants

  • Arlene Pope
  • Stephen "Steve" Pope

Recording Locations

Crosstown Concourse

Initiatives

Keywords


Transcript

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00:04 Hi, my name is Arlene Pope.

00:09 My age

00:11 Is 87 today's date is Friday, October 4th, 2019, and I'm in the city of Memphis, Tennessee with my interviewer Stephen Pope.

00:29 Who also happens to be my oldest son?

00:40 My name is Steve. Hope I am Arlene Oaks oldest son and she said 65 soon-to-be. 66 years old in December. Today's date is Friday, October 4th, 2019. We are in Memphis Tennessee inner already introduced my mother as my interview partner.

01:09 And

01:11 Looking forward

01:14 To continuing

01:18 And we're here today to say talk about Memphis memories moms.

01:27 Generation was born raised in Chicago, but both of her parents were from Memphis. So I have Grands great-grandparents that are from Memphis. And at this point in time, all of our family has aged out and passed along and we have sentimental memories of Home places school churches and cemeteries, but we don't have many people left in Memphis. So just hit started mom if you want to share some of your memories of Memphis,

02:05 Traveling from Chicago during you used in your grand parents and what you remember orange Mound?

02:14 We'll just for generations to come so that you know a little bit about the family my grandfather Isaac clavering Robinson.

02:27 Bought some property in Orange Mound when he was 16 or 17 years old.

02:35 Eddie built the house on that property and then married my grandmother who was 16 years old at the time.

02:45 They live there and raised five children boys into girls.

02:54 If you need names the boys were Isaac, he was the oldest Herbert Lawrence.

03:08 Ali's children

03:12 I made a mistake cuz there's another one Ray to call him baby Ray. I don't want to forget him baby boy and Joe.

03:27 Oh, we it's children in Chicago didn't have yards to play in we lived in apartment buildings at first.

03:39 And the backyard was generally unkempt.

03:44 In those apartment buildings sending dirty and dirt and what not. It was good for letting your dogs go down.

03:55 And play in the yard, but it wasn't a good place for children. So we look forward to the Summers cuz my mom and dad let us go to Memphis to visit our grandparents who had a big nice yard flowers and plants and garden and trees fruit trees, which they made us do chores and what not, but we still had a really good time and I always hear a hold that dear to me because of the difference in where we lived in Chicago in the openness and whatnot of Memphis.

04:37 I got time orange Mound was Farmland, wasn't it?

04:42 Some of it had been a lot of the Farmland had been developed into housing subdivisions and you could either build your own house or you could have the development you moving one of their houses orchards in cows and Garden in pigs and chickens and everything in the chickens were not caged be out in the yard and in the street and all around all day and then they go into the chicken house at night and they are the head roof of places for the chickens to get up Andrew Stanton. We're not in the hens to lay eggs.

05:39 And for breakfast we used to go out and get it fresh eggs every morning and do my grandmother would cook them and she cook on a wood-burning stove and I can't to this day. I still don't know how she was able to manage that oven with no temperature control.

06:03 At all

06:05 It was really something to see her. Bird anyting the cakes the muffins or pies are beautiful and right anyway, you know, we are my brother and cousin had the job of bringing in wood for the stove and keeping it going and at night they put in cold to keep the fire going at night time.

06:35 Kitchen was closed up from the rest of the house. And cuz we were there remember this is summer time and if what we didn't need any heat extra heat, but the heat was in the kitchen because of the stove.

06:54 I remember you telling stories about Uncle Herbert about to grandmother her first gas stove and how she did not like it. She would have preferred her wood stove to cook with do you have to smoke flavor in the food and she didn't know about the gas operation and Uncle Herbert. So I remember what his favorite saying was not as we were young he would say if you did something good to say what now, you're cooking with gas turns out he was proud of that gas stove but my great-great-grandmother hated it and it would kind of like modern people when they moved from the oven electric oven gas stove to the microwave. You can't really cook certain things in the microwave like you cuz it on a regular stove.

07:47 Very true, but you know eventually she got used to it, but she didn't cook like she used to she don't even cook Bare Necessities sitting right now for my uncle and herself in neffsville to offer anybody that came by but she said reminds me of another situation with her grandmother and Technology my youngest son and my password.

08:25 Came out to Memphis. They were going across country to North Carolina. They stopped in Memphis to see grandmother.

08:35 Bruce the sun had a tape recorder.

08:40 And he told grandmother to talking to teens recorder and I could hear her he would have when he got back to California. He wouldn't let me hear what she had to say and grandmother didn't want to talk to Nancy. She's what I want to talk to Arlene in person. I don't want to talk LG never got used to it TV recorder.

09:09 Remember, you said that grandfather Robinson bought the property at 812 Hilton Street in Orange mound from Mister Hilton who live next door?

09:27 That not that didn't mr. Hilton lived there by the first person on Hilton Street. I don't know, you know who grandfather bought the property next door neighbor. Who is that got to do what mules were and how they would different from horses Etc because he had some Muse and horses.

10:04 On his property and he is so let us play in The Hayloft in.

10:11 Helping feed the horses in the mules.

10:15 And besides their siblings Uncle Herbert and alkaline, so you don't feel like to switch is Mildred and Granny are your mother at least we also had outdoor in the family who was Uncle Herbert's girlfriend and she taught at Booker T, Washington for 40 years before she retired, is that correct?

10:46 57 years ago. She never married.

10:55 The old regulations didn't allow School teachers to marry. So when she met my uncle after his divorce. They never married, but they were a couple and take the kids to visit outdoor. She lives by herself after Uncle Herbert past and after I fixed what was broken and she wanted or we needed parts. So she'd want to take us out to eat. Take us out to go get the parts wherever we went in town.

11:27 Somebody would look up and say hello.

11:33 It was either one of her students.

11:38 Or

11:40 Their children, but everybody knew Mr.

11:47 And we lost her at the age of ninety eight and nine early 90s after a long and productive life shoes living by herself and spent her days traveling around infants checking on the sick and elderly.

12:04 Are you bitching at George and you know why? I remember this funny things?

12:13 Red front door with one that taught me how to tell time.

12:18 And

12:20 I was pretty stubborn about learning how to tell time because I wanted to go out and play and this took, you know a couple of days last day outdoor spank me on the bottom.

12:40 Until I knew how to tell time and she would spank if i v e l o c k with the paddle.

12:54 I learned how to tell time but she was a real deer and a good school teacher. She was also instrumental in getting to know the funds and whatnot for st. Augustine church in school.

13:18 St. Augustine school was very small and I've gotten the street that it was on but it was upon a hill and

13:30 I was fortunate enough to spend 6th grade with my grandmother.

13:36 And I want to know my uncle's but they let me spend the whole year 6th grade down there and I went to Saint Augustine school and Joe.

13:49 Through outdoors fundraising and excetera what not st. Augustine Needle built. So a lot of the parishioners history call it church church, but she her funeral was there were too many people that wanted to go look for her to have it is st. Augustine. So they had it at the Memphis Cathedral Catholic Cathedral.

14:22 And Dora made plans for her funeral. She had hired limousines to be at Old Saint Augustine.

14:33 To pick up people and take them to the cathedral.

14:38 So big they wouldn't have to drive guess we talkin now. She's 98 years old and her friends. It was still alive, you know, you're up there with her or in their nineties someplace or 80's comes but he's so she wanted to make sure that they had transportation and could get your funeral and so she did and it was standing room only in the church and the funeral was very nice.

15:15 Hitman after what's after the cemetery everybody went to Saint Augustine and they had she had done to her head to pay plans for caterers for caterer be the one to come and you know serve and it was a big spread, you know, they at the church but not too many people came to the church because that was started acting getting towards the end of the day, but it was very nice just to have a few people there where you could talk and see now is really relaxing.

15:54 Talk about that door and I'll go and make sure that everyone was relax because she made sure there was beer served that should have made sure that this kind of hair does the massage she had her casket made by the capuchins and she was dressed in a monk's robe with Francesca robe wouldn't find wooden box with a wooden crucifix in her hands. And that's the way she wanted to be buried.

16:31 And we can move along from the Robinson side of the family, which is the Memphis your grandparents your mother.

16:43 I talked a little bit about your dad's side table Jones. He was raised in Memphis born in Memphis raised in Memphis and his mother was Manuela Jones, but they family originally migrated from Mississippi me to tell us a little bit about that issue that and before I forget

17:13 I wanted to just bring up this that I was thinking about and you can Google to find out what I'm talking about if you want to but when I was coming to Memphis during the summer one summer my grandma.

17:33 Father and Aunt took me to the grocery store.

17:40 That they went to at times.

17:44 And I was just amazed then because

17:50 Everything was in a glass case and when you went there, I could I didn't remember if it was a car door key or what but you for what you wanted to purchase you put a something in there.

18:09 And then, you know you went around and did that for each item that you wanted to buy and when you finished you press something in a basket would come down a big shoot full of the things that you had.

18:28 Punched or he'd at to the counter to check out and they check you out from there and then put things in a big tall slim bags paper bags.

18:48 And that store was called the key tuzel.

18:53 And I looked it up on the computer and got the spelling. It's k e y d o o o o g l e.

19:10 When I went back to Chicago out of town that you know are telling my friends and everybody about the could do so and they thought I was crazy. You know, you don't go to a store and Shop legs are there no stores like that, but we did have a Kroger in and pee and whatnot in Chicago and the man that owns Kroger is the one that started to do. So but he was way ahead of his time because now, you know, everything is sort of like that then robots taking over so it just took some time for his good idea to try to catch you on and work but if you're interested in that little

20:05 Story, there's a good video about to do so on the computer getting back to Daddy's side of the family did not know.

20:22 My grandfather

20:26 I don't know when he passed.

20:33 But we were told that.

20:38 Kid my grandmother, He moved my grandmother and the children from Mississippi to Memphis because we were having racial problems in Mississippi.

20:53 And he thought that they'd be safe during a year.

20:57 He still worked in Mississippi.

21:02 So every weekend or every whatever.

21:09 People tell me that my grandfather would come to Memphis with a wagon full of food and clothes.

21:19 For my grandmother and the children and then go back.

21:25 420 come to me a Memphis, then he was run out of town because this story was and it wasn't true because my grandmother only had two it for children.

21:42 And do they said that the black men ran him out of town? Because every time he came my grandmother would be pregnant and be there by herself and what not, but that did all those stories or maybe true or not true, but you're kind of funny, but we here

22:12 Would ask my grandmother about my grandfather and she would just say that that's in the past. You don't need to know anything about that. So we just let it go. So nobody really knows in fact, his name was Sam Roark.

22:34 Android first, we didn't know if it was Rourke.

22:39 Or O'Rourke

22:41 The Irish but we found out that it was real Roxanne real rock and

22:51 His family, we don't know years later.

22:57 Or after we were or young adults.

23:00 His sister's notified my aunt.

23:08 My dad sister that she was ready to clean Ken in Mississippi and or not, but we didn't know where we didn't know them and what not. So we had other things going at the time it was you do college and marriage and kids and adjusting to those lies Fitness. We didn't show up and then find me my oldest brother and her got to wear them to go and see and what she might be a sociopath

23:48 So we didn't get to know her either.

23:51 Well, I think you forgot to mention in the beginning of this part of the story is that Sam Roark was white and based on the information that I have received from you and your brothers and what little bit they was passed on to them and they were actually learning more about him. Then their father Gramps knew about him in any case what they shared I used to research and I was able to find Sam in Memphis TN had another family group. Fayette County, which is next door to Shelby County and there was a Sam in that family originally I focused on that Sam because I couldn't find my sound but at some point in my research it it jumped out at me that I was looking for Sam's build Roark and in the 80

24:51 60 census, I believe he was spelled r o o r k and there was a second sentence where is mid-sentence where was misspelled again as roach and for that reason to Google search never found Sam Roark that I was looking for eventually. I found him on 1860 Sanchez 1870 census in Memphis and he moves and next in 1880. He is in Bolivar County, Mississippi and it turns out that there was a relative who had married.

25:31 Famous Philippine read who moved to Mississippi and it appears that Sam may have followed Philip Henry there. We're trying to flesh out all the details because when I first five Sam Roark in 1860 years with James Rourke, I sent it to his father and marry Henry in 1870. He is with his I sure am glad father who is a famous seed Rourke and him and his brother James, but I'm assuming I and I presume not assume but it appears that possibly the father went through Civil War was lost and therefore the boys went to the ramparts. We don't know in any case I have found Sam's headstone in Bolivar County and on that headstone. There was an inscription

26:31 That said a cousin or a nephew of Philippine re so it appears that possibly he was related to Philip Henry by both blood and marriage because when I looked up Philip Henry it turns out he was married to a Phoebe Rourke and that is how we connected the two of them.

26:54 So we're still trying to dig out the details and hopefully if we don't find what we're looking for, I'm praying for a DNA match at this point, but the family the Roark family has kind of dispersed and nobody seems to be online during the genealogy. Like I am so we haven't got the hits that were looking for.

27:18 But my great-grandmother never shared anything about Sam Roark with her children and we began to discover about him when family from Mississippi showed up to Chicago and got in touch and said, hey, I'm at the train station. I'm at the bus station. I'm looking for a job. I'm looking for a place to stay and then they would begin to share the bits and pieces that they knew of this story as it was in Mississippi. And so we're trying to reunite ourselves. It's it's a it's a it's an American story where because she was a mulatto because Sam request white they could not have the dedicated relationship that normal people would have and that situation would have it that my grandfather and his

28:18 We're all raised as Jones's which was their mother's maiden name, but they were actually technically by standards. They would have been rourke's my mother was raised as a Jones and she would be technically Roark if the family had been able to stay together.

28:42 And have a marriage what happened in Mississippi with the common-law situation and the children.

28:52 And the interracial Affair it was all illegal at the time and I think it was after the first child was born and Sam Roark. Threats and he had to move the family from there to Memphis.

29:10 And mom and her older brother. He Lawrence are the last two of five siblings and they are the inheritors of this Saint Mark story and I've been working hard trying to get to the bottom of this story for them before they pass but I'm not sure I'm going to get there. So this storycorps effort is is is a an attempt to at least get it out there and perhaps get some hits at some point in time.

29:50 The way it came out in but not his mother told me that we should have been rourke's instead of Jones.

30:05 But this was after everybody had passed.

30:12 So we have our family group that I first identified in, Mississippi.

30:19 Home

30:21 That's outside. My part. My grandfather's had her father's side.

30:29 Mary lemony Foster and Minerva Foster and Sterling Foster these people this family group was a blended family. They were children and their name Clooney Thomas Jones. There were probably six or seven children in this blended family. But this is the first generation after emancipation. So this family Blended based upon this is the first time they were enumerated in the senses. So we had groups of some of the Thomas's I think move to Detroit and those people maintained communication with the Joneses in Chicago. So we have a large family that originated in Madison County, Mississippi migrated to Bolivar County, Mississippi to Pace area and from there to Memphis and then to

31:28 Chicago and Detroit

31:37 Did you miss any anybody?

31:41 I know I miss Charlie Mae Foster who was one of the one of the people from Mississippi who showed up and shared the story of Sam Roark and Mama Jones who was Man Willie Jones Henderson interesting story because of the coloration of the family because Sam was wiped. My grandfather could have passed for white life Foundation story in the family. They went to get his driver's license and he came back home with a smirk on his face and it waiting for an opportunity and look up at some point and told the group said a while. I don't know why I fool with all you colored people and white and I got papers to prove it and he pulled out his buy a new driver's license on the driver's license. It said white and he told the story that as the lady was filling out the application and when it came down to the section about race, she said race, he said human

32:41 She said race, he said human so finally she looked at it and then she put down when she saw which was white and that side of the family from Mississippi that were coming up to visit and contact us all of those where the dark side of the family which we begin to put the pieces together that this one branch from the family's amerex children had moved away from the main group.

33:14 Where do I said you've done a lot of research and what not on that Ian and you found some things that none of us knew where our parents knew or even some of our grandparents. Oh

33:33 I hope you keep it up and I hope it inspires the Next Generation coming along.

33:40 To do the same thing.

33:44 Real free scene example of the old family trying to stay together all the way from Madison County Mississippi to Bolivar County, Mississippi all the way up to Chicago and Detroit and it almost seems like they did a better job of staying in touch and communicating and then we do now in modern times with cell phones and emails and faxes and texts and Google it says

34:16 Less of a challenge but we seem to be so far spread apart. And this story is so distant. Now, I know I grew up with it being fresh on you all those mines because you all didn't get from your parents and grandparents those that information that you were looking for and I use that too.

34:41 Do my best to discover and document the parts of the story that I could I imagine if I was able to travel?

34:49 Spend some time in the courthouse in Madison County and Bolivar County. I might be able to go through paperwork and find more information about this past week. I found a document online that said it's Hamrick had been a postmaster there in Riverton.

35:06 For about a year 1889 to 1890 and because he was busy farming and other work.

35:18 He never relocated from

35:21 Mississippi to Memphis to be with his family, but even that relocation would not have been socially acceptable because of the interracial component of it.

35:43 Don't know what else we've got to uncover, but we're still looking.

35:53 You seek and you shall find your finger?

35:59 I'm sure if I got a chance to do some traveling I couldn't like I said find some Courthouse documents that are not online yet. That's the big problem is not all of the information is posted online as yet so I will do my best.

36:17 Well, you know all in all I'm just happy and feel blessed that all the children of this generation. Well, I should say this generation cuz they're only two of us laugh large now, but all the children come in for me and him growing up and down without Lindsay Mimi their children are doing well and everybody is happy and healthy and they try to get together as much as possible. You don't have

36:59 It's pretty soon. You know that you all should think of having a family reunions.

37:07 Yeah, I'm there. So many young people didn't I haven't been able to keep up with them. If you start out studying one name like Jones or Robinson O'Rourke, but as we go backwards they add more names in it as we go forward. There are more names added to the family. So we just have to maintain our connections and we can talk about our Union. But until then we can do better about staying in touch online on the phone.

37:51 I think we both covered everything. I guess we're good.