Living In Evansville...1939

When my father moved to Evansville in 1939, my mother and I stayed in Atlantic City for two more years. He lived in the office in which he practiced, sleeping in a back room that was practically a shed.
He sent for my mother to come and secure housing for all of us. My mother stayed in a rooming house until she could find a place that she liked. Once, I had come for a visit and one night my mother was up stairs and a male roomer was in the bathroom, all of a sudden I heard him gagging and my mother scream, I ran upstairs to find him doubled over the stool vomiting up worms. There were worms coming out of his mouth and nose and they filled the toilet bowl. They were short, long, round and grayish white and pointed at the ends. I stood there transfixed. The landlady shooed us out and said that this was a condition people from the country had and she knew a potion that would cure him. Me, it scared me nearly to deat. I could hardly sleep after that and was ready to leave. Not long after that my mother did move and I went back to AC to stay with my Aunt Mina and Uncle Clarence until I was to move back for good.
Later in the summer of 1941 my Aunt Madeline brought me by train out to Evansville.
The train trip from Philadelphia to Evansville was quite an experience, since we had a roomette. There was a button on the wall in the roomette and being curious, I pushed it magically a porter appeared and not to be embarrassed my aunt ordered me a coke, which he brought on a silver tray with a glass filled with ice. I vividly remember the train rounding the Horseshoe Curve near Harrisburg, Pa, where you could see the front and back of the train at the same time as it negotiated the curve. We then stopped over in Greencastle, at the farm of Dr Percy and Anna Julian, Anna being a dear friend of my aunt, Percy being my godfather (Later I’ll relate the tale of the three horses). We stayed there a couple of days and then proceeded to Evansville
The house that my mother found was quite small, it had a living room, dining room, kitchen two bedrooms and one bath. The living room was used as the waiting room for patients and the dining room was used as the examining room. When my father was seeing patients, we either had to stay in the kitchen or in the bedroom; if someone needed to go from one place to the other they knocked on the door so he could let them go between patient exams. This could be quite annoying to him and to us, especially my grandfather who had come to stay and needed to make frequent pit stops.
We were the only Black family on the block and a white boy who lived two doors down was in his back yard while I shooting cans with my Red Ryder BB gun in my back yard... He called me a nigger and ducked behind a tree. I shot and hit the tree. He repeatedly would holler nigger and stick his head out and I would hit the tree. So I cocked the gun and waited; out came his head I then threw a rock and hit the tree with what he thought was a shot and when he stuck his head out again I shot him in his forehead. It’s a miracle I didn’t put his eye out but he never called me nigger any more and his family moved soon after the incident. Naturally I got a righteous whipping. In Atlantic City, I had never been called a nigger. I had a lot to learn in Evansville which sits on the Ohio River which is a demarcation for the Mason-Dixon Line. Movies, stores, housing, train seats to places south were segregated. We were Catholic and the Blacks had their mass said in the basement auditorium of Assumption Cathedral.

We lived in the office-house on Lincoln Ave for about a year. I was enrolled in the Black school named Lincoln ( grades 1 thru 12 ) and had frequent fights because I talked funny and told the class I use to swim in the ocean. .They had no comprehension of the ocean and since the river was not safe for public swimming didn’t believe me. My mother was exasperated by having to go talk to the principal about my behavior almost daily. I guess it was lucky we lived a block from the school. After fighting and beating up one of the Lovelace brothers, they finally left me alone.
I begged to go back to Atlantic City, but since my Dad had established a good reputation and his medical practice was flourishing, we were doomed to stay.
World War II had begun and they drafted my Dad and we all thought we would be moving , but he appealed to the draft board that he was the only Black doctor in Evansville and the gave him and exemption, so we were compelled than to stay, FOREVER!
My mother then set about getting bigger place, since my aunt and Papa were frequently with us and my Dad need a suitable office.
They purchased a lot on Bellemeade Ave, one street over and behind Lincoln High School, and hired an architect to design a house and office dwelling. Because of the war material was being rationed so he had my Dad purchase wood, plumbing, electrical products in anticipation of their need when construction began. We had a garage filled with this stuff.
Building a new house was something unique in the community, since no Black had built a new house in 50 or so years. I still remember the names of the architect Mr. Thole and the general contractor Mr Groul
Every day during contruction, I went to the site and watched the varied contractors built our house at 615 Bellemeade Ave. One time after the workmen had finished for the day I used the toilet when my parents whet by to check on the work and I didn’t know that the water had been turned off and the toilet wouldn’t flush. So my Dad made me dip out the turds I had deposited and bury them. Even to this day, I can remember how it was framed, bricked up and landscaped.
At the same time as our house was in construction they were building St. John’s Catholic Church and parsonage next door. The story of St. John’s Church and school and how it evolved is to follow in another chapter.