RONDO ORAL HISTORY PROJECT:

Subjects discussed by the interviewees include life in the Rondo community, including the role of music, church, and social clubs; resistance and reaction to the highway construction; eviction from Rondo Avenue and trying to find housing elsewhere, transitioning from predominantly black schools to predominantly white schools, and discrimination outside Rondo; racism; employment opportunities during World War II and the subsequent loss of opportunities after the war; military experiences during the war, including in the Tuskegee Airmen and in a Navy band; activities at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center and the Sterling Club; work experiences of both men and women of the community; obstacles to achieving success; and both male and female service in the St. Paul Police Department.

The majority of the transcripts include a 1950s map of the neighborhood and photographs of the interviewee(s).

Return to top

Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Rondo Oral History Project. Oral history interviews of the Rondo Oral History Project. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: AV2007.22

Processing Information:

Catalog ID number: 990064363900104294

Return to top

Biographical Information: Benjamin Louis Alexander is originally from Illinois; he moved to Minnesota to pursue Mortuary Science at the University of Minnesota. During World War II, Mr. Alexander served as a Tuskegee Airman. He was attending Langston University when he first met his wife, a student from Minnesota at the same university.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include experience as a Tuskegee Airman; member of a traditional black fraternity, and a student at the University of Minnesota; starting a new business; history of the Sterling Club and the discrimination that led black men to have their own club.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.1

Oral history interview with Benjamin Louis Alexander, February 15, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 5 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: The Three-Fours Girls Club was formed when two ten-year old girls asked their mothers for a club. The club for girls, created and taught by mothers, continued for about three years. However, the friendships and sense of extended family has lasted a lifetime. Five alumni are interviewed: Vanne Owens Hayes, Mary Kalleen Murray Boyd, Paula Thomason Mitchell, Carol Dawson and Linda Griffin Garrett.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include memories and reflection of their experiences; learning life skills; support and inspiration learned from each other's parents; how this extended family helped create strong and successful professional women.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.2

Oral history interview with Alumni of the Three-Fours Girls Club, September 27, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 30 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Marvin Anderson has been known by different names at different times in his life: Roger, Marvin, and Androck. He shares the joy of the close group of friends, Crazy Eights, which he had during his high school years. His father led a hard life as a railroad waiter and his mother, to him, was a powerful black women. They both influenced him greatly.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include how the men in the community conducted business with all the class and decorum of any businessman; influence of his parents; loss of property for his family in Rondo and Chatsworth due to the I-94 construction; letter from a retired public works employee that defines why the freeway destroyed the Rondo community.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.3

Oral history interview with Marvin Roger Anderson, November 3, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 8 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Mary K. Boyd's parents settled in Saint Paul after attending traditional black colleges in the South. They raised her along with foster children and provided a home for extended family as well. Her father worked at the post office and was a professional musician. She participated in Tomorrow's Scientists and Technicians Club and the Junior Red Cross. She later served in the junior branch of the NAACP, eventually becoming its president. Boyd attended college in Arizona where she faced discrimination. She trained and worked for the civil rights movement and went on to an accomplished career as a school administrator.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include gaining insight of the village community in Africa that led her to believe she grew up in the Rondo village; the Rondo village landscape with the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center and the churches; the Three-Fours Girls Club, a finishing school for girls in the village; being the object of discrimination at college in Arizona; work she did for the civil rights movement.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.4

Oral history interview with Mary Kalleen Murray Boyd, May 12, 2004 and August 16, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (42 minutes), 1 submaster audio file: WAV, 1 user audio file: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: At age 79, Melvin Carter, Sr. describes the Rondo Avenue of his childhood. He shares his father's history of playing in circus bands before coming to Minnesota and how his father began musical groups for the youth in the community, inspiring several to become professional musicians. He played in a Navy band during World War II and later played in musical groups for local social clubs. After the decline of the railroad business, Carter moved to the Saint Paul School District. He went on to become the first black to achieve a Chief Engineer License and worked as the head engineer at Humboldt High School for the last five years of his service.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include childhood in the Rondo community; experience playing in a Navy band during World War II; postwar musical scene in local social clubs; treatment of blacks when he worked as a redcap at the railroad station; music in his life and community; twenty-seven years of service to Saint Paul School District.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.5

Oral history interview with Melvin Whitfield Carter, Sr., February 19, 2003 and November 28, 2003. 1 transcript.

There is no audio for this interview.

Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Billy Collins grew up in the Rondo community. The youth organizations and mentors provided there made a positive influence in his life. Billy's role model during his teen years was his father even though he spent the majority of his time away from home working as a waiter on the railroad.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include Rondo community and the youth organizations and mentors there; his role model during his teen years; racism experienced outside the Rondo community and in Central High School in the 1960s; his driving motivation to serve the black community; Rondo teenage social scene and The Pivot malt shop.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.6

Oral history interview with William L. Collins, Jr., March 4, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 17 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Eighty-two year old Anisah Dawan grew up as Elizabeth Payne. She lived in an orphanage in Owatonna, Minnesota, after her biological mother died. She was adopted by Martha and Albert Payne at age two or three and lived on Carroll Avenue in the Rondo Corridor. She later moved to Iowa to marry and set up her first home. She also converted to Islam.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include living in an orphanage; Rondo landscape of her childhood; depression that disrupted her family's lifestyle; community events and sewing her formal dresses for dances at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center and Welcome Hall; change in friends in high school; getting married in Iowa and settling there; working fulltime as a seamstress at Butwin Sportswear; conversion to Islam; making a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.7

Oral history interview with Anisah Hanifah Dawan, March 16, 2003. 1 transcript.

There is no audio for this interview.

Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Wilbert Dugas was born in 1949 and lived on the lower end of Rondo in Cornmeal Valley. He grew up being influenced by the Gopher Elk’s Drum and Bugle Corps. The Ober Boys Club and Hallie Q. Brown Community Center were key components of the community that, through sports and mentors, gave him a foundation in life.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include experience of growing up in Cornmeal Valley; harmless rivalries formed between Cornmeal Valley and "the bourgeois side of town" known as Oatmeal Hill; importance of the group Gopher Elk’s Drum and Bugle Corps in the community; his experience in the music scene in the late 1960s after the I-94 interruption of the Rondo community.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett and Krissy Kopp.

Location

OH 110.8

Oral history interview with Wilbert John Dugas, Jr., April 18, 2003. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 13 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: William Kelso "Corky" Finney was the only child of Maceo Alexander Finney and Lola Vassar Finney. He grew up on Rondo Avenue. He was sickly and asthmatic as a child which prevented him from participating in sports. His father was a role model to him and his mother an authoritarian. Corky grew up in the neighborhood with his mother's business, Mrs. Finney's Beauty Shop, and a family of close Vassar cousins.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include memories of Cornmeal Valley and Oatmeal Hill of the Rondo neighborhood; his perception of the integrated part of Saint Paul; being forced to move when eminent domain took their property for I-94; decision to stay in the black community.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.9

Oral history interview with William Kelso Finney, May 23, 2003. 1 transcript.

There is no audio for this interview.

Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Teresina C. Frelix grew up in the Rondo neighborhood where she felt a sense of comfort that was taken away due to the I-94 project. Teresina attended a community school at Saint Peter Claver and went on to attend Central High School in ninth grade.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include powerful childhood memories of fear and confusion when the freeway broke up the Rondo neighborhood; loss of security and extended family due to being moved by the freeway project; difficult transition from attending a predominantly black school to a predominantly white public school.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.10

Oral history interview with Teresina "Willow" Carter Frelix, April 14, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (53 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Eighty-nine year old Willie Frelix worked as a Pullman porter and later as a construction worker. Working as a Pullman porter, he traveled to many places in America and loved his job of supporting the soldiers during World War II.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include experience of working as a Pullman porter; facing discrimination and the disrespect he received from the Pullman Company; comparing Saint Paul with life in the South; he also communicates his commitment to not being physically abused by a white person.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.11

Oral history interview with Willie Lee Frelix, February 20, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 18 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Kathryn Coram Gagnon grew up in the Rondo community. She was a light skinned black person and experienced discrimination in Minnesota. Kathryn attended the University High School and participated in sports at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center and Saint Philips Episcopal Church. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College, received several masters degrees, and was a successful school administrator.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include experience of growing up in the Rondo neighborhood; facing discrimination in Minnesota; opportunity to attend University High School and go on to college; musical scene in Rondo.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.12

Oral history interview with Kathryn Coram Gagnon, April 1, 2004 and April 16, 2004. 2 master audiocassettes (2 hour, 49 minutes), 4 submaster audio files: WAV, 4 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Part 3 - Digital version

Part 4 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Barbara "Petey" Vassar Gray grew up as a "Vassar Girl" in the Rondo neighborhood. After graduating from Mechanic Arts High School, she went on to attend the University of Minnesota and received a Master’s Degree from the College of St. Catherine. She went on to become the assistant director of a tri-county library system near Detroit, Michigan.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include her upbringing in the Rondo neighborhood; relation with Saint Philips Episcopal Church in her personal and social life; experience in Mechanic Arts High School as a student; working as an assistant director in Detroit; her internal strength, power and willingness to not accept less than she deserves.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.13

Oral history interview with Barbara "Petey" Vassar Gray, June 4, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 16 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: James Stafford Griffin was born at 587 Rondo. He grew up in this racially integrated neighborhood in the 1920s. His father was a dining car waiter for the Northern Pacific. He went to college in West Virginia and later worked for the Saint Paul Police Department.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include growing up in the Rondo; difference between a railroad employee and a Pullman car employee; experiencing discrimination of "Jim Crow" life while traveling to West Virginia; history of blacks in the St. Paul Police Department from the 1930s; discrimination he faced in applying for employment. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: This is a portion of an oral history interview done for the Saint Paul Police Department.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett and John Biewen.

Location

OH 110.14

Oral history interview with James Stafford Griffin, 1997 and May 1 and 11, 1998. 1 transcript.

There is no audio for this interview.

Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Mary Chambers Bradley Hamilton was 100 years old at the time of the interview and grew up in the Rondo neighborhood. She lost her father when she was 12 years old and lived with her mother and six sisters in Rondo. She graduated from Neill School and went on to Mechanic Arts. After three years in Mechanic Arts, she got married and later had five children.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include history of the movement of bodies from early cemeteries until the establishment of Calvary and Oakland cemeteries; history of the Cathedral and other Catholic churches in St. Paul; life as a single young mother raising her children in the Rondo neighborhood; her pleasure in being senior royalty for the Winter Carnival three times.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.15

Oral history interview with Mary Chambers Bradley Hamilton, February 26, 2004 and March 19, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 33 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Mel Henderson grew up in the Rondo neighborhood. His father worked as Pullman porter and his grandparents had a farm in Hugo, Minnesota. It was a tightly knit community and the police beat officer looked after the neighborhood children. He became a star athlete at Central High School and went on to attend the University of Minnesota on an athletic scholarship. He retired after serving as Dean at the Metropolitan State University.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include memories of growing up in the Rondo community; learning to be a strong athlete; influence of The Emeralds, a rock-and-roll singing group, after junior high school; significance of his church, St. James AME Methodist Church, and its music in his life.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett and Kimberly K. Zielinski.

Location

OH 110.16

Oral history interview with Melvin T. Henderson, June 11, 2003. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 12 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Nathaniel [Davis] Abdul Khaliq was born and raised in Minnesota. Growing up in the Rondo neighborhood he was provided with a deep sense of nurturing and protection as a child. His grandparents raised him with the help of a supportive extended family; they were some of the last to be evicted from Rondo Avenue in 1956. He later became a community activist and a member of the Nation of Islam.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include history of his family coming to Minnesota; geography of the Rondo neighborhood; his role models; devastating impact the eviction had on his grandfather; the youth's reaction to the change in the community; his reaction to the pain of the senior generations; finding biological brothers and sisters at adulthood; experience of police racism throughout his teenage and adult years; his journey to becoming a community activist and a member of the Nation of Islam.

Volume of interview is extremely low.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.17

Oral history interview with Nathaniel Abdul Khaliq, January 15, 2004 and July 9, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 25 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Gloria Lewis was seventy-five years old at the time of the interview. During her early marriage she and her family lived in Lower Rondo or Cornmeal Valley.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include life as part of a young struggling family raising children; challenges of a bi-racial relationship; reflection on the racial discrimination that her family endured after the loss of the Rondo corridor; her husband's upholstery career; creation of a successful business in St. Paul.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett and Lisa Conley.

Location

OH 110.18

Oral history interview with Gloria Jeanne Lindstrom Lewis, March 12, 2003. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 9 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Richard Morris Mann became a member of the Sterling Club in 1949. He owned a bar in the Rondo neighborhood that became a gathering place, and a nightclub outside of Rondo that featured live black music and catered mainly to college students. His bar business was directly impacted by World War II and the neighborhood’s economic shift after the war.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include the economics and the business community of Rondo; creation of better employment opportunities for blacks during the war and the loss of that employment after the war; his grandfather's barber shop catering to rich white patrons; his own bar business in Rondo and nightclub outside of the neighborhood; the history of the Sterling Club, founded in 1919.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.19

Oral history interview with Richard Morris Mann, May 7, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 20 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Gloria Massey grew up in the Rondo community with her family and extended family. Her parents raised their children with values for the community and respect for authority. Her gang of friends walked everywhere together in all weather during her teenage years and she was extensively involved with activities at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include experiences of her early work life and then going to business college; working at all levels of civil service; teenage life and her gang of friends in the Rondo; importance of family and extended family; sense of security in the community; knowledge she learned from her first supervisor at the Saint Paul Public Library.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett , Tony O. Dosen, and Manny Anderson.

Location

OH 110.20

Oral history interview with Gloria Yvonne Presley Massey, February 27 and March 6, 2003. 2 master audiocassettes (2 hour, 40 minutes), 4 submaster audio files: WAV, 4 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Part 3 - Digital version

Part 4 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Yusef Mgeni was born in 1948. He was raised in the Rondo neighborhood as Charlie Anderson. His family has a rich history as civic and community leaders. He was influenced by the national figures that visited Minnesota and his experience reading his grandfather's extensive library of black authors.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include St. Paul's black history; family's rich history as civic and community leaders; strength of the community and its oral tradition that kept Saint Paul blacks connected to black communities around the country; the resistance from the community to I-94 being built; the devastating effect of the freeway dividing the community.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett and Christina Bonkowske.

Location

OH 110.21

Oral history interview with Yusef Mgeni, March 21, 2003 and April 26, 2004. 2 master audiocassettes (1 hour, 32 minutes), 3 submaster audio files: WAV, 3 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Part 3 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Gladys Versie Clemons Miller cared for her elderly parents while her brothers worked to support the family. She worked in sales at downtown department stores and helped her husband get a position at the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant. She put her money into the family grocery store and belonged to social clubs in the community.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include her family history and how they came to Minnesota; challenges working in sales at downtown department stores; employment challenges black men faced even with a college degree; investment in the family grocery store; belonging to social clubs and cooking for Cameo Social Club meetings; importance of the Pentecostal Church in her life; frustration and disappointment when the I-94 project left her family at a disadvantaged position with the loss of property.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett , Sarah Brandt, and Buelah Mae Vivian Baines Swan."

Location

OH 110.22

Oral history interview with Gladys Versie Clemons Miller, March 12, 2003 and February 23, 2004. 1 transcript.

There is no audio for this interview.

Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Debbie Montgomery lived in the Rondo neighborhood and has maintained life long friendships while living a few blocks from her childhood home. She was a tomboy raised by her grandparents, loved athletics and challenged the boys with her abilities. She was the first woman to pass the test and attend the same academy as men in the St. Paul Police Department. She served as a police officer for twenty-eight years. She was the first youth to be elected to the NAACP National Board and went on to become the first black woman to be elected to St. Paul's City Council.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include experience in her neighborhood and childhood home; importance of the church in the community for her and her friends; diversity in her neighborhood and attending a primarily white elementary school; experience of discrimination and how she early on became interested in civil rights causes.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.23

Oral history interview with Debbie Gilbreath Montgomery, May 24, 2004. 2 master audiocassettes (1 hour, 41 minutes), 3 submaster audio files: WAV, 3 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Part 3 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Ora Lee O'Neal Patterson grew up in the Rondo neighborhood and attended activities at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center and Pilgrim Baptist Church. She attended primary schools with predominantly white classmates. Her mother was an active homemaker and her father was active in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the Pullman porters' union.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include tales of daily life in Rondo; attending activities at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center and Pilgrim Baptist Church; attending a predominantly white school and her experience there that prepared her for the larger community and politics; her love for classical music.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.24

Oral history interview with Ora Lee O'Neal Patterson, November 18, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 27 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Connie Jones Price shares how her grandfather was routinely fired for not being part of a union but he was not allowed to join the union because he was black. Her grandmother worked at the packing plants, one of the few places blacks could work. She grew up with all black neighbors who have college degrees and was raised with a definitive sense of quality in her education and possessions. Dr. Price went on to receive her PhD in her adult life but faced discrimination in finding employment that represented her abilities.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include difficulties she and her grandparents faced throughout their lifetime due to discrimination; growing up with all black neighbors who had college degrees; landscape of Oatmeal Hill and daily life of her youth; participation in community centers and church; being raised with emphasis on education; finding employment that represented her abilities.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett and Kimberly K. Zielinski.

Location

OH 110.25

Oral history interview with Dr. Constance Raye Jones Price, February 24 and March 14, 2003. 3 master audiocassettes (2 hour, 48 minutes), 5 submaster audio files: WAV, 5 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Part 3 - Digital version

Part 4 - Digital version

Part 5 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Ventress Roberson's childhood in the Rondo neighborhood consisted of a friendly atmosphere with various businesses in the area. Her father worked as a Pullman porter and her mother was very active in the community and in her church, Pilgrim Baptist. Ms. Roberson was a member of the Golden Agers club at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include her father's work as a Pullman porter; the activities at the Golden Agers club at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center; the Rondo neighborhood of her childhood.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.26

Oral history interview with Ventress Laroe Jackson Roberson, September 18, 2003. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 12 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Floyd G. Smaller lived in the Rondo neighborhood and in the South. He came home to be a teacher and a coach. He was a member and commander of the Gopher Elk’s Drum and Bugle Corps. He went to a traditional black college in Arkansas.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include living outside Rondo and then moving into the Rondo corridor as a young child; the music scene in Rondo; the teen scene when the freeway was destroying a community; challenges he surmounted to earn a college degree and become a high school teacher and athletic coach.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.27

Oral history interview with Floyd George Smaller, Jr., April 2, 2004. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 16 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: The idea to have a parade and celebrate commemorating Rondo started when Marvin and Floyd remembered all the fun things that happened to them on Rondo. Two friends who shared this neighborhood and their commitment to giving life to Rondo's beautiful memories began the process, calling their first meeting for July 4, 1982 and announcing a dream to meet after one year. After this, the project became a huge success as more people got involved and worked to make this celebration a reality.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include how the Rondo Celebration idea initially began; the people that were involved and the fundraising procedure that made this celebration a success; its conflict with the Taste of Minnesota.

Focus here is on the creation of Rondo Days, a community festival.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.28

Oral history interview with Floyd George Smaller, Jr. and Marvin Roger Anderson, February 13, 2004. 1 transcript.

There is no audio for this interview.

Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Buelah Baines Swan was born in 1927 at Ancker Hospital in St. Paul. She is the eldest daughter of Walter and Nina Baines. Her father had a business, W. B. Baines, Sr. Coal and Wood, on Rondo Avenue. Mrs. Swan helped her father as a child at his business.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include challenges of being hired as a young black woman; outline of how the Urban League used her outstanding stenographic skill to help break the color line to employ blacks; her successful employment history; not being elected to National Honor Society nor honored as a valedictorian because of her race.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.29

Oral history interview with Buelah Mae Vivian Baines Swan, March 7, 2003. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 29 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Dr. David Vassar Taylor was brought up in a strong family with extended family for support. His first journalism experience was with a neighborhood newspaper that he and friends published weekly. The Black Episcopal Church played a critically important role in his life.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include being brought up in a strong family and the Rondo community; his first journalism adventures; his adolescent life after the destruction of the Rondo neighborhood; the richness of the community, with role models who encouraged him to further his education.

Interviewed by Bettina Heiss and Kimberly K. Zielinski.

Location

OH 110.30

Oral history interview with David Vassar Taylor, April 2, 2003. 1 transcript.

There is no audio for this interview.

Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Janabelle Murphy Taylor was born in 1920 at Ancker Hospital in St. Paul. She is a member of the Credjafawns Social Club and a lifelong member of Pilgrim Baptist Church. She was very active in youth activities at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center as a child and, after receiving her degree from the University of Minnesota, she became a Girls' Worker and later the Program and Camp Director.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include experience of living in the Rondo community and her involvement in the clubs; information about her parents, grandparents, and the challenges of married life; her insights into herself: what she refers to as her "authoritarian" personality, her love for people, and the ability to laugh at herself.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett and Kimberly K. Zielinski.

Location

OH 110.31

Oral history interview with H. Janabelle Murphy Taylor, April 8, 2003. 1 master audiocassette (59 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Bernice Wilson was eighty-two years old at the time of the interview. She moved to St. Paul from Chicago in 1949.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include lack of respectable employment opportunities in 1949; the social clubs that existed in the black community; community support when Wilson's husband and son passed away; her love for traveling. Wilson's daughter Patricia Wilson Crutchfield comments through the interview and discusses her involvement in the church and experience being raised in St. Paul.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett.

Location

OH 110.32

Oral history interview with Bernice Wilson, March 20, 2003. 1 transcript.

There is no audio for this interview.

Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: Don Gaugh Wilson was seventy-four years old at the time of the interview and a recent widower with three offspring. He had been married for fifty-five years and retired at the age of fifty-eight in 1987. He grew up as a foster child; his foster mother Mrs. Josephine influenced him very much, teaching him how to take care of himself. He had a successful career as a boxer but later moved on to menial jobs and then worked for Honeywell, where he earned the Tempo Award for work achievement. In the 1970s he did management seminars called Minority Group Dynamics, helping government agencies address issues of "colorism".

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include experience of growing up as a foster child in the Rondo neighborhood; people who have influenced him and inspired him to succeed; darker side of Rondo neighborhood and its affect on his adult life; his decision to distance from the community; his feelings for his wife and his gratitude for the support she gave him during his fifty-five years of marriage; inspiration he found in studying Islam.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett and Kent Shifferd.

Location

OH 110.33

Oral history interview with Don Gaugh Wilson, March 6, 2004. 2 master audiocassettes (2 hour, 5 minutes), 3 submaster audio files: WAV, 3 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Part 3 - Digital version

Return to top

Biographical Information: At the time of the interview Gloria Gilbreath had lived most of her seventy-seven years in one little oblong from Dale Street to Chatsworth and from St. Anthony to Iglehart. Her father worked as redcap at the Union Depot for forty-one years and her mother, a trained beautician, worked mostly as a matron at Donaldson, a manufacturing company. She grew up in the Rondo community and loved to play basketball and dance. Gloria began working as a matron at the downtown train depot at age thirty-one and had her family's home taken away to make way for a bridge to be built over the freeway.

Scope and Content: Topics discussed include her philosophy dealing with experiences of racism as a child; landscape of Rondo and the community she grew up in; her enthusiasm for basketball and dance; her work at the downtown train depot as a matron; change in the community after World War II and with the construction of the freeway.

Interviewed by Kateleen Hope Cavett and Bettina Heiss.

Location

OH 110.34

Oral history interview with Gloria Ellen Gilbreath Wilson, March 18, 2003. 1 master audiocassette (1 hour, 34 minutes), 2 submaster audio files: WAV, 2 user audio files: MP3, and 1 transcript.

Digital version

Part 1 - Digital version

Part 2 - Digital version

Return to top

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

African American air pilots -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Interviews.

African American business people -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Interviews.

African American police -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Interviews.

African American soldiers -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Interviews.

African Americans -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Interviews.

African Americans -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Photographs.

African Americans -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Social life and customs.

African Americans -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Societies, etc.

Bands (Music) -- United States.

Discrimination in education -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Policewomen -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Racism -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Roads -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul -- Design and construction.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Aerial operations, American.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, African Americans.

Persons:

Anderson, Benjamin Louis, 1918- , interviewee.

Anderson, Manny, interviewer.

Anderson, Marvin Roger, interviewee.

Biewan, John, interviewer.

Bonkowske, Christina, interviewer.

Boyd, Mary Kalleen Murray, 1942- , interviewee.

Brandt, Sarah, interviewer.

Carter, Melvin Whitfield, 1943- , interviewee.

Cavett, Kate, interviewer.

Collins, William L., 1948- , interviewee.

Combs, Elizabeth Payne, 1920, interviewee.

Conley, Lisa, interviewer.

Crutchfield, Patricia Wilson, 1946- , interviewee.

Dawan, Anishah Hanifah, 1920- , interviewee.

Dawson, Carol, interviewee.

Dosen, Tony O., interviewer.

Dugas, Wilbert John, 1949- , interviewee.

Finney, William Kelso, interviewee.

Frelix, Teresina Carter, 1947- , interviewee.

Frelix, Willie Lee, 1915- , interviewee.

Gagnon, Kathryn Coram, 1943-2004, interviewee.

Garrett, Linda Griffin, interviewee.

Gray, Barbara Vassar, 1932- , interviewee.

Griffin, James S. (James Stafford), 1917- interviewee.

Hamilton, Mary Chambers Bradley, 1903- , interviewee.

Hayes, Vance Owens, interviewee.

Heiss, Bettina, interviewer.

Henderson, Melvin T., 1944- , interviewee.

Khaliq, Nathaniel Abdul, interviewee.

Lewis, Gloria Jeanne Lindstrom, 1927- , interviewee.

Mann, Richard M., interviewee.

Massey, Gloria Yvonne Presley, 1934- , interviewee.

Mgeni, Yusef, interviewee.

Miller, Gladys Versie Clemons, 1917- , interviewee.

Mitchell, Paula Thomason, interviewee.

Montgomery, Debbie Gilbreath, 1946- , interviewee.

Patterson, Ora Lee O'Neal, 1940- , interviewee.

Price, Constance Raye Jones, 1930- , interviewee.

Roberson, Ventress Laroe Jackson, 1930- , interviewee.

Shifferd, Kent, interviewer.

Smaller, Floyd George, 1936- , interviewee.

Swan, Beulah Mae Vivian Baines, 1927- , interviewee.

Taylor, David Vassar, 1945- interviewee.

Taylor, H. Janabelle Murphy, 1920- , interviewee.

Wilson, Bernice, 1921- , interviewee.

Wilson, Don Gaugh, 1929- , interviewee.

Wilson, Gloria Ellen Gilbreath, 1925- , interviewee.

Zielinski, Kimberly K., interviewer.

Organizations:

Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, Inc. (Saint Paul, Minn.).

Hand in Hand Productions (Saint Paul, Minn.)

Saint Paul (Minn.). Department of Police.

Sterling Club -- History.

Three-Fours Girls Club (Saint Paul, Minn.) -- History.

United States. Navy.

United States. Army Air Forces. Fighter Squadron, 99th -- History.

Places:

Interstate 94.

Rondo (Saint Paul, Minn.) -- Maps.

Rondo (Saint Paul, Minn.) -- Photographs.

Rondo (Saint Paul, Minn.) -- History.

Document Types:

Interviews.

Oral histories (document genres)

Photographs.

Return to top