T., John, November 1 and 23, 1976, tape 1, side 1

Peter Gottlieb: The following is an interview with Reverend John T. of 2035 Crestas Avenue, North Versailles Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Recorded on November 23rd, 1973, at Reverend T.'s home. [recording paused]

John T.: So. But you want my-- You want my-- first thing, you want my name? Gottlieb: That's right. John T.: Where I was born. Gottlieb: Right. John T.: And you don't care for my father and mother's name? You-- probably about that. Just my name.

Gottlieb: Yeah, that would be fine.

John T.: Mhm. I was born and a place called Hanford, Virginia, in Mecklenburg County, that was 15 miles from the city, way back in the bushes. And on the

John T.: 10th day, October 1890, my mother, was my father, was named John. I'm named after my father. His name is John T., and my mother was Amy Barnes. She's Amy T.. My mother was named Amy T. Was born in a three room log house, dirt and stick chimney, no windows. We just had a little peep hole through a crack where you could put a rag in there to keep you in there and pull that out and look up the road, see if anybody's coming. Ain't no windows to the thing. Gottlieb: Yeah.

John T.: And had a-- didn't have no cook stove.

John T.: We cooked on the fireplace. [phone rings] My mother had a-- had a hook hanging off the chimney.

John T.: And that's where she boil stuff and she cooked and had a skillet.[loud humming[]]

John T.: Make fire. Take that skillet, put coals under that and put coals on top of the lid. The way she cooks. And we had like hot fire and put them ashes back where you call the ash cakes. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: And then we'd put that there and wrap them up in them hot ashes and bake them in. Take 'em out and wash 'em, and scrape off good.

John T.: When I was about eight years old, for here, I was-- got a stove, was a cookstove, where the cook all way overhead. She wait for old man, cook for him, and he bought a new stove and give it over. And when she put that thing every now and, cook biscuits. And we thought we was millionaires 'cause we had a cook stove. We had our little tin plates we eat out of.

John T.: My mother put that pot on there and boil it and she had a tin cup. She got her little tin plates and she'd pour peas or whatever she cook in there. Give us a piece of that ash cake. We had a-- we had a cow. Give us that little tin cup and cup of milk as we eat.

Gottlieb: Uh huh. What kind of work did your father do?

John T.: He was a farmer. Worked on a farm. Then he, uh. Peculiar thing about him. He carried mail. Eight years and 13 days and couldn't write his name. If you'd write his name and on them letters, he'd ___________[??]. He couldn't know any word. He carried mail 8 years and 13 days and never missed the box putting mail. Now he, uh. He went from Hanford to Chase City was 13 miles. Then he had to go. When he come back to Hanford, he had walk about two more miles out there on Dick Howell Moody, that was the head-- that was the headquarters. But he'd lock that mail up, he had a big mail bag and he'd lock that, he'd head out to the store, put the-- put all the road long mailboxes. You see, he had to deliver that mail in the boxes. Gottlieb: Uh huh. John T.: And he never missed a time putting them letters there. And you could sit down here and read that paper or read the Bible. And if you misspell a word, anything you didn't say it right, he say you're wrong. He couldn't read, didn't know his name, and he tell if somebody didn't know. He'd get up every morning.

John T. He leave home in 6 or 7:00 o'clock in the morning and get back four in the afternoon.

John T.: Says, I want you boys to go and plow that corn and everything.

John T.: Gonna rain this afternoon. You didn't see a piece of cloud. Just as clear and blue as can be. Look up in the sky. Don't rain. He just won't go on that plow because 'fore night is gonna rain. 'Fore night, if it gon' rain. He-- I don't know. And he traveled by stars.

Gottlieb: Oh, yeah? John T.: You could get him. Look at the stars.

John T.: He could tell time by the stars. Gottlieb: That's good. John T.: He could, yeah. He wouldn't miss it. Gottlieb: Wow. John T.: He wouldn't miss it by a minute neither. Read them off for a talent. And he couldn't read and write. No signs, you know. And to go to this place where he didn't know, they-- carry his axe act with him and blaze trees. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: Cut a path, blaze that trees. Didn't care [??] what the signs think of that.

Gottlieb: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

John T.: I had-- just six of us. Gottlieb: Uh huh.

Gottlieb: Were you the oldest?

John T.: No. I got one more brother living. I called him up Thursday.

John T.: Wednesday night. I talked with him. He's 87 years old yesterday.

Gottlieb: Boy. John T.: His birthday was yesterday. He's 87, I'm 83.

John T.: I planned going down to see him on his birthday, but I can't do no traveling much by myself. I'm scared that-- I just call him up and wished him a happy birthday. You can get if I live, by spring I'm gonna try to get down and see him. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: We the only two livin' now. After they-- six children, they never [??]--

John T.: All the younger ones died.

John T.: Four lived. Growed up and got married. And nice families, died right on-- my youngest brother. I'm two years older than he was. I don't reckon say I'll ever get over his death. I was living in North Carolina at the time he died. And I got telegram to come at once. Want to see him, maybe. And I got the 7:00 o'clock train out from Wendell, North Carolina, and I had to change in Raleigh and go from Raleigh to Durham and change in Durham for Chase City. And I got there at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon. But when I got in Raleigh to change, the train was 30 minutes late. And my mother said that boy, that train made a station below.

John T.: We was never too close on the station. Say he set up in the bed.

John T.: Said, Lord wanted John on that train. Laid right back down and died. Gottlieb: Oh God. John T.: Now I got home. He been dead 20 minutes. You know, I dream about that boy every night for 12 months. Every night hours I was waiting, for me and him was talking, to something he wanted to tell me. Gottlieb: Oh, yeah? John T.: Yeah, yeah. Me and him was just like it. If I had a penny, he had it. If he had one, I had it. And I left home. He said to me, Now you going to leave home?

John T.: Said, no marriage, 'cause as soon as I get older, you's a little older, said, We going to be buddies, that don't no marry, we ain't gonna be married to nobody. I left home and I never stayed home no more. I left home. I haven't stayed home a month put together since 1908.

John T.: I just run in, spend the night or something, come. But he-- He worried me. Boy worried me and worried me. For 12 months, I've seen him every night.

John T.: But my others, they's all close together. More close. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: So I don't-- I don't feel that-- one reason I don't want-- to don't get so much work going on. I just got one brother there. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: When you go

John T.: home and your mother and father living and every Christmas, we all go home and all together, you know, you go there now. Gottlieb: Right. John T.: I'd go home for my brother. I never would go down him because I don't know about that. Gottlieb: Uh huh. John T.: My brother was telling me other night that there's one more fella. His daughter come and got him. Was raised up with us, had him together. He lost his mind. He lived in the country. He come and got him.

John T.: About 500 boys. And she said they ranged from the age of 15 to 21 right in that bracket.

John T.: Me and my brother was the only two living. All gone. I don't know nobody there. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: Yeah. I wouldn't even go there, I told my brother. And now all of them is gone.

John T.: And we had to-- raised up together with our hardships, worked in the factory together. And I had a boy here. He left here and he went to Ohio. I learned him how to match barrel herding and the wagon factory. And when I left home he had on knee pain and I seen him again. I met him here in Duquesne, he an old gray haired man with grand grandchildren 'fore I see him again. 'Fore I see him again.

Gottlieb: Did you get a chance to go to school down in Virginia?

John T.: I went to school until I got to the second grade and I made that in one year. The first year I went to school, my youngest brother, he's the baby boy. He had a little advantage.

John T.: We sent him to school. Yeah, I went to school.

John T.: He was in the second grade. I made first grade and passed him second. And the teacher begged my mother said, If you can send them boys to school, keep 'em in school, that's the brightest kid in the school, I could learn. We didn't have classes like you folks had. We had spelling classes, good spelling class and reading class. Arithmetic and. In arithmetic, she had always had us ready to recess. After arithmetic math, recess. 15 minutes recess. And I'd stay inside with my brother. And I couldn't let it show me. And she called on, pick his at him [??]. Then when she get through, I headed down to the bottom. Every time. I'd go-- And the poor fool, he standin' up there and he couldn't be-- [laughs] he couldn't get-- He couldn't figure it out how to save his life. All of them that didn't get it had to stay in the recess. [both laugh] I was out first, but I couldn't let it. He couldn't let her know I was trying to help him. Same thing with spelling, oh, spelling class. I'd go up there every time. You know, if you missed a word and I spell it, then I tell them you had to get the next-- to get behind me. And I'd come to the end, the foot in the head, man. I just stayed there. I'd always go to the foot all the time. We know this. Cut them down, you know, get-- get to the end. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: So that he said, Get away from that. You know, you don't belong down there. But if I could have stayed in school and I didn't get no more schooling then till I went to-- till I left home. Went across the state, worked in New Jersey. Went to night school the whole time I was there.

John T.: Went night school. I said I was going to read and write anyhow.

John T.: And I went home. Father didn't know I could write. Went home, said son, you go down the street, I said, yeah. Had a little check, said, Take this check and get someone to sign your name to it and cash it. I looked at him, laugh. I said, I don't need nobody sign for me. I said, You didn't give me a chance to go to school. I said, but I went anyhow, I said, went and go to school and _______[??]. And I. Went on down North Carolina. I got married in 1912. But I always loved to read books. Read books. And I started to-- They ordained me the deacon of the church. I stayed on deacon 'bout two years. Then I started preaching. My wife worked, helped me with school. '24, I was college in Raleigh, North Carolina, Shaw University in theology. And I came here to make some quick money to go back to finish my studies. And I come here and got a good job. You work with-- I never made that kind of money. I said, Well, I can preach and I can work and make this money, too, I didn't go back. I stayed here for 31 years and a half in the Westinghouse. A man need

John T.: all the education he can get, especially if you a minister.

John T.: But I pastored three good churches, and last church I pastored, I ended up about 400 members.

John T.: And always good on the Bible. Everybody thought I had finished college. No, my God. But I can take a-- see people, mostly preachers, write their sermons, they stand up and preach and they looking at the sermons all the time. I can't preach like that. I can take a text. Tell you what verse, chapter and verse I'm gonna preach from and give you my subject. That's all I need. I'm preaching. That's like someone's listenin' and telling me everything they say. I don't know if I write my sermon off, but if I get started, I stick it in my pocket.

John T.: And I married this woman.

John T.: We've been married three years. She'd never hear me preach. One of them pastors. One left. He asked me to preach for him one day.

John T.: She was scared to death.

John T.: Because she's a schoolteacher. She taught school for years. She finished college and school. And she used to work at the church there and all. She didn't know what I could do, didn't know whether I finished school or nothing. You know, I was preaching. See, I preached that day. Well, them folks down there, the church. They knowed I could preach because they had heard me. And the folks just went wild.

John T.: And one old woman runs to me, heard me, says, I knows you were gonna preach all right. Said I know that, you know, she was so happy, you know, and the folks shook hands with her and tell them what had come. And my sermon was a nice sermon I preached, you know, but that made her feel good. Like she being the college woman. And if I'd have fell down. [laughs] Gottlieb: Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. John T.: Then she. I preached that. I preached that up there twice since we've been married. And the second time, I preached there.

John T.: She always sat up at the front, oh she was happy there. 'Cause that would be it. I've been making it all right. Now, when I leave, I'm assistant pastor of my church in Swissvale. And the pastor ain't there, the deacons said they don't get nobody. Read all the Bible and _______________[??], send him home.

Gottlieb: Huh. Did you have to work in Virginia after-- Is that why you couldn't go further on in school?

John T.: Yeah, I had to work.

Gottlieb: Could you tell me about the jobs you had?

John T.: You know, we. Ah, when I was raised on the farm, when we didn't have but three months in school. That's all we had. Gottlieb: Uh huh. John T.: I think the white kids had six months. We had three. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: But time I would have been in school, my daddy had me out, grubbing, cutting wood and grubbing, cleaned up new grounds for white folks, you see. So I didn't get to go there three months. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: But if I go a month out of the three months, I was lucky. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: if them three months. Well, then after we moved in the city. I got a job working in the bank down at the there, the banker-- man had a fine horse and buggy, you know, twere no cars. And I took care of that horse and kept the bank clean. Down there, little school over there. And I went to that little school.

John T.: That one was when I was at.

John T.: So school and I where we had-- big enough to go to work, I had to go to work in the factory. Then I went to work in the tobacco factory. My mother stemmed tobacco. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: In the factory. And then my oldest sister died and left five children. She had to raise them, so we had to work and trying to help her raise those kids. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: I worked there and I left there and went to the wagon factory. My oldest brother, he worked in the wagon factory. I could make more money there. I went down there, ten some hours. Workin' eleven [??] hours a day and dollar and a quarter daily. I was making money then, we talking about plenty of money. Take that money home. Give it to my mother, keep me a little bit and give that money to mother, help along. So I--

John T.: Old man moved out of country and her husband.

John T.: Moved in town and we moved in town. He got my mother out of the house there and she was trying to buy it. And I seen my mother one day leaving home, going to the factory. There's the snow on the ground. She had her feet wrapped up in rags, didn't have no shoes.

John T.: Had to raise those kids and feed them. And I told her, I said, Mom, I'm leaving home.

John T.: And I want us to getting along.

John T.: I'm not coming back until you get the deed for this house. I'm going to help you pay for this house to raise-- Raise these kids. I said, when you get the deed, you let me know. I'll be back to see you. Stay away from home five years.

John T.: I work. I've made my money, paid my bills.

John T.: Bought me some clothes, sent that money home to my mother. She wrote me a word that the house was paid for. She had a deed for it.

John T.: She told me if I helped to pay for it at her death, it'd be mine. Gottlieb: Uh huh. John T.: But my oldest brother was married and he couldn't help her. He's raised a family. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: Well, the younger brother then.

John T.: He wasn't big enough, big enough to do nothing. So I'm gonna leave home, stay til you got the deed for that place.

John T.: And I come back home. After I come back home. I walked in, I moved in, I went down to North Carolina. Got married. Every summer she'd come to me and she'd spend the summer with me, live with me every summer. Go back home in the winter. And my wife, she-- married and my family and her brother in law, he's a first class tailor. You talkin about clean and present. But that fella and--

John T.: He learned how to trade and have a farm down there two, three years. And we went in business over Presentville [ph]. And my wife, she learned me the trade, you know, and I have a good business there. Barbershop-- My daddy used to cut hair and I could cut hair. I opened my barbershop in and Presentville and I was doing fine and I then got stood up with the rheumatism, I was so bad the doctor tell me I had to give it up and had to be out on the ground, I was using them hot irons all the time, you know? Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: And so I had my nephew working with me. I just hardly give him the job. I got away from there and I had go into preachin'. And anyhow, so I-- so I was-- I said, give him the shop. And I went on.

John T.: I did. I left home because I was going away to make me some quick money to finish my studies. And I come here in '24. Gottlieb: I see. John T.: Been here ever since. Gottlieb: Uh huh.

John T.: But I had. After coming here I was Assistant Pastor, New Hope Church. You belong to that church.

John T.: I've sent some pastor that ten years. Then I organized what they call a ministers union. 12 of us young preachers, was just lastin'. We wasn't ordained. If you're not ordain, you can't do anything but preach. You can't baptize and you can't marry and you can't-- if you have the Lord's Supper, nothing like that. So we just going around and preaching wherever we could get a chance to preach and organize the union. We went everywhere on Ohio and West Virginia, anywhere we could get an appointment. We go preach.

John T.: And through that union as we've all got to be pastors. I see the fellows preach good and people want them, they call them to have them ordained. That's way I got ordained. Gottlieb: Oh, I see. John T.: I know other guys-- if I had to go to college to get it.

Gottlieb: I see. John T.: But I got it through preaching and people wanted me.

John T.: Whether you finished college or not, our church wants you for a pastor, he calls you a pastor. They have you ordained.

Gottlieb: And is there a ceremony or something?

John T.: Oh, yes. Gottlieb: There is. John T.: When you get up there to be ordained, the 12 men sittin' on you.

Gottlieb: Yeah. Is that the Board of Deacons?

John T.: Yeah-- No. Board of Ministers. Board of Ministers. There ain't nothing to get a deacon. You can get ordained as a deacon. Nothing. But you get to preachin', brother. You said you want to be ordained for a preacher. You got to know something. Gottlieb: Yeah.

Gottlieb: And so they give you a test or--

John T.: Yeah, they give you a test and they ask you the hardest questions in the Bible. Then you got to tell them the answer. Then all the different points in the Bible, what this mean and what that means. And if you ain't up against it, if you don't know something, if you can't pass it, you can't pass that examination. Well, if that church wants you, they'll let you pass through with this understanding that you have to stay in school. Oh, they ordain you but they understand you have to stay in school and you can come up to pass that test. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: Brother, that's the job. Gottlieb; Yeah. John T.: You. You got to know something to pass.

Gottlieb: And at this time, you were working down at Westinghouse? John T.: Yeah. Gottlieb: Now, were most of these other people who were in the minister's union, were they-- Did they also have jobs and-- John T.: Oh, yes. Gottlieb: They were all working?

John T.: Yeah, all of them. All of us was working boys. Some of them worked in the mill and-- and different places. Now, Reverend Dukes down at Bethel Baptist Church. He been there 32 years. That's way he got it. Gottlieb: I see. John T.: He joined my union. Gottlieb: I see.

John T.: And traveled around with us, you see. Gottlieb: Where was he working at? John T.: He was working

John T.: in steel mill. Edgar Thomson in Braddock. Gottlieb: Oh, I see. John T.: He pastored and worked on there until he got on his pension. He got one-- One of the bigger churches in Braddock. Gottlieb: Yeah.

Gottlieb: Well, let-- let me go back and ask you this. Can you tell me the story of how you came up here, how it was exactly that you came from North Carolina up to-- up to Braddock? I mean, why-- why, why did you come here instead of maybe going someplace else like Philadelphia or--

John T.: Well, I went somewhere else. I didn't know where I was going. I was going somewhere trying to make some more money. When we broke up the house came at Christmas, my wife had never traveled and I didn't want to leave Redding. I didn't want to bring her this-- this far. Because it's cold here. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: We broke up and went to Durham, North Carolina. Gottlieb: Yeah. John T.: And I worked over there four months until the weather got warm. Then I was coming on here somewhere. Meantime, we heard a rumor that. So a man had a son in Columbus, Ohio.

John T.: He come home. And they hear me talking about I was going to leave.

John T.: Was a minister and he come up. So he said to me one day, he said, Reverend, are you talking about going to work somewhere? Says, If you go to Columbus, Ohio, you can get a job time me [??]. Get there, the mills are workin' good so you can make good money there. You can make enough money to go right on back to school in the fall.

John T.: So I didn't have but $40. I said, I haven't got enough money to go yet. I'll make a little more money.

John T.: He say you don't need to, say you only need-- thing you need is $20. Just your fare from here to Columbus from Durham was $20. Say you can go to work next day.

John T.: Said I got friends and bought in on me [??].

John T.: I said I'm alright. So I told my wife, I said, You go back to Henderson, to your sister, and stay there until you hear from me.

John T.: Go out. And we went on to Columbus and he just didn't have enough money to get back. We went to Columbus and we got there, man, just pouring down rain. Woman said been raining there three weeks. They didn't. Everything was shutting down. No work on the street and or nothing. And when I got there, he was living with a woman. He and this woman had fell out and she put him out and he'd come back home, you know. So he went back there and thought she'd take him back and went there and knocked on the door. And the woman wouldn't let him in. Shut the door in his face. Well, there we were. I ain't know nobody, said he had a pity [??].

John T.: Lord have mercy. What we going to do?

John T.: So I went to another woman and asked her, could we get a room there? I told her what I was up against. Yeah. I rent you a room. And I told her I was a minister. Said I was reverend. I's looking work. Said, you come the wrong place this time. Nothing here. Mill shutting down and been raining.

John T.: No street work. [tape ends]