M., Sadie, April 9, 1976, tape 1, side 2

Sadie M.: The-- He had a pretty big one. He had family, too. Peter Gottlieb: Uh-huh. Sadie M.: They could work it right there on the corner of 14th.

Peter Gottlieb: Is that where the place was?

Sadie M.: Mhm. 14th and Sarah.

Gottlieb: How about that?

Sadie M.: All that corner back this way. All that ground leading up to 15th.

Gottlieb: Um. What kind of work does the missionary circle do?

Sadie M.: Well, mostly anything pertaining to mission, foreign mission, home and foreign mission. Mhm. Now, I don't know what they're doing so much. And I haven't been president now for about two years. And we sort of have this-- Mr. Walker sort of does things within himself and nobody gonna question him about it. Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: So. Usually-- usually belong to the different conventions of home and foreign mission work.

Gottlieb: Can you tell me a little bit about what-- what that means, home and foreign mission work?

Sadie M.: Well, a home mission is-- is any-- anything missionary like givin' or helpin' around where you live and the foreign is to foreign countries. But we just more or less send money there or food or clothing, whatever the convention asks for. Now, I did it. But these last couple of years, I haven't been doing too much foreign mission at all. Just home mission. And I hear about giving donations for the different homes, you know, houses people, they haven't been doing too much foreign mission out here and I can't go in to the-- why I don't go, because that's history. [laughs] Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: But I don't go much anymore. And we had a lot of missionaries and you know we did with all them members. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: They were members. And-- but some of them don't go either.

Gottlieb: The, the, the work of the missionary circle doesn't involve, uh, seeking new members to the church.

Sadie M.: No, that's not that. It's more or less helping. Where it's needed, you know, that's what I did. But everybody didn't work that.

Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: Calls come in.

Sadie M.: So sort of like within, you know, the work of the Salvation Army. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: Well, it was sort of on a smaller scale.

Gottlieb: But did it end up being a matter of helping the members of Second Baptist Church when they were in trouble mostly?

Sadie M.: Yeah. No, not mostly. Well, not when I was president, I was going to say, but we helped anybody that call and our church did too. I don't know what they do now, but our church did. True. Uh, anybody that call, they'd go, you know, see if they need clothes or if they need money or food or whatever. But the majority, now here lately now, since we have the younger element. Well, they just give them money.

Gottlieb: And then, do you remember whether or not the the church had any kind of special programs to aid people who were coming up from the South and settling in Homestead at any time?

Sadie M.: No, I don't remember nothing like that. Never heard of anything like that. Not the churches.

Gottlieb: Were you aware of any of that kind of thing in Homestead at all by any-- any groups of people?

Sadie M.: Mm-mm. Mm-mm. No, not not helping them to get here now. Now, some time ago in the 1800s, my uncle, uncle of mine was the instigator of bringing men here to work. I heard about that-- work in the mill. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: And that's how a whole lot of these people from the South got here. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: And so after that, they just-- Some of them just stayed. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: Yeah. A whole lot of-- A whole lot of people. Of course they did. But I heard them talking. A lot of them came on, uh.

Gottlieb: Transportation.

Sadie M.: Yeah, transportation. And they said Charles. That was my uncle. But I can't think of his last name.

Gottlieb: Reynolds. Did you know--

Sadie M.: Charles Reynolds. Charles Reynolds. He instigated them coming up. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: Have you heard that before?

Gottlieb: I haven't heard of the name Reynolds. I heard the name Grover Nelson a lot before.

Sadie M.: Well, Grover Nelson was after that. Way late. He was in the 1900s. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: But Charles Reynolds was the one that brought the-- went down. Now, how he brought 'em up here, I don't know how. Was by train or-- I guess it was train because it wasn't automobiles in these time. Gottlieb: Right. Sadie M.: It must have been trains. And he brought Groves up [??] because you ain't talking to the people that came now that's like-- This Mr. Conyers, you have his name, Mr. Bellamy. Conyers told-- Say he come up when he was a boy, 20 years old. He said he had been here over 50 some years. Gottlieb: Conyers? Sadie M.: Before he died.

Gottlieb: I don't have that name.

Sadie M.: March Conyers. M A R C H, but he's dead. Gottlieb: Uh huh. [laughs] Sadie M.: That's why you don't have it. March Conyers and Eddie Coles was our-- He's dead. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: But March-- he used to sit and talk about it when he came for his stand [??] and say he was just coming to work, you know, while-- So he could send money back South. He was from South Carolina. Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: Now, he'd been a card, if you could have met him. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: Oh, he was-- He was a very jolly person. And he could have you dyin' of laughin' over his escapades. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Yeah. Sadie M.: March Conyers. Now we don't have, uh. Do you have a William Lynn?

Gottlieb: I've heard the name, but they say he lives very far out.

Sadie M.: He lives out in Irwin. You know where that is?

Gottlieb: Uh, I don't think I've ever been there. That's way out Route 30, isn't it, east of here, around Greensburg. About that area. Is that right?

Sadie M.: Well, he don't talk like it so far out.

Gottlieb: He comes down to church still every Sunday?

Sadie M.: Sure. And every meeting he's supposed to be at, he's there. Gottlieb: Well, I'll-- Sadie M.: But he has a car. He has a car. Gottlieb: [simultaneous talking] Well, I'll come-- Sadie M.: And his family, you know, he would-- They were all raised around here. Gottlieb: They were. Sadie M.: But after he married a second time, we-- We bought a place out there during the Depression. He said-- he laughs about it, during the Depression, he bought this place and he said it was on account of his wife because see he didn't see where how going way out there would do them any good at all. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: But they got it dirt cheap. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: And now it's really valuable now-- Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: --because people built all around it and want to buy his ground. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: But he laughs about it and I think he only paid $600 for it. Gottlieb: Yeah.

Gottlieb: That was the time to buy, I guess. Sadie M.: Uh huh. Gottlieb: But you--

Sadie M.: Said, if it hadn't been for his wife. This is the second one. He had spent all his money. He had six children by the first wife. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: And-- but he'd laugh about how he got out. He-- it really is amusing how he tell you about how he got there because he didn't want to, that particular time, he said he didn't want to buy nowhere. Gottlieb: Uh huh.

Gottlieb: But you think he was, uh, born up here?

Sadie M.: No, he wasn't born up here. I think he was born in Virginia.

Gottlieb: Mm.

Sadie M.: But he would be a nice person to talk to if you could get to him.

Gottlieb: Okay, I'll make sure and write him a letter too, and see if-- see if I can get him interested.

Sadie M.: I don't know whether I have the telephone number for him or not. Now, he-- Maybe she doesn't. Maybe. I'm trying to think of who-- I don't know if I have his sister's number or not. No, that would be-- No, I don't have her telephone number.

Sadie M.: You can call this number if you want. 4615003. Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: And they could give you his phone number or tell you cause he's always down here because he has relatives out in West Mifflin. Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: And his name is William Lynn. Gottlieb: Right.

Gottlieb: Okay. It seemed to me that most of the names on that list of members of the missionary circle you had were women's names. Not men.

Sadie M.: Uh, yeah. Well, you see, they never had men till I took the presidency. Gottlieb: Is that right? Sadie M.: And then after I asked my father in law, he was pastor-- about it because I always figured that they could be there to help him. So he said if I thought I could get 'em in, there would be all right. He had nothing against it. And then I started-- well, I had about 20 at one time, but they died out and they never bothered bringing in any more. Gottlieb: Mm. Sadie M.: And so we just worked with the women.

Gottlieb: The missionary-- was a missionary circle, generally, usually in most churches made up of women-- Just of women? Sadie M.: Just of women. Gottlieb: Well, I--

Sadie M.: Very few had men in their circle. Oh, until we started, we were the first to start it at Second Baptist. And after I was president, 'cause I went to him and asked him because I don't know, I guess what you would call that was a gift or something. I just felt like just some of the men should have been in there with us women helping. [laughs] And they enjoyed it too. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: Mhm.

Gottlieb: Were there things that men did that, uh, women didn't do in the church? Maybe like the ushers and things, were there-- were those usually things only men did and women didn't do?

Sadie M.: No, uh, the women, uh, we had, we always had women usher role, you know. And the men combined, the women-- Men might work one Sunday and the women are next, organized like that. We always had that. But now the men would die off at some time, but not at our church. They resurrected them again. I wasn't there to see the beautiful sight they had there. My son said they had on dark pants and white coats yesterday. Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: At the _______[??]. So. I know that was beautiful. Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: So, uh. Mr. Lynn. Oh, you say you talked to Mr. Berry. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: Did he talk to you?

Gottlieb: Oh. He was-- He was a fine talker.

Sadie M.: Well, good. 'Cause sometimes-- Uh, Mr. Chief, he was-- All of them are our deepest, our deepest-- Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: Now, if you could get ahold of Al Burwell. Gottlieb: I'm trying. Sadie M.: And he'd talk to you. But now, if I had a known you had tried and hadn't got ahold of him, I'd have brought him out yesterday when he was up here.

Gottlieb: Well, I haven't tried that much. I called him once quite a-- quite a time ago. And then I learned that he had been born in Homestead and thought, Well, I'm going to concentrate on people from the South now. I'm just getting back in touch because you recommended him, so I'll get ahold of him. I'm sure he would--

Sadie M.: Well, he could do you, if he-- if he can remember, because he really know-- he really knows the beginning. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: Now his sister is here too. Now, his sister-- If you could run into her, she's the one that could give you the dope. Gottlieb: Why? Sadie M.: Oh, yeah, because she's about the oldest member living. Gottlieb: Huh. Sadie M.: About-- know about that church. And she was the janitor, but she's a little girl. She could tell you something. Elizabeth is her name. I don't know whether she's down. I could call and find out. Could you stop?

Gottlieb: Well, I think I might be going over to see Mr. Freeman, if I can get a hold of Mr. Freeman about 11:30. 11:30. So maybe I should just take her name and try and get in touch with her myself later on.

Sadie M.: Well, I'm gonna say, you see, she's visiting here. Gottlieb: Oh. Sadie M.: That's why I asked if she could come because she would know more about Second Baptist than Freeman. Gottlieb: Yeah. Yeah. Sadie M.: Her or her brother Alfred Burwell. Them two, you really could get the dope on Second Baptist. And they're the only two living that really started with the church. They're the only two.

Gottlieb: Did you say the Burwells used to have kind of a boarding house back in those times?

Sadie M.: I don't know. They had so many in their house, you-- I guess you could call it a boarding house. But the mother was kind of like a-- I don't know what you call Mrs. Burwell. She just taking anybody that come there and put up a poor mouth. Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: But now, whether they paid her afterwards or not.

Sadie M.: Wait a minute, Mom. Hey, Mom, do you know whether Miss Burwell, Al Burwell's mother had a boarding house? Unidentified Speaker [Sadie M.'s mother]: Yeah. On Sixth Avenue. Sadie M.: Uh huh, well, that's what he asked me, and I couldn't tell him.

Gottlieb: Um, do you know if, uh, Second Baptist Church ever got any help of any kind from the mill in the way of building fund or anything like that?

Sadie M.: I never heard of-- you could ask this boy, this man I'm telling you about. He might-- could tell. I never heard of it. Uh huh. You don't want to talk over the telephone, do you?

Gottlieb: Well, I'd rather be-- have a situation like this where I can get the voice on tape and everything, 'cause--

Sadie M.: Because I'd call now to see if Lizzie was down at his place. She was up at her old place she used to live before she moved to Chicago. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: She just moved to Chicago last year. She had a daughter there. And she-- her husband had died. So the daughter insisted she come there, but she-- that woman's almost 89 years old. And she gets around like that. Gottlieb: Really? Sadie M.: Mm hm.

Gottlieb: I hate kind of just to drop in on people without them knowing who I am or what I'm up to and things like that. I think Mr. Burwell will probably be able to give me the information I need. So, uh.

Sadie M.: He probably will. But if you could get ahold of her, you could get it all from the time he got in the church. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: Yeah. But then to-- you get-- he can give you a lot. He can give you a lot because he's been in a church. But Lizzie, his sister, was the oldest living member of Second Baptist, and she knows she is, too. And she let you know it. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: Because she was, um-- before it was organized church, she went with them as a young girl making fires for 'em.

Gottlieb: What did you say? Making fires for them. Sadie M.: Mm-hm. Gottlieb: What does that mean?

Sadie M.: Making fires? Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: So it would heat up the room.

Gottlieb: Oh, oh, oh. I thought that was some expression of some kind.

Sadie M.: Oh, no, no. She built fires for them, so that would heat up for church. Yeah. You know, she's been there a long time.

Gottlieb: When Second Baptist first got started, did a lot of people leave Clark Memorial to join it?

Sadie M.: Mm-mm. Gottlieb: They didn't. Sadie M.: They didn't leave. No, I thought they-- they-- Oh, Second Baptist, they didn't have to leave. 'Cause see, they had the church here on 13th, the Second Baptist-- They wanted a church down Lower Homestead because they just didn't feel like coming up the Hill all the time. Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: And so they, they try to have church, but they never got a chartered church. So Reverend M. got. Gottlieb: Yeah. Yeah. Sadie M.: Mhm. Now they had had church. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: But now Miss Lizzie, Lizzie Burwell, what I'm talking about-- Lizzie-- her name ain't Burwell now. But she could tell you about all of that before-- Before Reverend M. got there. Gottlieb: Mm hmm. Sadie M.: She could tell you all about that. But it really wasn't church, til Reverend M. came.

Gottlieb: What-- does that mean that the services weren't regular, or--

Sadie M.: They-- No, it was wherever they could get hold of some. Gottlieb: Uh huh, uh huh. Sadie M.: And they never really had church, but it was just a few people that would go and support it. They couldn't even keep a minister. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: So they just would have anybody would come in. But, uh. And that much I know because of talking to her about. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: But I don't know anything about their work until-- the work of the church until 1930. That's when I joined. Gottlieb: Oh. Sadie M.: And reason I joined, I had moved to West Homestead, and I had small children, and I wanted them to go to Sunday school, so I sent them to their grandpap's church, and we always called it Grandpap's church. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Yeah. Sadie M.: And then after they-- You know, growing up in there, you got to go in there, I decided since I livin' down that way, I might as well go on myself, which I did. Now, a lot of people. Well, not a lot, I guess-- I guess it was less than a dozen. They joined down there, left Clark Memorial and went down there. On account of a pastor disturbance. After that pastor left, they all went back-- Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: Except for me. Except me. Gottlieb: Oh. Sadie M.: And after I got down and got them working, I seemed like I was more serviceable down there because they really needed people that knew how to work. And my-- my father in law, he wanted me to stay. I stayed. And everything's been alright.

Gottlieb: Hm. Now, that pastor problem you talked about wasn't until, you know, 1930, around 1930 or so.

Sadie M.: He was-- He was called there in 1914. Gottlieb: Yeah. Yeah. Sadie M.: And they was-- they was upstairs up-- in a building upstairs. That was their church. And they moved from that side of Sixth Avenue to the other side. And then when they started really having church was at 222 Sixth Ave. That's when-- they stayed there until they moved to Fourth Avenue. And that was a real church on Fourth Avenue.

Gottlieb: Well, I think I've asked you all the questions that I-- that I had in mind. Um, do you think I've left out anything important that-- that you could help me with? Because otherwise, I really don't have anything else to--

Sadie M.: I don't know what's important and what isn't, because you pretty well lined up as far as states is concerned. Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: And. I guess we got all of our older deacons. Because these younger deacons don't know nothing. They're just stuck on there, but they don't know what's happening. Not yet. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Sadie M.: Because I'll tell you one thing why I say that. It isn't because they're young. Because I was young when I started, but I worked with the older people in front. And after I got on to the work, then I was voted out and all like that. But these young folks don't even come to church. It really _______[??] now. Half of them don't come to church. Half of them just joined the church, just got baptized. And they, uh-- I know one young man. He's a deacon of our church already, and he just got baptized. No, I'll tell my mother. You know, it isn't done like that. Not to us. Gottlieb: [simultaneous talking] Yeah. Yeah. Sadie M.: We propose a study for a while. Different things, you know? But we have a young pastor, and he hasn't run away. Lettin' him go along with it. I don't know why. I guess it's because a lot of younger people in office and everything. We really don't need-- They don't know, they're not studying. They think they know. Yeah, they just study to know. I told them. I said, no, you can't tell me nothing about young folks working in church because I started out as a young woman, but I had to work with the older people, you know, growing up, they wanted the young people. And we-- we were-- we were willing to work with the older people. But this crowd now, I don't know whether you're like that or not, but this crowd now, they think the old folks are dumb now. Gottlieb: No. Sadie M.: They think they don't know nothing.

Gottlieb: Well, you know, that can't be true for me. I got to-- I have to come around and ask them everything I need to know about this period of history, so--

Sadie M.: But even so and I and I look at some of them and I say, well, where do they think they come from? Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: But I don't-- I think well, and they make so many dreadful mistakes. I said, Well, one day she told me, I said, Well, one thing, you know what? You thought you knew everything and you didn't. And she looked at me. I said, You thought you knew everything and you didn't. And then I said, and I talk to her because that's no good. They're doing-- a lot of it, they're doing it everywhere you know. Gottlieb: Mhm. Sadie M.: I think I've even sit in the meetings where I had to turn around and look at some you know, older person get up to talk and they'd been in the organization for years. Oh they don't know what they're talking about, all this. And I said well I look at it, I have to look to see who they are. They don't know what they're doing. They're just like, we have a convention at 79 years old now. And this, Miss Walker you're talking about. You asked about representing. She would see why we had. But she didn't see nothing as wrong. I say, You mean to tell me something that is 79 years old, 77 years old, 77 years old, haven't done anything? I got so mad, I had to clean my teeth. But there ain't nothing, girl, gonna get that old.

Sadie M.: And haven't done anything. It's a foreign mission convention, so they don't do too much home mission. They get more-- Gottlieb: Yeah. Sadie M.: --foreign mission. But it is really doing something over there in a different foreign country because then they make their reports and all. And we have a-- he's getting up in age now, but he won't resign. But he's doing the work. Some of the younger ones, ministers, they taught, he should resign. He's too old. He's this and the other. What I said, well, who would you put in his place? That stops them. They're not-- they're not even training to be placed there, you know? It's all right. I said I'd take them back to where he started. I said, when he started his job, he, uh. I said, this convention was $22,000 in debt. I said, He started it. And when he started it, in three years, they were out of debt. I said just that one thing in my mind tells me he knew something. And ever since then, we've been progressing. But I do-- it do-- it hurts me 'cause I know I've been young and I worked right along with the older people and we got along fine. Now, I will grant you that some older people, they don't know how to talk to you and they don't know how to do neither, but they can't class them all like that.

Gottlieb: Well, thank you very much, Mrs. Sadie M..