M., Joseph, November 16, 1973, tape 1, side 2

Joseph M.: The morning I went and I quit work. I went over to the office. I gave it to the superintendent. Finest man that ever lived. I just loved him. He looked at it with this joke [??]. He says, Is your mother? Said, there's no use for me to ask you are you going? He said, No, you're going. He said, How you fix the money? I said, Well, I have some. I said, but I have to wait until the bank open. I said to get some more. He says, Hey, he says, Anybody here got any money? And one fella said, I got $20. Another one says, I have a ten. I was in the office. Another fellow named Henry something he said, Fish got bones [??]. He said, I got all the money you want. He got me $150 right there. Then my superintendent and he gave it to me. Well, I had-- less than $100. So he gave it to me. So I came out. I didn't have to wait till the bank opened. I put my clothes on and went home, got my suitcase. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: Uh, I got down there. And I told her about that. My mother, she was sitting in a chair.

Joseph M.: And she was old.

Joseph M.: And I got in. She said to me, she says. I'm glad you got here, she says. You know, she said, I'm going to die. She made the statement, she said, but asked God not to take me until I seen you and your wife. I took my wife with me. She said now-- I'm going to die, she said. But you got a big family, she said, Now Imma die. She said, Don't you come back. She said, Because nothing you can do. She said, You got a big family and you need the money. She said, My funeral is paid for. She said it's already paid for. She said it won't be anything you can do, so don't come back. I said, Well, when I was born, it was money here. I didn't have any of it and didn't get any of it money when I got here. I said, I'm not making any promise. So I came back and after that she passed. So I went back down there.

Peter Gottlieb: Then-- about what time was that? What-- What year was that about? Do you remember?

Joseph M.: [simultaneous talking] 1942. 1942. And I took my wife with me. But when I went back to bury her, I didn't take my wife, my wife couldn't go because, you see, my wife had kids so fast. My goodness. Gottlieb: Yeah. Huh.

Gottlieb: What kind of work did your mother do when you were growing up as a boy in Richmond? Joseph M.: Huh? Gottlieb: What kind of work did your mother do? Joseph M.: Well, she used to

Joseph M.: cook and do that kind of work, you know, in the daytime. And then at night, she'd take in washing and she'd wash and iron all night. Mhm. So it's pretty rough. Gottlieb: Yeah. Joseph M.: But, uh.

Gottlieb: Did-- Did you used to go home often after you moved up to Pittsburgh?

Joseph M.: No, no, no. I didn't go too often. No, I kept in contact with them. I would write them, you know, I went back-- I went back, let's see, in 1918. I went back in 1920. I went back in 1923. 26. I don't think I went back anymore then until 40, 42.

Gottlieb: Didn't you miss Richmond? Didn't you-- Weren't you a little bit homesick for the place you had grown up?

Joseph M.: No. No, not. Not necessarily. Tell you, you see, I wanted the money. The big money. Other words, it was the big money. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: And it wasn't a question that I was a miser. I don't know what you would call it. It wasn't that. It was the pressure on me as a boy or as a man in the condition of my mother. So, you see, maybe I put it this way. If I pull a pistol on you and rob you. Excuse me, sir. Give me your money. You give it to me. You see what I mean. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: You didn't give me the money. You give the pistol the money. You see what I mean? Gottlieb: Yeah. Joseph M.: It was the pressure. Gottlieb: Yeah. Joseph M.: Well, that is it. And so it was the pressure on me, that forced me to-- to seek-- to get all the money I could. But one thing I can frankly say. I never would steal. I never stole. I won't steal. No, I won't either. No, I won't steal. I've had number of chance to steal. I won't steal. You don't have to steal. People just steal to better their condition. They don't steal because they have to. So I remember one time I found a fella's pay in the mill, 100 and some dollars, and I had gone into the restroom. And when I got in, he had just came out and I went in to an April and envelope was on it, I seen it laying on the floor and I picked it up. I said to myself, Somebody done took the money out. This-- knowing this is April Fool. So I just picked it up and I looked. He had never opened it up and so I took it and stuck it in my pocket. And so. After I finish I went back down the mill. I went back down the mill. No, before I left

Joseph M.: fella came and opened the door. It was a white fella. He peeped in. He seen me. He didn't say anything. I didn't say nothing. So I got up and I went on back down the mill on my job. So after a while, fella come running down. And. Foreman come down to the end where I was working. I said to him, Hey, what's the matter? He said, I lost something. I said, What did you lose? I didn't say nothing. And so he looked, look, look. And all-- this is work in the day. And so I went back to the toilet and when I got back. I didn't see him. I went in the office and I said to the clerk and I thought, Man, Jimmy, for him [??] said, Jimmy. Said, here's a fella's pay I found in the toilet. I said, He's been around me. I said, 3 or 4 times. I said, And he didn't say anything to me about it. I said it looked like he was trying to keep it a secret. I said, I didn't tell him I had it. I said to him, I give it to Jimmy. And so coming out, the roller man there, fellow named Jack Abbott, Abbott said to me, Hey, Joseph M.. I said, Yeah. He said, A fella said that he thought you had his pay. Said, and I told him he was a damn liar. I said, Because you give him before you take from him. I said, I did have it. I said in the office now. I said, But I found it. I said he didn't ask for it. I said I didn't give it to him. And so, you know, he got it. I've done that 3 or 4 times in the mill.

Gottlieb: When you first got to Pittsburgh, you told me that you didn't know anybody here. Joseph M.: I didn't. Gottlieb: How did you find a place to live? How did--

Joseph M.: That's that. That's it right there. I had to inquire. I had to make an inquire. But what I'd done, I went up the street and I seen a sign on the door, a room for rent. And it was a fella by name of Snow. And so I went into-- that's where I got the room that was up on Bedford.

Gottlieb: Okay. So you just walked up from the train station? Joseph M.: Yeah. Gottlieb: Who did-- Who did you ask? Did you remember? Do you remember where you made your, uh-- Where-- where you asked for a room?

Joseph M.: Yeah, just up there on-- on-- on the Webster Avenue in Pittsburgh. I went to. I was looking for a place, and I seen the sign up, room for rent. And I went in and asked them. And so that's why I got it. I was. I think that was 12, 12 something. 12 something. Webster Avenue, 1200 block. Gottlieb: Uh huh.

Gottlieb: How long was it between the time you got here and and the time you started working in the Carnegie building? Do you know? Did it take you very long?

Joseph M.: No. I was here about possibly, I say maybe 2 or 3 weeks, maybe a month, as I got familiar enough then to find a pool room to be shooting pool because I had to do that to live, you know, and had to pay my rent. But at that time, you see, the rent wasn't very much. You see, you could, you could get a room then, private rooms for $3 a week. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: Yeah.

Gottlieb: And you were making money playing pool? You were making enough money to pay for the room? Joseph M.: Sometimes.

Joseph M.: Well, yeah, I always have money, see, but I would. I had to. I had to economize. Otherwise, if you and I would be sitting down playing cards, and if I would win, you couldn't get all of it back. I had to keep some of it because I had to live. If it looked like my luck would change then I couldn't. Other words, I was going to be the loser. I'd had to quit before I lost it all. And so-- got to live. Gottlieb: Yeah.

Gottlieb: Were there-- was there, uh, certain pool rooms that were more popular than others where a lot of Black men would gather together?

Joseph M.: Well, the two most popular pool rooms in Pittsburgh at the time was E.K. Thumbs and Frank Sutton. Now, Frank Sutton was a Jack Johnson dietitian [??], you know, and so I think it was through Jack Johnson that Frank got to build that hotel there on Sixth Street. Gottlieb: On Sixth Street? Joseph M.: You might not know where it is yet, but it was between Fifth and Sixth on the left hand side if you're going out toward the station. To the Greyhound bus, was on the left hand side and between Fifth and Sixth and then over on, of course, near the corner with the Gasco building and there were two, the most popular was in downtown. You had some here in East Liberty too. Gottlieb: Uh huh.

Gottlieb: Would there be, would there be, uh, crowds around those pool rooms and places and-- were they places that lots of people would-- would gather? Joseph M.: At certain times.

Joseph M.: Yes. You take a lot of the people that work, they like to play pool. After they finished work, they would gather in, see, but they didn't frequent that all the time. Other words, that wasn't their occupation. Gottlieb: Yeah. Joseph M.: But now you take some of the fellas like me. I was a floater. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: And that was my home. Oh, other words, it had to be my home. Or I had to sit up in my room and just look at four walls and the ceiling. Gottlieb: Yeah. Joseph M.: You see? And so. Gottlieb: Uh huh.

Gottlieb: Uh, do you remember where there are a lot of people in Pittsburgh hanging, hanging out at these places that were-- That had just come in like-- Like-- Like yourself. Kind of newcomers. People who had just come in or-- Or were most of the people who-- who-- who-- who came in to the places were they, were they old timers? Were they people who had been around for a long time?

Joseph M.: I don't know. I would presume that the one that lived there mostly was people that was familiar, you know, people that lived there. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: Uh, I would think that because unless you'se a pool shark, you know, you wouldn't walk in a pool room and say, who want to play a game of pool? And usually if you walk in a pool room and say, who want to play a game of pool, whoever was in charge of this place, the house man, we call him, would put the best he have on you to play you. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: That's what they done for me. Gottlieb: Okay. Joseph M.: And if I would go in and say, Well, who want to play a game of pool? I challenge anybody that want to play. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: And maybe the house man would put the best he'd have on me. And whenever we would start, we would take the money. Sometime we'd stick it up here under the railings and then come and tell him. He said, well, and say, you know, the house rules is so and so and so and so. House rules is so-and-so and so-and-so at least, and get my money. Say now wait a minute. The house don't have no rules on the table. The book-- the book had the rules here on the table. Now the house rule is no minors allowed, no-- no profanity and this and that.

Joseph M.: You know what-- pay after each game and so forth and so on, the house rules. But when you come for the game of pool, there's not a game of pool you can play that rule is not in the book. You see what I mean? Gottlieb: Yeah. Joseph M.: Now if you're playing continued pool, if you miss your shot, you used to step back at least three feet from the table and stand in one position until the other fella finished shooting. You see what I mean? Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: And if you don't do that, he can get the book and prove that you fouled the game and you can forfeit your money. That I knew about. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: And so I told him, I said, Now wait a minute. The house don't have no rules on the table. The house have rules. And I told him. And so what they do, you know, they take advantage of you if you don't know these things. Uh huh. They said, Well, the house rules is so and so and so and so. But they always going to give the man they put on you the benefit of the house rules. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: And so you don't go for that. Not when your money's out.

Gottlieb: Did they-- did they usually have just one man who was-- who was-- who was the person that they would put on you?

Joseph M.: Well, they would always put the best they had with you. Gottlieb: Yeah. Joseph M.: And if, uh, you would beat them 2 or 3 games. You know, the house would call them off, see, because the house would be responsible for it and they'd put the money up for whatever you want to play for. And if you beat them 2 or 3 games, call it off till you put your stick in the rack.

Gottlieb: How did you-- how, how-- how would a person get to be the, uh, get to be the man who woul-- who would be put up against challengers by the house? Joseph M.: How was what? Gottlieb: How-- how-- how-- would you get that position of being the person the house would put up against other players?

Joseph M.: Well, if you was a good pool player and frequent the place and they knew you was a good pool player, they would pick you if you were the best. You see what I mean? Gottlieb: Yeah. Joseph M.: That's the way they got them. Gottlieb: I see. Joseph M.: Mhm.

Gottlieb: When did you start living in Homestead?

Joseph M.: I started living in Homestead in 19-- must have been 1914, 15.

Joseph M.: Somewhere along in there, see, because I came over-- I was rooming right here on 12th Avenue. 'Course, he had was, I know, I roomed there for years and then I came over here and I came over here to go in the mill as far as my job was concerned. I was already living in Homestead, but I was working in town. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: You see. I could go backwards and forward over there for a nickel. And I lived out here for oh, fact, I lived down there for about 11 years then till I got married in 1923. And so I was at home and I came over here and wouldn't have to go as far and I could work. Gottlieb: Yeah.

Gottlieb: Yeah. Uh, how did you hear about the rooming house on 12th Avenue?

Joseph M.: On 12th?

Gottlieb: Yeah. How-- How did you-- How did you know that you could get a place to live down here when you were-- When you were living up in Pittsburgh?

Joseph M.: Uh, one of the fellows that I came with, he got a job over here and a fellow named Alfred Geary, that's what Alfred was telling me, and I got a job over here because I didn't. I didn't. I didn't like the environment where I was living. See, up there on Webster, I didn't like it. In fact, it was filthy and it wasn't too conducive, see. And so I wanted to get away from that. So when the boy told me about over here, I came over here and I got a private room too, kept nice. And I stayed there then until they started bringing in the transportation. And when they bring in transportation, they had them down there, had them here, had 'em here, biggest places. They had them crowded, filled up. And so when that happened, the people down there, I guess, got so busy they didn't have time to see me. And so what I'd done, I'd give them all of their bed clothing and I bought my own. And so I kept my bed clean, you know, and I put my bed clothes in the laundry, you know, and I kept my room clean where I could live in it and be. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: But I had a private room. Gottlieb: Yeah. Joseph M.: And so the fella, he's an undertaker now. And Bill Frederick, you might read of him in the paper. Gottlieb: No, I haven't. Joseph M.: Got a place in Homestead, one in Braddock and got one on Brushton, there in Homewood. His father came here from the South, but he didn't come on transportation. He just came here now. Yeah, he came on transportation. And so they sent him up to this place where I stayed. And she said, the lady said to me, she says, the gentleman here, she says, and I don't have room for him. And I just figured if you could take him, say, you could collect his rent. And I said, I'll look him over. I looked him over and I took him. The first night he spent in Homestead he slept in my bed. And he was as nice as man as I ever met in my whole life. Of course, Father [??]. Gottlieb: Yeah.

Gottlieb: Do you remember the names of the people who owned the boarding house you were staying at when you first was here? Joseph M.: [simultaneous talking] Yeah. Yeah.

Joseph M.: Raymond Barber [??]. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: Uh huh. His wife was named Rose. Gottlieb: I see-- Was he--

Gottlieb: Did he work down at the mill?

Joseph M.: No, no, no. Raymond-- Raymond a lazy kind of fella, he had the job one time out in the library. And he had a good job out there, paid good. But the. He had a good job out there. And the manager there was a fella by the name of Hughie McCluskey, and he was one of the best men you ever seen. He never used profanity. I never heard that man speak as many words in my life. I wouldn't keep that job. Raymond had a sense, he start the building onto it, you know, to make room. And he wanted to live on the boarders. That's what he done. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Joseph M.: And so I lived there for 11 years and we were very good friends. And he died. She died. Before she died, she got sick and said she sent for me to come and pray for her. Yes, she did. And so she died.

Gottlieb: But you lived at that at that one place on 12th Avenue for-- from the time that you first came to Homestead until you got married in 1923?

Joseph M.: Practically, yeah.

Gottlieb: You lived at the same place all the time?

Joseph M.: Practically, yeah. Yeah. During that time. And I went from here to yonder. Went to Cleveland so much folks there thought I lived there. Same thing in Columbus. Various places. Baltimore. Yeah. I made one trip from there to California. Cost me $835 [??].

Gottlieb: Where did you meet your wife?

Joseph M.: I met her here. The-- This must have been in 1917, 18, 17. Her people came here and they didn't have but the one girl. One kid. And they brought her. So her father got to working down there. Not the machine. Her mother, she was working on the Artsman King [??] until she got to work with the doctor Furman [??]. And I seen his picture in the paper yesterday, so her mother. But the way I got to meet them, she finally got to working at the boarding house. You know, she was a cook or waited table. She just another girl, as far as I was concerned. So after that, this woman got sick. Her mother, she lived next door and she didn't know where her husband was. Her husband-- I don't know what kind of man he was. He never gave her anything. He never gave her any money. So she got sick and he was away. And he stayed away for about 2 or 3 weeks. And at that time, the flu was raging. So much so that they were digging the graves out there in the cemetery with a steam shovel. They wasn't diggin' graves, just diggin' a trench and just putting them down in there. And whole family died with the flu. That was in 17. And she got sick. And so she said to me one day, she said, Mr. M., she said, give me $50.

Joseph M.: Well, a lot of time when women borrow money off of you know, they open the door. I said, Well, you mean it? She said, Yeah, sure. Gimme $50. She said to me, she said, Now if I die. Said, you tell Walter to pay you. And if I live, she said, I'll pay you. Okay, that's good. She got well, she paid me, but the girl was all ______[??], so I didn't pay much attention to her. So when they got ready to go back home, she said to me, she said, Mr. M., she said, I've been up in New Jersey. She said, I been to Michigan. She said, I've been places in the South. She said, You're the best man, she said, I ever met in my life. She said, Now we're going back to North Carolina, she says, But we want to keep in touch with you. So you write us and we're going to be writing. I said, Okay. So she did. So I got to writin, writin, writin. And I began to write. And this girl began to answer my letters. I begin to write to her. I had already met the girl and through that, the girl and I got married. So after I proposed her, she accepted. And I got the wedding ring and the engagement ring, I got it done

Joseph M.: at the Rhodes [??]. And I paid a hundred and some dollar. I'm gonna pay for it now. And I paid for the wedding ring. But anyhow, I got the engagement rings, send it down and then I had to have the invitation printed. And so that was in 17 and I kept in touch with them from 1917 to 1923. So in 23 I had to get the engagement ring and the wedding ring. Had to have the invitations printed and sent down. And so I went down and I had never seen any cotton in the ground to know what I was looking at. And so I told him and it was a pity to me, but of course, I said, I've never seen any cotton. He said, If you ever come down to our place, you see a lot of cotton. So when I got down there somewhere around, Nor' Lina, I was on the seaboard. I seen a lot of something, but I took it to be string beans, white potatoes, you know, because down-- doesn't bloom. I got there, got off. I told him I thought I was going to see some cotton, he said, there's cotton. I said, Oh my Lord, I've been seeing that. I didn't know what was wrong. Well, I got married then the fifth day of July in 1923.

Gottlieb: Mhm.

Joseph M.: And then left. I got married and I got that, where I got married. Town in North Carolina. All seaboard train stopped there and they have a roundhouse there and they have a ice cream factory and population I think something like. Small population, probably like

Joseph M.: 5 or 6000 people and had a mayor. Well, the mayor took me to the church in his car. That's a Cadillac. His wife took my wife to the church in Essex and they shut that place down that day. That's the truth, I said here. They shut it down. And so he was at the wedding and his wife. And they had one kid, but, uh. And so all-- all of the people down there, the church, my goodness, all the seats were taken up. And they pressed around the side saying, sardines in a can into the hottest place I'd ever been in my life. But you see people down there, they'd be walking around in that barefooted. Never owned any shoes. And you could just see those little molecules that eat, you know, and they'd be walking around barefoot and bareheaded. And I was dying. So we got married and we left. And after that, we went back down there. I went back down there. I drove down there in 1926. So we got there, my wife had an aunt live right near the border of North and South Carolina, and she was sick. So we went down to see her and we got there, the doctor had just left and he left a prescription and we had to have it filled. And so I took the people on my car and took them down to a place known as Bennettsville, South Carolina. That's over the line in South Carolina. So they went down and got the prescription filled. But I sit out in the car until they got it. And I come on back home. I left there and started back to the family [??]. I had to get some gas and I pulled up some gas and some white feller came out and asked me and I told him, puttin' gas. He looked, he seen my wife. He opened the door and grabbed her and come and start hugging and kissing her. Put kind of a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't know what to think. Good thing you got a bad smile. So then she told him who I was and he shook my hand, you know.