J., Matthew, May 28, 1976, tape 1, side 2

Matthew Jones: We went past it in July, he come up, says-- She had to go to borrow the money. He borrowed $400 off old man Topton [??]. Mr. Jones, see, I think I got your money. All right. Can you get your money? You can have it out. I'm getting ready to go back South, now, see, Imma take that $400 and go South. I don't want to see another winter [??] and I didn't have the house. He come over. I said, give me $200 now and go down and have it not-- notarized. Give me $200 now. And when I get-- find that place, you give me the other 200 and I'll move. So he give me $200 now and then. I'm rich now. $200. I ain't had no money. So two weeks later, I got to-- found the house. I called him up and told him, said go ahead, it's your house [??] and I give him the keys. He shook hands. I moved out. I had three-- I had $3,000 insurance on the house. I never changed the policy. I know how dumb it was. Now, he-- He attempted to burn that house down, get that insurance. We got done, the house caught on fire so the next door, they got together and there's no fire department back then.

Jones: They got a bucket and put the house out. A couple of weeks later, the house caught on fire again. So the fire marshal, the county fire marshal come out to my place and see to me downtown, thought I was trying to burn the house down, see all that kind of crap. I went downtown and told them the story. Said, I haven't been back on the property since I moved out. Said I give the man keys and shook hands. We are still good friends. I don't know-- got nothing to do with the house. So this last time it caught, they found it was arson, see, the guy had a fuse lit, that fuse in the middle of the room where the fire was, and the fool that had-- had the windows open upstairs. The house had windows, see, but the windows all pinned down. Fellow saw it blazing up there and go out and it couldn't get no air. So they got in and put that out and they found that arsonist and they cancel the insurance on the house. House stood there and-- catchin' fire in that house [??]. So then I had to-- In September, when I was-- September, the Westinghouse called me back.

Peter Gottlieb: September of 1932.

Jones: 1932. Yeah, September. Had off five months and I had been off sick, once, I had to be rehired again. And five months-- I just took my check and I just went-- Went on back to work, see, and I-- and I worked there from 32 to 65. I ain't been late a day since. I had learned my lesson. See, I just. Well, my kids was young. I had two kids. We sit up all night with the baby, and every time I go in. What's the matter, John? I said this kid was sick and I stayed up. My clock didn't go off or something like that. But when he writin' that down. Gottlieb: Yeah. Jones: So--

Gottlieb: You never got laid off again? Rest of the Depression?

Jones: Sick, too. Never lost a day for sickness. That's true too. 65. And then-- during that time I built, I bought a lot of them-- Built a nine room house up there. I spent most of my life with fire house, church house, school house, Westinghouse and my house. All of them home anyway. Gottlieb: Yeah. Jones: Yeah.

Gottlieb: Let me go back and try and, uh, uh, catch up a little bit on, um, the different places that you lived between the time you left your home and the time you got up here. Did you say you went to a place called Rock Hill?

Jones: I went there. I went there, Lancaster, I went the oil mill at Lancaster..

Gottlieb: In-- in an oil mill.

Jones: In South Carolina. And the first job I got out of Rock Hill, South Carolina, I got-- I did construction work. I worked to build that school there. And I left, went down and went to Charlotte, North Carolina, and worked at the compress there, a big compress at the North Charlotte. Worked there a while. Then I got the place, worked another place called Mount Holly. I worked there, the big stone crush up there. I worked there and then I left there and went to Winston-Salem, which is back-track. From there went to Washington DC. And uh, I was doing construction work there, til I come here. And I came to Braddock. I moved from Braddock to-- I got a job in Westinghouse and I got-- I moved in Braddock, there to East Pittsburgh so I wouldn't have to, wouldn't have to walk to work. I got married in 26 and brought my wife here, and then we went then, we went to Port Perry. And Port Perry, the old town, now, that-- that's an old, used to be a seaport town, call it Port Perry. I think it's older than McKeesport. And so there's about 150 houses down there, see. Post office there and railroad station, big store there and a hotel. So after mill bought that out in 1927, 28, I just had got in there. And so everybody come up here on this hill and then you could buy lots up here, at $25 a lot, a dollar down, dollar a week. Gottlieb: Right up here on Crestas Hill? Jones: Yeah. Advertise in the Couriers and everybody come, oh, everybody was buying lots. And a lot of people bought lots and never been back and paid for them and don't know where and who did it. So I come across this here one day and the school was here.

Jones: Was no church, the school was here. Had full class in the school here too, twelve of them [??]. So I come across this here when they look at this thing and talk about it every time. And then the mud holes all along here, the dirt road goin' round, that went down, just a duck pond level up there. The water-- just water. You couldn't get up there-- rainy day, you couldn't go up that hill with the car. So I walked out and went on down and across the bridge from new home down there, the big called Miller's Farm. The guy had a farm. He had cows on it, grazing cows and had some German Shepherd dogs. Them dogs saw me and come tearing after-- after me and the guy called 'em back and I said, Man, I went back to Braddock and said, Man, they got wolves up there in the woods. I ain't going to deal with that. Heck with that place. Until I went on, and then after the '27, they come and tame Port Perry out. And I move up here. I rent the house, I move down there. I rent a house down there. And then in 1928, I bought this house off of Mr. Kraus. I bought this house. I paid him $400 down on the house. And that's when the two kids was born there. So-- and after I lost that house and I got back to work, I bought a lot and built a house. And then we built the church there in 1927, we built a fire hall and-- And this-- it's where I been ever since. I got-- all the kids were born here. 12 kids altogether, nine living.

Gottlieb: You said when you were thinking about leaving your parents' home to go away, you knew that there were other men your age who were coming up North and working during the winter and coming back. Jones: Yeah. They were--

Jones: Yeah.

Gottlieb: Did you use to do that when you had these different jobs, come back home at one time?

Jones: [simultaneous talking] No, I did more good-- I got off the farm, I said, long as I can get me a job. My dad said, you get out of work, come on back home. Well, as long as I had a job, I didn't go back home. I worked the whole time I was away. I'd send him money. He appreciated that, but I couldn't do with money. So I-- I better that way because he know in the summer time he about to get money. See, I'd send him money every-- every month I'd send him money and send money home for the family like that. See, I just kept enough money to get my railroad fare, all of my surplus money, I'd send it home. See, I just kept my railroad fare in case I had to go home in a hurry. Gottlieb: Yeah.

Gottlieb: In terms of-- I'm interested in this because a lot of the people that I've talked to did the same thing that you did. And I'm interested if you remember just about how much money was involved in the amount that you would be sending home to your parents. Do you have any recollection?

Jones: [simultaneous talking] Oh-- Yes. Oh, I'd send sometime-- went high as $50 some time, you know, I get the pay, and -- 'cause all I had to do to pay my rent and my board. And I wasn't-- I wasn't a man that drink and I just buy what clothes I needed, and any surplus money I'd send home.

Gottlieb: Was that a-- $50 a month? A week? Jones: Yeah.

Jones: Well, sometimes we'd say $20, $15, $20 a week and sometimes mixed up. We were sending $50, sending as high as $100. I go home, I'd give them money when I go home. Whatever money I had, I leave with that with the family.

Gottlieb: Did you know people in the different places you moved in South Carolina and North Carolina to find work, or did you just go there without knowing anybody?

Jones: Didn't know nobody. Well, in southern-- in Rock Hill, I didn't know nobody in Lancaster. I just went there and got me a place to board, with $3 or $3 a week board. And I was cheap, I wouldn't give somebody a dollar a day. No, not $0.10 an hour. And I had $3 a week and I had money in my pocket to spend, see. Everything cheap. In Rock Hill, I was getting about a dollar and a half an hour about, at Winston-Salem, getting about $2 and $3 an hour in the factory there. I rented a house there in Winston Salem for $4 a month, and I had it rented out-- the other guys. I rent the whole house and the other guys working there, rent to them and I wasn't paying nothing. They was paying. I got the house I stayed at for nothing. I was-- love life [??]. But before I left home, I was going to tell you that story. Now, sawmills, see. I was cutting logs for a dollar and a two cent a log. Okay? And all I did, I had three fellows-- two more fellas. They reported. All I did was file saws and make wedges to grow the tree certain ways. We cut up 150 logs, 250 logs a day, and then the guy that was on the saw. He was fired, making $5 a day. See, as a top man in the mill. And he was top man. All the other guys were dollar and a half, and dollar a day, they get dollar and a half a day. So I was paying my men, two men, a dollar a day, see. And when we paid them off for the week

Jones: I cleared, I cleared $30 for myself. So that the-- the, the manager, Shaw, he was getting $25 for all day. He gets $25 a week. So he saw, well, I cleared $30 and he goes to the boss and tells him, say, I'm supposed to be the highest paid man here, says Jones is making 30-- $30 a week now. We work for them all along. We cut them all. We got incentives. See, we work like dogs up there. We get this. So-- So the boss giving him a raise. Said, go in and ask the boss for a raise. He, the boss come to me and says, Jones, I have to cut you down to $0.02, $0.02-- I think I get $0.02 and a half, down to two cent a log. I said, No, sir, so you can have a job. I said, I work for what I did. I ain't fooling around. We worked for it. See, now I'm entitled to it. And if you don't want to pay me, says I'll get you another man to log. And I quit. And I left that. I went back down. A fellow from North Carolina, name of Smith. He had a sawmill down by all the, tell me. And so I left there. I had a gang of fellow working there. I left there and went to-- go north [??]. So that broke that up [??].

Gottlieb: Was this sawmill near your parents' house?

Jones: Yeah. Just up-- in fact, part of it on my dad's place. That's what we got to ten more men here [??]. You could walk right from the mill, summertime.

Gottlieb: How many years did you work at the sawmill?

Jones: Oh, from 19-- I worked there and started work in 1916, 17. About three years.

Gottlieb: Was it a year round job?

Jones: Yeah. Yeah, but-- But I worked there during the winter time. See. Just in winter time. Most of the guys worked in wintertime. Some guys, of course, he was-- the man he brought, the men he brought from North Carolina down there. They stayed. They camped down there. See, they worked during the summer, but I worked in the wintertime and on the farm in the summertime.

Gottlieb: Why do you suppose that you kept on moving further and further away from home rather than staying in, let's say, Lancaster or Rock Hill or something?

Jones: Well, I couldn't-- I just, you know, I lookin' for more money. And the further you go up the road, the more money you get. That's the way I was lookin'. More money and work, for less work and more money. And Charlotte, wasn't paying too much then. And job in Mount Holly-- was 18, 20 dollars a week, something like that. You work, hard work, too. So after that tobacco factory, Winston-Salem. That wasn't too bad, that was inside. I stayed there a while and I had a-- and I had an aunt in Washington, D.C. and I just went up to see her and messed around there. And her board was pretty cheap. I'd be livin' in the family and $7 a week for board. And I went out and got me a job. Worked out there. See now we-- and I made good that, a man would in the winter time you see he'd have horses hauled in. In wintertime, we work inside, hanging doors and glasses. Well, this particular time, he-- And when they didn't have work, he'd give him send me, taking over to his house and let me work around the house. I kept-- He kept me on the payroll. Then my brother kept on telling me, Come to Buffalo. He was making $4 a day, $5 a day up there. So I'm on the way to Buffalo and got here and got stuck here. That's why I supposed to be here. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Jones: Yeah, so.

Gottlieb: So were you going back home to visit your parents from time to time during the years that you were working in North Carolina?

Jones: Every year. Every year I'd go home. Even since I've been here, my mother just died in 1967. She was 94 years old. My father, he died in 1641 [??]. He was 75 when he died. Her mother was 102. She died in '51. So I-- Yeah, I go home every year-- sometime, now I was down for Christmas. I'm going down again next week. I got a sister down there, ain't doing so well. She's sick. And I mean, I was-- see her [??].

Gottlieb: I heard-- you used to go back about the same time every year, or was it whenever you had a chance to?

Jones: Well, when I got my vacation in, I was-- when I got my vacation, I always take it in August or September, sometime in June, different parts of the year, whatever I put in for it. I spend the two weeks down there every year. Take the family down and see my wife people all down there too. So I go down every year, and ever since I've been here, I didn't miss a year. I going back down there sometime twice a year. Gottlieb: Mhm.

Gottlieb: Um, how did you like, uh, construction work and working in the steel mill and Westinghouse as compared to working on the farm?

Jones: Well, I like it better because you got-- You got your sure money now, see-- the crops go bad, you're stuck. You have a bad crop year, you just-- you up against it. And so now they-- they don't raise no cotton there now. Gottlieb: They don't? Jones: No, not in South-- Very little. Only big fella got big plantation. They got those tractors now, them mules and all went out, see. You don't see no people in the field now. All them farm where I used to work, you know what's there now? Pulpwood. They-- they come bulldoze. Went in and plowed them and planted pine trees there, every ten years they cut them. That's a big business on that field. That's all you see. All them fields is-- don't see no farmers, you don't see no cotton fields or nothing but just trees. Woods. Not that far apart, just stick and pine. During the war, during Roosevelt's time, he had a CC come. They set out to get pine and it's a big business there now. Gottlieb: Mhm. Jones: My brother in law, he was, he was a-- He was, his job was cutting pulpwood. See, he had a big truck going. He make about $250 a week. Got [??] money. Gave him so much of the cost for cuttin' it and they got a big long truck. We load that truck and carry it up there in a big cable, put it on and they stick it on the car box [??]. Go on back and get another one.

Gottlieb: Did you say your wife was from South Carolina, too?

Jones: Yeah, we went to school together. My father and her father all related, you know, all in the same-- same, same, same neighborhoods and all went the same church.

Gottlieb: Did you go back home to marry her? Did she come up here?

Jones: No, I went down there. Took her down Port Perry. Got married in 1926 and brought her there and started families in 1926, and the first kid was born in 1928. He's-- that's the oldest boy and he's-- he's done. He was in the Navy and he went to the Navy when he was, I think, in 1948. I think he went to the Navy, ever since. Thirty-- soon will be 30 years in there now. He got a job at the Pentagon. Gottlieb: Huh.

Gottlieb: How did-- how did she like it up here? Your wife.

Jones: Beautiful. She liked it fine. You go home every day now and see her folks. She doesn't have to. You haven't had to go to field. Her dad was a farmer, too, so.

Gottlieb: Had you been intending to to marry her when you left?

Jones: Well. Well, I used to look at her when I was little. And I had another girl I was going with down there, and. And she got married while I was away. So I decided to get married. But I'm going down there. I wanted a woman from down South. I didn't-- woman up here. If I wanted to go South, I had somebody go with me. See at that time, I was ______[??]. So I married her. And she liked that girl right.

Gottlieb: You didn't think a Northern-born woman would go South with you?

Jones: No. No, they-- They wouldn't go down there to live. So her folks around there and her brothers and sisters and her relations are all around there too. We all went just back home again. Gottlieb: Yeah, right.

Gottlieb: When you were living up here, when you first came to Pennsylvania, did you notice any difference between, um, Black people who had been born and raised in Pennsylvania and Black people who had come up from the South?

Jones: Well, I'll tell you the truth. Most-- Wasn't any difference. First, more of them I met from some parts of South, all this here, they from Alabama, Georgia. And, you know, the older folks, every one of them from down South somewhere and the younger people born up here. Anybody up in their 50s and 60s, they come the South and they migrated from the South and a lot of-- a lot of the boys left the South on these transportations. You know, it was coal mines. And I almost went on one. A friend of mine went and he come down there, to free transportation-- Gottlieb: From South Carolina? Jones: From South-- yeah, in the town there, man down there with the money, get on the train and go. A lot of boys went away like that. Some of them got into coal mines and a bunch come up here from the South, the workers strike in the mill and the workers strike in the Westinghouse. And they got them fellows in there in 19-1 or 19-2, somewhere back there, somewhere that-- they had a strike down there in the Westinghouse and the guys wouldn't work so they brought them fellows from the South in a car box, they went in there car boxes and you couldn't, they wouldn't lock them-- they ate and they slept in there until they broke that strike. And some of them got good jobs, and went out on the machines and stayed on that good job. They used to be tight there in the Westinghouse. They didn't like-- they had to ja-- a couple janitors [??] and you walk through the second, they throw bolts at you and whistle at you and all that kind of stuff. And now they fight, in the Westinghouse found out that the guys from the South would work better than the guys were born and raised here. Because if you say you're from South Carolina down South, you got a job, they'd hire you. Because if you'd work. These guys born up here, they didn't-- they fool around like-- like these kids born here, they don't want to work.

Gottlieb: Yeah. That's strange, because I've read in a lot of, uh, magazines that were printed back in the 1920s that, uh, uh, managers and employers had a lot of trouble with Black men from the South who would work for a while and then quit. And they even travel around. They used to complain about that a whole lot. Jones: Mhm. Gottlieb: But I've heard other people say, too, that, uh, the, uh, managers used to like to hire Black men from the South because they thought they were good workers.

Jones: They were. They-- they-- lotta them were good. Now, they, they-- those fellas they brought in here from South. You take a fellow coming down there, pretty well-to-do fella, he-- he ain't had it rough. He didn't give a darn see, but the guy had it rough down there. He come here and got a job. He appreciate his job. He stayed with it. And I was one of them. Been outside, outside work all my life. And I got a job inside. Man. I'm gonna stay here because I appreciate it, see? Gottlieb: Yeah. Jones: Yeah. But you take a lot of guys just shipped around, and then they get up here-- fella, old man. Now old men. Old men from the South. You startin' to get them young kids on. That old, old man know the value of a dollar. See, he'll come. He stay with the job. But now here we do-- I know a lot of them used to come up here and work while and get big, buy big car and go back South, you know, and so on. And so-- go in the employment. I went to borrow some money one day and they had a very good-- go to borrow money to get up tight.

Jones: Yeah, $25, something like that. So I went to the money. I was going to buy him some-- I went to get a couple of tons of coal, I don't got no gas or anything. Oh, Mr. Priest is his name. He's the money man, says-- he'd be mad. See, he says, I said, How much? How much you want, Jones? I said, need about $25. I don't know. I don't know if all you fellas from the South-- You come up here and you get a job and first thing on them borrowed money and get a big car that long and going back South with it, right? I said, man, I don't. I-- listen. I don't-- say, I want money for my family. I don't want no money to go to South. I'm working here. I ain't going there. And he kind of got me uptight. I said-- He laughed about that, but I said, Don't you never said to me no more, man. When I was to-- he had to let me have it. Don't tell me what I want to do with the money. I know what I want to do with it. Gottlieb: Mhm. Jones: Yeah.

Gottlieb: Did they have something at Westinghouse they used to call Drag Day? Jones: Yeah.

Jones: You could get your pay in advance.

Gottlieb: Can you tell me a little bit about how that-- How that used to work?

Jones: Well, you did-- you get your pay in advance, see. Say, you're a good worker, see all of them do good work. The guy works there. He go up there, say, you want to-- I think we were getting about $55 every two weeks.

Gottlieb: Was this in the 1920s or later on? Jones: 1920s.

Jones: 30s-- some 25-- and later on the way we gettin' $0.35 an hour. Then they raised the $0.41 an hour and we get $55 every two weeks with five days and a half a week. And we got some overtime Saturdays. There were times, something like that. But then you say you make it, you could get your pay in advance, if you wanted it.

Gottlieb: All of it or just the amount that you had earned up until then?

Jones: You get, say-- You get, say, you get-- you get about $40. Something like that.

Jones: They keep some back there and you could make a drag on any advance. And then-- Then they cut that out. Then they'd loan you some money, and they have good loans and we would borrow $25, $30. They take-- They take it outta your pay.

Gottlieb: Was it-- Was there a certain day on which-- when they had this custom of drag day that they used to allow men to draw their salaries in advance, or could they go in there any time they felt like it?

Jones: Well, any time. Anytime. Go to your boss, get your time slip so they let you have some money in advance until they can-- then got that loan. A personal loan for them boys. They just take it outta your pay. Pay so much as-- $100. Take maybe $10 outta your pay a month til it's paid.

Gottlieb: I was talking with another man who lived over in Homestead, and he was saying that when a man used to go look for a job back then, there were certain questions that the person in the personnel office would ask, the person looking for a job, you know, can you take heat? Different things like that. But then he was telling me that there are other questions that the man looking for a job would ask the personnel manager. Like, how much do you pay here? When is payday and when is drag day? So--

Jones: Now, well, the mill had-- more trouble in the mill than there was Westinghouse. It wasn't so much there in Westinghouse. Westinghouse, they could get their money in advance. Wasn't the regular thing. And I think the mills paid, I think they paid every two weeks too, you know.

Jones: Something like that.

Gottlieb: Once you got that job driving a truck that you stayed right there, you didn't move up any further, in--

Jones: Well, I could have moved up. I could have got a job on the crane and-- a big crane, but I didn't want no job-- I worked outside once and I was working just about as much money as you can class. I had what they call a semi-skilled, and I got to be group leader there for a while. But group-- I got up as high as high group leader there. But yeah, I get 10% working-- I got 10% workin' plus ten-- 10% of a man you had on these group and. I was on that job for a good while. Worked back, I was on third shift, I had a little problem there. That one Italian fella. You know, he-- he, when it come to be group leader, you got seniority. You're entitled to the job. So I had more service than anybody, so I took the group leader job. And he offer that to me, the boss had to offer that to me whether I wanted it or not. They offered a job welding there, see. And-- right inside the plant, there, on the-- repairing trucks and welding. And I went back there and that smoke come around. I didn't want to smell that. I couldn't stand that smoke. So I told the boy I turned that down. I had a chance to get the good job, but I just-- I didn't want it. The job I had wasn't, I was having, was having around, you see, I had-- I'm making around-- I got a top price that was about $120, $130 a week, that union's in there and so, so every job come up they'd put on the board. You can bid on it, you want it. And I, I was just satisfied with the job I had and I retired. The boss had me driving the crane, any job in the big-- put 'em in the big cranes up there, cooped in, all that smoke going up in your face? I didn't want that. So I wanted to get out, when I got in the fresh air and had me in and out that way.

Gottlieb: Would you say that the-- the good friends that you made up here in-- in this part of Allegheny County came from the job, came from people you met on the job, or did they come from, uh, uh, other contacts of people?

Jones: What you mean friends?

Gottlieb: Well, I mean, just, uh. Just the men that you were good friends with up here. Did you meet them on the job, or did you meet them through the church or--

Jones: I met them through the-- On the job and through the church. Uh huh. White, any fellows. When I retired, they had a big banquet for me over there at Boosters Hall. The foreman, the superintendent was there. I got the pictures over there at the house, and I left that with honors. And they give me, you know. And all them white fellows are there. Within my group, I had-- when I was group leader, I had a group there, most of them-- I had two Black fellows and most others white. But this fellow Emmett, he-- he went on daylight work and work under me. See, he was on daylight. He wanted his job, but he didn't have enough seniority. So-- And I didn't bother the guy. You know, he had a-- all of us had a certain amount of work to do. And I'm supposed to sit in the office to get the calls. So when I had a, when I go out, I said, Emmett, you can stay here while I-- I'm going to run and make a few lift down here. Take the job I had to do to, check around. Phone rang, you take the call. Okay. So I went out and come back in there 'bout 2:00 in the morning, you know, it was about 4:00 in the morning, I come back and he says, Jones, you make that lift down WS 2? I said, No, what time have you got it? What time you get the lift call? About 1:00? And you mean tell me you've been sitting here in the office all this time? They wouldn't do the job, and waitin' on me to come and do it? Well, you told me to stay here. I said yeah, but you didn't have to-- You-- I was in and out. You could have told me then. Why-- I said, That's your job, to go do this, ain't you gonna to make it?

Jones: No, I ain't going. No job stays out here. I ain't going to make it. You got the call. You said when I made it, you know-- So well, I said, Well, we see the boss when he come in in the morning. All right. So, boss-- first of all, he started out the gate. I told the boss what happened. He said, Man, foreman-- foreman WS2 complained 'bout the job hadn't been made. See, he had to go shipping jobs. I said, Emmett got that call about 1:00, and he sit in the office til 3:00 in the morning and come and tell me, then I wasn't gonna make it. I told him no, he go ahead and make it. He wouldn't do it. As he goin' out, he called him back. Hey, come back here. What's happening? Well, he says, I. Jones didn't make a lift down WS 2. I say, who got the call? Said, I got the call. He said, Why didn't you make it? He didn't say anything. Well, since I'm going on daylight, so, on daylight. He lost 10% the night. So he went on daylight and he told him, boss told him. Now, listen, Jones group leader here-- what he say, that's what I say. You can't do what he say to do, you ain't going to do what I say to do. He's a group leader. So all other guys standing around there. So he got mad. Well, I don't want on daylight. Well, him and I made, he good friend after, I seen him on daylight, I see him once in a while now. But he just didn't want-- didn't want no Black man to deal with him. So they ain't no problem with other guys. Gottlieb: Yeah.

Gottlieb: Was there ever any times that you used to get together with the men that you worked with outside, outside the Westinghouse and, you know, to socialize or--

Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, they come up here to see me now, Yocko and-- he used to be group leader. And my fellow Menno [ph], he's-- He's over my house here the other day and. And-- they had the picnic at Westinghouse, picnic, we all get together out there, and we have the social-- Yeah, we always had. I told them we oughtta get together and have a reunion sometimes. With a lot of them, a lot of them been passed on and some-- I go to picnic Westinghouse and drop them off this and drop them off. But we always communicate with them, there's relationship there. And I see 'em up in the shopping center sometime. I met a guy up there last week. I haven't seen him in so long. Said, Jonesy, Jonesy. God. And we sit there and talk, and talk. His wife waiting on him. Say, come on now, let's get together sometime. I had a good relationship, all the fellas. In fact, I was all over the shop there. All the foremen. I meet them once in a while, and some of the women done retired. I meet them once in a while because I was all over the shop. See, I know a lot of guys. I knew them, didn't know me, but I didn't know them by name. I know the face. I saw a fella later. Hey, Jonesy. How are you doing? I said, I'm good. I know you. I didn't want to let him know I didn't know his name. I couldn't tell you that guy name to save my life. I know his face and with him the same way. Gottlieb: Hm.

Gottlieb: You said you had an uncle living in the Hill District when you came up here?

Jones: He up-- no, he live in Homewood. He had a-- they bought a house on Monticello Street then back there. Were no Blacks in Homewood back then. You know, only about 3 or 4 Colored families livin' there.

Gottlieb: But you were at that time rooming in Braddock?

Jones: Yeah, I live in-- yeah.

Gottlieb: Why did-- why did you stay with your uncle?

Jones: Well, there wasn't out here see, you see, I go up there, 60, get a bus and go to-- go to Homewood. After I got the job, I could have lived with him. He wanted me to come and stay with him, but I didn't know how to get around. I was stranger around here and I didn't know how to get down to these mills. So a straight shot in the west, in the steel mill on the car, straight across to Westinghouse, see. And that's where the West was. Gottlieb: Yeah. Jones: I got-- down there I had to get a car and come out here and I didn't know how to get around too good. So I stays there a week and learned the town pretty good. I had that-- did that too [??].

Gottlieb: The, uh, the steel mill you worked in was the Homestead-- Jones: [simultaneous talking] Homestead. Gottlieb: Uh huh. Why-- Why didn't you board in Homestead then? When--

Jones: I didn't know nobody. I had to go-- board the place where I was. Only-- you get three trips for a quarter or you could walk. I walk there a lot of times, you had to pay toll. I had to pay toll to go across that bridge, that wooden bridge that in 1926, 27, you had to pay $0.05 to walk across the bridge. So I saved that nickel. I go down and walk across the Union Railroad Bridge, I said. Gottlieb: Yeah. Jones: Go in a car, in a car, you had to pay a quarter to go across the bridge. Gottlieb: Yeah. Jones: Til they built a new bridge. So it was more and then I-- down at the center of the two places now after I got to Homestead, I have three trips for a quarter to ride the streetcar or you could walk. You-- I was a good walker then. I played ball five years in Washington, DC, and I was a good actor then. I run races and jumping and playing ball. That was my hobby. Walking was nothing. I walked from here to Pittsburgh and think nothing of it. Gottlieb: Yeah. Um.

Gottlieb: What did you think of, uh, of Braddock and Homestead and so forth.

Jones: Well, Homestead was pretty rough then. See, back then they have that red light district there. You go down to red light, they walk up right on you. Well, I don't ever do that, they tore all that down. You walked down there and then women, White and Black, knock on the windows. Prostitutes. Gottlieb: Yeah. Jones: I went down there. I just walk down there. I didn't-- I said I never in all my life getting around, I never went to a whore house. I-- And I'd be sittin' havin' a drink, the women-- [knocking sound]. Some of them guys go down on payday. The White people went to Blacks. The Black ones went to Whites. All that kind of stuff. Dog eat dog. And then there's, that's the one spot, and they tore it all out.

Gottlieb: What about Braddock? Was that like Homestead at that time?

Jones: Well, it had one place in Braddock up on Center Street there in Braddock. A little hot house up in there. My friend, I board him [??], but he was telling me about it. Oh, man, I ain't going there. I was singing to them, they were-- Gottlieb: Well, what-- Jones: Suppoise, uh, well, all of them-- You find them in every town you go in, you're going to find some hole, a rat hole, you know, like that. Every town like that. Somewhere there they got their own little high class, now, see, and they don't have the red light district and call the red light district. But now they got these motels. What the heck the difference is. [Laughs] On high level, see. Gottlieb: Yeah, but--

Gottlieb: So Braddock was a little bit, uh, less rough place than Homestead.

Jones: [simultaneous talking] Yeah. Well, it was better. On the weekend, only, the only time you had trouble, was nobody working then. There was parties and there wasn't much fighting and booze and stuff. I didn't-- I tell you the truth, in all my going, I went to-- I didn't-- I didn't-- I didn't-- I stayed away from them rough places. I-- the first thing I do when I go to town, I join the church, see? And from the church I recommended somewhere, some place decent, see, and such. I didn't-- I didn't just go in there, walk in the house. When I first went to Washington, DC, my cousin livin' there. He was livin' there with a woman, and see, shackin' up, and I didn't know it till I got there. And so he-- she had a sister living there and he said to me, he said, Well, Jones, Ethel ain't coming back so you can take the other room. Okay. I went to bed about 2:00 in the morning. She come in and, and come on. And got in the bed with me and they ain't-- I was in there, I had about $75 around my waist in my money belt, you know, and I had it around my waist and, and she come in crawlin' to bed and went, went down to the bathroom and changed her clothes and put her gown on. Most like to be there. I froze. I didn't want to go. I-- she don't know who I am, never seen me. And ain't askin' no questions. That got-- the woman got that much nerve. I don't want no parts of her, I said. Next morning I got up early before they and started walking to it was my aunt's house and I stayed over there. I ain't nobody go back there no more. But a thing like that. See, I didn't-- I always kept myself clean. And I was-- I stay out of rough place. Gottlieb: Yeah.

Gottlieb: Is that how you found the the place to board in Braddock? Jones: Yeah. Gottlieb: By going to the church? Jones: Yeah.

Jones: They told me, Miss Jackson, she had a decent place down there. Jennie Jackson, a nice room. Right down-- Right down Sixth Street there.

Gottlieb: What church was it that you went to for?

Jones: I went to New Hope. New Hope on Sixth Street. I went to Holloway Memorial on the corner of Sixth and Tyler. And that's how I found my uncle. I went to New Hope. I didn't know I'm coming here tonight. A taxi cab took me all-- I had the wrong address, see. I just looked behind. I got a cab, went all the way down there and went to the police station. So that's when I come back from there. I met a fella and he said to come to church on Saturday night, Sunday morning. And I saw this fella that the clerk at the church and I asked him if he had my uncle's address in Homewood. And then his fella at the station there, he told me that Ms. Jennie Jackson, she's a nice lady. She has boarders. I paid $10 a week, room and board. I paid two weeks in advance and then I-- I run out. I ain't got no job. I'm not leavin' yet. So Imma get a job.

Gottlieb: Uh, did you eventually join New Hope? Jones: Hm? Gottlieb: Did you eventually join-- Jones: [simultaneous talking] I did join New Hope, yeah.

Gottlieb: Was there any particular reason why you joined that congregation and not another one?

Jones: Well, that was the closest one to me. See, was Baptist Church. I was raised a Methodist. And I-- I got the Baptist in 1920. My dad was a Methodist. See, I was raised in a Methodist church. But after I went to Washington, DC, I got into Baptist Church there and then I come here and I went to-- our covenant says the nearest church to you is the same faith. So I joined New Hope. Then after I left New Hope, I come to East Pittsburgh. I started going to Port Perry, the church in Port Perry, and there was school down there and I-- and they got me to be Superintendent of Sunday School there and I got teaching course.

Jones: And I was ordained a Deacon there. And then in 1927, we bought five lots and built this church here on the Hill. We started in March and they finished and moved into the place, everything, that was in November that same year. What we did, the mills, it was that hotel on that, two story brick hotel, white brick-- mill, the steel mill, give it to us and we tear it down. We tore that building down and brought them bricks up here and built a church out of 13,000 bricks. I never get that. 13,000 bricks. I don't know how we got them up there. We would borrow cars and and we, we had a pile 'em up then and we clean bricks every day. Like that down there, white and colored out there cleaning bricks. Good with. Yeah.

Gottlieb: Um, did you ever join any, uh, fraternal organizations in Pennsylvania?

Jones: Not here, no. I was in American Women in Washington, D.C., but I never did join the Masonic. Churches, most-- I spent most of my life in churches and schools and Boy Scouts and civic service like. And I'm retired, after I retired from Westinghouse, the church bought this building there, see. And-- and it's all just about when they went nowhere. I got involved with Model City and-- and Jack Milbury started-- She had Model City in Pittsburgh all the time but nothing come out of the rural district. I mean, the director went to Harrisburg and stayed for about three days and met the senator and got 80, 80, $80,000 to come down to McKeesport for the rural called Magnya. And I got involved in it. She got enough money through the federal government to renovate this building, and church leases to OYO [??]. And so we got a preschool in the other room and I got money to renovate this building and put the one in the, in the restroom downstairs and use it as a center. And before that time, the school, the school disband the building back in these days. 'Spect all my kids-- older kids went to school there, had two classes in this room and two classes in another room. First, second, third and fourth grade was here. And then they built a junior high school down there. And next time, built one up at Green Valley, one up at Sunset and they got the kids out there going down there to school. Now they had to walk down to Lincoln Highway for school. So we put the-- the Lincoln Highway along there in 1931. They cut that path off there, see, they used to go down and they had to go across that highway.

Jones: A bunch of kids about oh, 3 or 4 busloads, about five busloads of kids. All the kids had go down there. So we went up there to get a bus, you know, too dangerous kids to go across that highway. So went to school board meeting one time and told them about getting a bus for the kids. Oh, can't get the money. They had to rent the buses then. So we went up there again and I said, Now I told the school director, I said, Look, since the school, the bus says, the law says the kid ain't supposed to walk more than mile. So now we got a, we got a quarter mile and a half to walk from all the way out, took the furthest house over there, see. Around that road and down there's a mile. Took a car a mile and a half. Say, we got to have transportation. So all we came to-- He give us-- And our next meeting is if-- if I ain't got no answer on this, I'm going to fill this schoolhouse up with folks, gonna bring some chairs. You sit down there. The parents not going to let them kid walk on that road. So-- So the next night I had a crowd of folks that had-- that had standing room. So after that, they made him-- told the superintendent, the principal rather that Mr.-- see Ford Transit Company [??] when he made a deal with him to rent a bus, took the kids to school. That's why he got this guy. Then the school, got to a good school and bought all the buses and that's the start of that. And I feel that's good luck. Yes, sir.

Gottlieb: Were you ever asked to join a fraternal organization? Ever approached by anybody?

Jones: Yes, I've been-- well, once I was talking about it. But, you know, they don't-- they don't canvass that much. But I asked about it, but I didn't-- in fact, I didn't-- I never did join it.

Gottlieb: Is it your impression that these kind of organizations among Black men used to be stronger back in the days when you were first living up here than they are now? Jones: Yeah. Gottlieb: Organizations like the Knights of Pythias and the Oddfellows and--

Jones: Yeah, yeah. They used to be pretty strong. But the young fellows-- older fellows still are hanging on, but all the younger fellows don't go into it too fast.

Gottlieb: Why is that?

Jones: I don't know. I never. I ain't know. Of course I didn't-- I know quite a few old fellows have goin' to. Fact my brother's in it down South. I never did get involved in it. The young fellows don't seem to go for it.

Jones: And I don't have to do much about it because I didn't get involved. Fellas told me, man said, you ought to be-- You wouldn't have no problem getting into it, you would-- we want men like yous. But one fella's up here and I read a-- Masonics, you know, they got some restriction there, and I saw some fellows in there. We used to have some, you know, they have a-- A code of ethics that you would have some principle about you. And the man's supposed to take.