first outing came when Katrina was six weeks old. With a dollar in her purse, Irene took Katrina to the Baylor well-baby clinic on the bus; the fare was 10 cents round trip. The doctor’s visit was 25 cents. But the best part for Irene was when she treated herself to ten cents’ worth of freshly cooked Spanish peanuts from Woolworth’s, a treat she continued to enjoy until the nut counters were discontinued in the sixties. They usually came home with money left from the dollar.
Irene’s brother, James was a tall, dark, and handsome bachelor and he lived nearby. He was the first and most constant visitor. He bought beautiful sundresses for the baby and often took her up the hill, on his shoulders to “show her off” to the some other relatives who lived in the Circle section of Dallas. He was and still is a big part of Katrina’s life. They talk about baseball and politics. He has explained about the Great Depression and its effect on his formerly prosperous family. He tried to join the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) at age sixteen. He was refused and was encouraged to stay in school. He graduated from high school and was able to join at that time. The training gave him a foundation for his forty-year career at the phone company in Dallas.
Katrina was the focus of attention for eighteen months, until Uly Junior was born. Even with the addition of Sondra, eighteen months after Uly Junior, Katrina felt loved and special. She had Aunt Lizzie’s heart, as Uly Junior had Irene’s heart, and Sondra had Uly’s heart. It worked out just right: three children and three adults each proclaiming one child “special.” This family was to determine Katrina’s foundation and future.
I am with Mama Ag on her 100th birthday. My middle name is for her.
The Big Trip
The family had increased by one with the birth of Uly Junior The economy was booming in the nation’s war -related industries. The boom had little effect for a city-bred colored man who still existed on pick-up and seasonal jobs in Dallas.
Jim Crow was the term used to describe the segregation and limitations put on black people, limiting their full participation in ordinary activities. It included laws to regulate and separate Negroes’ participation in miscegenation (intermarriage), education, transportation, public accommodations (bathrooms, water fountains), recreation and entertainment, and voting rights. Jim Crow was used to justify separate water fountains, being unable to try on clothes to buy, sitting in the back of the bus, sitting only in the colored sections of theaters, experiencing job discrimination and being denied to the right to vote. The most feared enforcement was administered through the terrorism of the Klu Klux Klan.
Ulysses’ confident personality was in direct conflict with the “yes-sir-boss” attitude he was expected to demonstrate on the job. The Jim Crow laws and rules rankled him—he didn’t like using back doors, sitting in movie balconies, or riding in the back of the bus. He knew there was a better way to fulfill his dreams and provide for his family. From his brother George, who was now living in Los Angeles, he heard about that great land, California. George wrote that permanent, well-paying jobs were going begging. There was plenty to do in Los Angeles for a smart hard-working colored man like Uly. Using money he had saved for the thousand-mile train trip, off he went to see what he could do in the golden state. In 1941, Uly left his newborn son, his toddler daughter, and his wife and aunt to investigate the job and housing markets in Los Angeles.
While he searched for a job and a house, he lived with his brother George who had purchased a home in the mid-city area of Los Angeles. George and his wife Earnestine always would be childless and the special aunt and uncle for all their nieces and nephews.
George helped Uly find a job right away at Hughes aircraft factory. Although the U.S. was not yet at war, the defense industry was big especially in Los Angeles, with ship-building in Long Beach and aircraft assembly in Culver City. He was making good money and qualified for housing reserved for those who worked in defense.
Uly soon found the perfect house for his wife, mother, and two children. It was a three-bedroom home. The three bedrooms and the bathroom were upstairs. The living room and kitchen were downstairs. It was part of a large complex rented exclusively to people who were employed in the defense industry. He wrote that they should come, sending money for the train tickets.
Aunt Lizzie took care of selling her house. We always assumed that Aunt Lizzie had money from the sale of her home, but nobody knows. She had built her own home after her preacher husband “ran off” to Chicago to be with a woman.
She did not mourn nor did she want to be pitied; instead she picked herself up built her own home. This was in the 1930’s and one can imagine what kind of money troubles most people were having. There were hours and hours of speculation among her children as to what she did with the proceeds from the sale of the house, where the money was, or if there was any money. She was silent on the subject. To this day, we don’t know.
Aunt Lizzie and Irene packed up their furnishings and other belongings and had them shipped to Los Angeles by truck. They would travel light for the train trip, since they had to take supplies for themselves, an infant, and a toddler.
Irene was excited to be going to a new home, but worried about taking care of the children during the trip, especially in the crowded Jim Crow railroad car. Irene knew she needed to warm bottles, eat wholesome food, and keep the family comfortable for the long train trip.
Under Jim Crow laws, Negroes in the South in those days were assigned to the “colored” car, with no such amenities as dining car, Pullman beds, or upgraded seats. Most travelers brought a “box”, supplied by relatives they were leaving behind. It most often contained a two-day supply of food for the trip. They also brought cleansing supplies and a change of clothes for the arrival. Regardless, the colored travelers were all packed in together and there was no “service.”
Irene felt forever grateful for a dining car porter who made it his business to take care of the young family. He took the baby’s bottles to the kitchen’s refrigerator and warmed a bottle when it was time for Uly Junior to be fed. This was done in some secrecy because the porters were not supposed to serve the colored car. In those days women did not nurse their babies outside their own bedrooms; the bottle had to do.
The Davis family joined the six million American blacks who left the South, migrating to the big cities of the west, Midwest, and north for better jobs, better opportunities, and to escape Jim Crow. Known as “The Great Migration” in U S History, it took place in two separate waves during the first half of the 20th century, starting with the industrial revolution and the availability of factory jobs in the North and West.
The second wave was in the 1980’s and was a reversal of the previous migration. These were the Southern transplants and their children who had not lived in the south. Black people “went home”. The South had changed and Black families found reasons to return to the south: Jim Crow died after the civil rights movement, factory jobs dried up, the young people had graduated from traditional black colleges remained, the new industrial south blossomed, the first wave of baby-boomers retired, kinship ties and family property beckoned. This reverse wave of the Great Migration gave rise to an increase in the black population in the South, particularly for upper-middle class families. Ironically, the reasons for Blacks return to the south were the same reasons Negros left two generations before: Jim Crow was reborn as urban de facto segregation, the south offered better jobs and better opportunities. The circle closes.
The Good Life
Aunt Lizzie, Irene, and the babies were met at Union
