Document text
Forms to be Filled Out tor LN;/ch Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE 1m mui
NAME OF WORKER DOROTHY WEST 228 W. 22nd St. New York City
ADDRESS 228 W. 22nd St. New York City
DATE September 15, 1938
SUBJECT INTERVIEW WITH MS. TOMMIE CLICKO.
1. Date and time of interview
September 14, 1938 1-3 P. M.
2. Place of interview
Home of informant.
3. Name and address of informant
Mrs. Tommy Clicko
272 Manhattan Avenue
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Middle-class nQighborhood: Negroes, Porto Ricans and a scattering
of Creeks and Irish Informant has bedroom and living room and the
i use of the kitchen n a 5 room apartment. Interview in living room:
furnished with an overstuffed sofa and overstuffed chair. One
straight chair, an old-fashioned radio with bench, an upright card
table, 2 smoking stands. There is a fireplace in the room and on the
mantle there were two china figures of the kind popular a generation
ago Smoked throughout interview.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading ancUthe nufWer to which the material refers.)
FORM
Personal RisIory of Informant
STATE NEW yam
NAME OF WORKER Dorothy West
mingSs 228 W. 22nd St. New York City
DATE September 15, 1938
SUBJECT INTERVIEW WITH MRS. TOMMIE CLICK°.
1. Ancestry
American Negro
2. Place and date of birth
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
Atlanta, Georgia October 26, 1879
3. Family
Husband in Sea View. Daughter married and living elsewhere.
4. Places lived in, with dates
Atlanta until 1898, St. Louis, Chicago, Ohio and has been in
New York 20 or more years. Has lived in the North for 39 years
5. Education, with dates
Grade school
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
Dressmaker
7. Special skills and interests
Card playing. (Social)
8. Community and religious activities
None because of ill health.
9. Description of informant
51 4i", weighs 120 lbs. Beautiful warm brown skin. Black hair
mixed with gray. Gold ear -rings. Spry, upright carriage -scarcely
looking her 59 yeara. Dry humor.
10. Other Points gained in interview
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE NEW YORK
NAME OF WORKER Dorothy West
ADDRESS228 W. 22nd St. New York City
DAVE September 15, 1938
SUBJECT INTERVIEW WITH MRS. TOMMIE CLICKO.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
I was born in Atlanta, Georgia: I'll be 59 next month.
I'm getting so old I can't remember anything. I read something this
morning in the paper and I couldn't explain (repeat) it fifteen
minutes later. I'll be 59 on October 26 and I had to go to some
old insurance papers to get that. My memory isn't any good anymore.
I've forgotten the day I got married. I know the date was December 14,
1898.
We used to play "Spinning the -Plate" and "Ring Around the
Rosey-Bush".
"Spinning the Plate"
You spin the plate...yes, an ordinary plate.., and if it
stays up and doesn't fall, you're the winner. TUE) one who gets five
out of nine (player who spins it five out of nine times) is the head
boy. Then the head boy had to kiss you. Boys and girls played
together and took turns. You didn't want to kiss when you was a
young lady.
"Ring Around the Rosey-Budh"
You had a ring and then you'd choose the prettiest girl.
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She'd choose the prettiest boy. Then the next prettiest and so
on. When you'd choose somebody, you'd kiss...I don't remember
the words. I'll have to see a cousin of mine. She's a woman
sixty-four years old and don't wear glasses. She'll remember. She's
got a remarkable memory...
I've been North 39 years. I went to S. Louis after my
marriage in 1898. My husband was a music -writer (informant is now
married to second husband). Then we went to Chicago where he git a
substantial salary.
I've got the first insurance policy given to Negroes. I
got it 42 years ago in the South. There were 13 policies put out by
the Providence Life. They called them all in but I've still got mine.
The Metropolitan tried to buy it back but I wouldn't sell it. Forty-
two years ago I got it.
(A man cane in to see the informant, a friend, and the
informant's daughter celled him "Peppy", which is apparently his
nick -name. The informant called him a "boy". In appearance the man
looked as old or older than Mrs. Click° but she explained that he
was "only 42" and "just a boy".)
They're wearing "Bird of Paradise" again. The young folks
are wearing them on their hats. 'Course oil folks ain't wearing 'em
so much. I've got some Birds of Paradise" and ostrich plumes. I've
had 'em for thirty years. I've got $400 worth of stuff in there. (She
gestured toward her bedroom.) I was offered $35 for 'em but I wouldn't
sell tem. $400 worth of stuff. I'm noteping to sell 'em for $35.
I went to a spiritualist last night. It was the first time
I've ever been to one...Once before I went. I lost a diamond necklace,
diamonds set in platinum, aml I told a friend about losing my necklace
and she told me to go to a spiritualist. I went to her and she told
me that I'd get it back, and that Ileperson who had it would surprise
me to death. Right after that I was invited out to dinner. I didn't
know that Cher hostess) knew those people, and on the woman's
neck was my necklace. I put my hands up to her neck to take it off
and she resented it so I took her tool...I went to this woman last
night and she told me that a lady was coming to me me today on a good
mission. She told me not to be leery because Christianity was behind
it. (She hesitated.) Lessen another one comint with Christianity
behind her. That old woman gave out a number about three months ago.
The people played it and sire enough it cane out. A woman in this house
hit. She gave out a number last night and said that for all those
who believe in the books she was giving 'em a number. She said to play
it for nine days. One old woman was at the meeting last night and she had
hit on the minter the spiritualist womln had given out before. She said,
"I cotched th! number ant it tickles". You don't pay to go in(the
spiritualist meeting) but *hen you gp, you drop in something like a penny
or two pennys. Just mme little something. That makes her carfare.
(The informant's daughter, and a neighbor in the apartnent
house had come in widths conversation was general and could not be held
to any particular topic. The informant was not encouraged to continuo
her conversation because the other iwo women in the room were too young
to make any real contribution to the interview, and they were entering
into everything that the informant was saying.)
If I ever get old, I'd like to go to the old folks! home.
It's nice out there. Out there at Sea View they've got a nice one.
It's a nice building and they've got little apartnentsblike. Each
little apartment has a kitchenette with everything in it. There is
an old couple out there. They went out there —they didn't have to
go, but they wanted their children to have as much as they can and
not be bothered with them, so they went out there. They're happy
and satisfied. The only thing is, they can't sleep together. They just
have single beds in the rooms. He sleeps in his little room and she
sleeps in hers.
I see where Mrs. (an acquaIntance of the informant)
was arrested for numbers. That woman certainly does stink! She never
took a bath in her life. That's the truth...White folks we like that,
too. They're filthy. They don't like water...Mrs. got more
money than all of us put together but she's dirty and stingy. She
used to buy a roast on Saturday for Sunday. Then she'd have roast -beef,
pork, it wasn't always the same kind of roast...for Sunday, Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Then she'd have fish on Friday and
Saturday and start all over again with a mast on Sunday. If she cooked
lima beans or white beans, she'd count them before she put 'em in the
pot. Then when she got ready to put 'em on your plate, sbe counted 'em
again. Rice the same way. You know when a woman's starts countin'
grains of rice, she's crazy or something. And you'd better not ask for
a second helping. You wouldn't get it. Her husband neither. He really
loves her, as much as she smells. He's beint held in a $1500 bail,too.
One Christmas a bunch of us got together ad bought six bars of Lirebuoy
soap and a box of mum and fixed it up pretty and sent it to her through
the mail. You know what happened? It was the funniest thingl She
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didn't know who sent it to her so she gave it to us. She said she
didn't use "any Lifebuoy soap". Said she didn't need it.
(The informant's daughter began to talk to and tease her
mother after the neighbor had left the apartment. The two following
expressions were used by the informant in speaking of her daughter:
16
"she's got on her talkinl hat aid shoes today" she feels like taling.
A
"I don't take no teeth from fever" I won't brook impudence and.
impertinence.
FORE D
Extra Comment
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Dorothy West
ADDRESS New York City
DATE September 14, 1938
SUBJECT Interview with Mrs. Tommie Click°.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
Informant was very friendly throughout interview. Interviewer
feels that the interview would have been much more fruitful had the informant
been alone. Informant has promised to recall as much of her early life as she
can between this and a second interview.
Informant's husband is at Sea View Sanitarium for tuberculosis.
Informant is herself ill with the same complaint.