Truevine
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“quiet complicity of the federal government in their servitude”: Ibid., 382.
Doubts that brothers could give informed consent: Author interview, Antoinette Harrell, May 7, 2015.
Brothers’ visits home to Ballyhack and Jordan’s Alley: Author interview, Myrtle Phanelson, Aug. 5, 2015.
Ballyhack deed paid off: “Second Settlement of Accounts,” April 1938 to December 1949, Hustings Court, City of Roanoke, VA, Chancery Order Book No. 49, p. 9.
FHA guaranteed few loans to blacks: Trevor M. Kollmann and Price V. Fishback, “The New Deal, Race, and Home Ownership in the 1920s and 1930s,” Department of Economics, University of Arizona, 2010.
Harriett rarity in home ownership: William J. Collins and Robert A. Morgo, “Race and Home Ownership: 1900 to 1990,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 1999. Among white Americans in 1940 figures, 43 percent owned their own homes. The white-black home ownership gap was at its highest in 1960.
Sheep-Headed Men: Clyde Beatty Russell Brothers photograph from circus photo collection no. 18, Circus World Museum, Baraboo, WI, 1944.
Brothers popular along Texas-Mexico border: “Kortes El Paso Biz Holding Up,” Billboard, Jan. 1, 1944.
Brothers conversed easily with Price: Author interview, Dave Price, Jan. 26, 2015.
fondly remembered fellow performer: Paul McWilliams worked 185 days in 1937 and earned $1,266.17—about double Willie’s pay at the time, according to Ringling pay-scale sheets on file at Circus World Museum. (Willie earned $1,007.25 in 1937 for 347 days worked.)
Debated whether to spend money on clothes or woman: Daniel Mannix, Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others (Brooklyn, NY: power-House Books, 1976), 89.
“Everyone on the circus loved them”: Albert Tucker, “The Strangest People on Earth,” Sarasota (FL) Sentinel, July 7, 1973.
Ship and airline manifests from 1940s and ’50s: George and Willie list Kortes’s address in Pasadena, CA, as their home base, ancestry.com. They also list him as their primary contact on the World War II draft registration cards.
Brothers recalled as shy: Author interview, Judy Rock Tomaini, April 25, 2001.
Al Tomaini “peek-proof”: “Life Visits Carnival Town,” Life, June 1983.
Al Tomaini’s generosity: Judy Rock Tomaini, interview by Kim Wilmath, Tampa Bay (FL) Times, Sept. 2, 2010.
Jeanie Tomaini’s tricycle: “Life Visits Carnival Town,” Life, June 1983.
“their value as exhibits declined”: Author interview, Robert Bogdan, via e-mail, Aug. 10, 2015.
Life on Ward Hall show: Author interview, Bruce Snowdon, May 5, 2001: “You get asked the same question over and over; just a total lack of imagination. Sometimes I address the whole group: ‘Just listen carefully—I weigh 712 pounds,’” from Jen McCaffery and Beth Macy, “Where Did All the Freaks Go?,” Roanoke Times, July 13, 2001.
Hall recalls final acts: Author interview, Ward Hall, Sept. 5, 2014, and “Melvin the Human Blockhead Dies,” National Public Radio, Nov. 13, 2001.
Closing of Giant’s Camp: Kim Wilmath, “Big Boot to Return to Former Gibsonton Giant’s Camp,” Tampa Bay (FL) Times, Sept. 9, 2010.
Willie’s old wig: Author interview, Ward Hall.
Melvin Burkhart’s start on sideshow: “Life Visits Carnival Town,” Life, June 1983.
Burkhart’s memories of brothers: Author interview, Melvin Burkhart, April 26, 2001.
“Don’t be unevenly yoked”: Author interview, Sarah Showalter, April 29, 2015.
“Come sit on my big fat knee”: Cutie Muse, interview by Jen McCaffery, Roanoke Times series, Spring 2001.
Harriett “right proud”: Author interview, Mozell Witcher, Nov. 8, 2013.
The brothers’ musical prowess: Author interview, J. Harry Woody, April 1, 2016.
Shady Caribbean dealings: Author interview, Bob Blackmar, Feb. 16, 2015.
Typical show route with Kortes: “Heavy Traveling Kortes Attraction Plays San Juan,” Billboard, Nov. 24, 1951.
Chapter Fifteen. Wilbur and John
Interviews: Sarah Showalter, Dan Webb, Madaline Daniels, Douglas Pardue, JoAnne Poindexter, Mary “Sug” Davis, Willie Mae Ingram, Lawrence Mitchell
Checks from Kortes bounced: “Second Settlement of Accounts,” April 1938 to December 1949, Hustings Court, City of Roanoke, VA, Book No. 49, pp. 4–8. The bad check was written for $113.85, and Austin’s committee had to pay almost $5 in bad-check charges.
Austin’s travels to collect back pay: Hustings Court, Chancery Order Book No. 43, p. 313, July 2, 1954.
Miss Irene and John Houp as community leaders and store owners: Author interviews, Sarah Showalter, April 28 and 29, 2015.
Boswell as slumlord: Author interview, Dan Webb, Roanoke City housing inspector, Aug. 13, 2015.
Rent collectors forcing sex on young women who couldn’t pay: Author interview, Madaline Daniels, Aug. 5, 2015.
Running water availability in Jordan’s Alley: Author interview, Lawrence Mitchell, April 1, 2016.
J. W. Boswell, realty-company founder: Raymond Barnes, A History of the City of Roanoke (Radford, VA: Commonwealth Press, 1968), 283, 309, 403, 419, 540.
Collecting rent on horseback: “An elderly woman on Gregory Avenue N.E. told me before World War II that she remembered my father coming on horseback to collect rent,” John Boswell Jr. said of his father. “Later he drove a Reo automobile that cranked on the side. Our oldest rental account dates from August 1893,” from M. Carl Andrews, “Early Realtor Came with Rails,” Roanoke World-News, March 9, 1976.
Urban renewal as “Negro removal”: Mary C. Bishop, “How Urban Renewal Uprooted Black Roanoke,” Roanoke Times, Jan. 29, 1995.
Madeline Tate’s death: Douglas Pardue, “Madeline Adams Tate: Now She Is a Number,” Roanoke Times, Jan. 26, 1985.
Demolition of Tate’s house: Author interview, Webb.
Conditions of Tate’s house: Douglas Pardue, “Death Leads City to Act Against Poor Housing,” Roanoke Times, Feb. 2, 1985.
How slumlords dealt with tenant complaints: Author interview (via e-mail), Douglas Pardue, July 28, 2015.
Henrietta Lacks born half-block from Jordan’s Alley: Loretta Pleasant was born at 28 12th St. S.W. “A midwife named Fannie delivered her into a small shack on a dead-end road overlooking the train depot, where hundreds of freight cars came and went each day,” according to Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown, 2010).
Lacks’s memorial: A marker for Lacks was eventually erected in 2010, paid for by a scientific researcher working at the Morehouse School of Medicine, according to Denise M. Watson, “After Sixty Years of Anonymity, Henrietta Lacks Has a Headstone,” Virginian-Pilot, May 30, 2010.
Tate’s tombstone: Belinda Harris, 1985 Looking Back column, reprinted May 24, 2010, Roanoke Times.
Boswell was the cheapest: Author interview, JoAnne Poindexter, May 2, 2015.
Housing codes in Rugby: Harris, 1965 Looking Back column, reprinted Aug. 17, 2015, Roanoke Times.
“Unmitigated socialism”: “John Boswell, Ex-Councilman, Dies at 67,” Roanoke Times and World-News, Feb. 28, 1979. The quote was recycled in his obituary, like an epitaph.
Harriett’s outstanding debts at time of death: “Second Settlement of Accounts,” Hustings Court, Chancery Order Book No. 49, pp. 4–8.
“Mama’s gone” repeated: Author interviews, Mary “Sug” Davis and Willie Mae Ingram, Nov. 11, 2014.
Chapter Sixteen. God Is Good to Me
Interviews: Dr. Craig Mitchell, Margaret Ursprung, Diane Rhodes, Jason Banks, June Lowe, Nancy Saunders, Louise Burrell, George Nicely, Bob Shelton, Reginald Shareef, Teresia McNabb, David Lawrence
feat in minority home ownership: 1960 U.S. Census figures and “African Americans and Home Ownership: Separate and Unequal, 1940 to 2006,” Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Brief no. 1, November 2007.
House calls to Willie: Author interview, Dr. W. Craig Mitchell, April 27, 2001.
“He talks to God the way he
would talk to you and me”: Margaret Ursprung, interview by Jen McCaffery, Roanoke Times, April 2001.
Willie’s fond recollections of snow cream: Author interview, Diane Rhodes, April 29, 2001.
He plays “Tipperary” first: Willie Muse’s singing recorded by Nancy and Howard Saunders, 1998–2001.
Willie’s advice to Jason: Author interview, Jason Banks, April 25, 2015.
Willie’s visits with nurses and children: Author interview, June Lowe, May 11, 2015.
Candy Shelton’s later life: Alex Shoumatoff, Florida Ramble (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 46–47.
Shelton’s last circus gig: “Dressing Room Gossip,” Billboard, Nov. 16, 1946.
Shelton’s life after circus: Author interviews, George Nicely and Bob Shelton, and city directories for Petersburg, VA, 1952 and 1955; Candy and Lillian Shelton lived in Centralia, VA, in the early to mid-1950s.
Shelton lost touch with extended family: Author interviews, Don Nicely and Bob Shelton, May 10, 2015.
Ministers from Dahomey: A major center in the Atlantic slave trade, Dahomey was taken over by the French in 1894 and, after independence, was renamed Benin.
the sideshow has mostly come and gone: Robert Bogdan, Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 2, 280.
Shelton’s death: Florida Death Index, 1877–1998, ancestry.com. He was buried next to his wife, Lillian, in Oak Ridge Cemetery, in Inverness, FL.
Largely unnoticed success of Goody Shop: Author interview, Reginald Shareef, Sept. 10, 2014.
Big John Clarke as regular customer and friend: Author interview, Nancy Saunders, Feb. 11, 2015.
stunner of a spelling error: “Norfolk Southern Building Has Engraving Error,” Richmond (VA) Times–Dispatch, July 12, 1982.
Nancy’s lawsuit against Carilion on Willie’s behalf: Teresia McNabb, interview by Jen McCaffery, Roanoke Times; author interview, David Lawrence, May 12, 2015.
a settlement worth $250,000: Sandra Brown Kelly, “104-Year-Old Wins $250,000 Settlement; Man Suffered Burn at Carilion Hospital,” Roanoke Times, Sept. 9, 1997. According to documents on file at the courthouse, the settlement covered the duration of Willie’s home-health care. At the time of his death, he had cash assets of $7,004, $4,000 of which was divided equally among his four nieces, and the rest went to Nancy. Also listed among his belongings were his hospital gown, some clothing, and his guitar.
“Happy Birthday to You”: Originally written as “Good Morning to All” was written by sisters Patty and Mildred Hill in 1893, and the “Happy Birthday” change was copyrighted by their publisher in 1935, according to Paul Collins, “You Say It’s Your Birthday,” Slate, July 21, 2011.
Funeral hymn: Ronald Lanier sang the hymn “I Won’t Complain.”
Epilogue. Markers
Interviews: Erika Turner, Nancy Saunders
Recent voter-restriction efforts: “Voter ID in the States,” ballotpedia.org; see also Jim Rutenberg, “A Dream Undone,” New York Times Magazine, Aug. 2, 2015.
Increase in police brutality against unarmed black people: “The Counted: People Killed by Police in the U.S.,” as of August 2015, Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database.
Racial divide over discussions of race: 2015 YouGov survey: https://today.yougov.com/news/2015/03/18/whites-blacks-divided-whether-we-talk/.
Tuskegee Airmen buried in cemetery: LeRoi S. Williams, a second lieutenant in the 332 Fighter Group, was killed in a midair collision over Selfridge, Michigan, at the age of twenty-four. His younger brother, Eugene W. Williams, also a second lieutenant, died during the Berlin Airlift, also at age twenty-four. Roanoke’s Ralph V. Claytor, also a second lieutenant during World War II, died in 1993. All were alumni of Lucy Addison High School. From Tuskegee Airmen roster, obituaries, and Matt Chittum, “The Tuskegee Airmen,” Roanoke Times, Feb. 19, 2012.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue: I Am the True Vine
PART ONE 1. Sit Down and Shut Up
2. White Peoples Is Hateful
3. And Still the Cry Against Us Continues
PART TWO 4. Your Momma Is Dead
5. Some Serious Secrets
6. A Paying Proposition
7. He Who Hustleth While He Waiteth
8. Comma, Colored
PART THREE 9. The Prodigal Sons
10. Not One Single, Solitary, Red Penny
11. Adultery’s Siamese Twin
PART FOUR 12. Housekeeping!
13. Practically Imbeciles
PART FIVE 14. Very Good Old Colored Woman
15. Wilbur and John
16. God Is Good to Me
Epilogue: Markers
Photos
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Beth Macy
Notes
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Beth Macy
Cover design by Lauren Harms
Cover photograph by John Harding Photography
Cover © 2016 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Map by Robert Lunsford
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ISBN 978-0-316-33756-4
E3-20160912-JV-PC