In The Shoes of African Americans

I interviewed my grandfather, Bernard. My grandfather is 82 years old. He was born on January 10, 1932. He had a tough life as a young child: his father left to fight in the war, leaving his mom alone with two boys. Bernard grew up with a heart illness and he wasn’t the best child. If it wasn’t for the sickness, Bernard wouldn’t have met Benny and Bill. Because of them, my grandfather had a great life, despite the illness and his dad’s departure.

“So I’m going to interview you about how you lived with Benny?”
“ The first question for you is, how did you come to live with an African American Family?”
The reason why i had to live with the African Americans was because I was an obnoxious little boy during the war years. The second world war had  started December 7,1941, and my father was very patriotic because he was born in Siberia, Russia, and he wanted to show his country he appreciated everything he got from his new land. He gave himself to the country that he really loved…. the United States of America.

“Ok, how did you feel when your dad left?”
[long pause]I felt like I was...that I was...that I was lost,...that I was abandoned….and that I would never see him….or grow up…. to be a man….at all.

“So you had to leave when you were little because you were sick, right?”
No, no, no, no, that was after a while, after my dad left. He left for the army in April of 1943. He left because he wanted to show his appreciation for living in the United States.

“What sickness did you have that made you have to leave your family?”
I had joint pains! They thought it was like rheumatic fever, and it gives you joint pains and sometimes it led into heart trouble. So, I went to the hospital, and I was being treated for it. I...missed...school a lot and when I came back home after I was in the hospital, I was running the streets. I wasn’t behaving myself at school.  I wasn’t getting enough food because we were not getting money from the government. So, what happened was my mother went to the social worker to see if she could get some help for me and my brother. They said they had an opening in a camp for children….or boys just like me, who were not behaving themselves. They found out I didn’t have rheumatic fever, so they sent me to this camp that had boys and girls that were afflicted with something, including bad behavior. This place, was a place called Sunset Camp in Bartlett, Illinois. I went there at the age of about..I would say maybe 10 years old, 10 or 11, I really can’t recall, it was in that age bracket, and in that camp, they tried to make your behavior as such that you could become a good citizen in the future. They also had a little hospital there were they could keep track of what was ailing you. A lot of children were there that had crippling diseases and mental problems. They did not have really bad mental problems, but depression and other problems that would make the child go to a place where they could be given good food and guidance.

“How did the illness make you feel?’’
Well that was what the illness came from [laughter]. The illness…. my father going away to the army and leaving my mother, brother, and I alone… in the world made me feel like we were not going to survive. I went ahead and tried to live my life to the fullest by being with my friends, and not going to school. We were impoverished by the war. The war was terrible for the folks that were homeless, and it was very hard to cope with....especially for a boy of my age, or a girl for that matter too, so thats why they sent me there to recover from whatever was wrong with me. Physically, I was in pretty good shape, but it acted in a different way by giving me depression and joint pains and everything that goes along with feeling like you’re not going to survive.

“The next question for you is, how did you feel when you found out you had to leave to go to the camp?”
I didn’t want to go, I tried to run away. I tried to run away, but I had no place to go [laughter] except to my grandparents, and they were old, and they could never keep me. I was like a wild little Stallion. So what happened was, they tricked me...the worker….if I could recall her name, at this moment, I can’t recall her name. She offered me to come with her to a house in the country. She said, “Come with me, let me show you what farming life is like.” So we took a train out to Bartlett, Illinois.They had a big house there, and they had little cabins for children that were placed there, including me. They were cabins away from the big house, and they had a kitchen there, and a room for sitting, just like boy scout camp.

“You had to live with some people who had to help you? What were their names, and how long were you with them for?”

Well, at first...at first I regimented myself to live amongst the boys who were also at this camp for one thing or another, and we were in a cabin that was about 200 feet from the Big House. They also had a schoolhouse inside the big house. I spent about….oh maybe about a year and a half or two years at that camp there, and we all cohabitated together; we got along real good there. I graduated from grammar school at that camp. We had regular school there, and I got a diploma from that camp even though it wasn’t a full time schooling.

“Ok, so now lets get to the part about how you had to live with an African American Family.” “So, how long did you live with them for?”

Oh god, I lived with them from about…….the age of 14….till I was almost 20 years old.

“What made you live with them? What made it come about that you had to live with them?”

My term living at that camp was up, and they had to move me out so someone else could live there. The cook at that camp was an african american woman. She told me when I left “Oh, it was so nice to have you here with me, it was like having my own son. I don’t have any children. If you ever have a problem or if you ever want something, you call me or come visit and I’ll see what I can do.” I don’t know how, or when I did, but I think I hitchhiked. I went out there to visit Benny Gibbs. She was a woman in her late 40s early 50s. She was the cook and bottle washer [laughter], thats what I called her. I found my way to Benny, it was at night. I knocked on the door,  and she said to me, “who’s there?” I said, “your favorite son….Bernie.” She said to me, “I don’t know no Bernie.” I said, “you use to call me Buggs.” I didn’t understand her language, but later on I realized she meant to say Buds [laughter]. At that time, I had no place to go, so I asked her if I could live with her. She said, “Definitely, come in!” She made me a home inside her home. Her husband taught me everything there is to know about living hard, how to live off the land, how to sweep, and how to do plumbing. He was very strict, if I said a dirty word, or a bad word; he would beat me for it. She was like my mom. She thought that I didn’t have good clothing. She really liked nice clothes. All I had was a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She told me I had to dress nice if I wanted to be her son, because I had to take her to church on Sundays. Bill and I (my father at the time) rebuilt an old car to make it new again. I had money saved up to buy myself new clothes. She would not take a penny from me, because I was her son. Benny took me to town, and she bought me a nice new outfit that I could have for a while. She payed for that outfit out of her own money, I found out later. That was the beginning of me becoming a man. My payback for that outfit was taking her to church every Sunday, and she wanted to sit in the back. She wanted me to be her chauffeur.

“The people you lived with were Bill and Benny, they were husband and wife?”

Thats right, Benny was the woman and Bill was the man. I don’t know her real name, but I called her Benny all the time I lived there till I was 20. Benny was born in Mississippi, and Bill was born in Comeback, Alabama. I was her boy, I was her son, I was everything she wanted. One day Benny had bronchitis. I had to help get her to the house; she only weighed 90 pounds. I carried her into the house, and I asked her what happened, and she said, “ Oh Bernie, I got the miseries.” I got this thing in my chest.” She told me to go into the medicine cabinet and get some suave to put on her chest. So I put the suave in the oven with a brick(that what she told me to do), and I put it all over her chest. Benny woke up the next morning, and was all better[laughter].

“So besides going to church on Sundays, what did your day consist of?”

At lunchtime I helped Benny in the kitchen. I’d do the dishes, and then I’d help her make a light lunch for everyone. Later, I went home and took a rest, and I went back and helped her make supper….beef stew or whatever else she was cooking that night. One night we had apple pandowdy. Do you know what that is? Oh my god, that brings back memories! It was open faced apple pie. Also, we went to drive-in movies on Route 20 between Elgin and Bartlett. We went to Haumbrachs drug store a lot also. We did everything together. Bill took me fishing with him almost every weekend.

“Last question is, when you left how did you feel?”

They cried and I cried too. I still cry when I think about her; laying in a grave somewhere in Elgin. I think about her often...very often. “

Ok, thats all the questions I have. Thank You!”
Bill would always help me out of a bind. We always stuck up for eachother. We got along very well.

After my grandpa’s life with Bill and Benny, he had a great life. He got married to a wonderful wife, my grandma. He had four wonderful children, two girls and two boys, one of which is my dad. He was a Chicago policeman for 32 years, and got many awards for different achievements. Also, he has many grandchildren, and a few great grandchildren. I think my grandpa liked living with this African Americans, because whenever I go over to his house, he always tells me stories that he has told me 100 times, but I listen anyways because he loves to tell me. My dad,  my aunt, and my uncle met Benny too. In the picture I included, it shows my dad, grandma, aunt, and uncle with Benny.