Interview with Stepney Ray, June 14, 1977

Marsha Brugman: This is Tuesday June 14, 1977. This is Marsha Brugman. This morning we are visiting with Reverend Stepney Ray who lives at 3422 Virginia Avenue. We are continuing our project on Parkland, the oral history of Parkland residents, and the oral history of the Parkland area itself. Rev. Ray can you tell me uh, what date, what year you were born?

Stepney Ray: I was born October the 9th 18 and 90.

MB: 1890. Okay, where were you born?

SR: In Louisville, Kentucky at 718 West Street.

MB: How do you ever remember all these addresses! [Laughter] This is awful!

SR: 718 West Street, that's what it was!

MB: And you were talking a little about where, what West Street was when you were born.

SR: Yeah! And that's what I want to get into this here. As I say, it was sort of a [long pause], it was sort of a [another long pause] a district, well I don't know how to put it. I don't want to put nothing in there that wouldn't sound so 1:00nice, but it was a . . . shall I say . . . there was good people lived on one side and bad people lived on the other.

MB: Oh okay.

SR: And one side was usually, was uh . . . fast people lived on it, you know, something like that. It was a fact. You know the city bosses and things, had certain people you know they would visit, you know what I'm saying?

MB: Oh yeah.

SR: So the street was picked out that way. The good were old people in church, church people and they usually worked.

MB: Okay, can I ask you a question? Are you talking about houses of prostitution?

SR: Yeah.

MB: Okay, you were just trying to be graceful about it, I think! [Laughter]

SR: Yeah. I was thinking, shall I tell this, you understand.

MB: Now where is that located?

SR: Well it used to be on West Street, from Green Street to Chestnut Street. See it was the same street.

MB: That's right around where Village West is today, the downtown city area.

SR: Right round, yeah.

MB: Was it a predominantly black area?

SR: Yeah predominantly black but as I said it was frequented by others.

MB: All right, I see what you're saying. Okay.

SR: There was a very unfortunate affair happen.

MB: Can I ask you another question?

SR: Yeah.

MB: When you said Green Street is there a Green Street down there today?

SR: No, now it's Liberty.

MB: Oh, yeah.

SR: Yeah, that's why the street cars used to run down east to west.

MB: Sometimes that's why, with each one of the interviews I'm trying to get people to come back to what the streets are today because otherwise I have never heard there was a Green Street!

SR: Yeah.

MB: Okay I know exactly the area you're talking about then.

SR: It's right there where . . . there's a park there known as Baxter Square. They may have . . . I think one of the . . . [long pause] I think Mayor Jacobs was the first mayor of Louisville, you see that on the city hall, Jacobs, but then somehow or another they give it this name Baxter Square. You can see it now, it's still in existence.

MB: I'll have to drive by.

SR: It starts from Jefferson Street . . . from Jefferson Street over to then, what was known then, as Green Street and from Eleventh Street down to Twelfth Street. It was known as Baxter Square. It's still there. But it was just where people who had a little leisure time, mostly boys and girls, they had everything 4:00worthwhile. They had a little foot pool. That was pretty nice you know. In those days boys and girls they didn't have a swimming pool, a place to go. So you know when they wanted to learn how to swim they just went down to the Ohio River and the canal. I know a man that went down there and got drowned!

MB: When you were born then in that area was that considered, was that kind of the outskirts of town? Was that the size of the city at that point?

SR: Oh no, no!!

MB: How large was the city?

SR: You see what made the Green Street so important, the city of Louisville . . . what you call it political bosses then for some reason they chose that street [pause] But no one said anything about it because ( ) money . . . washing clothes like my mother! Those people were nice to them.

MB: Oh did your mother make a living then washing clothes and taking care of them?

SR: Yeah my mother she might have started, what do you call them laundry?

MB: Laundromat?

SR: Laundromat! Because she would . . . on a certain day she would collect the people from whom she was going to get the clothes for. And then she had the washer women, of course with their tubs and wash boards. Then she had a certain day for the washing and a certain day for the ironing.

MB: Oh so she was quite an industrious person! What was her name?

SR: Mary Ray.

MB: What was your father's name?

SR: Stepney.

MB: Oh so you were named after your him!

SR: Yeah I'm named after my father. Now she didn't have no education. She couldn't read or write, but sorting the clothes. Like the ladies garments and different things, she'd put out so many of these, so many of these and so many 6:00of these and did it like that! And she kept up with it so when the time come to put it out she wouldn't be no mixed up!

MB: She was quite a business woman.

SR: Why I'd see her take a nail, an old tin, pretty much ( ) she'd mark like that, not with a lead pencil, one, two, three, four, and she study a while and put so many of these. And so on the days she take them back she had no trouble at all.

MB: So she knew exactly what they owed her and everything?

SR: Uh-huh.

MB: And would use a nail and an old piece of wood or whatever?

SR: A piece of tin. IN those days tin was the latest ( ) out there and didn't have what you call it . . . aluminum, things like that. It was tin.

MB: Well all be darned! And that's the way she made her living then?

SR: That's the way she made her living.

MB: What did your father do?

SR: At one time he worked at the brick yard. Way out Twelfth Street there used to be a brick yard out there. I suppose it was a small one, but I have heard that they would go out there and work in the brick yard and then finally he was fortunate he got a job with Harbison and Gathright which is now a place that's being kept now for their past city . . . what the city has adopted as their original sites. Harbison Gathright has that building on the corner of 7th & Main Streets.

MB: What kind of business was it?

SR: It was a harness and saddlery, a leather business.

MB: Oh, okay. Yeah I know what you mean.

SR: And right next to it there is a stone monument placed there in honor of George Rogers Clark. It says on this spot General George Rogers Clark landed. This is the spot where he got off the riverboat and came up the hill and you'll 8:00see the monument. You haven't seen it?

MB: Right, yeah I know where you are talking about.

SR: Well that's where it was.

MB: And your father worked in the business there.

SR: Yeah he worked there for forty-five years, Harbison Gathright.

MB: How many children were there in your family?

SR: Well there were some died before I came into the world. What I'm trying to say I think they had about ten or eleven children, three or four girls and three or four boys but they all died, some of them died in ( ). And I did have one brother to a, finally he did live to be eighty-one years of age. He just died in 1954.

MB: You talk like 1954 was just yesterday!!! [Laughter]

SR: Well you know. He died March 19, 1954. He made his home up in Indiana in Bloomington and somehow or another he got in with the best people up there in Indiana, professors and doctors and so forth and he worked for Mrs. uh . . . 9:00Meyers, B.D. Meyers. Dr. Meyers was the head of their uh . . . of their medical department at the University of Indiana.

MB: Oh, hmmm.

SR: I knew him and Dean Stevenson and he was the head of the department of English. And he had a daughter, which you remind me so much of her, she was a celebrated violinist. She was a virtuoso, that's what she was, you know. And she finally became the head of the music department there. She . . . I mean from him . . . [long pause] but I knew them well, but anyway I'm just trying to give you the names from different departments. And so he was pretty well thought of up there.

MB: And your brother worked up there in Indiana?

SR: Yeah he worked there.

MB: Is he the only brother that lived to be an adult?

SR: No I had another brother named Louis. As I said, when a boy, when he hardly went through the sixth grade and he would get with other boys. The racing was just at its glory then in Louisville from 80s on to the 90s. The racing at there at Churchill Downs you know, and he had the opportunity to meet Isaac Murphy, the great jockey you know.

MB: Did he get the racing bug?

SR: Yeah, one of them followed the races and one of them called him jockey, jockey Ray.

MB: Oh that was one of your brothers? [Laughter]

SR: Yeah. But they all passed. I'm the survivor.

MB: Now you have one sister living.

SR: One sister and she and I are the only one surviving the Ray family.

MB: Now she is, how old did you tell me?

SR: She's ninety-one.

MB: Ninety-one now. She lives with you?

SR: She lives with me and she gets mad and says, "I'm going back to Chicago!" I said, "Well you ain't going nowhere."

MB: [Laughter] She tells you that now when she gets mad at you huh? Going back to Chicago.

SR: She has a way of putting it you know. You know at one time the urge was that . . . that people was . . . Louisville was a place we're trying to come and then when they get here and they get established some of them would see . . . uh. . . a better . . . they find . . . . uh . . . they can live better someplace else. It was north so Chicago and Indianapolis was claiming our people!!

MB: Now you're talking about blacks who came up from the south, who came to 12:00Louisville and then they'd . . . .

SR: Yeah! Then they'd find they went on up to Chicago.

MB: Indianapolis, Chicago . . . thinking things would be better.

SR: Yeah and then they thought Detroit would be a great place because of the automobile industry! [Long pause] As I said about West Street you know . . . there was . . . we never like to hear sad things but however and you being the kind of person that I don't know if I care to relate it to you but there was one unfortunate thing that occurred. There was one of Governor Brown's son was killed.

MB: Down on West Street?

SR: On Madison Street.

MB: Oh really! How old were you when that happened?

SR: I was about five, four years old. I remember the day that it happened 13:00because I was playing out in the street, which anybody would go out in the street. Traffic wasn't bad then. I heard brrrrrg . . . brgggggg. And the people could hear the [inaudible]. Lord people was running every which way.

MB: I guess I'm not familiar with that period of time. Was he shot by a robber? Was he shot in a duel? You can go ahead and tell us; it's going down in history.

SR: You can strike it out.

MB: Oh you want me to strike it out?

SR: Yeah because it may make some of the city officials think that I'm trying to throw some reflection on them. But what happened . . .

MB: Okay, well wait just a sec . . . we'll go ahead and turn it off and then we'll come back on.

[Tape stopped]

SR: . . . wanted to sell more pianos here and their business was in selling pianos. He worked for the W.W. Kimball Company in Chicago. I worked for him about three years and he thought a whole lot of me. That was just before Fourth 14:00Avenue was just beginning you know its stride. I was working for him when the Seelbach Hotel was built. The Seelbach hotel was built in 1910.

MB: Isn't that . . . all these things we take for granted! That's just what's unbelievable that you've seen it all in your life.

SR: Yeah, I've seen it all!

MB: Let me ask you a question. I want to pick back up when you were talking about Tenth or West Street and being raised around there. Where did you go to school?

SR: I first went to the old Knox Presbyterian Church there was a kindergarten at Twelfth and Madison.

MB: Knox Presbyterian?

SR: Knox Presbyterian Church.

MB: Okay, you went to kindergarten there and then where did you go?

SR: From there, well I was six years old when I started kindergarten, maybe five or six, then my parents moved off of West Street and I remember my father telling my mother, "I found a house way out on 11th street."

MB: [Laughter]

SR: I found a house way out on 11th street and he ( ) about raising gardens and things like that.

MB: Way out on 11th?

SR: Yeah, 11th and Maple Street, that's where it was. Right where the Union Station is and the train used to go up and down Maple Street to Pennsylvania and ( ) and the last station was at 14th and Main but it stopped over at 10th and Broadway. And you could come up Maple Street to 14th and out 14th street. Now a lot of people would be surprised, a lot of our people lived on both sides of 14th street from Broadway on over to Jefferson street! You all know that? They lived on both sides. The train going and coming but a lot of people, because I knew quite a few of them, they lived there! But now you pass through there and you would never thought anybody ever lived on that street before!

MB: So your family moved. Did they move into that house that your mother found on 11th street?

SR: Yeah there on 11th street.

MB: Where did you go to school from there?

SR: Let me see I was five but I went to kindergarten so I think my mother thought she send me to school when I was seven. I remember that, I remember that well. When I was seven years of age she told my older brother Rob, she said, "go over to Patrick's Ice Cream Confectionary over there on 10th and Magazine Street." He used to cater to the high school students, Patrick's Delicatessen, you know, and so my birthday came on Sunday and I was seven years of age. And she said "go get a quart of ice cream." [Laughter] I see myself a little ( ) something like this, you know, my sister, my brother and a little ( ) like me, steppy! [Laughter]

MB: Steppy? IS that what they called you?

SR: Yeah!

MB: Oh, so what grade school did you attend?

SR: That year, that coming September they started me to the 9th and Magazine Street School. It was called the old Dunbar school, Dunbar building. That's where the Central High School was located.

MB: And of course schools were obviously segregated then. That was the black school.

SR: Oh yeah, yeah. And the, so in the lineup, Principal (?) Jackson I remember, he had my ( ), he had me with the group that was singled to go out to 18th and Kentucky Streets. Somehow I sensed what was going on, you know. I sensed that my sister and brother they were going to remain there. I said, "What about me?" There was a fellow out at the gate that used to sell wieners, you know, in a buggy and put a little bun to it. Sell it for two or three pennies. So I went to 18:00the fence and I said, "Give me one of those. I want one." And he said, "How many do you want?" I said, "Give me one." And I had a nickel I think! [Laugher] To get out, I wanted an excuse to get to it. And man you know what I did?! When I got over to the other side I tore out!! Up from 9th street, up to 10th street, in and out 10th to Broadway to 11th and out to 11th street I went home! [Laughter]

MB: You didn't want to stay in school and that was it.

SR: And you know my mother kept me out of school one year because I knew ( ). ([Laughter]

MB: So then the next year she put you back in school in grade school?

SR: Yeah I started school at eight years old in the first grade. And my first teacher was Mrs., Mrs. Meade. She was the first grade teacher. I had to take remedial reading. Mrs. Meade asked me to read one day. I stood up in class one 19:00day and I thought, she hadn't taught me nothing. And I got through reading and she said, she says to me, she said, "You're going to make a good reader!" Mother Meade, I'll never forget her. She said, "You're going to make a good reader." And that stayed with a long time, you know. And she could sing too. She was the one I know that could sing in those days. I don't know where she got her learning. For that matter my wife had an aunt by the name of Aunt Kate, she was a prima Dona. And she worked for some people that took interest in her and they moved to New York and from New York they moved to California. She died out in California. Her name was Kate Plunkett (?), noted singer. But so I stayed, so I went to Eight and Kentucky school and out of Ms. Meade's room I went to uh . . . 20:00my second teacher was a man, oh no it was a woman, Emma Glover; Mrs. Emma Glover. She taught me second. Then third Mr. McAfee. He became, later after he quit school, he went into the undertaking business. At that time there wasn't but one or two undertakers or morticians here of coloreds in the city.

MB: Black?

SR: Black. And it pretty well . . . no . . . Watson, Watson, Watson was an up to date man, you know what I mean. He got all the good funerals, you know, and he had a nice place at 10th and Chestnut right where the library is now. On the 21:00other side of the library was the Hill, just a commons. So . . .

MB: Was this McAfee then that taught you was he one of the first black morticians?

SR: No, no, no, Mr. Watson was.

MB: Oh, was the first.

SR: Then there was another one too, just about two. But those days, when people die they embalm you now, but in those days they didn't use the embalming method. When a person would die they would put you on a cooling board.

MB: Cooling board, what was that?

SR: It was a board, an old ironing board. [Someone talking in the background] Hmmm . . . right!

MB: Then they'd just put you in the ground like that or?

SR: No, they would, I think they began to learn somebody in embalming with that fluid, but that's how it was done. You wouldn't go to the ( ) and have it done they would do it in your home.

MB: Oh goodness!

SR: Oh yeah they'd do that in your home! Yeah I remember coming from school one day right where the sears and roebucks is, used to be a big tobacco factory there from 8th and Broadway to 9th and Broadway. Behind it was an alley and a lot of people lived in alleys. ( ) Sometimes people called them who thought they were living better than them, they'd refer to them as alley rats! [Laughter] But anyway one day coming from 8th street, Kentucky street school, it was in the spring of the year and chill in the air and somehow and the other didn't have 23:00two editions of the paper, I did, the morning and the evening but no 6 o'clock or anything like that. And known as the "Commercial" and the "Herald." One was supposed to be politically motivated, the "Commercial" was and owned by a republican. And the "Courier-Journal" was under Morse, Henry Morrison.

MB: Was the "Courier-Journal" called the "Herald" then? Or was it always the "Courier-Journal?"

SR: No, it was always the "Courier." "The Times" hadn't been invented by that time, it was always the "Courier-Journal." Used to have a statue there at 4th and uh . . . 4th and Liberty Street now. It was known as the man, the editor of the Courier-Journal and Times . . . . oh what was his name? They had a statue out in front of the building.

MB: Oh.

SR: Yeah.

[Unidentified person]: Wasn't it Watterson?

SR: Watterson! Henry Watterson that's right. He had a white suit, you know, a white moustache, you know. He was a great editor. And so as I said we heard about the tragedy that happened there on 9th street. Some woman got killed and I found my sister and brother and we went and drove. And they said, "Where'd it happen?" Said, "Right down there in that alley." Those days you couldn't' hardly get the [ ] the tobacco was so strong. People who even worked there, the people even complained about them getting on the street corner the odor from the tobacco was on their clothes.

MB: And it was in back of this factory where a woman had been killed?

SR: Yes! I saw a little two room house and I seen a boy standing there. And so he seemed to be grief stricken, you know. So we just . . . I didn't ask him, but he said yes, says he [ ], fellow put a pistol to her and blew her brains out and it was his mother.

MB: Ooooh!

SR: And uh I felt . . .

MB: And you were just in grade school at the time, right? Just coming home from school.

SR: Yes, just stopped by. But things like that lived with me sometime because I wonder how, what a tragedy it was then you see. And uh, well of course things like that happened quite often you know, like they do now you know. Same thing still going on today, they just got it so that you don't pay too much attention to it now because it's happening everywhere!

MB: But with a child it makes quite an impression.

SR: Oh yeah! It may quite an impression on me at the time!!

MB: How many years did you stay at grade school then?

SR: I stayed at the grade school until 6th grade.

MB: And then where did you go from there?

SR: To Central.

MB: Central started at 6th grade at that point?

SR: They had just started what you call the mid-year, I mean . . . .MB: Middle school?

SR: Yes, 7th and 8th grade. And I was sent from uh, because I remember my teacher Mrs. Alice Gardner (?) when we left. Wait now, wait now, I'm moving too fast. I stayed there until the 8th grade, 8th grade at the Carter School. And I remember my teacher Mrs. Alice Gardner and Mrs. Blanche Jackson. And there was about seven or eight of us boys and girls, "Now listen now you going to high school now and you try to hold this school up!" [Laughter]

MB: Was there ever any question that you would go to high school or was that something your parents wanted for you?

SR: No, I sort of had it in my, I wanted to go to high school. Yes as a matter of fact the church I attended you know, at the time, Zion Church, you know most churches had what you call educational programs. And I think through the Sunday school, one thing or another, it might have changed my mind that I wanted to get a little more learning. [Laughter]

MB: and the adults around you were encouraging about doing this?

SR: Oh yeah, yeah and people were more uh, they were more uh . . . . people were more real! You know I know a girl by the name of Kitty Harris and she came from an unfortunate family that was sort of ( ), what I mean is everybody had to struggle to make a living. And I remember she had a gone to school then to the Central and the state university then was across 8th and Kentucky Street School; 28:00that was a Baptist institution, a state institution across there. And it was run by Dr. C.H. Parrish. C.H. Parrish was a great figure in our figure in our city, colored you know.

MB: Uh-huh, Charles Parrish?

SR: Yeah, yeah.

MB: I think his son teaches at the university.

SR: Yeah, his son works out there yeah. He didn't near come up to this father. (inaudible). Dr. Parrish, he would make several trips across and he was at Calvary Baptist Church at 5th and York Streets. And I was standing there one morning in the vestibule when I worked for Tilla. Tilla had a lovely piano store there. I would go in the room and turn on the lights and the lights would illuminated all the, and all the pianos would show their brilliancy you know. And that was my job when he had customers come in, while he was doing that I would flip the light on, you know. Anyway I was standing in the vestibule one morning and Mr. Tilla say, . . . . and Parrish, Dr. Parrish came across the Walnut Street, 5th and Walnut, and a whole group of little colored children, two by two, about two squares long! And he had his black gown on and his cap on his 29:00head and he was in the front and these little children were following him. And so Mr. Tilla said to me, he said, "Ray, there goes a great man." Talking about C.H. Parrish! [Laughter]

MB: Now was that when you were in high school or was that after high school that you worked down there?

SR: That was after high school.

MB: Oh, okay so that would have been the 1920s?

SR: No, 1910.

M: So you remember even seeing Dr. Parrish?

SR: Yeah see I didn't come out of high school until 1911. My wife she graduated 30:00with the class of 1910 1/2. They didn't have the auditorium, memorial auditorium and places like that to go for the graduation. It was at the old Leidgranz Hall at 6th and Walnut. A German name, Leidgranz it was called the little hall I think. And that's where all our big affairs were carried on there. That's where I heard Rollin Hayes for the first time, at the Leidgranz Hall. Rollin Hayes came in from Fisk University and ( ) as I said if students had any initiative, he would go and get a job somewhere and try to work their way through. They didn't have scholarships and things then you know. So I remember that Mrs. Speed, you've heard of Speed, Speed Museum?

MB: Uh -huh

SR: Well Rollin he had worked at the Pendennis Club and she had heard him singing once and she took interest in him. Somewhere in there she give him enough he got a ( ) and went to Boston and he went to Harvard and did something 31:00in the music department and form there is he went on abroad and when he came back here he came back as a famous singer! He could sing in all languages!

MB: And you heard him in that little hall!

SR: I heard him. He came out with the Jubilee Singers. Yes there was four of them. He had a voice! He just died about two months ago and Rollin and uh . . . .MB: You remember hearing him around though right around 1910, 1911.

SR: Yeah, he uh . . . .MB: Pardon me just a minute.

END OF INTERVIEW