when I wrote to aunts in the east. To this day, my handwriting looks like Aunt Lizzie’s.
On September 2, 1945, Aunt Lizzie took me downtown to the Federal Building. We rode the Red Car as always when we went downtown to Seventh and Broadway to eat at Clifton’s Cafeteria and shop at Bullock’s. We dressed in our best, me in my church dress with Mary Jane’s and Aunt Lizzie, properly girdled in black crepe with hat and gloves. It was a new experience to go a few blocks beyond our stop on Broadway and go farther downtown. The building was tall, with what seemed like hundreds of steps leading to the entrance. We did not go in and neither did the others. There was a big crowd gathered on the steps, and people were shouting, waving flags, crying, and happy. We joined in. The biggest surprise of all was when my staid, girdled, church-going Aunt Lizzie kissed a white man on the cheek when he came and hugged her. I expected the sky to fall. Not only had she kissed him, but a white man: two things I had never seen. I must have seemed bewildered to her, and she explained, “The war is over, Honey!”
Daddy was in the Navy for only nine months, never having been shipped overseas and was discharged when the war was over. He came home and worked at a lot of what people called “good jobs”—street car operator, factory assembler, Good-Year tire manufacturing. He even went to school at night on his GI Bill, getting his high school diploma and taking automotive mechanics at a trade school.
The first six years of my life are easy memories. The best times were spent with the family and the families of my Mom’s and Dad’s sisters and brothers. Nearly every Christmas, Uncle George and Aunt Earnestine had the whole Davis family over for Christmas and hired a professional photographer to take a family photo.
Birthdays were special because we got to choose the menu for the birthday dinner my mom would cook that night. I always chose macaroni and cheese, which is still made best by my mom; I didn’t care about the meat dish or what dessert she would make.
Because of Mama’s experience with home economics in college, our meals were always well-balanced, with meat, starch, green vegetable, and dessert. Mama cooked like this every evening after work, from scratch. On Sundays, she prepared a special dinner for after services at Shiloh Baptist Church, including an elaborate dessert, like coconut cake or lemon meringue pie. Sometimes she cooked parts of the menu on Saturday evening. The main dish was always fried chicken or a beef roast. Sometimes my dad would go to Grand Central Market and get a live duck or rabbit, which required quite a bit of preparation, but my mother preferred to serve chicken or beef on Sundays. Maybe because my mom was an excellent cook, or perhaps it was the economics of buying food, we never went out to eat. We did go once to my Uncle Homer’s barbeque restaurant, but I’m sure it was gratis. My mom still has a hard time buying something that she could make better and cheaper. When McDonald’s opened and my children wanted to buy hamburgers, Grandma refused, saying she could make them a much better hamburger.
The three of us were always told that we were well-mannered, smart, and handsome or pretty. We obeyed without question (except me) and respected our parents. I was the questioner and always wanted to know the reason behind something that I did not understand. This got me in trouble a few times at home and at school. We did not exhibit any sibling rivalry and Uly Junior, being the middle child, always enjoyed choosing which side he would take between the two sisters in their disagreements. We stuck together and did not have separate friends until adolescence.
All in all, the warmth of my family, the companionship of my siblings and cousins, and the celebration of special family events provided me a wonderful first six years. It helped me form the foundation and the expectation that life would always be wonderful.
In the family photo below, Mom and Dad are at the top center. He is as cool as ever, wearing a dark shirt and print tie. Mom is sophisticated and understated. I am at the bottom center with a barely visible Sondra and my soft spoken Uncle George. His wife, the hostess, with her Mom is standing next to Mom. Aunt Thelma, the sophisticate, on the middle row, far left. Aunt Tessie has her arm draped around Aunt Cleo, the wrestling groupie. Papa George and his well-off undertaker wife, Mama Dora, are next to Aunt Thelma. Aunt Lizzie is at the far right top. Uncle Clarence and Aunt Rose are at the top and all the other children in the photo are theirs, our beloved cousins. Aunt Roxie and Uncle Jerome, with whom we lived when we came from Texas, are seated on the couch. Our distant cousins, Donald and Henrietta, are the two adults at each end of the first row. Notice the “rats” styled into Aunt Thelma and Aunt Rose’s hair styles. Notice the matriarchs (Mama Dora and Aunt Lizzie) are wearing corsages.
The Davis Family at Christmas, around 1944
I remember taking this photo. Sondra Juanita is a toddler, so I must have been around four or five. Mom says it was taken by a door-to-door photographer who came from a department store. We are sitting on the bench from Mom’s dressing table.
This is a picture of Mom taken by the same traveling photographer, using his props of hat and coat. She didn’t wear hats such as this, as it is too flamboyant for her taste. She looks like a teen-ager at age twenty-six.
Aunt Clara, the nurse, was Mom’s sister who was a year younger than Mom. She only dated musicians and married at trumpeter.
Here is Aunt Bernice, Aunt Lizzie’s daughter, in her later years. She was a big smoker and lost a lung, continuing to smoke until her death.
We Join the Middle Class
I was six years old. The year was 1946 and the War had been over nearly a year. Appropriately, the 1946 Oscar-winning movie was The Best Years of our Lives, depicting the happiness and sorrow of the post-war years. TV had not yet come to our house. All our information came from the LA Times, which Aunt Lizzie and I still read daily. We followed the Nuremberg Trials and learned more than we cared to know about the terrible war crimes committed by Nazi leaders. There was usually a story about our new President, Harry Truman, who had just taken office the year before, after our beloved Roosevelt died. The Negro community liked Truman because he hired Negroes to work in the White House and integrated the armed services. It didn’t take much more for us to be on his side. We also paid attention to the stories about the new United Nations, meeting for the first time in London. Aunt Lizzie, always in tune to world affairs, said this was the first step toward a better world.
Jazz was the popular music. The big bands like Duke Ellington’s and Count Basie’s had been playing in Negro clubs since the 1920’s. Their musical style was now replicated by Harry James and Glen Miller and other mainstream bands. All the big bands were swinging for the white folks at the big clubs in the big cities, where the Duke and the Count were kings. The Negro big bands continued to come to our part of LA, playing in the clubs up and down Central Avenue. “ Race music” was exclusively featured at our clubs. This music was performed by, made for and listened to by Negroes. It became the foreshadowing of rock and roll and featured artists like Muddy Waters, Billy Holiday, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Lionel Hampton. Mom and Dad went out most week-ends to the Central Avenue night clubs. The Club Alabam was named for those transplants from Alabama, the Barrel House had tables and chairs made from barrels, and the Five Four Ballroom was located on 54th Street. They always dressed in the latest fashions. Dad wore suits with loud hand-painted ties and Stacy Adams two-tone wing tip shoes. Mama wore cocktail dresses in the draped style which wrapped her figure, and a little hat. High heels and short dresses showed off her beautiful legs.
It was post-war America and everybody had jobs, homes, and money to spend. The family moved to the suburbs, as did most families when