Audio File
Transcript
My name is Roberta Harris Brassell. I was born on Cliff St. but I don’t know the number, but we moved to 23 Roberts Street. I’m 82, and I’ve been on the Hill practically every day of my life. I lived next to the corner of Roberts and Webster. My favorite girlfriend, Viola Beck, she lived on Rowley St., and then I had some girlfriends up on Webster and just the whole area of the Hill District. Actually, we played right here. That was our playground. And right down the street, round the corner, it’s a lot now, but that’s where I was raised, yeah. I can say I had a good childhood. My sister don’t like me when I used the word that we were poor, but back in them days, I always told people we only had OOR because things were tight. My mom did days’ work, my dad worked in the steel mills. My parents were always in the church, so I have a good religious background. We went to the church, 35 Miller St. which is now up on Centre Ave., First Church of God in Christ, and my family still goes there. I was born with rheumatic fever, and it went into rheumatic heart. I went to the hospital every two weeks to get a penicillin shot, which I’m allergic to, and when I was 12, my mom took me to attend service on the North side, and they had a preacher named Jack Cole, and he prayed for me. And from that day to this day, I’m OK. They said I wasn’t going to live till 25, but I’m here. I’m 81-2, and right now I just received a pacemaker, but I still think I did well. My mom was a very good mom, and we woke up to breakfast every morning before we went to school, and at that time we came home for lunch, and she had lunch prepared. I had two brothers and one sister. I just lost my sister. But I think for us to not to have a lot, our home had a lot of love. My mother’s door was always open. Somebody could come and eat, get a meal, or sleep on the floor. That’s the way I was raised. Back then was the good old days. We didn’t have to leave the Hill for anything. We went down the street and bought our shoes. We could come up by where I’d have my business. It was a paint store up on Bedford. August Wilson lived in Miss Bailey’s store. My brother played with him. We had the bakery where they used to go get Penny Worthington pies, I didn’t eat them. We had Eda’s fish store, the drug store, you know, it was a community. Me and- y’all never will experience what-what I experienced. You know, they trying to make skyscrapers and this and that in the Hill. But what do they have for the youth? What do they have? They don’t have a bowling alley, a skating rink. Nowhere where y’all could go. An arcade, we went down on Liberty Ave. to the arcade. When is somebody going to speak up for the youth? I’ve had many challenges, sickness, abuse, intermarriage. I raised three kids. I think I did a good job. I’m in the community trying to do good, you know, I helped high rises, I helped churches. I’m not going to say I never got knocked down because I have, but my mother instilled in me to be like a palm tree, you know, if the wind blow hard, it’s going to knock a palm tree down. You’re going to lay down there. Just lay down. Hold on, keep praying. Cause after a while. You’re going to spring back up. Try to remember that in life: be like a palm tree.