THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9504280238
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 248 lines
SEVENTY-SIX YEARS AGO, the U.S. Naval Post Band marched down a rural road flanked by thousands of people who had come to witness the opening of a ``Model Town'' built for the families of black shipyard workers.
It was May 25, 1919, the day of the opening celebration of Truxtun, and stories in The Portsmouth Star that week already had spread the word of the wonderful amenities of the homes, including ``hot water tanks in every kitchen.''
The pride in that community took hold and thrived for decades in a way many neighborhoods would envy today.
Some of the original families still live there. Many have passed on and their children gone out into the world or moved to bigger homes in newer neighborhoods.
But few forget Truxtun. That's why longtime residents expect to see plenty of old faces when they throw an anniversary celebration and reunion the weekend of May 27.
``People have been talking about (a reunion) for years,'' said Lucy M. Overton, president of the Old Truxtun Community League.
The league is sponsoring the event, which includes a parade, program and reception, and members expect as many as 100 to attend.
About 200 letters were sent to former residents. So far about 20 out-of-towners have responded. Overton has had calls from people living in Maryland and North Carolina.
``I wouldn't miss it,'' said Azalia Smith Briggs-Wilson, a retired educator from Wilmington, Del. ``This is the first time we've ever had a Truxtun reunion.''
Her sister from Baltimore plans to be there too. A third sister, Dolthea S. Gibson, lives nearby in Prentis Park and is on the reunion committee.
``I just knew we would have that house forever, because it has so many warm memories,'' said Briggs-Wilson of the house she was born in 70 years ago on Hobson Street.
The sisters did hold onto the house for a long time even after their parents died. They later sold the house the family had moved to when the neighborhood was still in its infancy.
Located about a half mile from Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where Portsmouth and Deep Creek boulevards meet, Truxtun was one of 10 housing developments built by the federal government for wartime workers around the country.
It was the only one built for black families.
Today, like many aging urban communities, Truxtun is struggling to keep the neighborhood free of crime and codes violations.
But a 1919 article written by Truxtun's architect, Rossel Edward Mitchell of Norfolk, describes what was then a marvel in modernity.
``A few months ago,'' he wrote, ``a field of waving corn, today by a wave of the magic wand, a complete village. Officially this is known as U.S. Housing Project No. 150C. . .
``Each house has a well-equipped bathroom furnished with vitreous ware, running water, standard sinks and wash bowls. To these conveniences are also added electric lights.''
Mitchell explained that the exteriors of the 250 five-room houses were designed with ``a diversified arrangement'' of porches and gables.
When the neighborhood was designated a historic district 16 years ago, a city planner wrote the ``jerkin-head roofs, which featured peculiarly flattened gable ends'' as ``characteristic of Truxtun's architectural style.''
Architects and city planners can talk of unique roofs and gables, but residents just remember how beautiful it was and how much time and pride residents took in their homes.
Thirty years after it was built, James Reavis still saw Truxtun and thought it was ``the cleanest place in all of Portsmouth.''
Reavis, who serves on the reunion committee, bought his home there in 1949 after coming to Portsmouth to work at Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
John H. Carey, who served as principal of the Brighton-Truxtun School for 19 years, remembers walking up and down the street as a 10-year-old watching the builders bring Truxtun to life.
For years on Sundays, he said, people would get off the streetcar and walk around the neighborhood.
``It was so beautifully decorated with shrubbery and fruit trees,'' he said. ``Some of the trees are still there.''
There was never any doubt that was where he wanted to live. After college and three years teaching elsewhere, he and his wife bought a house there in 1938.
Overton moved there the following year. Like Carey, she had decided as a young girl that's where she was going to live when she got married and had children.
``I wanted to surround myself with surroundings that would make me feel good about myself,'' she said. ``We bought a house, and I've been here ever since.''
One look at the shaded porches of Truxtun and it's easy to imagine the idyllic neighborhood that thrived there for so many years.
Overton remembers the children would play all day and then get called in for a bath and clean clothes before dinner. After dinner, the whole family would sit out on the porch, rags burning in buckets to smoke the mosquitoes away.
``Neighbors would gather around and we would sit on each others' porches and talk,'' Overton said. ``We weren't gossiping - just talking.''
No one had TVs or needed them, she said.
``We called that fun. We'd have a Coca Cola, and we just brought that out. You wouldn't think of drinking a beer on your porch. People were respectful.
``Everybody was everybody's friend.''
In the warm months, neighbors had a friendly rivalry over lawn work. The community garden club had 25 members, and they would walk the neighborhood looking over each other's handiwork and borrowing ideas.
They would swap small plants sometimes so that the whole neighborhood became a garden spot.
``One lady had a rose garden with a black rose in it,'' Overton remembered. ``It was the first time I'd seen one. We didn't believe it at the meeting when she told us, so we all had to go over and see it.''
When winter stole the flowers away, there was still Christmas - another favorite time of year for Truxtun residents.
``If you came down Portsmouth Boulevard, it was a sight to behold,'' Overton said. ``Everybody fixed up the doors and decorated. People came from miles around just to look at Truxtun homes.
``It was so beautiful I can't forget it.
``A couple years we had the Christmas tree on the school lawn decorated, and that looked like 5,000 lights.''
The whole neighborhood gathered around the tree after Christmas caroling. Then they would go over to Mount Carmel Baptist Church to warm up with coffee and doughnuts.
Briggs-Wilson remembers lawn parties at the church to raise funds for the Sunday school. Her father would sell peanuts and her mother would sell homemade ice cream, a recipe so rich it was always the first to disappear.
She remembers the wonderful plays and performances everyone would attend at the school, the only auditorium available to the black community then. Organizations, as well as students, put on popular shows there.
When Carey became principal of the school, he started an annual variety show with a cast of 300 students. He and his wife traveled somewhere every year and would bring back ideas that were incorporated into the social studies lessons leading up to the annual show.
One year the stage was turned into a Parisian sidewalk cafe. Another year, a cruise ship.
The shows would be presented two nights each year and people would show up two hours early to get a seat in the packed auditorium.
Such memories are something league members are just as intent on preserving as the architectural integrity of their homes.
They've been been pulling together old documents, newspaper clippings and photographs for a historic display. And Carey, the keynote speaker, also will talk about the neighborhood's history.
Current and former residents have bought space in a souvenir program to tell their own family histories or honor family members who have passed on.
``The thing about it is I thought the younger generation needs to know some things about Truxtun,'' Overton said.
One display will be a copy of a program distributed to residents during a 30-year anniversary commemoration in 1949. The program gives an idea of how neighborhoods sprouted around Truxtun. North Truxtun was celebrating its third anniversary then. The area referred to as West Truxtun was only two years old.
Business advertisements in the program draw a picture of a bustling community that boasted barber shops, confectionaries, dry cleaners, markets and a movie theater.
But the most telling words in the program are found in the community greetings from Mount Carmel Baptist Church: ``The church where everybody is somebody.''
That's the kind of thing both Overton and Carey would most hope future generations remember - how in a time of segregation and fewer opportunities a neighborhood helped everyone's children feel good about themselves.
Carey ticks off names of children he has watched grow up and their life's accomplishments with the memory of a proud lifetime educator.
This one is a pediatrician in New York, another a former city council member in Washington. Lawyers, accomplished musicians, ministers, football coaches.
``So many students out here in Truxtun have gone on to various professions in life,'' he said. ``They've moved on out. But right here is the beginning of everything.''
Overton expresses similar thoughts.
``I compare a lot of what's today and what happened. Some of those things you want to forget. Some things you need to remember. Some of these things motivate you.''
Overton thinks it's important to pass the legacy on.
``If you don't know where you came from,'' Overton said, ``you perhaps don't know where to go.'' MEMO: TRUXTON EVENTS
Truxtun's 76-year celebration and reunion will be sponsored by the
Old Truxtun Community League on May 27 and 28.
It will begin with a parade at 10 a.m., starting at the John F.
Kennedy Recreation Center on Grand Street and ending at Mount Carmel
Baptist Church.
Mayor Gloria O. Webb will be the grand marshal for the parade, which
also will feature the Marching Greyhounds of Norcom High School, floats,
drill teams and units from other neighborhoods and organizations.
The parade will be followed by a historical program and reception at
the church. An award will given to the oldest person born in Truxtun,
still living there.
John Carey, longtime resident and former principal of the
Truxtun-Brighton School, will be the keynote speaker.
CaReem, a group of musicians who grew up in Truxtun, will perform.
The weekend celebration will conclude with participants attending the
Sunday morning service at Mount Carmel.
People attending the celebration are encouraged to wear African
garb.
There is no cost for attending the event, which will be funded by the
proceeds of a souvenir booklet that will ``capture our community's
origin and its significance in history,'' according to information
provided by the league.
In addition to business ads, former and current residents may buy
space to pay tribute to family members or to tell their family histories
in words or pictures.
If funds are left over from the souvenir booklet, they will be used
to establish a scholarship fund for deserving students who live in
Truxtun.
The deadline to submit information for the booklet or to enter the
parade is Friday. For more information, call Lucy Overton at 397-3187
or Rachel Smith Harris at 399-1441.
- Janie Bryant
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
COMING HOME TO TRUXTON
[Color Photo]
Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
Lucy Overton, president of the Old Truxton Civic League, works in
the flower beds at her Hobson Street home.
1948 file photo
Students perform in one of the Truxtun-Brighton School's popular
variety shows. Lucy Overton was able to identify some of the
students. Known married names and occupations are in parentheses.
Students in the front row include: Barbara Jean Wallace, second from
the left; Hugh Knight (choir master at St. Philip Episcopal Church
in Brooklyn), standing in the center; Roma Reid, to his right; and
Lila Robinson, end. Back row: Overton's daughter Phyllis Moody
(Angus), second from left; Marva Parker, next to her. The boys in
the back, wearing ties, are left to right: Willard Bowser (personnel
manager at St. Mary's Infant Home in Norfolk), Jackie Robinson and
Irving Martin.
Photo from ``The Housing Book''
Although floor plans were identical, exteriors and roof lines of
Truxtun houses were varied.
Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
Truxtun residents, from left to right, are James and Celeste Reavis
and Sonny and Doll Richardson. James Reavis serves on the reunion
committee.
File photo
On May 25, 1919, the Truxtun housing development, built for the
families of black shipyard workers, opened with a parade that
featured the Naval Post Band.
File photo
Government officials and naval officers attended the opening
ceremony of U.S. Housing Project No. 150C.
by CNB