IT WAS HER CLOTHES I NOTICED FIRST: Silver lamé sweater, deep purple velvet skirt — even though it was July at the 11am church service. The clothes looked big on her, but I could imagine they once fit just right. She wore them now as I imagined she wore them then, with great confidence.
This is a short story on the long life of Edythe Mae Espree, the mother of my friend Lezlie Porter. Ms. Edythe’s story is a part of the Great Migration, of women’s history, of African-American history. It is her story to tell, and although she no longer remains on this earth, her words and deeds still do.
Interviews, oral histories, and personal items will tell Ms. Edythe’s story, along with so many other underrecognized African-American women of the Great Migration — women whose lives shifted Los Angeles in ways large and small, quiet and loud. Even in an oral history interview conducted with both Edythe and her husband a while back, the interviewer introduces the project as her husband’s story. And his is quite a story. But must the woman literally sit in the background, on the couch, her voice appearing only on the recording now and again? This is why so many of us feel the need to foreground these particular women’s stories.
Ms. Edythe challenged systems in her own way, in her work and in her daughter’s education. She was never amenable to taking only what was offered. I was fortunate enough to know Mrs. Edythe Espree – or Mother Espree, as she once instructed me to call her. But my “knowledge” is not central here. I may set the scene, but the stage is hers. This will be a very short version of this woman’s long life. The book I am working on will provide the opportunity to learn a much longer version.
Edythe Mae Carr came to Los Angeles, California from Dallas, Texas in March of 1929. She was five years old, born on May 23rd, 1924. She remembered coming on the train to Los Angeles with her mother and four sisters. Years passed and Edythe May graduated from Jefferson High School, a place known for its many famous alumni – musicians, writers, and judges to name a few. Many children of the Great Migration were at Jefferson High, their families typically coming from places like Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Always active in social groups, and deeply loyal to the institutions that served her well, Edythe would later become a part of the Jefferson High Alumni Association.
As a girl, Edythe lived in Los Angeles with her mother, at 1031 East 49th Street, the South Park neighborhood of South LA. She remained living there, sharing a King-size bed with her sister Lottie, until she was married in June of 1957.
Edythe wrote about her old neighborhood in a recent journal, defining it as from Vernon Avenue to Slauson Avenue, North to South. She remembered two bowling alleys; a library she would go to on Friday afternoons by herself for story hour; four food stores; a clothing store; the Elks Dance Hall; and the 49th Street Park. That park is still there today – situated between Pedro Street and Avalon Boulevard. Edythe remembers the playground there and that on Saturdays she would walk to the park alone to see children’s plays. She makes note often in her journal of how she did things alone as a child, foreshadowing the independence she would display as an adult, all the way through her last days on this earth.
Her mother was a talented dressmaker, making all of her girls’ clothes. Edythe, tall and beautiful from a young age, would often be asked to model her mother’s workmanship.
Her mother also worked at a French Hand Laundry, the only Black woman employed there. They did not know when they hired her that she was African-American, because of her fair skin. A trait inherited by her daughter Edythe.
This was a common 20th century experience for African Americans with lighter complexions and it reminds me of an oral history included in my previous book, Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark. In it, a Mrs. Beatty tells her interviewer how she was mistaken by her new employer as white:
“And at my lunchtime I went over to the Black girls and introduced myself. And when I came back to my bench to work – the white lady said to me, ‘Now, just because I said that the Blacks were clean here, that didn’t mean that you have to go over there and eat with them.’ And I politely let her know that I was Black… Now the Black women, they knew I was Black.”
- from Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark
After graduating high school, Edythe became a real-life Rosie the Riveter, working in Los Angeles’ defense plants during World War II. She was also a part of the American Women’s Voluntary Services (AWVS) during the War. The members did everything from selling war bonds to mending clothing in support of the country and its troops. (It turns out a young Betty White happened to be a member as well).
Yet another connection with past women’s stories in this blog Edythe, too, made sure to get high school diplomas to her Japanese classmates who had been rounded up by our government after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Just like Mollie Wilson, Edythe felt she had to do something as she watched her peers carted away from their homes and school. So she collected their diplomas and delivered them to the Santa Anita racetrack where many of the Japanese/Japanese Americans were being detained.
And thus ends a very brief segment of this woman’s lengthy story. I will fast forward to the year 1998 where she is featured in a Los Angeles Times article entitled, “6 Decades and a Few Quakes Later, It’s Back to School.” Edythe Espree had returned to her elementary school, at the age of seventy-four, to volunteer as a reading tutor for the Rolling Readers, a philanthropic group.
The 49th Street School had been demolished years earlier by an earthquake, its brick façade simply crumbling under pressure. “Espree was a fourth-grader when the 1933 Long Beach earthquake struck. ‘Fortunately, school was out for the day,’” she said, according to the Times. “We just stood there and cried when we saw our school was demolished.” (Bob Pool, LA Times). And there she was 60 years later at that school, ready to help the latest generation. That was who she was and had always been.
Mrs. Edythe Espree lived a life that mirrored Los Angeles’ Great Migration history. In my future book, her story will receive much more attention because there is so much more to tell. She lived her life in front of the backdrop of Great Migration Los Angeles – from the clubs to the churches to the schools. Suffice it to say that women like Mother Espree need to be known, in order for this history to truly be known.
courtesy KTTV archives