Alert

Library Operations Updates and Mask Requirement More Info

Arlington Public Library

Oral History

Oral History: Don Tenoso

Arlington-based Native American artist and educator

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

Artist Don Tenoso is a prolific creator, known for his Lakota-style dollmaking that depicts Sioux culture. Tenoso came to the Washington, D.C., area in 1991 as the first artist-in-residence at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, where he created new pieces and led demonstrations for the public.

 

Don Tenoso, Sioux Doll-maker and Puppeteer.

Don Tenoso, circa 1990 at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Tenoso was born in Riverside, California, and is a member of the Hunkpapa, one of the seven bands of the Teton Lakota Nation and part of the Sioux-speaking indigenous population. Tenoso’s mother was born on the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota, and he is a descendant of One Bull and Sitting Bull. His father was in the U.S. military during Tenoso’s early life and the family often moved around the country and abroad.

The following interview excerpts are from a 2008 oral history with Tenoso. At the time of this interview, he had lived in Arlington for about 14 years. In the full interview, which can be accessed in print at the Center for Local History, Tenoso also discusses his family and lineage, as well as tribal traditions and the Lakota language.

tenoso

Don Tenoso, circa 2005. Image courtesy of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where Tenoso was the university’s first artist-in-residence at the Native American House. 

Narrator: Don Tenoso
Interviewer: Tom Dickinson
Date: January 23, 2008
Note: The audio for this interview is currently unavailable.

Don Tenoso: I was the first artist-in-residence in the Natural History Museum. Prior to that they had brought me in for a three-day doll demonstration where they had taken one of the glass cases out of one of the Native halls there in Natural History at Smithsonian and by different artists coming in. Me, a Sioux doll maker, was invited to come up and do that. I guess they had spent like nine months trying to find me. I started dollmaking back in the seventies.

Anyway, in the eighties, ‘86 or so, ‘87, there was an article in American Indian Art magazine that was published about dolls. In ‘86 I believe it was, I had a one-man show down in Andrew Park, Oklahoma and they collected the International Crafts Board for four of my dolls.

So one of them got in that article and then the director over at education in the outreach program saw the doll and they said they wanted to find that guy.

Don Tenoso SIA-SIA2010-0383

Don Tenoso circa 1991 outside of the National Museum of Natural History with some of his works of art. The doll beside Tenoso is called “Iktorni,” or “trickster doll.” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Tenoso beadwork

Leather holster created by Tenoso in 2006, covered in a beadwork design. Image courtesy of the British Museum, where the piece is held. 

Tom Dickinson: How did you get started doing this [art practice]?

DT: Actually I started when I was in New York. I went out there because I heard that C. W. Post [campus of Long Island University] had a scholarship for Natives who wanted it to be teachers. It turns out they didn’t so I went to the American Indian Community House there in New York.

Actually, backpedal a little bit. I was born in Riverside, California in 1960. In ‘63 we were in France. We were there when de Gaulle kicked us out. So my earliest memories are there when the French high school kids were throwing rocks at us on the playground. They would stone our bus. I remember flying out of there and the U.S. piling up all these brand new, big boxes and stuff and just setting them on fire. Big old wrecking balls smashing holes into runways as you flew out. I also got to see some whales as we flew, that’s how low they went across the ocean. You can see the spouts and little tails going across.

So from there we go to Oklahoma City, so I got to meet all these Natives. They used to call it Indian Territory which is sort of a penal colony for Native Americans starting back through Trail of Tears, Andrew Jackson and all of that stuff.

From there we went and lived in Rapid [City] back where my grandma lived, lot of relatives in Rapid City, South Dakota, in the Black Hills which is our sacred area, which actually by federal courts is still our property. But they offered us $10 million or $100 million or something but we still don’t take it. Because our sacred Wind Cave is there and that’s one of our origin stories. We came from there. The thing about Wind Cave you stand there one hour of the day and it blows your hair back.

So geologists say, “Yeah, there’s probably an underground stream - they haven’t found it yet - flowing and air displacement and that’s causing your hair to go that way.” The only thing is you come back some hours later, same day, and now it’s sucking your hair into the cave. “I guess there’s a tilting rock or something under there that messes with it.” We say that’s Mother Earth breathing, that’s where she breathes from.

Learn more: View a program from the 1992 exhibit Contemporary Plains Indian Dolls, which took place at the Southern Plains Indian Museum and Crafts Center in Anadarko, Oklahoma. The exhibit featured a piece by Don Tenoso (“Gourd Clain Dancer,” figure 10). 
 
This interview was conducted as part of The Many Faces of Arlington oral history project, which sought to document the County’s diverse population as a reflection on the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown by English colonizers. 

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Oral History: J. Walter Tejada

Community Activist; Arlington County Board Member from 2003 - 2015

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

401px-Arlington_County_Board_Chair_J._Walter_Tejada_USE_THIS_ONE_(4251361999)

Walter Tejada’s County Board portrait, circa 2007.

In 2003, J. Walter Tejada became the first person of Latin American heritage to be elected to the Arlington County Board, or to any governing body in Northern Virginia.

Tejada served as County Board Chair in 2008 and 2013.

Tejada was born in El Salvador and immigrated to the United States at age 13, first settling with his family in Brooklyn, New York, and later moving to Trenton, New Jersey. After attending college and playing soccer at Keystone Junior College and Mercer College, he eventually moved to Arlington in 1987.

Tejada got his start as an activist and organizer after witnessing inequities faced by members of the Latinx community. He initially worked in groups addressing fair housing, job opportunities, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). He also helped to establish a Salvadoran festival in Arlington, starting in 1995, focusing on Salvadoran culture.

The front page of El Pregonero, the official Spanish-language newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., on March 13, 2003, following Tejada’s election to the County Board.

In 2003, Tejada was elected to the Arlington County Board in a special election following the death of Board member Charles P. Monroe. Tejada defeated longtime GOP activist Mike W. Clancy in the contest.

During his time on the board, Tejada continued to advocate for immigrant and Spanish-speaking communities, and served on numerous task forces and groups, including as chair on the governor’s Latino Advisory Commission.

Tejada

J. Walter Tejada speaking at the National Rally for Citizenship on the West Lawn of the Capitol on April 10, 2013. Image courtesy of C-SPAN.

Arlington_County_Board_2014

From left to right: County Board members J. Walter Tejada, John Vihstadt, Jay Fisette, Mary Hynes and Libby Garvey in 2014.

Since his time in County government, he was appointed to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board of Directors and is president of the Virginia Latino Leaders Council.

In the following oral history interview, conducted prior to his election to the County Board, Tejada discusses his childhood, coming to Arlington, and his early work in activism. In these excerpts from the interview, he discusses first impressions of the County and his work with LULAC’S Council 4609, which encompasses Arlington. 

This interview is available in full at the Center for Local History. Note: The audio for this interview is currently not available.  

Narrator: J. Walter Tejada 

Interviewer: Ingrid Kauffman

Date: October 27, 2000 

J. Walter Tejada: One of the things I saw when I lived in DC - actually, one of the first things I recognized was that - actually since I started visiting Robin [Liten-Tejada] when she went to school here -- is that DC had a much larger Latino population than New Jersey, and I liked that. Remember, I mentioned that when we lived in New York there weren't that many Salvadorans at all, even when we lived in New Jersey, there was one person that was Salvadoran, and he lived like 10 miles away. It was odd that I came here and suddenly there was a Salvadoran population. 

Ingrid Kauffman: What year was that? 

WT: 1987. I thought, “this is great.” There were some restaurants; I hadn't eaten pupusas for years, which is one of my favorite Salvadoran dishes, just like almost every day. I saw this and it really piqued my interest. In fact, it was a determining point why I ended up moving here, when we were talking about what we were going to do with our lives. I'd come to visit and see all this and I liked that. The climate here, so many people from different backgrounds, different perspectives and accents, cultural activities - to me, it was like a paradise for these activities. When I was working in D.C. I also saw that the Latino community was really - first of all, there was no political power. Then - the community - not all but certainly a good portion of the community finds itself in a very tough socio-economic situation.

WT: Three things [LULAC Council 4609] did were voter registration, citizenship, and leadership development. That part I liked because it made it so broad for different things. I decided I was going to be involved in that aspect, because we would promote meetings, forums, community forums, where elected officials or public officials would meet with the community to address issues of concern with the community, sort of like putting a little bridge into what needed - the issues of importance. I started, and I would go to places and grab chairs, move them around, set up the coffee machine, make sure donuts were there.  

We did forums on gang prevention activities, the educational system in Arlington, how it was being responsive to Latinos or not. We've done forums in the business community - what opportunities there could be to incorporate Latinos into the business world. We did citizenship workshops where we published that on a certain day people could come in with all their material that we would specify, like passport, proof of where they lived, proof where they worked, birth certificates for their kids, and helped them fill out these applications in order to apply to become citizens. We would have lawyer friends who would come and volunteer in these workshops so that we can help people.

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Oral History: Buckingham Florist

Interview with Neil Bassin

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

Arlington has a lengthy history of legacy floral shops, and among those was Buckingham Florist, a mainstay of the Buckingham neighborhood for almost 80 years.

Buckingham Florist was founded by Myer and Jean Bassin in Arlington in 1942, and the couple later opened a second location in Coral Hills, Maryland. The business did floral arrangements for a variety of events and venues, with the nearby Arlington National Cemetery among their primary sites of business.

At one point, Buckingham Florist was the primary supplier of flowers for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The shop’s federal connections didn’t stop there, however: one of the shop’s floral designers, Elmer “Rusty” Young, went on to serve as a florist in the White House in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. Young was appointed the first White House Chief Floral Designer by Jacqueline Kennedy, and continued in that position throughout the rest of his career.

Buckingham Florist, right, in 1996.

The shop moved to its long-term location at 301 North Glebe Road in the bustling Buckingham Shopping Center in the mid-1950s, having previously been located on the south side of Glebe. Myer and Jean Bassin’s son Neil Bassin ran Buckingham Florist throughout the latter half of the 20th century. He sold the shop in the mid-2000s, and the Buckingham storefront closed permanently in 2017.

In this oral history interview, Neil Bassin (1932-2019) discusses the legacy of the business and how the shop supplied its flowers. The interview in full goes on to discuss other topics, such as changes in the floral industry and the business environment of Buckingham throughout the 20th century.

Narrator: Neil Bassin
Interviewer: Virginia Smith
Date: May 14, 2012

Photos of the Bassin family from the February 8, 1965, issue of the Northern Virginia Sun. Image courtesy of Virginia Chronicle.

Neil Bassin: In most aspects of the florist business, we were very successful because of the location we were in. People knew us. And that’s, I would say, the major factor in why our business was so successful, until the people met me or my mother, or you know. And just personal business, where the people knew us. I mean, we had people when they were born. We had them when they were married, and we had them when they died because the business is over sixty years.

Virginia Smith: That’s a nice legacy, isn’t it? Sixty years of business.

NB: Yeah, it’s a long time.

VS: Tell me who your suppliers were of flowers.

NB: Well, lots. Mostly, downtown florists, wholesalers. And when I first got in, it was downtown wholesalers. They were all—

VS: Is that the name of it? Downtown—?

NB: No.

VS: Oh, multiple—?

NB: They were mostly around one block downtown.

VS: Where was that block?

NB: It was between Fourteenth and Thirteenth on the street before K Street. K Street was a park in those days.

VS: Yes.

NB: Like a little park. And then down Fourteenth Street, on the right was Schaffer’s Retail Florist.

VS: Okay, but Shaffer was a wholesaler also—

NB: Then, Shaffer was a wholesaler. McCallum Sauber was a wholesaler, and they were really instrumental in helping us get in business because my uncle sort of knew the owners. And they did help us. My uncle was very artistic, and he was a big help in getting us into the business. But, there were Paul’s Wholesale Florist and Goody Brothers.

VS: Oh, I know that name.

NB: And around the corner was District Wholesale, and Flowers Incorporated, which was also a wholesale florist. And so they were all in one area until they sold that block and razed that block, where they all moved out and spread out.

Advertisement for Buckingham Florist in the Washington, D.C., Yellow Pages in 1960. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Elmer “Rusty” Young, Chief Floral Designer at the White House, prepares an arrangement in the Floral Room, August 28, 1963. Young was previously a floral designer at Buckingham Florist. Image courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library of Museum.

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Oral History: Public Shoe Store

Interview with Dr. Sholom “Doc” Friedman and Karen Widmayer

Public Shoe Store, 1983.

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

Public Shoe Store in Clarendon was one of the neighborhood’s longest-running and most recognizable businesses, operating from 1938 to 2016. The business was operated by brothers Dr. Sholom H. “Doc” Friedman and Joel Friedman for much of that time, after being founded by the Friedmans’ father Samuel Friedman in the 1930s. Dr. Friedman was a trained podiatrist, and the business was known for specializing in comfort shoes and custom fitting. Dr. Friedman passed away in 2019.

The original location of the store was where the Clarendon Metro station currently stands, but when construction came through the neighborhood the business moved to its longstanding storefront at 3137 Wilson Boulevard. The shoe store was also a meeting place for members of the Arlington-Fairfax Jewish Congregation (now Etz Hayim), who would gather on the second floor of the shop.

Advertisement in the Northern Virginia Sun for Public Shoe Store, October 31, 1968. Image courtesy of Virginia Chronicle.

In this oral history, Dr. Sholom “Doc” Friedman and two of his children, Karen Widmayer and Mark Friedman, discuss the history of the shop and the impact it had on the Arlington community. Other details in the interview include how the children often ran the cash registers, and how the shop worked with President Carter's family in the 1970s. Here is a brief excerpt from the interview:

Narrator 1: Dr. Sholom “Doc” Friedman
Narrator 2: Karen Widmayer
Interviewer: Virginia Smith
Date: March 8, 2015

Public Shoe Store exterior in 1990.

Entrance to Public Shoe Store, 1990.

Virginia Smith: Okay. So how does the building work? What do you do? You set up the retail place in the main floor?

Sholom Friedman: Right.

VS: What’s downstairs?

SF: It used to be stored shoes, but I’ve been decreasing the stock now.

VS: Towards the end of this—the life of the business.

SF: Right.

VS: But that was full downstairs—was inventory.

SF: Right.

VS: And upstairs was—?

SF: Upstairs we had a little balcony.

Karen Widmayer: Yeah, the main floor is all selling floor and stock. And the basement had all stock and some storage. And then there’s a mezzanine level that’s about a quarter of a floor-size up in the back, and that was just some storage space.

SF: Storage, right.

View of Wilson Boulevard from east to west, including the large Public Shoe Store sign, 1991.

VS: So it was all your dad [Samuel Friedman] needed? Large enough?

SF: Oh, yeah. It was a pretty big operation back then.

VS: Sounds like it. What decade would you call your heyday, the best years, or the best decades?

SF: Probably after the war.

VS: So the ‘40s and ‘50s when families were moving and growing and all that sort of stuff.

SF: Right.

KW: Even when I worked there, I mean, there’d be ten or fifteen numbers pulled, people sitting and waiting. I mean, it was crazy on Saturdays.

VS: That’s good business—that was a Saturday.

KW: Yeah, that was still ’60—well, I was—started working there when I was about seven, so that’s late ‘60s and into the early ‘70s. I think at that point, that’s when things started changing a little bit with Arlington and the retail. But the businesses stayed.

Photos from Public Shoe Store around the time of its closing in 2016.

Photos from Public Shoe Store around the time of its closing in 2016.

The exterior of Public Shoe Store around the time of its closing in 2016.

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Oral History: Arlington’s First Openly LGBTQ Elected Official

In 1997, Jay Fisette became the first openly LGBTQ+ person elected to office in the state of Virginia when he won a seat on the Arlington County Board.

Fisette served for six terms on the Board, from 1998 to 2017, and served as Board Chair five times, including in his final year on the Board.

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

Fisette focused on numerous issues during his tenure, including strong environmental policies, local affordable housing, and urban planning. He also has held leadership positions in organizations such as the Metropolitan Council of Governments, the Virginia Housing Development Authority, and the Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance.

In his work with the Alliance, which was founded in 1981 as a local branch of the Virginia Gay Alliance, the group successfully advocated for the inclusion of sexual orientation protections in the County’s human rights ordinance.

Prior to being elected to the Board, Fisette worked as a Government Accountability Office auditor, and as director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic of Northern Virginia, which focuses on helping patients with HIV/AIDS.

Reflecting on his career in Arlington, Fisette said in an announcement stating he would not run for re-election that the County “embraced me as a gay man long before such an endorsement could be presumed, long before it became the norm.”

From left to right: Long Bridge Park Design Advisory Committee vice-chairman Carrie Johnson, County Board Chairman Jay Fisette, and Committee Chairman Tobin Smith at the groundbreaking ceremony for Long Bridge Park, April 10, 2010. From RG 199.

In this oral history interview from the Smart Growth documentary series, Jay Fisette discusses his time on the County Board, as well as development in the County.

Narrator: Jay Fisette
Interviewer: Mary Curtius
Date: April 12, 2008
Note: The audio for this interview is currently unavailable.

Mary Curtius: So Jay, what I want to know is what made you run for the board in the first place?

Jay Fisette: That’s a good question. You know I’d always been interested in studying public policy and always thought about it. When I went to California and came out it was possible there. But as a gay man, it just didn’t seem feasible honestly.

MC: Didn’t seem feasible here in Virginia?

JF: To be elected. You know most places in the country you take it off the list. It’s just not practical. But after living here for five years or so, six years, seven years, and getting to know the community it just sort of crept back into my consciousness as something that in a community like this was really feasible and I had a real connection to what I understood to be the values here and the character of this community and sort of just woke up.

A campaign brochure for Fisette’s first run for County Board in the 1993 special election. Fisette gained 49.4% of the vote but ultimately lost to Republican-endorsed Independent Ben Winslow.

This interview is available at the Center for History, and issues of the Sun and Northern Virginia Sun are available online through the CLH Community Archives and through Virginia Chronicle.

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Oral History: West Brothers Brick Company

Interview with Rayfield Barber

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

Arlington was once a hub for brick production – providing the materials that would make up many of the homes and buildings in the area.

The West Brothers Brick Company was founded in 1844 and came to Arlington shortly after the Civil War in 1866. Boosted by clay deposits along the Potomac, the West brothers bought 40 acres and established a powerhouse production site of local brick. Other companies quickly followed suit, and the region supported 10 plants that used local clays by 1905 - mostly producing red brick, though the West Brothers also made clay tile as well.

The company remained in operation in Arlington until 1942, when the land was taken over by the federal government to build the Pentagon. About 250 people were employed by the company at this time, and the West Brothers Brick Company subsequently moved operations to Landover, Maryland.

Bricks made by the company were used in notable buildings around the Capital Region, including the White House, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court building, both Senate office buildings, and the Capitol.

In this oral history interview, Rayfield Barber discusses his time working as a machine operator at the West Brothers Brick Company. Barber began working for the company around the time of the Great Depression in 1932, working 10 hours a day for twelve and a half cents an hour. To get to work, he would take the bus from Columbia Pike in the Barcroft neighborhood, and would later walk from the brickyard to his home in Green Valley.

West Brothers Brick Company offices at 720 15th NW in Washington, D.C., 1902.

Barber worked for West Brothers until 1937, at which point the brick workers went on strike. Later, he worked at the Hoover Airport and the National Airport for over 50 years after the Hoover airfield closed down. As a porter, he waited on celebrities like Clark Gable, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Kennedys, and in 1991 he was honored for his longtime service.

West Brothers brickyard panoramic, 1903.

Narrator: Rayfield Barber
Interviewer: Edmund Campbell and Cas Cocklin
Date: July 17, 1991

Cas Cocklin: Tell us a little bit around the brickyard.  How large was it more or less?  And how many people were employed there?  I know perhaps you don't know the exact number but roughly?

Rayfield Barber: It was a pretty large brickyard because they made bricks and tile at West Brothers Brick Company.

CC: To whom were they selling these?  To the government or to private contractors?

RB: They was selling them to the government and to private contractors.  They had a bunch of Dutch kilns which they start the bricks in.  What would happen, they would bring this through the machine, they had one machine that ran over and over with molds in it and then clay would fall into the molds and when it come around and it had a belt, a conveyor belt . . .

CC: Now was this just one mold at a time or did they have a row of molds?

RB: No, it was a whole lot of molds in this here wheel-like thing and it was big tubs in there and it would fill up, I guess it was just 4 x 8 for the bricks and then the clay would fall in there and then pat down and when it come around it had something like a knife blade, cut it off and when they did that, the plunge would drop down and knock the bricks out and they'd come right out on this conveyor belt and they'd have men standing in line, about five men standing in line off bearing the bricks. Putting them, setting them on these carts.

CC: Were they also inspecting them at the same time, in case one was broken or something?

RB: No, if it was broken, the men would just throw that brick away.

Edmund Campbell: Where did you get clay?

RB: The clay was right now where the Pentagon City is, there's a clay field right down in there and it had a little dinky, a little engine that ran by steam.

The West Brothers brick kilns, right, were eventually razed to build Pentagon. Photo from 1942.

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Oral History: Bob & Edith’s Diner

Interview with Gregory Bolton

“Bob & Edith’s Diner with high rise apartment in background,” 2010. Photo by Emma Chaplin as part of the “Capturing Arlington” photo contest.

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

Bob & Edith’s Diner has been an Arlington mainstay for more than 50 years. Established in 1969 by Bob and Edith Bolton, the original Bob & Edith’s got started when the couple took over the location of a “Gary’s Donut Dinette” for $800. The diner started with simple Southern dishes, such as country hams, scrapple, bologna, bacon, and country breakfasts.

The Boltons later added several locations in addition to the flagship diner on Columbia Pike, and in 1982, the diner expanded from a 10-stool counter to 5 stools and 7 booths. The interiors include many photos of the Bolton family, as well as Dallas Cowboys ephemera and a jukebox.

“Color shot of Bob & Edith’s Diner,” 2010. Photo by Muna Abdulkader as part of the “Capturing Arlington” photo contest.

In this oral history interview, Bob and Edith’s son Gregory Bolton describes the history and operations of the diner and its expanding menu. Today, his son and daughter, Christopher and Tamara Bolton run Bob & Edith’s, continuing the family tradition.

Narrator: Gregory Bolton
Interviewer: Virginia Smith
Date: December 19, 2011

Bob & Edith’s Diner featured in the South Arlington section of a 1984 Arlington hotel and restaurant guide.

Bob & Edith’s Diner featured in the South Arlington section of a 1988 Arlington hotel and restaurant guide.

Gregory Bolton: When I was growing up, there was no such thing as really a menu. What there was—above the, in front of the ten stools that were there, and above the grills, there were just signs, such as The Serviceman’s Special. We’d have an artist that would paint these signs up, roughly around sixteen inches, by maybe twenty inches. And it would, for example, would have a serviceman eating a chipped beef breakfast, that we would call it SOS, Serviceman’s Special. And each product was put across the front of the diner, and that’s how you would choose what you would like. There was no hand menu; it was across the board. And we’d replace them like once or twice a year.

Virginia Smith: And then when did you go to a menu, a printed menu?

GB: We probably went to a menu, I would say maybe about twenty-five years ago. The first ten or fifteen years it was pretty much all up in front of you; you picked it out, different ideas and different products. But the menu’s ten, fifteen times larger now than it was back then.

VS: Yeah. Did you get people coming down from the Pentagon?

GB: Yes ma’am. We had Pentagon, and the Navy Annex are very big customers. We had a lot of servicemen. I would say it’s seventy-five, eighty percent is government-related, whether it’s the County, state, Pentagon—

VS: Well, it’s affordable.

GB: —The military. They seem to be very pleased with the operation, and they keep coming back.

“The original Bob & Edith’s Diner,” 2010. Photo by Matthew Welborn as part of the “Capturing Arlington” photo contest.

Sources
https://www.bobandedithsdiner.com/About-Us

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Oral History: Margaret Troxell

Margaret Troxell (1909-2002) was a pioneering local journalist who helped found the Northern Virginia Sun.

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

Margaret Troxell moved to Arlington in 1932 after attending St. Joseph College in Maryland. She first worked for the Commonwealth Monitor, where her salary started off at $8 (half of which was used to pay for her rent as a boarder on Fillmore Street). She later took on part-time work at the Washington Post and the Washington Times, as well as a music studio manager and music instructor, teaching guitar and mandolin.

Margaret Troxell at her desk, date unknown.

To make ends meet, she also did news broadcasts for the first radio station in Arlington, WARL. In 1935, Troxell and a group of other local journalists founded the Sun, a weekly paper based in Arlington. There she worked as a journalist and editor and was known for never missing a County Board meeting in her 16 years as news editor.

Troxell and the other owners sold the Sun in 1951, and it is now known as the Northern Virginia Sun. Later in life, Troxell opened a public relations office and worked on numerous campaigns around the County. She lived in Colonial Village for over 40 years, and outside of journalism, was an active member of Arlington’s Business and Professional Women’s Club and the Virginia Conservation Commission.

In the following oral history interview, Margaret Troxell discusses what initially inspired her to become a journalist, and how she became interested in writing.

Margaret Troxell’s press pass, issued October 22, 1946

Narrator: Margaret Troxell
Interviewer: Ellen MacMahon
Date: 1984
Note: The audio for this interview is currently unavailable.

Ellen MacMahon: Can we talk, then, about your work - when you got started in journalism and what made you choose journalism.

Margaret Troxell: Well, when I was in school, in those days, professions for women were somewhat limited to teaching or nursing or something like that and, of course, I had started writing just as a child.  I have a vivid imagination, and I used to send articles and stories to papers and I would have them returned with a check when I was just 10, 12 years old - and, of course, they had no idea how old I was.  And this was very encouraging so when I reached the college level each summer in high school I worked on a newspaper.

EM: A local newspaper?

MT: Local newspapers.  Since we had this summer home in Emmetsburg, I worked on the Emmetsburg Chronicle, and that was a weekly - and I went in to see the editor, and he told me he couldn't pay me anything.  That was perfectly all right because at the time I didn't need any money.  But he taught me so much. And we had a regular barter system.  I used to go out and collect bills, and if people couldn't pay, I'd take a bushel of apples, a couple of chickens or a ham.  That was a lot of fun.  And then I worked on The Baltimore Sun one summer - different papers, Gettysburg Times and a little paper in Thurmont - and that was very interesting because I went there just to work on the paper, and the editor became very ill, and I ran the paper all summer.

EM: What an experience.

MT: That was quite an experience.  It gave me a lot of experience.  Then when I was ready to go to college, the family had a conference, and they decided that newspaper was not for their daughter, certainly not.  My father was very broadminded, and he said, "Sis, you stick to your guns, and I'm on your side." So it was finally agreed that I could take journalism if I also took education. So I am a graduate teacher.

A selection of clippings from some of Margaret Troxell’s human interest articles, from the Northern Virginia Sun (Dates from right to left: October 13, 1939; September 15, 1939; August 25, 1939)

This interview is available at the Center for History, and issues of the Sun and Northern Virginia Sun are available online through the CLH Community Archives and through Virginia Chronicle.

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Oral History: The First Students to Desegregate Arlington Public Schools

Interviews with Lance Newman and Michael Jones

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

This week marks the 62nd anniversary of the desegregation of Arlington Public Schools. On February 2nd, 1959, four students – Lance Newman, Michael Jones, Ronald Deskins, and Gloria Thompson – entered Stratford Junior High School, making them the first students to desegregate any public school in Virginia.

This 1959 article from the Anti-Defamation League describes the first day of integrated school at Stratford Junior High School in Arlington and the preparations that had been made to make a smooth transition.

This momentous event was the culmination of decades of work from activists and community members who navigated both legal action and other acts of protest to reach this landmark decision.

In the following oral history interviews, Lance Newman (1946-2018) and Michael Jones describe their experiences attending Stratford, what the preparation leading up to February 2nd looked like, and their experiences growing up in the close-knit community of Hall’s Hill. In this segment, Newman and Jones discuss their first days at Stratford.

Narrator: Lance Newman
Interviewer 1: Judith Knudsen
Interviewer 2: Joanna Dressel
Date: February 13, 2016

From left to right, Michael Jones, Lance Newman, Ronald Deskins, and Gloria Thompson entering Stratford Junior High School on February 2, 1959.

Judith Knudsen: Let’s go back to that first day and describe the first day.

Lance Newman: Okay. Let’s see. I remember getting up, getting ready, and I think my mom was—she was probably—she told me later she was a nervous wreck.

JK: I’m sure.

LN: Yeah. And I was kind of. I wasn’t—because I was there with my buddies. Actually, Ronnie and Michael and I were really good friends because we played softball together. Gloria—I knew Gloria, but I kind of felt sorry for her because she was the only girl. But so, we went down, and we all gathered at Ronnie Deskin’s house. And there were reporters there and then all the people—community leaders. And then, we sat around and they took pictures. We got some pictures, then we piled into Mr. Jones’ car and went down to Stratford, and I guess on Old Dominion Drive they let us out, and we went—we actually went in the back of the school, not the main entrance at the front. I remember going down and getting off—crossing Old Dominion Drive. They had blocked it off—and then walking down the long pathway near the football field and tons—well, it seemed like just a gauntlet of Arlington County police. They were in their riot gear with helmets and their riot gear.

LN: And actually, we were walking in by ourselves. They purposely had us come after school started, so we just went in. We went into the central entrance near the flagpole in the back, went to the principal’s office, Mr. Richmond. They sort of had—they had a conference and they told us what to expect and all of this, tried to calm us, I guess. And then we were escorted down to our first class, and I remember going into—well, he was—my math teacher was Mr. Marks—and going into the class and seeing about thirty or—thirty all-white faces, and it was kind of tense. He was pretty good because he shook our hands and stuff and said, “Kids, this is—” and had us sit down. He had a seat and a desk for us. It was right upfront.

LN: And that was a Monday, I believe. Yeah, it was a Monday. And then, the next day—I mean it went okay. That class—and then I remember the first-period bell ringing and going out in the hallways, and Stratford was a lot bigger than HB*. I went to HB first. And I was going out in the hallway and seeing this mass of humanity changing classes, and people were kind of—pretty much—I think they were kind of staring. People were kind of—you know—wanted to ignore us. But it was tense, and then that day after school, we went back to—I guess actually we went back to my house, and then we had this press conference with the—and I remember the Washington Post and the local television stations were there and had big cameras set up, and a guy interviewed us.

*Note: Hoffman-Boston was, until 1964, the only high school for African American students in Arlington. It remained open until its final graduating class in 1964 and reopened as an elementary school in 2000.

Narrator: Michael Jones
Interviewer: Judith Knudsen
Date: July 17, 2016

Stratford Junior High School, 1959. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Judith Knudsen: So, what do you remember about the day when you—when it happened? What was—?

Michael Jones: You know, the further we get away the furthest—the more I forget. The only thing I remember is getting up early that morning and crossed my mind—they dressed me and made my hair and all that—made sure my hair and everything was looking good—nice long coat and everything. We were to meet at Ronnie’s house, and then—our house is right where I stayed—my mother lives now. So, Ronnie’s house is in apartments. Well, I’m two minutes away—just across the street—and you go down to his apartment there. So, we went to his apartment, and someone drove us around—drove us to the school. Now, my recollection—and I talked to Ronnie and Lance, and they think it’s different. I always thought—and it’s too bad it’s not to the day where I could—where it would be on YouTube. I could just look it up.

JK: Exactly.

MJ: Yeah. But I always thought we went into our—Vacation Lane—went in that way, straight down that little street there and went up the steps. But they said we went in the other way. But I don’t know. I guess somebody’d go to—but anyway, went in there and we met with Mr. Claude Richmond for a while.

JK: He was the principal.

MJ: He was the principal at the time. He met with us maybe—I guess less than a half an hour before we went into class, and Ronnie and Lance were together, and me and Gloria were together. I think now that’s because Ronnie and Lance went to the Methodist church at the time. Gloria and I went to the Baptist church. So, I think that’s why they put us together in classes. And we went to the first class and—

JK: What was that like?

MJ: I don’t know. You know what? I can not—I don’t remember anything that stood out negative. So, to me, it was just a normal class. We went in there, and I guess I didn’t know anybody, which was difficult when you go—most classes—

JK: Of course. New class.

MJ: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn’t know anybody, so when we went into class, I guess we sat pretty close to each other, and that was it. Came out. I guess we had a ride home that first week or so—something like that. Or maybe first—maybe—I don’t know. Came home and it was—it was up. Fairly uneventful year. The only thing that I can think about that first year is some guys used to call us names in the hall, and that’s it. But nothing even bad as you see today—getting beat up or anything—and I guess because the focus—everybody knew the focus was on us at the time. If anything happened, it would be negative on not only them but the school, the state, and everybody else. So, nothing happened, it was uneventful except for those.

JK: And did—my understanding was that you stayed in the same class for all the classes. I mean, you changed classes, but you had the same group, so it was the same group all the way through the day.

MJ: Yeah. Correct. Right. I don’t remember me being in the class by myself that first year. I think Gloria was in all my classes I had.

From left to right, Michael Jones, Ronald Deskins, and Lance Newman at the February 2, 2016, County event, “An Evening to Celebrate Arlington’s History Makers.” Photo by Blake Tippens.

A plaque dedicating the Stratford Auditorium, February 2, 2016. Photo by Blake Tippens.

Learn more:

”The Story of Arlington Public School Desegregation,” tells a detailed narrative about the history of the desegregation of APS

”Oral History: Desegregation of Arlington’s Public Schools” and “A Fight for Educational Equality: Civil Rights Activist Dorothy Hamm” both detail the life and work of Dorothy Hamm, who led the efforts to desegregate APS

Project DAPS is a digital exhibit featuring nearly 2,000 digitized documents and stories related to the desegregation of Arlington Public Schools from the Arlington Public Library’s Community Archives

”Back to Stratford: Honoring Arlington’s History Makers” features a panel discussion with Michael Jones, Lance Newman, Ronald Deskins, and other community members about the desegregation process and it's legacy

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Oral History: The Arlington Food Assistance Center

Interviews with Ann Rudd and Andy Lee

Arlington Voices the Oral History Collection

Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

The Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) was founded in 1988 under the goal of “obtaining and distributing groceries, directly and free of charge, to people living in Arlington, VA, who cannot afford to purchase enough food to meet their basic needs.” Its formal mission statement as of 2020 is “to feed our neighbors in need by providing dignified access to nutritious supplemental groceries.”

Established by a small public-private committee, the organization began distributing food in a Red Cross van, which was purchased at the Capital Area Community Food Bank in Northeast D.C. The group initially delivered to a small, rotating list of families provided by local churches. Its early founders were Anne Rudd, William Knull, and Anna Barber, who had attended Rock Spring Congregational Church together.

AFAC's Certificate of Incorporation, June 30, 1988.

After over a year of operating out of the van, the First Baptist Church of Clarendon offered AFAC its first fixed operating site, increasing the number of clients the organization could serve. In 1992, AFAC acquired its own full-time operating site at 2900 North Washington Boulevard. The organization moved to its current headquarters at 2708 S. Nelson Street in June 1997 to accommodate its growing operation. More than 30 years after its founding, AFAC now serves more than 3,000 families per month.

In these oral history interviews, founder Anne Rudd and longtime AFAC volunteer Andy Lee describe the early days of AFAC and how the organization grew to become a cornerstone of the Arlington community.

Example of a fundraising effort held by AFAC, advertised in the Washington Post, October  12, 2000. Image courtesy of the Washington Post.

Narrator: Ann Rudd
Interviewer: Michelle Jones
Date: November 20, 2013

Michelle Jones: And how do you really get started? That’s a large—that’s a large job to accomplish.

Ann Rudd: Well I know that they started out—they were using the churches for storage of food.

MJ: Oh.

AR: They were—they used the Baptist church in Clarendon. And they used the Unitarian church and they used Little Falls Presbyterian.

MJ: And what you—

AR: They were sites where people picked up food. Twenty-five years ago was what? Something around three sites.

MJ: So this is around 1988?

AR: Yes. Yeah, so it’s been twenty-five years.

MJ: Okay. So um—Well how did you get—information out to the community?

AR: Well they worked through the county with the Department of Human Services, churches, and community organizations, you had to be referred-you could get food the first time.

MJ: Is that how you received funds? Or how—

AR: No!

MJ: — how did you get started and find a place and—? (speaking at same time)

AR: They did not—they just started calling churches to find a place. As for the money, it was donations. People donated food.

MJ: And what was your involvement in getting all of this going? Were you more on the ground trying to get donations and actual goods or—

AR: I think I was more-or-less contacting churches to see if they would let us set up there. So I think it was those three churches, but it was mainly on the Baptist church when Clarendon was the main place. And it was only open on Saturday morning.

AFAC informational mailer distributed to community members.

Narrator: Andrew “Andy” Lee
Interviewer: Anne Webb
Date: September 30, 2013

Anne Webb: So—what—but you started volunteering when AFAC was still rather small and you’ve seen it grow exponentially. Tell me about your role in all those changes.

Andy Lee: Absolutely. Sure. When I first started volunteering we were serving —serving I think around 70 families per week.

AW: Um-hm (affirmative)

AL: We had one bagging on Friday night and then one distribution on Saturday morning. AFAC was housed in the basement of what was then, Clarendon Baptist Church, and subsequently, as we grew and hired our first staff, we needed office space so Bill Knull at the time, who was president of the board, found a location at 10th and Washington which was at the time we found it, it was being used as a motorcycle repair shop, so it was an absolute mess. … We remained there for several years and then the vision was that we need to expand further as our client load increased and we also need to be closer to our clients. Being in Clarendon the majority of our clients at the time were in Arna Valley, which no longer exists as far as low-income housing but that’s where a lot of our clients were, as well as in the Columbia Pike corridor.

So, we found a location in Shirlington working with real estate agents, Bill Knull primarily, looking at different sites and the current location on South Nelson Street, proved to be for the most part meeting the majority of our needs and so we moved in there I believe in 1996 or 1997 timeframe after some reconstruction of the infrastructure of the building and we’ve been there ever since.

In an addition, we had two primary satellite distribution sites, Clarendon Methodist Church as well as the Gunston Community Center while I was on the board. That has since expanded to multiple different locations, you know we are doing outbound. But at the time South Nelson Street was our primary location as well as the two satellite sites that we had.

As far as the client loads, as I said, when I started, we were about 70 families a week. I think at the peak last year we were around 1,600 families per week on average. I think it’s down now a little bit. But it’s still very high compared to what it used to be.

The AFAC logo as of 2020. Image courtesy of AFAC.

These interviews are available at the Center for Local History. Oral history interviews with Fred Jones, Robert Gallagher, Roberta, and John Overholt, and Ed Nolan also detail the history and work of AFAC.

Want to learn more? Record Group 313 in the Center for Local History also holds documents from and related to AFAC dating from 1948 to 2018

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. YouTube. Flickr. Newsletter.

download appDownload the Library App