Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department 1931, collection of the Arlington Historical Society

23 Years at Station 8, Hall’s Hill

Julian Syphax was one of the first paid black firefighters in Arlington as well as one of the first paid firefighters at the Hall’s Hill station.

The Arlington County Government began formerly providing fire protection in 1940, creating a career system for what was previously a network of volunteer fire fighting departments in the county. A volunteer-run station was established in Hall’s Hill in 1925, but the employment program was limited to white firefighters only for its first decade.

Julian Syphax, then a young man from Ithaca, New York, moved to Arlington in 1949 and applied for a job as a firefighter at a time when the County was beginning to make positions available to black applicants. Mr. Syphax’s interview is a tremendous source of information for people interested in the experience of desegregation, as well as the history of fire protection in Arlington County.

In this clip, Mr. Syphax reflects on the initial difficulties he and his colleague Alfred had working with the other majority white firefighter stations, as well as his appreciation for his time as a firefighter and the close-knit community of the Hall’s Hill neighborhood.

NARRATOR: Julian Syphax
INTERVIEWER: Judith Knudsen
DATE: May 20, 2016

Transcript:

JS: Well, I can honestly say that at the beginning of our careers, Alfred and I were really let known that they didn’t want us, from the way we were treated at a fire, you know, no—

JK: This is the other firefighters you’re talking?

JS: The other firefighters.

JK: Okay. The white firefighters.

JS: Firefighters did not want us, and, I have to admit, some of the chiefs, some of the people in charge. A lot of times there were fires in our first-due territory, so we were called on. They would call second due and third due before they would call us. I lived at that time, when I got married, across the street from the firehouse, and there was a fire in a barrel in my yard. Somebody had set on fire. And the firehouse was across the street, and they called in Cherrydale, who was second due, and we all stood there and watched them come up Lee Highway from Cherrydale to put the fire out. So it was known that they didn’t want us.
But like I said before, it all turned out to be a very nice job, and from Ithaca, New York, I found that the only reason for the racism was that they didn’t have any communications. But after I found out that they got to know each other, there wasn’t that much different in either one of us, so broke down kind of fast.

JK: So what was the community like just living there? Just aside from that, what do you remember about Hall’s Hill and—

JS: Close, very close. The neighbors, all Hall’s Hill, was very, very close. They had a kind of a—instead of going all the way to the Safeway, there was a little family store that you could get bread and milk, stuff like that, staples. And church. There was a Methodist church that is still there, I think, on Lee Highway. Calloway. Calloway Methodist Church was there, which I would say 80 percent of Hall’s Hill attended. And just a lot of social activity, that everybody knew everybody, and they were very close-knit.

JK: Yeah, what I always hear is if the children misbehave, everybody—

JS: It was a village. Really, that was very true. Took a village to raise your child.

JK: So how long were you at Hall’s Hill? How many years that you were there?

JS: I never changed.

JK: Full-time.

JS: I was at Station 8—

JK: The whole time.

JS: —my whole career for twenty-three years, yeah. That’s why I’m so very thankful and I’m so honored for this. I just don’t have the words to express it.

You can find Julian Syphax’s interview in its entirety in the Center for Local History – VA 975.5295 A7243oh ser.3 no.295. Photo: Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department 1931; Source: Photographs of the Arlington Historical Society, PG 230-4075

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.

From June 2017 – May 2018, we will post one oral history clip and transcript each month, focusing on Arlington’s history, culture and identity.

What is the oral history collection?

Oral history is a popular method of research used for understanding historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of people’s personal experiences.

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.

A Cornerstone of the Growing Lyon Village Community

Arlington has no shortage of local businesses offering high quality food, goods, and services, and it might surprise you to learn just how long some of them have been established in the community.

The Center for Local History has a growing collection of interviews with current and former business owners, the majority of which have been recorded by our volunteer Virginia Smith.

The Italian Store, a multi-location market replete with delicacies from fresh sandwiches to a gelato bar, opened in 1980 in the then “sleepy little shopping center” of Lyon Village. In this interview, co-owner Robert Tramonte takes us back to the days of the store’s founding before winding the clock further back to the days of his great-grandfather’s immigration to the United States from Italy.

NARRATOR: Robert Tramonte
INTERVIEWER: Virginia Smith
DATE:   March 20, 2013

Transcript:

RT: The founding of The Italian Store. Well, we started in 1980 and right before 1980, my brother and I were working for my father. My father is an attorney in Arlington but on the side with his brother, Tony, he owned a nightclub in Georgetown called The Bayou.  We ran the nightclub for four or five years until right between ’79 and ’80 when my dad sold it to the Cellar Door Company and within six months of selling the Bayou, we opened up The Italian Store.

VS: What was Lyon Village like in 1980 when you and your brother and dad went looking for a place to establish the joint as we say—the joint?

RT: Lyon Village was kind of a sleepy little shopping center.  Back in 1980, I don’t even think very few people even knew the name of the shopping center.  And the property where The Italian Store sits, they had for many years, even when I was a little kid, they had something there called Bernie’s Amusements which they had a pony ring there and they had these little boats and they had some batting cages and things like that. My sister and I remember riding the ponies when we were really young.

VS: So, you opened up the first day, who comes in? Who are your early buyers, early clients?

RT: In the early days, we really didn’t know what our clientele would be or we didn’t know what we were going to sell either. So, anybody that asked us for anything, we said yes which got us into a little trouble now and then. But, the very first day we were busy.  People were anxious to have this new store open and we had a core of people I felt the first couple years that were Italian and they really supported us and they went out of their way to spend money to make sure that we survived.  We knew their names. They knew us. We knew exactly what their order was going to be. We would put things aside, special ordered for them and they really helped us in the beginning. Also in the beginning, since we didn’t know exactly where this business was going to take us, we had a lot of restaurants that ordered from us.

VS: What would they order?

RT: Back in those days, this is 1980 now—but my brother made my fresh mozzarella and you can get mozzarella pretty easily nowadays but back in those days, it was very hard to find so my brother almost every day of the week, he was making fresh mozzarella and we would sell it to the restaurants.  We do very little of that today because the supplies are there, much more readily available. We have to work a little bit harder now to get products that people can’t find and we do. I still think that we have the best network to New York of anybody in this area. We have suppliers that I don’t think anybody else deals with.

VS: Tell me a little bit about who came here in 1889.

RT: 1889 was my great grandfather, Vincenzo Tramonte.  I haven’t been able to track down the exact location but, apparently [00:36:00] there was a group, they had an Italian food store there and my father said that it was a food store. It was also a general store. It was also a place where if you were a new immigrant, you could probably get a loan to kind of help you out. So we have a little bit of history in Manhattan, in the Italian food business.

VS: It is not out of the question that you should have opened The Italian Store, the food store.

RT: Exactly.

You can find Robert Tramonte’s interview in its entirety in the Center for Local History – VA 975.5295 A7243oh ser.3 no.283. Photo: Lyon Village 1986; Source: Arlington Photographs: Before and After – The Guy W. Starling Collection PG210-0085

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.

From June 2017 – May 2018, we will post one oral history clip and transcript each month, focusing on Arlington’s history, culture and identity.

What is the oral history collection?

Oral history is a popular method of research used for understanding historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of people’s personal experiences.

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.

Native American Experience in the U.S. Military

Thomas Oxendine, from Pembroke, North Carolina, became the first Native American Navy Pilot when he served in World War II.

Oxendine had an illustrious career as a Navy pilot, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for landing at sea and under gunfire to make a rescue. After 29 years in the Navy, Oxendine transitioned to civilian life as the head of public information with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and settled down in Arlington, Virginia, where he lived until his death in 2010. His oral history interview sheds light into the complex history of Native American and United States Federal Government relations in the 20th century, and is a wonderful source in this time of reflection on Veteran, Native American, and United States founding history.

In this clip, Thomas Oxendine describes the segregation of Native Americans in the US Military, and gives an account of his famous rescue on Yap Island.

NARRATOR: Thomas Oxendine
INTERVIEWER: Joe B. Johnson
DATE: May 22, 2007

Transcript:

TO: Well, as I was just pointing out my background is a little unusual in that I am a Lumbee Indian, born on a farm near Pembroke, North Carolina.
In 1941 – very unusual. There was an enterprising person who had a flying school in Lumberton, North Carolina, Horace Barnes. And he petitioned the government to do a study by training ten Indians to fly, and do a study similar to what they were doing with blacks down at Tuskegee, Alabama. So I was fortunate enough at age eighteen to get a license to fly. So at the time of Pearl Harbor I already could fly and went down to join up in January, and joined the Navy and became the first American Indian to go through Navy flight training.
You may have an interest in how that came about, because the policies of government during the days of segregation were a little unusual, in that the way the Armed Forces dealt with segregation, the Army only segregated black people. They had all black people doing what they did in the Army, they did it in a segregated unit. There were no restrictions on Indians in the Army. They could attain any level they had the skills and qualifications. So it only applied to blacks.
At the same time over in the Navy, the Navy restricted their officer corps to Caucasians. Indians could be any of the enlisted grades but not an officer, and blacks could only be steward’s mates. Again, that’s not good or bad, that’s flat out the way it was. In fact, the application for me signing up for the Navy had three categories: they were Caucasian, Negro, others. I don’t know who all the others were but Indians were in the “others.” So the qualifications for a naval officer was Caucasian and certain age. I think it was 19-26.
I found out the Navy has a problem with me in that at the time I applied, the Navy had enlisted pilots called NAPs or Naval Aviation Pilots. The Army had Flying Sergeants and what they did is: they did routine maintenance flights, ferried airplanes and what have you. But the war had just broken out and the Navy did away with the enlisted program. So I’m not restricted from entering flight training.
However, if they put me in, by the time I get to the other end, completion, there is no enlisted program. So it took a couple of months and finally permitted me to enter and then I got all kind of publicity as the first American Indian to go through Navy flight training. But that was kind of a fluke, and I don’t know of any others who came in until President Truman integrated the Armed Forces in 1947.
JJ: All right. That’s an unusual way to get through, and you then went through the training and went on to be an active aviator and had a career.
TO: Right.
JJ: You made at least one rescue?
TO: Yes, on July 24, 1944. It happened at Yap Island. We got a message that there were three downed pilots, in too close to the beach for their submarines to pick up. We were one hundred or so miles away, and flew in to make that rescue. The first pilot was going without anyone in his backseat and we spotted the raft, and he landed and made that recovery. They said there was a third pilot crew member in the water also, but without a life raft, and that is very difficult from being airborne to locate a person who is just in there with a life jacket under enemy gun fire.
But while that rescue is taking place by the other aircraft, I finally spotted him, and I went in to make the rescue, and the gun fire got really heavy and the air group commander said: “Do not land, do not land,” but I had already made up my mind I would not take my eyes off this person.
So I landed and went in and picked him up and leveled out and avoided the gunfire. I didn’t get hit but had splashes all around while I’m making that. So I kind of wiped my brow and said” Thank goodness I was able to do that.”

You can find Thomas Oxendine’s interview in its entirety in the Center for Local History – VA 975.5295 A7243oh ser.3 no.207

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.

From June 2017 – May 2018, we will post one oral history clip and transcript each month, focusing on Arlington’s history, culture and identity.

What is the oral history collection?

Oral history is a popular method of research used for understanding historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of people’s personal experiences.

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.

Ruth Jones, born in March of 1913, began to visit Arlington Beach around 1927. The amusement park and beach were popular among area residents in the 1920s.

Arlington Beach occupied space around what was then known as the Long Bridge, and later became the Fourteenth St Bridge complex, from 1923 to 1929. The Washington Airport Corporation eventually bought the land for additional landing space, which then gave away to Pentagon construction.

In this audio clip, Mrs. Jones recalls her teenage years spent at the beach with her friends and future husband.

Narrator: Ruth Jones
Interviewer: Ingrid Kauffman
Interview Date: March 23, 1999

Transcript:

IK: And so can you tell us about Arlington Beach?
RJ: Well, I was just a young girl, 14 or 15 years old and I met my husband, well, he eventually was my husband.
IK: What was his name?
RJ: Raymond Jones. And he lived in Washington. And we started going to Glen Echo and to Arlington Beach and just having a good time for kids, you know. And so they had a roller coaster, a carousel –
IK: How much did that roller coaster cost?
RJ: Ten cents. A ride at your own risk. That’s the truth, too. It was rickety. After I came to Washington, it was only there for 2 years, 2 or 3 years, then they tore it down.
IK: They tore down the roller coaster?
RJ: Everything. And shut the beach down and all, to put the airport there.
IK: Oh, I see, yes. But tell us about everything you can remember there. You say there was a carousel?
RJ: Yes. And like I said, the roller coaster. And all the places you could go play games –
IK: Like what?
RJ: — along the beach. Like throwing darts to win a bunny or whatever they had, you know. Those kinds of things. And eating places, hot dog stands and things like that. And the dance pavilion was wonderful. It was a big, round pavilion, good music, you know, big band music in those days, big band.
IK: Do you remember any of the bands?
RJ: No, I can’t remember the bands.
IK: But it was live bands, huh?
RJ: Yes. We had a good time dancing. And the beach was great in those days.
IK: So, and then, tell us, you say they tore it down. What do you remember about that?
RJ: All I remember is they tore it down. They said they were closing it to put the airport in. And then they put the airport there. And then it wasn’t very long, even, before they tore that down. And my husband and them used to go to – my husband and daughter’s father-in-law – used to go to where the Pentagon is now. It was all woods, weeds and all. And they used to go there and pick elderberries and wild grapes and made the best wine you ever tasted. It was during Prohibition! But it was good wine.
IK: And you don’t remember any shacks or anything that –
RJ: No, but they built shacks down there. Yes they did. And we had neighbors that lived in Annandale after I moved to Annandale, they lived across the street from me, and they had lived down on the water like that. They were shacks.
IK: Oh, they lived on the water. RJ: They did. And they lived there free. It was federal government, see, they didn’t – but they finally told them to get out, they were putting the Pentagon in. So I’m telling the story lovely, aren’t I?

You can find Ruth Jones’ interview in its entirety in the Center for Local History – VA 975.5295 A7243oh ser.3 no.71. For information about Arlington Beach, read the Center for Local History’s post, “A Day at the Beach.”

Photo: Arlington Beach Advertisement 1920; Source: Photographs of the Arlington Historical Society, PG 230-3447

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.

From June 2017 – May 2018, we will post one oral history clip and transcript each month, focusing on Arlington’s history, culture and identity.

What is the oral history collection?

Oral history is a popular method of research used for understanding historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of people’s personal experiences.

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.

Dr. Lilli Vincenz came to the Washington, DC area in 1963 as a WAC (otherwise known as the Women’s Army Corps). After being outed as a lesbian and receiving a general discharge, Dr. Vincenz found a community and a calling in LGB activism.

She quickly became involved in the Mattachine Society of Washington, an important organization in the fight for local and national rights for gay and lesbian Americans. A dedicated community activist, Dr. Vincenz hosted a weekly open house for lesbian women from 1971 to 1979 and founded the Community for Creative Self Development, an empowerment program for the LGB community from 1992 to 2004.

In this audio clip, Dr. Vincenz shares her memories of protesting discrimination against gay and lesbian sexuality with the Mattachine Society.

Narrator: Lilli Vincenz
Interviewer: Diane Kresh
Interview Date: November 14, 2013

Transcript:

DK: Can you talk a little bit about the Mattachine Society?

LV: Oh, I loved it. Yeah. I went there immediate—and I felt so good. It was wonderful. I just loved it.

DK: Well, what did you love about it?

LV: I was free. And then the picketing started and I have that noted also in there. And it was so exciting that that was the most important thing for me. I’ve got to do this, because there’s all the lies that have been made for people who think that gay people are bad people socially. And well, nobody had really told people that it’s all right to be gay. But now, of course, we’re getting this quickly now that this—everywhere now we’re—

DK: Huge change.

LV: Another marriage, another marriage, they’re doing all that!

DK: Did you think that that would happen in your lifetime, those kinds of changes?

LV: Well, early on I didn’t think right away, but I only knew I had to be there. I had to do it, because so few people could do it. And I felt that I could do it.

For more information about Lilli Vincenz, see the Lilli Vincenz collection at the Library of Congress.

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.

From June 2017 – May 2018, we will post one oral history clip and transcript each month, focusing on Arlington’s history, culture and identity.

What is the oral history collection?

Oral history is a popular method of research used for understanding historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of people’s personal experiences.

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.