Will Ramsey

Published on July 25, 2017

Photo of Wayne Flynt

". . . it was a close knit community, you felt safe there, you knew everyone, and we had no problems getting along."

Chapters

Family

Will Ramsey talks about his family and about moving to Rosedale.

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Growing Up in Rosedale

Will Ramsey describes his experience growing up in Rosedale.

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Rosedale Community: Churches

Will Ramsey describes the importance of churches in Rosedale. He recalls that members of the Rosedale community walked rather than drove, and mentions the school and the Lee Center as other pillars of the community.

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May Day

Will Ramsey talks about Rosedale’s annual May Day celebration, as well as Homewood’s Homewood Day celebration.

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Changes in Rosedale: Red Mountain Expressway

Will Ramsey discusses the changes that began to transform Rosedale during his childhood—primary the construction of Red Mountain Expressway that split the neighborhood.

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Changes in Rosedale: Becoming Homewood

Will Ramsey discusses the merging of Edgewood and Rosedale into Homewood and the construction of Red Mountain Expressway.

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Rosedale Community: The Ball Diamond and Sports

Will Ramsey and Linda Jones recall the ball diamond and Lee Center as hubs of the community, where they and others would play sports.

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Afton Lee and B.M. Montgomery

Will Ramsey and Linda Jones describe the businesses owned by the Lees and Montgomerys.

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Rosedale and Vietnam

Will Ramsey and Linda Jones discuss the wall dividing the white community from Rosedale before Will Ramsey talks about being drafted into the Vietnam War.

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Leaving Rosedale

Will Ramsey and Linda Jones talk about the Rosedale Picnic Club and the long-standing tradition of Rosedale reunions.

Play Segment

Rosedale Memories

Will Ramsey describes his hopes for Rosedale's future and recollects some of his favorite childhood memories from it.

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Transcript

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Alright so I guess we can go ahead and get started. Just to
start off, can you tell me, I got my cheat sheet here.

WILL RAMSEY: That's OK.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Can you tell me when and where you were born?

WILL RAMSEY: I was born March 12, 1948 in Troy, Alabama.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK. And did, so are your parents, are your family from that
area? From Troy?

WILL RAMSEY: My mother and my grandmother, their family is from South Alabama.
Not necessarily from Troy, but primarily from Luverne and Pike County, in those areas.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK, alright. And just for background information, what did your
parents do for a living?

WILL RAMSEY: My grandmother, believe it or not, was a midwife, she delivered
countless babies. My mother, she did mostly domestic work her entire life.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK and do you have any siblings, any brothers or sisters?

WILL RAMSEY: I do. I have an older sister, Margaret, who resides in Birmingham.
I have a second sister, Dorothy, resides in Los Angeles, and another brother
Bobby who resides in Birmingham.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK and so did you, did y'all end up moving to Birmingham from
Troy then?

WILL RAMSEY: We did and we came to Birmingham, back up a bit. I came to
Birmingham when I was about four years old and my siblings, I believe the two
older siblings were already here. My younger brother had not been born at that time.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK. So coming from Troy to Birmingham when you were four years
old, was that a, I imagine that was a big change, a lot of different things.

WILL RAMSEY: It was scary.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Yeah?

WILL RAMSEY: I mean, in Troy, we were, I want to say we were on a street, there
were probably three to four homes on that street, so to come to Birmingham and
to see so many people, it was scary.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's a big change, I imagine.

WILL RAMSEY: It was.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So did y'all move to the Rosedale neighborhood?

WILL RAMSEY: We did, we actually moved, I remember the home and everything, we
moved up on Twenty-Fifth Terrace and we lived in this home, we shared a home
with a family, it was not necessarily a duplex, but we rented part of the home
from them. I remember it very well.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So what was growing up there like as a young child?

WILL RAMSEY: Growing up in Homewood, it was exciting, because once you got to
know everyone, you had friends everywhere. We went to the same school from day
one until we graduated high school and you get to know everyone in the
neighborhood. You had friends everywhere. There was no stress, you know. We
didn't get in fights and we weren't attacked, there was no gang-banging, nothing
like that, so it was just a very good place to grow up.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: And you went to, was that Rosedale High School?

WILL RAMSEY: Rosedale High School also would encompass the elementary and middle
school all on one campus.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK, because they call it, was the name of it, was it Rosedale
High School or just Rosedale School?

LINDA JONES: Rosedale High School for some reason.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: And that covered elementary to high school.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right. All on one campus.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK, so the, sounds like there was, you know, a lot of small,
close knit community, a lot of families there.

WILL RAMSEY: Yes, very close knit and you know, you could go down any street and
you just felt safe, because people watched out for us. You know you would, on
the way to school you would speak to a neighbor. On the way back you'd speak to
a neighbor and they were actually watching us. They knew what we were doing all
the time and if you did something, by the time you got home your parents knew
about it.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: (laughs) So that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

WILL RAMSEY: Yes it was. It kept you on your toes too.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: There's a little bird that you knew what you were doing.

WILL RAMSEY: Absolutely, yes.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So in the, as far as describing Rosedale, what comes to mind
when you think of the Rosedale neighborhood? How would you describe it?

WILL RAMSEY: Describe it? I would describe it as somewhat different from any
other city I've ever lived in. I'll tell you why, again, we mentioned it was a
close knit community, you felt safe there, you knew everyone and we had no
problems getting along. All the churches in the neighborhood, you know, they
were very close together. They were very occupied at that time. Everyone seemed
to be family oriented and it was just really nice. The stores in the
neighborhood, we knew everyone, they knew us, you could walk in there, if you
didn't have money, they'd sell you, give you stuff anyway. And that's just the
kind of community it was. Everyone took care of everyone else.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: You mentioned some of the churches there. Did you go to one
particular church?

WILL RAMSEY: I did. I went to the Church of God, which used to be up on the
highway, which is now Rosedale Drive. There used to be a church there and then
of course we attended all the other churches as well. We would all go to
Friendship Baptist, we'd go to Union Baptist, we'd go to Bethel AME, so it's not
like you just went to one church. We attended them all.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK. So going to the churches, what were they, I imagine, were
they smaller congregations or did y'all have Sunday school or events?

WILL RAMSEY: My memory is, we went to churches and they had a full service. You
would go to Sunday school and then around 9 a.m., church started and then you go
back in the evening, for evening service and to top that off, there were lots of
revivals there. The churches would have their community revivals and we had
summer Bible school. It was a lot going on there.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So the revivals, did those happen every summer? Was everyone involved?

WILL RAMSEY: The vacation Bible school was generally every summer. The revivals,
depending on the church, that didn't just happen during the summer. That would
happen at any time. You know, whatever time they chose to do so, so I mean,
there was no excuse for not finding a church, because they were very active and open.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's good. A lot of that, more of that close knit aspect to
it, I think.

WILL RAMSEY: That's correct, that's right, yes.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So it sounds like you didn't, I mean, you wouldn't even need a
car. You could just walk everywhere.

LINDA JONES: You didn't need a car.

WILL RAMSEY: No you didn't. You did not.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: How nice (laughs).

WILL RAMSEY: Yeah that was OK until the winter when it was cold. You'd miss the
car then. You'd wish you had one or sometimes those hot summers. You know you
would, you would think about it.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Right, yeah. So you had mentioned some events like vacation
Bible school, revivals, things like that, were there other kind of community
events, like picnics or things like Fourth of July celebrations or the...?

WILL RAMSEY: Well you know the school always would have events during the school
year, then during the summer, like I said, primarily we had the community
center, which was the center of Rosedale. They would plan events or you'd just
go there and they always had something to do, something for everyone. They had
the gym part where you could go play basketball, they had pool tables there,
they had arts and crafts. And one time we had a teenage club.

LINDA JONES: Shuffleboard.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right, they had shuffleboard.

LINDA JONES: Teenage club.

WILL RAMSEY: Right, the teenage club.

LINDA JONES: I was in that.

WILL RAMSEY: I was in that myself at one point. And that was exciting.

LINDA JONES: At school we always had May Day.

WILL RAMSEY: May Day was big.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: May Day.

WILL RAMSEY: May Day was big.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: I'm guessing that was in the month of May.

WILL RAMSEY: It was in the month of May and every year, we participated in that
every year. I mean it was mandatory.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So was that a, was that just for students at the school?

LINDA JONES: Mm-mm, everybody.

WILL RAMSEY: Everyone, everyone.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So what was May Day exactly?

LINDA JONES: A performance. Every grade, every class had to do a performance
with costumes. It was very extravagant and the finale was the plaiting of the
May pole.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right. That's right.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So you were in a performance for May Day?

WILL RAMSEY: Well each class was represented and I remember it because, as Linda
mentioned, the plaiting the May pole was the finale and I remember when it was
all over and how beautiful that was and it was an open setting out in a parking
lot. They had removed all the cars and you had all the parents and visitors
sitting out there and it was like being on the grand stage. It was something.

LINDA JONES: And the band had to play for each performance.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So this was something that, not just the school, but everyone,
in the community was involved with?

LINDA JONES: The community would just come and eat food and drink lemonade and
watch the performances, but the school was the one who put it on.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's interesting that the, things like the May pole, and I
remember you had said something about the Christmas parade they did every year
with the...

LINDA JONES: Big Homewood would do that.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK.

LINDA JONES: On Homewood Day.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK.

LINDA JONES: You remember the big cake?

WILL RAMSEY: That's right.

LINDA JONES: You remember the big cake up at Piggly Wiggly?

WILL RAMSEY: Yes, that's right, I remember that (laughs). I'm glad you brought
it up.

LINDA JONES: Great big cake on Homewood Day.

WILL RAMSEY: That was a sight to see.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So y'all would go to Homewood Day as well?

BOTH: Oh yes.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: What was the cake like?

LINDA JONES: You would go up, get a piece of cake, it was delicious.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: How big was the cake?

LINDA JONES: It was tall. Well, I was a little girl so it looked like it was six
feet tall, but it had to be at least four or five. It was huge.

WILL RAMSEY: Yeah, it was, it was and it was pretty large. It had a pretty large
base on it and it tiered up, but it was huge.

LINDA JONES: It was.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Wow, so you'd get a piece of it every year?

WILL RAMSEY: Every year, every year.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Heck I would too. With a cake that big there'd be enough for
everybody to go around.

LINDA JONES: There was.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Cool. So then, comparing you know like Rosedale in the, well
let's see, you said you went there in, what year would that have been, do you think?

WILL RAMSEY: I would have come there in 1952.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK, '52.

WILL RAMSEY: '52, yes.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK, so then through the years, from the Fifties to the Sixties
or the Seventies, did you see major changes in those decades?

WILL RAMSEY: The community, immediate community, which was Rosedale, which is
kind of bordered off now, but back then it was somewhat larger. I tell you, the
major first major change I saw, was they paved our streets. We used to have
streets made of clay and rock and then they would come by and they would put
used oil on the street which is messy and you'd track it in your home and
everything you know and at the time, we were so happy to keep the dust down, we
didn't think anything of it but that was the first major change and then, then
we started to see big changes come, like encroachment into our neighborhood.
They started putting up commercial buildings in our neighborhood, they'd stand
them out.

LINDA JONES: What about the freeway coming through our ball diamond?

WILL RAMSEY: And the freeway coming through, yes. That would have been the Red
Mountain Expressway, currently, I mean what was there then was our ball diamond
and, which is off Twentieth Street. Our ball diamond was between Rosedale
community and Shades Valley High School at the time. So they came through and
they extended that out and from that point on, I just saw the changes. They were
starting to become more rapid.

LINDA JONES: And then they said that they had to widen Eighteenth Street and
that took away our downtown, which we call, we never called it downtown. We
called it up on the road.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right. Up on the road.

LINDA JONES: Where we had our cleaners. Remember Reynolds Cleaners?

WILL RAMSEY: Reynolds Cleaners.

LINDA JONES: And we had Perkins and Ray's Barber Shop and Lee Store and of
course the grill. It was like a restaurant and they had a night club at night
and the other part of downtown is still there. That's where the pool hall and
then the place on top of the pool hall, was what we called Fez Place. Our
principal owned it but it was like a dance hall for young people.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Fez Place?

LINDA JONES: Fez Place. So the young people, the old people partied at the
grill, the younger adults partied at Fez Place, and then the teenagers partied
at the center, the community center.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK. And the community center, is this the same one as the
present day?

LINDA JONES: Uh-huh, the Lee Center.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: The Lee Center? Because Mr. Lee was the one who had the grocery
store, is that correct?

LINDA JONES: That's right.

WILL RAMSEY: Yes, correct. Yes.

LINDA JONES: And when they widened the street out he moved his store across on
the same side as Fez Place.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK so that's on the side nowadays that is...

LINDA JONES: Used to be a flower shop and then there's a pool place.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Yeah, OK.

LINDA JONES: And a rug place.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Because Eighteenth, like you're saying, Eighteenth Street that
goes up Red Mountain, I was looking at some maps and it showed, I think it was
Twenty-Fifth Court or Twenty-Fifth Circuit, it goes like this, but then you can
see on the map, where right here Eighteenth is just, cuts through the middle of it.

WILL RAMSEY: Yes, that's right. Yeah.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Do y'all remember what year, about what year that was when the
Eighteenth Street came through there?

LINDA JONES: It had to be, I guess I was what? Nine, about nine years old?

WILL RAMSEY: Yes, that's about right, yeah. We were, I'm thinking back now,
because I know there had been some construction had started on the other side of
the hill, but I'm thinking, we were in about the seventh or eighth grade maybe.

LINDA JONES: That long?

WILL RAMSEY: I think so, I think so.

LINDA JONES: I remember it. I remember when it happened.

WILL RAMSEY: Right. Yes.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Heck I imagine that is a big change because I mean it cuts it
right down the middle.

WILL RAMSEY: That's a big change, yeah. Eighteenth Street was a major change.
Not only did it wipe out our part, most of our community, but used to stand on
the corner of Eighteenth and Twenty-Sixth Avenue and you could just see gas
stations lining that street also, so all of those went away.

LINDA JONES: They took over by eminent domain.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right, that's right. Gas stations came in. It was gas
stations on both sides just as far as you could see.

LINDA JONES: And see all that was just in our time but before our time there
were houses going up to Valley Avenue, almost up by Vulcan, to all the way up to
where the star is at Christmas time and so all of those were taken away by
eminent domain.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So Rosedale, I mean, it's seen a whole lot of change in the
past, what would that be? Fifty, forty, fifty years, something like that?

WILL RAMSEY: I would say closer to sixty years. Close to sixty years because at least--

LINDA JONES: Well really ever since Homewood moved in, because see Rosedale was
there before Homewood.

WILL RAMSEY: Before Homewood, right.

LINDA JONES: And then Homewood moved in, they just started taking over.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Little by little, year after year.

WILL RAMSEY: Little by little and that goes back a ways, because in, as you
probably well know already that in 1926 is when Rosedale merged with Edgewood
and they became Homewood then.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So then, so Rosedale sort of merged with Edgewood to make
Homewood and then over the years did Rosedale kind of still have its own kind of
separate identity, separate neighborhood, community?

LINDA JONES: Yes and I think a lot what changed it was when they took away the
up on the road, which was the downtown and, but they still, and to this day,
it's still not Homewood. It's still Rosedale.

WILL RAMSEY: Still Rosedale, that's right. Still Rosedale.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So then that was around in the, I guess Fifties or Sixties, I
guess, so then, or well would that be right? Of when the Eighteenth Street came through?

LINDA JONES: The highway.

WILL RAMSEY: Yeah, it would have been around then, yes.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So then after that, in the Seventies, did that, I guess that
encroachment just continue on?

WILL RAMSEY: I think once they put the Red Mountain Expressway in that was the
nail in the coffin because it brought all that traffic over the hill and you
know, the history is, people have always wanted the property of Rosedale. It's a
prime location. I mean, one of the most beautiful spots. I mean, you look at
where it's located and they came through with the Red Mountain Expressway, but
that gave them the opportunity to expand that to link Highway 280 to 31 and by
doing so, Highway 31 used to be the main drag through our community. It's no
longer that way. They've basically, everybody's going 280 or Highway 65 now, so
they kind of left us alone that way, gave us a little piece by diverting the
traffic but basically they took away a lot of our neighborhood to do so, yeah.

LINDA JONES: Because the ball diamond, we called it the ball diamond, because
you played baseball and football, whatever ball, played ball down there, but
that was the gathering place for the neighborhood.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right.

LINDA JONES: Everybody could just go to the games, you know, and sit there, and
someone would sell sodas and hot dogs and popcorn. I think whoever wanted to
sell them.

WILL RAMSEY: Whoever wanted to sell them. That's right.

LINDA JONES: There wasn't a concession stand, it was whoever wanted to sell
something, because Mr. Tom, the man with one leg.

WILL RAMSEY: Mr. Tom, yeah.

LINDA JONES: Yeah he'd sell fish.

WILL RAMSEY: Yeah and he would barbecue also.

LINDA JONES: Sell sandwiches out there. It was a really big gathering place for
the whole community, so it was sad.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: When that went away.

LINDA JONES: Yes it was sad and it was sad when the school closed. That was very
sad. Well all of, and then it was sad when the stores went away from up on the
road. That was sad. Oh I remember those were three very sad moments.

WILL RAMSEY: They were. They were.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Did, mentioning the ball diamond, did you play any sports for
the school or community? Did y'all have a league or something there?

WILL RAMSEY: Well in that community everyone played sports. I mean, if you could
throw a ball or you could walk you were out doing something. It wasn't always
organized but we just played, we went to play and then ultimately, you know, we
went on to play for our schools and stuff like that, but we had people in the
community, we had one man in particular, we used to call him Skillet.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Skillet.

WILL RAMSEY: Skillet. We used to call him Skillet.

LINDA JONES: I think he had played baseball.

WILL RAMSEY: He did, yeah, he had played ball.

LINDA JONES: With the Birmingham--

WILL RAMSEY: Barons, I believe; I believe so.

LINDA JONES: The Black Barons.

WILL RAMSEY: And his heart was in teaching us baseball and he was very good at
it and so he organized teams and we'd go out and play on the diamond and when
you played for him, you played. And then we had another gentleman that worked at
the community center, Mr. Samford.

LINDA JONES: Samford.

WILL RAMSEY: And he was another guy, just drove us and he would teach us
basketball skills in the gym. He was very hard on us and I think all of that
paid off because our teams, you know they did a lot of good stuff.

LINDA JONES: And a lady named Miss Be Be organized the girls and we had basketball.

WILL RAMSEY: Sure. That's right.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So it sounds like sports was a big fixture of the neighborhood
as well.

LINDA JONES: It was. Like he said, everybody played some kinds of sports all the
time. Now when my mom was in school, they had a girls' basketball team at the
school and, but then when I got there, it was just in the community.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So separate from the school then.

LINDA JONES: Sort of. I mean, anytime the school needed to be inclined because
the school played basketball at the center, at Lee Center, which was known as
the Cracker Box.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: The Cracker Box?

WILL RAMSEY: Yes (laughs)

LINDA JONES: Yes, it was tiny and there was nowhere for you to sit or stand
hardly and you could only get like roll chairs on either side and the players
would be running over the chairs and the scoreboard was a chalkboard and I ran
the clock. I ran the score clock and that was manual, you know.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: In the Cracker Box.

WILL RAMSEY: Yes (laughs).

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's pretty good. That's funny.

WILL RAMSEY: Oh yes.

LINDA JONES: It was so small.

WILL RAMSEY: The other schools hated playing in the Cracker Box (laughs).

LINDA JONES: But that's what the other schools called it. We didn't call it
that. The other schools would say that.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So did you play any basketball inside the Cracker Box or what
would it be like trying to play a game in there? I mean, were you...

LINDA JONES: Well the floor was legal. I mean, regulation size, jsut the, hard
to get around it.

WILL RAMSEY: And also, you know, it wasn't very, the ceiling wasn't very high.
It was high enough for us but it wasn't high, like if you wanted to shoot like
we do nowadays, shoot a three pointer, you'd have trouble. You might hit the
heater (laughs).

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: And then it'd come down and...

WILL RAMSEY: Yes (laughs).

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So you'd have to be real careful, real...

WILL RAMSEY: Very careful.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's funny. And his name had come up earlier, Mr. Lee, Afton
Lee and I've seen his name come up a lot in the register for historic places for Rosedale.

LINDA JONES: Because he owned most of the rental property in Rosedale. Now the
Montgomerys owned, I'd say, what, one fourth?

WILL RAMSEY: Probably so.

LINDA JONES: And Lee owned the rest of it.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right. That's right.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK. So did y'all know, did everyone know Mr. Lee?

LINDA JONES: Yes, because he had a store for one thing.

WILL RAMSEY: Yes and a lot of the citizens, most of the citizens, I would say,
we rented, would rent from Mr. Lee. I know we did.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So how would you describe Afton Lee, Mr. Lee? What kind of
person was he?

WILL RAMSEY: He was, to me, he was all business. He was a business man. He was
serious. I would see him standing on the corner speaking with someone and I knew
they were speaking about something in terms of business because he would, you
know, I would speak to him, he would speak back, but we never engaged in any
conversations other than that. He just appeared to be a person that you
respected and you kind of went on about your business.

LINDA JONES: He was quiet.

WILL RAMSEY: Very quiet, very private.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So everyone shopped at his grocery store then?

LINDA JONES: Well we had lots of grocery stores. Lee Store was the most grocery
grocery store, because they sold the vegetables and they sold bread and canned
goods and Charlie Store sold potato chips, candy, sodas, everything children
liked, then E.P. Store sold things that children liked like pickles and pig feet
but they also sold meat. They had meat there. Then up on Loveless Street we had
Gentry's Store. She sold cookies and candy and all these stores belonged to the
Montgomerys except Lee Store.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK and Montgomery, is that the Montgomery that the street is
named after or is that a different Montgomery?

LINDA JONES: No, no, different, what we know.

WILL RAMSEY: It's different, but they're a part of the same family. That street that--

LINDA JONES: Oh yeah! Oh I thought he was talking about Montgomery Highway.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Oh no, I meant B.M. Montgomery.

LINDA JONES: Yeah they're the same family.

WILL RAMSEY: Same family, right and as a matter of fact, B.M. Montgomery,
Gentry, Charlie, and Henry, and E.P., they're all siblings. All siblings.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Really?

LINDA JONES: All brothers and sisters, that's right. And B.M. Montgomery was our principal.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK yeah and that's the street that is named after B.M. Montgomery.

LINDA JONES: After our principal.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK and it used to be called, was it Loveless Street?

LINDA JONES: It was.

WILL RAMSEY: It was Loveless.

LINDA JONES: And half of it is still Loveless and the other half starting at his
house, is B.M. Montgomery.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK, yeah, because then we went, we actually went out there, it
must have been maybe, three, four weeks ago, probably more, riding around just
to get a look and someone, it may have, Miss Jones, it may have been you, about
a wall that used to be there.

LINDA JONES: No you said that someone had told you about the wall.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Right, yeah.

LINDA JONES: They had it behind Loveless Street.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Right, behind Loveless Street.

LINDA JONES: And by the time it got up to my street, it was a fence and it's
still there, the fence is.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK because that's what we were trying to figure out where that was.

LINDA JONES: You know the fence that separates the white community from the
black community.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right. Absolutely. Absolutely. I remember it very well. I
used to go up there all the time.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So did y'all go around that area as children, around the wall?

LINDA JONES: No. No, we stayed on our side. We stayed on our side. But up on
that hill, the white kids would come over on our side sometimes, you know,
sometimes they would just be coming to get their balls and sometimes they'd come
over there but we never went over.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: On the other side, yeah, right. So did, I mean, was it, did
your parents have to say, you know, "Don't go near there" or was it just an understood...

LINDA JONES: No you just understood.

WILL RAMSEY: I didn't see that problem at all. You know, it just, I didn't see
any, I didn't feel any tension at all when I, it was just normal, normal part of
life then.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So then earlier you were talking about flying into Birmingham,
which makes me ask, you're not living in Rosedale today.

WILL RAMSEY: I'm not. I'm actually living in Sacramento, California.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK. Yeah that's from one end to the other.

WILL RAMSEY: It is (laughs).

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So did, how long did you live in Rosedale?

WILL RAMSEY: I lived in Rosedale until 1968 when I was drafted to go on that
great vacation to Southeast Asia. Vietnam.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Goodness. Goodness, man. That must have been, so the idea of
the draft was there, this feeling in the air of "OK, my number may come up next" or...?

WILL RAMSEY: We pretty much knew, when I say "we," most of the young African
Americans in our era, we pretty much knew we were going into the military. It
didn't matter if you were in school or not. They wanted you, you were going,
because I think back about some people that were drafted and they went to
Vietnam and I was thinking to myself "Why would you take this person who's
pretty much a valedictorian and send them over to a war," you know, and they did
it anyway and so when I went to Vietnam, it was everything I thought it would
be. You know, you go and you come back and you expect the world to change, but
really nothing changed when you got back and that was kind of disheartening.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So did you go back to Rosedale when you came back?

WILL RAMSEY: I did, I came back to Rosedale. I stayed here for a while and I
just had the itch to do something else and so I, in the middle of the night, I
just relocated without even any planning, I just relocated and went to Los
Angeles then and I stayed out there for a while, started a family there and been
there since.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK. So you still, obviously, you still have the connection with
Rosedale. Do you come back to the reunions that they have?

WILL RAMSEY: Well let me just say this, off the top of my head. Rosedale will
always be my home no matter where I live and I come back every chance I get. I
come back to the reunions and I stayed focused on Rosedale while I was away. I
always tried to find out what was going on. I read the Birmingham News. I still
do it right now online. I read the Alabama newspapers. It's just a place that
you have, there is a lot of memory, a lot of good memories, and I think that
comes from my classmates and the people I grew up with, our community. Just
people that you know.

LINDA JONES: Yeah, the community feels like that because we still have the
Rosedale picnic every other year but before the, before it came home
permanently, before I was born, they had a Rosedale club that went to every
major city that Rosedale people lived in and they would have a picnic that
Saturday and that Friday they would have what they called a cabaret, a big dance
thing where everybody, you know, danced and had loads of food and each city
would try to outdo the other and the dance would be formal and sometimes they
would have like, you know, special performances and things, but it was a big
thing. Two buses would leave Rosedale going to these different places and that's
how I got to travel to outside of Rosedale. They would always go to Chicago,
Detroit, Cleveland, New York, and Los Angeles.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: My goodness. So everyone's widespread then.

LINDA JONES: They would do that every other year and then, you know, I guess as
it got smaller, you know, they started just basing it at home.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's a cool thing though, that I mean you have people from
Detroit all the way to the west coast, that you still have those ties and those
connections and you stay in touch. I don't think that's something that happens a
lot nowadays.

WILL RAMSEY: I think for the size of our community, I mean you look back at the
size of it, we weren't as large like Birmingham or some of those suburbs over
there, but we just kept it, you know, we kept it close knit, it wasn't
overwhelming, you could come back, you could feel comfortable, and you come back
and there's always someone that you would be wanting to see, you hadn't seen in
a while, and it's just great to connect with old friends. It's still that way
today, you know, because obviously a lot of time has passed, so these times are
even more precious now.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Right, right, yeah. It's even more important now to see those
people when you can.

WILL RAMSEY: Absolutely.

LINDA JONES: Yes, because so many people, I mean, people that we grew up with,
they're gone out of Rosedale, so the activities are made up of people who come back.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Yeah, so comparing, I guess, comparing Rosedale from the time
that you were there and living there and growing up to how it is now, do you see
parallels, because it sounds like there's still that, that connection between people.

LINDA JONES: It's the people that are connected because the community is torn up.

WILL RAMSEY: That's correct, yeah.

LINDA JONES: And they, E.P.'s store, one of the stores we talked about, there
was a store and then next to it, his wife had a big beauty parlor, made out of
brick, and then next to that and in the back of it was their house where all
their kids grew up. Well Homewood, just last week, made him leave, so he had to
leave and you know, go and find, well he moved in with his sister. That's one of
E.P.'s sons, whose name is E.P. too and so he went and moved in with his sister.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: And that's E.P. Montgomery?

LINDA JONES: Montgomery.

WILL RAMSEY: Right.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So then the Montgomerys, they seem like another name that came
up a lot in the history of Rosedale and the community.

BOTH: Yes.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So everyone knew, knows the Montgomerys as well.

LINDA JONES: Right. They owned a lot of rental property.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK. The community center that's named after Mr. Lee, was it
named, I can't remember if it was named after him before or after he had passed.

LINDA JONES: After, after, soon after.

WILL RAMSEY: Yeah, right.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: OK and that's the location it's been since...

LINDA JONES: Forever.

WILL RAMSEY: Since forever (laughs).

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Forever (laughs). Since all the way back.

WILL RAMSEY: Yeah, forever.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: I guess, another question would be, you know as someone who's
grown up there and calls it home, like you said, what are your hopes for
Rosedale's future or what do you see for the future of Rosedale?

WILL RAMSEY: My hope is probably the same as everyone else's who has ever lived
there. It is that we preserve what's left of it and that particularly, you know,
that the older citizens who are there, there's a lot of pride still in the
community and they're fighting hard to, you know, just keep what they have and I
would hope that the city or whomever it is, the government, would come in and
just, you know just look around and say "Hey, you know this is a treasure that's
been here for a while and we need to keep it" and then also in addition to that
I would hope that the younger generations would take interest in the history and
learn about the city and the town, it was actually a town, community of Rosedale
and do all they can to keep it going because as Linda mentioned, so many of us
have gone, have passed on and the majority have moved out of the community.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Off the top of my head do you have any funny or interesting or
memorable stories about growing up there?

WILL RAMSEY: I have many (laughs). I have many. Well let me start with, people
in the neighborhood, there were certain guys that had dogs. You didn't keep dogs
on leashes, your dogs just run loose and about the biggest threat to me was
being chased by a dog (laughs). And I think that's how I learned to run so fast.
I know for a fact I was the fastest guy on two feet. That was pretty much it and
then we'd get into little mischievous things sometimes. We'd go out at night, we
had nothing to do, get bored, so we'd start throwing rocks at people's homes and
stuff, you know, the stuff that kids do.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Right, yeah.

WILL RAMSEY: And I know personally, I started a few fires.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Uh-oh.

WILL RAMSEY: One time I started a fire in a grassy area and it was during the
World Series so I called the fire department, they came down, they put the fire
out, they looked at me, they said "If you set anything else on fire, it's going
to burn down, especially if it's during the World Series!" (laughs) So I never
forgot that. That was when I stopped playing with matches.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So they were just wanting to watch the game.

WILL RAMSEY: They wanted to watch the game (laughs).

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: And they thought "Dang somebody's done lit something up!" (laughs)

WILL RAMSEY: Oh man, we did all kinds of stuff. You know we didn't have, like I
said, outside of our community center, our ball diamond, especially when they
took that ball diamond away, we had to invent our own fun, but it was just
natural, fun, everyone figured out what they had to do to make it work and it
was fun. Something that you just don't forget.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Right, something, I mean, it sounds like it was a great place
to grow up, too.

WILL RAMSEY: It was an outstanding place to grow up. You know, I wouldn't trade
it for the world. You know and when I left, I went to the west coast and noticed
"Oh man, this is too big," you know, and it's that way now, when I go back now
and everything seems to be much bigger, yeah so it's really good to come down
and just walk down the old neighborhood, see places where we grew up, where we
lived, where we walked. You mentioned you had driven around the neighborhood. I
tell you what, you want to get a real experience, just walk around the
neighborhood. You will see a big difference, because you will see some of the
people, you will see some of the structures and how they've survived and when
you see all this you'll kind of get in your head that "Hey this place must have
been something at one time" and it was.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: You had mentioned some of the houses and the buildings and I
was reading on the register, it looked like a lot of those houses are pretty
old, and almost, some of them are almost ninety, one hundred years old,
something like that.

WILL RAMSEY: They are; they are.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: And they're still there.

WILL RAMSEY: They're still standing. They're still standing, you know. I don't
know if you realize that those homes, you know, they call them shotgun homes.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Yeah, just straight back.

WILL RAMSEY: Straight through. Well that was, we lived in those and I tell you
what, it was definitely a shotgun house. You could open the front door, open the
back, and look straight through, but I tell you what, those were fun homes to
live in, they were a lot of fun and most of them were duplexes and so it was
just, that even made the community more united because you knew your neighbors,
often times your neighbor would come over, they needed a cup of sugar, whatever,
and vice versa, so we took care of each other, just, I mean it doesn't get any
closer than that, I think.

LINDA JONES: Miss Early, Skip's mom?

WILL RAMSEY: Yes.

LINDA JONES: They kept their food in our deep freezer and you know, you didn't
lock the doors. If you did, you locked it with a skeleton key, but everybody had
a skeleton key.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So you could just go in anyway (laughs).

WILL RAMSEY: Yeah you would hear a knock on the door, they would say "Coming in"
and they were in the house by the time they said "Coming in." (laughs)

LINDA JONES: And if you're gone, you know, if we're gone and Miss Early needed
her ice cream out of the freezer, she'd just open the door, come in and get her
ice cream, and go back home.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Man, that's, every now and then my dad, he'll say that, growing
up, he'll say that he had, you know, growing up on a street like that, where
everyone knew everybody, it was like you had a million brothers and sisters and
a bunch of moms and dads and he said that you didn't have worry about locking
the door and nowadays I think of that.

LINDA JONES: That's how classmates, different classes feel about each other,
because you go to school with them, looking at them for twelve years and it's
just a strong connection there because you actually see them more than you see
your brothers and sisters.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Yeah that's true. Yeah; yeah.

LINDA JONES: You're just sitting there with them all day, you know them, they
know you, you know.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's right. So in the school then, I mean, if you start with
people from elementary school and then for twelve years, like I said, I mean you
get to know them.

WILL RAMSEY: Get to know them very well as well as the teachers. You know, most
of our teachers lived in the community and they were just like ordinary people.
When you went to school it was very personable. They took care of you. You know
they would help you to pass your grades. They took an interest in you, you know
whereas I don't think that would happen everywhere at that level.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Yeah, I guess another thing with the school too, if everyone
knew everybody, if you, if you acted up in school or if you didn't do your
homework or something, then I guess you'd have that network (laughs).

WILL RAMSEY: Well I'll tell you about that. That is absolutely the case. If you
did anything, before you got home, the news would beat you home. However, we had
a man, a teacher at school and a coach, Mr. Coker, if you messed up at school,
you didn't want to face Mr. Coker.

LINDA JONES: And then do you remember Miss Dowdale?

WILL RAMSEY: Miss Dowdale.

LINDA JONES: And there was another one, another lady too. They would go around
checking the houses to see who didn't go to school and then they'd get you and
drag your behind on to school.

WILL RAMSEY: That was the early truancy policy for Rosedale. You did not want to
cross those people.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So it was foolproof, one way or the other, you were going to
the school.

WILL RAMSEY: You were going down (laughs).

LINDA JONES: That's right.

WILL RAMSEY: You were going down.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's funny. That's funny, yeah. But I'm going to have to do
that, what you said about actually walking around there.

WILL RAMSEY: Take a tour. You'll get a totally different feeling.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Because I mean we did, we drove around, and it was one day, it
started raining, but then driving around, noticed, you know, houses that people
were living in and then others that people were working on and renovating and
stuff like that and then I saw, I think it's on B.M. Montgomery Street, where
there's houses and then I think, then all of the sudden it's just businesses, I think.

LINDA JONES: Yes there used to be all houses down there.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: And it's very, it's just house, house, house and then the shops
or whatever it is, so yeah.

WILL RAMSEY: Yes, that's it. That's it. Yeah when I first saw that taking off
and it kept inching further and further north on Loveless Street, it was sad. It
was very sad, because I mean, it has wiped out a lot of my memories, a lot of my memories.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: I imagine that it just looks completely different.

WILL RAMSEY: It looked totally different and you know--

LINDA JONES: And another sad thing is when the swimming pool was closed, covered
up. They covered, they put dirt into the swimming pool and said that they were
going to remove it and fix the swimming pool.

WILL RAMSEY: They never did.

LINDA JONES: That was, that was fifty years ago, almost fifty, because I was in college.

WILL RAMSEY: It was.

LINDA JONES: And probably our first or second year out of high school.

WILL RAMSEY: That's right. It sure was. That was the other heart of the city.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: The swimming pool.

WILL RAMSEY: The swimming pool.

LINDA JONES: Yeah.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: What street, or what area was it on?

LINDA JONES: Spring Park.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Spring Park?

LINDA JONES: Spring Park. Spring Park is the park, the hangout, and before the
pool was there, guys used to swim in Spring Park anyway. They just went out and
would swim because it was water in there, so I guess they'd just go swimming.

WILL RAMSEY: Yeah they'd go swimming. That was the place to go.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So you plan on going to the, I think they said they're having
the reunions and everything all this weekend, is that right?

LINDA JONES: Yes but our class is celebrating our fiftieth so we're going to New
Orleans on the train in the morning tomorrow.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So y'all are in the same graduating class?

BOTH: Yes.

WILL RAMSEY: Yes we are.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Oh, OK. Alright. See that's another thing too. I hope that over
the years that I'm able to keep in touch with the people that I had graduated
with and--

LINDA JONES: That's what my daughter just said this morning. She said "It's our
twentieth and no one said a thing to me." I said we're probably the last of the
ones to do a fiftieth. They might call you for a ten or twentieth, but we did
all of them.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's cool. That's going to be fun going to New Orleans.

WILL RAMSEY: Going to be great.

LINDA JONES: Oh yes, you got to know our class.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: That's what she was saying, that she's going to have to sort of
be the chaperone.

WILL RAMSEY: Yes, oh I can tell you for sure (laughs).

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: You're not one of the ones that's going to give her trouble are you?

WILL RAMSEY: No I'm going to be good. I'm going to be good. I'm going to
probably have to join Linda and keep an eye on a couple of guys there.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So y'all are going to be like the mother ducks, right?

WILL RAMSEY: Keep them, keep them in the French Quarter and don't have them
wandering off down Canal Street, you know.

LINDA JONES: And remind them of how old they are.

WILL RAMSEY: Exactly, yes. (laughs)

LINDA JONES: They'll forget, they'll forget.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Well man, that'll be a fun trip.

LINDA JONES: Oh yes it will be.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: So, and I don't think I have any more questions unless there's
something else that you want to talk about or address or if you have any memories?

WILL RAMSEY: Well I have so many memories, I'd have to write them down and
actually I did have them, write some of them down, I just don't have the, my
little sheet in front of me, but I want to make one correction, when I said they
merged in 1926. It did happen in 1926. It was Rosedale, Edgewood, and Oak Park
came together to form Homewood. Those three cities. I left out Oak Park, but
anyway, not Oak Park. Oak Grove, I'm sorry. Oak Grove.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Oak Grove.

WILL RAMSEY: Oak Grove, yes. Yeah, but anyway, those came up, but the only thing
I can say is I appreciate you and whomever it is that's taking interest in us
because I'm not going to say we were overlooked but there's a lot, maybe people
didn't know about us or didn't get out there. It was probably just something on
the backburner, "There's a community over here," but it's just, to me, I think
it's just amazing to see someone take interest and do what you're doing.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Well she's the one that brought it to our attention and everything.

LINDA JONES: And they have been so kind, so kind to just dive on in here.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Of course.

WILL RAMSEY: It's very much appreciated, I can tell you.

CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Yeah, it's a pleasure too. I mean, I think we learn a lot from
it too and the whole thing that we try to do is, you know, put stories, you
know, in the, have it down in the archives to where people can read them, people
can use them for research if they want to learn something and keep it, you know,
held on to and that way when the musical, we could put it on CD. (laughs)

WILL RAMSEY: Ok. (laughs) CHASE TRAUTWEIN: Sing along to it.

LINDA JONES: And some of you guys, you're one of them, you all will be--(tape ends)

Audio Information
Attribute	Value
Interviewer	Chase Trautwein
Interviewee	Will Ramsey
Repository	Samford University Oral History Collection
Accession	SUHist/Rosedale/005

Will Ramsey

Chapters

Family

Growing Up in Rosedale

Rosedale Community: Churches

May Day

Changes in Rosedale: Red Mountain Expressway

Changes in Rosedale: Becoming Homewood

Rosedale Community: The Ball Diamond and Sports

Afton Lee and B.M. Montgomery

Rosedale and Vietnam

Leaving Rosedale

Rosedale Memories

Transcript

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