Interview with Emma Peoples
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Richland (Wash.)
Kennewick (Wash.)
Segregation
School integration
Migration
Segregation
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A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288
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Transcription
Emma Peoples: --American families. And I suppose with other cultures, also, sometimes. People were known by initials only. But that was his legal name.
Franklin: Interesting.
Peoples: And that was my father’s legal name. C.J. Mitchell, Senior, C.J. Mitchell, Junior.
Franklin: Interesting. Okay. Great. Like I said, I have a little bit of boilerplate before we start, but I’ll have lots of questions for you about C.J. We got a chance to interview him—I didn’t, but our project did back in 2013. Bob Bauman, who’s a colleague of mine, a friend of mine sat down here with C.J. I’ve not only watched C.J.’s interview; I’ve assigned it in my history class when talking about race in the Tri-Cities. So it’s definitely been a—he was quite a guy. And we’ve interviewed Duke, Greg, we’re going to interview Vanessa, and I think that’s it for your nieces and nephews. And then—
Peoples: You haven’t gotten to Cameron yet?
Franklin: Haven’t gotten to Cameron yet, no, no.
Peoples: [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: We’ll get there. We will get there. Because I’ve heard lots about him. And then of course you, we’ve really wanted to talk to you, too. But anyway, there’s some boilerplate and then we’ll just get right into it. And I’ll ask you a bit about how you got here and your life in Texas, and then how things were here. We’ll go from there, does that sound good?
Peoples: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: And there’s some water next to you there if you need it at any point.
Peoples: Okay.
Franklin: And also I really like your jacket. I wanted to say that.
Peoples: Oh, thank you.
Franklin: It looks really cool. It kind of looks like really cool lizard skin, you know what I mean? Like scales.
Peoples: Yeah.
Franklin: I like it a lot. It’s really neat. Okay.
Peoples: One other thing I want to tell you, though.
Franklin: Yeah?
Peoples: The Bartons.
Franklin: Yes.
Peoples: You know how they are related?
Franklin: Kind of. Keith explained it to me, but—
Peoples: My mother and Keith Barton’s father were first cousins.
Franklin: Okay, okay. So your mother and—
Peoples: Their parents were brother and sister. Keith’s grandmother and my grandfather were brother and sister.
Franklin: So your mother and Keith Barton’s father.
Peoples: Yeah, were first cousins.
Franklin: Yeah. Because he said, oh yeah, I’m related to the Daniels and the Mitchells and—
Peoples: My mother was a Daniel.
Franklin: Right, right. Okay. I need to draw this tree out. Because I have it kind of in my mind, but—
Peoples: Okay. Okay, my great-grandfather was named William Daniels. I don’t know how many kids he had, but the two oldest were Keith Barton’s grandmother and my grandfather.
Franklin: Okay.
Peoples: And—well then it gets to the—my mother was a sister to Vanis Daniels and William Daniels that lived in Pasco. And they have children who live in this area, too. And then Keith—well, they all came during the—when they were building Hanford and the jobs were good and all this, I believe how they got here.
Franklin: Was your mother—you said William Daniels was your great-grandfather, so then he had a son and a daughter that you remember. Was your mother the child of the son or the daughter?
Peoples: The son.
Franklin: The son. So then that’s your mom. Okay.
Peoples: And Keith’s dad was a child of the daughter.
Franklin: Okay. Okay, that helps a lot. Thank you. Okay. All right, let us officially begin. Sound good?
Peoples: Yes, I think. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Yeah, we can take—any time you need a break or have a question, just feel free. Well, do you have any questions before we start?
Peoples: No.
Franklin: Okay.
Peoples: Not that I can think of. But I don’t know—didn’t know what to expect, so—
Franklin: Yeah, that’s kind of an odd request, isn’t it? It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Okay. Ready?
Lori Larson: You’ve been going. She’s already giving good stuff, so I started.
Franklin: I know. Okay, well, then we have all of that. Okay, good. [LAUGHTER] My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Emma Peoples on May 2nd, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. We’ll be talking with Emma about her experiences living in the Tri-Cities. And Emma, did you ever work out at Hanford?
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: And working at the Hanford Site. For the record, can you state and spell your full name for us?
Peoples: Okay. Do you want my full legal name, or do you want all of my name?
Franklin: Oh. Which one is more interesting?
Peoples: Well, I consider my legal name my married name.
Franklin: Okay. Can we do both because that way we can kind of talk about how you’re related to other folks that we’ve interviewed?
Peoples: Okay. My legal name, currently, is Emma Ruth Peoples. E-M-M-A, R-U-T-H, P-E-O-P-L-E-S.
Franklin: Okay.
Peoples: My maiden name was Mitchell, M-I-T-C-H-E-L-L.
Franklin: Okay. And you’re C.J.’s little sister?
Peoples: I am C.J.’s younger sister. There were five—my mother had—I have four brothers, I’ll put it that way. All four of the boys were older than the three girls.
Franklin: Okay.
Peoples: My youngest brother was born in 1933. My older sister was born in 1938.
Franklin: Okay.
Peoples: I was born in 1940, and my younger sister in 1942. My younger sister, by the way, never saw her father.
Franklin: Right, because—
People: He died before she was born. He died the 7th of June; she was born the 26th of October the same year.
Franklin: Oh, wow. So where—you already said when you were born. Where were you born and where did you live before coming to the Tri-Cities?
Peoples: I was born in Kildare, Texas, K-I-L-D-A-R-E. That was a small community—farming community that was on between Texarkana—Texas-Arkansas—and Marshall, Texas on the Texas and Pacific Railway line. My father was a railroad man.
Franklin: Okay, so between Texarkana—
Peoples: Well, Texarkana’s 36 miles this way; Marshall is 32 miles this way, by rail.
Franklin: So nice in-between point. Was the rail kind of the main—was that—
Peoples: There were a lot—a gentleman that I did not know but I grew up with a cousin of his, and he wrote a book recently that I have. The way he described it, there were three groups of people—and he was talking African Americans—they were the timber people, northeast Texas is rich in timber; there were the railroad people, the Texas and Pacific Railroad went right through Kildare; and there were the—I said, railroad, timber—and farming.
Franklin: Okay. Sounds like a typical Western town setup then.
Peoples: You don’t really think of—when you think of Texas, most people think of west Texas, because that’s what you see. But east Texas is, as I said, rich in timber.
Franklin: Yeah. Yes, it is. What education and work experience did you have before coming to the Tri-Cities?
Peoples: Actually when I came to the Tri-Cities, I had just finished high school two months earlier. The only actual work that we did during the summer, there were crops that needed to be worked that we had a chance to do that, which we didn’t think of it so much as work as a way to see our friends during the summer. [LAUGHTER] But it did give us, I’ll just say, spending change. And people that did have things that needed to be done, community people, would have us do things like that.
But as far as work-work, there was none because there was a rule in our house that you did not miss school. And you did not—and I found out from my second-oldest brother that they were not allowed to bring home a C. That was my father’s rule—which he was gone by the time I started school. But my mother was a very strong single parent, and the rules held fast.
Franklin: And you said you graduated high school at 16?
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: So you left Texas then, at that time?
Peoples: I was 16 when I left. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was the end of July, and I turned 17 the 10th of August.
Franklin: Okay, so ’57?
Peoples: ’57.
Franklin: So school—the Brown v. Board of Education happened in 1954; did that affect you in high school?
Peoples: That, we heard about—was that in ’54?
Franklin: I believe so.
Peoples: Was it that soon? The only thing—what I remember is the Little Rock Nine. I was in high school at that point. And we heard about that, and there was—she went to Texas College, I believe, and she was another person that stood out in my mind. This was all before I finished high school. Her name was Autherine Lucy. She went to Texas College. Well, maybe it wasn’t Texas College, but it was in Tyler, Texas. That was another one that we saw in the paper that was a part of this. And then the college was James Meredith—what was her name? There were two. There was a young man and a young lady. I know his name was James Meredith.
Franklin: Yup.
Peoples: Was that the University of Mississippi?
Franklin: Yeah, Ole Miss.
Peoples: Okay. But I was not so much involved in that, but my younger sister actually was a part of the sit-ins.
Franklin: Of the what?
Peoples: Of the sit-ins.
Franklin: Oh, the sit-ins.
Peoples: She was a student at Bishop College in Marshall, Texas at the time. That was after I left, but—
Franklin: So, your high school—going all through your schooling, your schools were segregated, right?
Peoples: Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, I think there was a forced integration and I read this not too long ago. The State of Texas had a forced integration. It was not until several years later that they actually integrated the schools, though. Because when I—I went back to Kildare for several months in 1960. That was during the time my husband was military. He was stationed in Germany, and we went there before we went to join him. It was during that time that they were doing the sit-ins and all that stuff. So I was not a part of any of that. But like I said, my sister was a college student and she did get involved.
Franklin: And Kildare was a segregated town, right?
Peoples: Absolutely. But Kildare was unique. My sister and I—my older sister and I would talk about this periodically. Where we grew up, it was segregated. But there seemed to be a healthy respect for each other. I don’t know how to describe that. But you didn’t hear about the rioting and that sort of thing. That kind of thing was kind of foreign to us. And I think because it was a farming community, and people had a history of working together, might have made the difference. But we knew the schools were segregated, but I guess maybe we just didn’t know any better and we didn’t think about it.
Franklin: Things, too, like restaurants and movie theaters?
Peoples: Kildare had no restaurants! [LAUGHTER] However, movie theaters, yes. If you went to the movie, Atlanta, Texas was the closest town to Kildare. It was like 14 miles going toward Arkansas. You would go through Atlanta going to Texarkana. If you went to the movie, African Americans had to sit upstairs. You could not go in the lower part.
Franklin: And did you go up—
Peoples: There was a stairway.
Franklin: Was there a different entrance, like an outside entrance?
Peoples: You know, I don’t remember for sure.
Franklin: Doesn’t really matter. I was just curious.
Peoples: I don’t really remember.
Franklin: But nevertheless, you had to use a separate—
Peoples: Yeah.
Franklin: Yeah. And I assume you heard about the area from your brother, C.J.
Peoples: My brother came here when he was 16 years old, I believe.
Franklin: And do you remember what year that was?
Peoples: 1947.
Franklin: 1947. And why did he come to the area?
Peoples: For work. We had uncles that were up this way. He took the train. And what I didn’t know was that he didn’t get all the way here the first time. He had some bad luck and ended up staying in Chicago, coming back. I learned this from my youngest brother. That was something I—as a little girl, I didn’t know anything about this. But I just knew that my big brother left, and I was unhappy. I was happy when he came home, and he left again, and I cried again. But like I said, C.J. was the father figure. C.J. was the one that was always there. He was the one that—he was actually, as a teenager, superintendent of the Sunday school. So when we went to Sunday school on Sunday, he was going to always be there. Although the churches didn’t have church services every Sunday, they did have Sunday school every Sunday. So naturally, on Sunday, that was time that was spent with C.J. also.
Franklin: When did your uncles come up to the Hanford area?
Peoples: I don’t remember exactly when they came up, but they came in the early ’40s. Now, I never remember my uncle Willie living in Kildare.
Franklin: Was Willie’s last name, was that Daniels? Willie Daniels?
Peoples: Yes. But I remember when Uncle Vanis came. They were brothers.
Franklin: That’s Vanis’ father, right? Vanis Daniels.
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: Because you said your mother was a Daniels.
Peoples: Right.
Franklin: Okay. So they came sometime in World War II?
Peoples: They came up, and then Uncle Vanis came back. And then I don’t—they actually—and then he and my aunt and the youngest son came to Washington and then the rest of the family followed, I think, like six months later. They came—I remember that they left in the summertime. They waited until school was out before they came. And they did have an older sister who was an adult that was with them. So they weren’t—it wasn’t just the kids left without any adult there. But that, I believe, was in 1951.
Franklin: Okay. What was it about the Hanford area that was drawing folks?
Peoples: Money.
Franklin: How so?
Peoples: There were no jobs.
Franklin: In Kildare?
Peoples: Anywhere, practically. But when the war effort started, then jobs were created. And so you basically went to where the jobs were. I do know that my grandfather had a brother who lived in Seattle. I remember they went to, I believe, Bremerton. And I remember an aunt, my mother’s sister, living in Bremerton. You traveled to where the jobs were. And the families were quite often left behind while the breadwinner was gone. I think there were a lot of very strong women during that time that made sure the family’s needs were met while the breadwinner had to be someplace else.
Franklin: Right. Or even some women that were breadwinners themselves that were also helping making sure the family’s needs were met.
Peoples: Right.
Franklin: So you moved here with your brother, C.J. Was that just to be closer to family, but also for job reasons?
Peoples: Well, no, I don’t know why he asked me to come. But he did ask me to come, and there was nothing else for me to do. So it was—when I look back, it was a blessing, actually, rather than say it was a good move. It was actually a blessing.
Franklin: Oh, wow. What were your first impressions when you arrived?
Peoples: The first thing that happened when I arrived. Well, I rode back with—well, there was six of us in the car. My Aunt Maxine was with us, my Uncle Willie, my brother, and then a first cousin who lived in Pasco, her husband and his brother were with us. And they drove to Texas together for the funeral. And I rode back with them. We first went to my uncle’s house in Pasco; that was Uncle Willie. C.J. had left his car with them there. And we got in the car and we drove home, we drove to Richland.
And it was late at night and the next morning, when we all got up, up in the day, my sister-in-law said—she told me that a friend of mine was staying with her aunt, well, it was actually the next street over. During that day, she said to her two-year-old, why don’t you take Emma up to your friend Bruce’s? And this little toddler took me up to his friend’s. [LAUGHTER] I said, smart kid. He knew exactly where to go. I just walked along with him, and when I got there, I actually saw my—he walked up in the yard, and of course what do kids do when they walk up in the yard? He saw his friend, he went over to play. But my friend that had—she had come up to Washington earlier with her family, and she was at her aunt’s. She and a friend of hers was sitting out in the yard, so I recognized them and she recognized me when I walked up. So that was my first experience.
But I don’t know. I just—when I look back now, the way they embraced me and the kids, and right now—that’s why I say this is my second family. They are so very special to me. And they make me feel special.
Franklin: That’s really wonderful. So you stayed with C.J. after you arrived.
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: Do you remember what house that was? Was it an Alphabet House?
Peoples: It was a prefab. A two-bedroom prefab. Now, bear in mind they had four kids. [LAUGHTER] That’s why I say, you know, this had to be a blessing. It was on the corner of Adams and Cullum. No, no, I take that back. Adams and Craighill.
Franklin: Wow, two-bedroom.
Peoples: The first house we bought was on Adams and Cullum.
Franklin: That’s like seven people in a two-bedroom prefab.
Peoples: Yeah.
Franklin: Wow. That sounds tight.
Peoples: Well, they had three boys. The girl was a baby, so she had her crib, and the parents had their room, and Emma slept on the couch.
Franklin: Wow.
Peoples: We made it work. I say, they made it work.
Franklin: And how long did you stay with them?
Peoples: Until I was married. I came up in June—no, July of 1957, and I was married in November 29th of 1958.
Franklin: Did you meet your husband here?
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: Did you know him or his family where you came from?
Peoples: No. He was stationed at Camp Hanford.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Peoples: Actually, the first time I remember—well, wait a minute. The first time I met him, there was—my friend Carolyn Barton and another friend, Catherine Perry, and Lula Mae Tate, we all went to the same church. There was a lady that had—it was a restaurant, and she had some—I think they were three apartments or something like that. But it was kind of like a ballroom. It wasn’t a ballroom, but it was a small room and she would let kids have sock hops there. But there was no liquor, none of that. Her place was strictly food. So you didn’t—but the guys from Camp Hanford would come down there because they loved her chicken.
Franklin: Was this Virgie’s Chicken Shack?
Peoples: Virginia’s Chicken Shack, yes. Anyway, this particular Friday night, I had gone over and we went down to the sock hop. I went with Carolyn and Catherine and Lula Mae. There were some guys there—that’s where I actually met him. There was another guy with him, his last name I think was Rogers. But anyway, I don’t know why they were there, but they were. That’s where I met him. But they also—I never saw the other guy, but he would also come to our church sometimes. That was New Hope.
Franklin: New Hope, okay. I was just about to ask you that. Where was your husband from?
Peoples: His hometown was Forrest City, Arkansas.
Franklin: Oh, okay. Was that—
Peoples: Eastern Arkansas, it’s about 40 miles east of Memphis, Tennessee.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Peoples: Right on what is now Interstate 40.
Franklin: And what is your husband’s name?
Peoples: His first name was, I’m going to spell it for you. Everyone called him Al. Well, actually, they called him Peoples. Because with the military, everyone is last names. But his first name is Alpheus, A-L-P-H-E-U-S.
Franklin: I can say I’ve never heard that name before.
Peoples: It’s a Biblical name.
Franklin: It sounds Biblical. Alpheus Peoples.
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: After you got here, what was the hardest aspect of life in this area to adjust to?
Peoples: I don’t know. I don’t know. I think being surrounded by family made things so much easier, because it was not just my brother, C.J., and his family. Like I said, I would go over on Saturday nights, I would spend the night either with the Bartons or at my uncle Vanis’. And I would go to church with them on Sunday morning, with Carolyn mainly, on Sunday morning because we went to the same church. But I also had a cousin that lived on the next corner, on Craighill.
Franklin: Who was that?
Peoples: On Abbott and Craighill. The Rockamores.
Franklin: Rockamores, okay. That’s a name I’ve heard several times.
Peoples: Yes. Now that was my father’s niece.
Franklin: Okay.
Peoples: And they were—well, I always, when I thought about it, I thought about the fact that they—I felt they treated me more like a younger sister than a cousin. But our families in Texas were very close.
Franklin: It really seems like a lot of your family migrated—moved from Kildare. Seems like a pretty sizable chunk of Kildare moved up here.
Peoples: Absolutely, absolutely. Because when one person found out there were jobs, then they let the other people know. There were people that came and didn’t stay, but there were quite a few that did.
Franklin: It wasn’t just the job itself; the pay here was also greater than it would have been for an equivalent job in Texas, right?
Peoples: In the first place, there was no equivalent job in Texas. And in the second place, the wages were almost non-existent. I mean, you worked a lot of hours for not much money there. So they came here and the ones who did not move their families here came and they sent money back to take care of their families. Sometimes eventually the families moved here and sometimes they didn’t.
Franklin: Yeah. You mentioned that you went to New Hope Church. What role did church play in the community in general?
Peoples: In my life, it was always the center, basically, of life. I’m going to tell you this, because this is what I told a group of people that—I was wanting their vote.
Franklin: Wanting their vote?
Peoples: I ran for national office in an organization, and I had to go to the caucuses. When I went, I introduced myself and I started out with where I grew up and I said, I was raised by a widowed mother who was a very strong single parent. I went on to say, every time the church door opened, my mother made sure all those little Mitchells walked through it. So we went to church more than anybody else in town. That was our lives. Everyone in Kildare—I don’t know of anyone in Kildare who did not have a very high respect for my mother. I mean, we even went to church on Thanksgiving Day.
Franklin: Wow. That’s impressive.
Peoples: That was the one thing I missed, and when I went to Texas one year after that, after I had been away, and I wanted to be there on Thanksgiving Day. But they no longer had church on Thanksgiving Day. So that was something that I remembered. You hold onto your beliefs and what you remember and it doesn’t always work out the way you would hope.
Franklin: Why do you think church was so important for your mother, why she passed that on to you?
Peoples: I think it’s just a strong belief in Christ. And no matter where I go, and whether I’m—I’m not in church every Sunday, but it still is very—that life is still very important to me.
Franklin: Yeah. And the church also plays a very prominent role in the black community in general, right?
Peoples: Yes. But it doesn’t have to be a black church. It can be—I was a military wife. And when you are away from home and you don’t know where the closest church is, you go to the chapel, which is what I did. I went to the chapel.
Franklin: Great. Do you recall any family or community activities, events or traditions, including sports and food that people brought from the places they came from?
Peoples: You mean traditionally?
Franklin: Yeah, like different types of traditions or customs that people would have brought from Kildare up to Washington.
Peoples: I don’t know.
Franklin: What about food? Did you or C.J., the Mitchells, did your family cook Southern food, soul food, or—
Peoples: Well, that depends on what you call soul food.
Franklin: Okay.
Peoples: I love to cook. There are some things I don’t do. I’m not a cookie-baker. And I don’t do a lot of pies. However, I do do sweet potato pie.
Franklin: Okay, because that’s a staple, right?
Peoples: Well, my older sister didn’t really care for sweet potato pie, but I love sweet potato pie. I have a granddaughter—actually, she’s a great-granddaughter. When she was—oh, she was maybe two-and-a-half, close to three, maybe, and the family was living with me at the time, and I had baked pies the night before, and I left them on the counter, on a rack, right by the stove. They was just sitting there on the counter. She got up before anyone else that morning, and she went into the kitchen and she saw the pies. She didn’t touch one of them, but the other one, she took her little finger and she ate pie until she thought she had enough. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, she went back in the bedroom and by that time her dad’s up, and she walks in and he looks at her and she’s got all this orange stuff all over her face. He gets, evidently, a look that—she looks up at him, he said, and she gave him this great big grin and said, oh, Daddy, that’s good pie. [LAUGHTER] So that’s the sweet potato pie.
However, my thing is—well, Christmas Eve was always a special time for us. And when I say us, I’m saying C.J. and me. We always got together on Christmas Eve. We started that because when our kids were small, we thought they would be happier at home with their toys or whatever on Christmas morning, but we did want the family time. So we did Christmas Eve. And then he told me once that he wanted Christmas Eve at his house. Okay, that’s fine. So he said, when I was growing up, he said, I could not open a gift until Christmas morning. If we’re at my house, I can open my gifts any time I get ready. So.
But Christmas Eve was very special for us. I’ve gotten to the point—now, I don’t feel physically up to doing like the big dinners we used to do for Christmas Eve or whenever. So this past Christmas Eve, I just decided we’ll have dessert night. So I said, everybody, if you have someplace else to go, you can just stop by. You don’t have to stay; just stop by, have dessert and go on to wherever you want to go. And that worked out really quite well. I think that’s probably—we’ll try doing that more. But what I told them, I said, what I will do, I will try to have everybody’s favorite cake. When I said that to my nephew, Robin, he said, well, I’m sure that if you don’t have everybody’s favorite, they’ll make do with whatever you have. It’ll be fine. But it turned out quite well. I know my one nephew, they were going to church Christmas Eve, so they stopped by on the way to church. That was basically what I was hoping for. If you had something else that was traditional that you wanted to do on Christmas Eve, that’s fine. But if you have a chance, just stop by and have dessert. Go on your way if you choose.
But when my nephews were growing up, I made it a point to—these are the three oldest ones. I always made them a birthday cake on their birthday. They always got a birthday cake from me.
Franklin: That’s Duke—
Peoples: Duke, Greg—
Franklin: Greg, and Cameron?
Peoples: No, Nestor. Cameron asked his mom once if she would ask me to bake him a birthday cake. Now this is her—the way, what she told me. She said, he told him, no, I will not. And she said, because if you want her to bake you a birthday cake, you ask her yourself. So he did. And I did. But like I said, I like to cook and I like to think I’m a good cook. So that is one of the things I enjoy doing.
Franklin: What about the Juneteenth celebration? I understand that originated in Texas, right? Was that a—
Peoples: I don’t know that it originated in Texas.
Franklin: Okay.
Peoples: Because—what year was it? I forget the exact time, but my two sisters and I went to Springfield, Missouri. And I had never heard of it—I had never heard it called Juneteenth until then. There was a lady there that said something to the effect that it was actually August 4th, was the celebration. So I don’t know, different states, evidently, celebrate that particular event at different times. But what I learned in history was that it was the June 19th when they actually got the message of the Emancipation. Although it had been declared, what, three years earlier or something to that effect. But actually I don’t know how or where the Juneteenth celebration started, but like I said, I’d never heard it called Juneteenth. It was just referred to as the 19th of June.
Franklin: Interesting.
Peoples: But maybe that’s growing up in a small place like Kildare, that—I don’t know what the official—[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: In what ways were opportunities here limited because of segregation or racism?
Peoples: Do you want something that happens right now?
Franklin: Sure.
Peoples: It’s still out there. It is still out there. So, I don’t know what I should say about that.
Franklin: Okay, that’s important to say that it’s still out there.
Peoples: Because you will find, and it is not limited to small organizations; it is not limited to small businesses; it’s out there, big-time. And you will find that—well, if I say this, I would ask you not to put it on—but just for information. I work at Wal-Mart. I see segregation every day.
Franklin: How so?
Peoples: I’ll relate one thing that pertains to me, but I feel that at this point in my life, I am strong enough, I’ll just say, in my own skin, in my own right, that I will not let it hinder me from doing what I choose to do. Number one, they will find reasons that you don’t need certain options or you don’t need certain—they judge you. They feel you can’t do this; you’re not capable of doing this, when I know in my own self that I am just as capable as anyone in that store.
And I said that to one manager one day. He said, I understand that you wanted to learn more about merchandising. I said, oh really? I don’t know, where’d you get that? Well, someone told me you wanted to learn more about merchandising. I said, well, I don’t really think so. I say, because, to be truthful with you, I would go so far as to say that I know more about merchandizing than anyone in this store. Which, I felt was true, and I still feel that it’s true. Because it’s not because I’m doing a particular job now that I’m not capable of doing anything more. But I wanted to say to her, if I were in charge of merchandizing, the store would look a lot better than it does now. Because number one, that’s not my first retail job. I mean, I’m not a member of management at Wal-Mart because I choose not to be a member of management at Wal-Mart. I have other things that are important to me now. But I have worked in management in retail a number of times.
I actually managed the plus sizes and maternity at JC Penney before I even thought about Wal-Mart. This sort of thing. I was in management with Macy’s back in, oh, 1970s. You know? I chose to leave retail, because I had a family, and my family, when they were small, it was important to me to be home to get them off to school. When they got to be in junior high, I thought it was important for me to be home at night and not getting off at 9:00 at night, because my schedule was usually 12:30 to 9:00. I chose to go do something different. That’s when I went to work for Hanford. Because I was home—they were old enough that they could get to school, or I could drop them off at school. But I felt that I needed to be home in the evening with my teenagers.
Franklin: Yeah.
Peoples: So that’s why I made that choice. But had I stayed with retail, I could’ve been anywhere I want to be. I don’t think it is—so when they try to look at you and feel you are not capable of doing something, as I say, it’s not important to me now. But it doesn’t make me think it’s right. But I am that person who, if I am going to go to work at Wal-Mart, which I do, 40 hours a week usually, I don’t go in there to make friends, I don’t go in there to play up to anybody, I do not go in there to stand around and visit. I will stop and talk to a customer. That’s the customer. It’s—I’m supposed to talk to the customer, and I feel that is important. You need that rapport with your customer. But as far as just standing around, killing time—that’s not me. If I’m going to be there, I need to be busy. And if I’m going to be there, if I am responsible for making sure these items are in the right place on the shelf or whatever my job is, that is what I’m there to do. I’m not there to—
So, it’s still out there, but I don’t let it affect me as it might have at one time. Because, number one, I get to walk every day and I get paid for walking. [LAUGHTER] But I do my job. And that is what is important to me.
Franklin: Yeah. You grew up in a segregated world. The Tri-Cities wasn’t segregated by law or outright, but was there an informal type of segregation that existed here?
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: Was it something you could see? Were there any incidences that stand out to you?
Peoples: Well, it was actually shortly after I came here. There were several that were called a teenage club in Richland, for a place that teenagers could go, and some kids from Pasco and I know one from Richland that went over there, and they ended up in court over that. My friend Carolyn was one of them.
Franklin: Did they sue the club, or was there a—
Peoples: I don’t remember the particulars, but they did go to court. And I believe they lost.
Franklin: They were denied—
Peoples: They were denied, yes.
Franklin: I think I saw that in some of the old newspapers that we have.
Peoples: Yeah. And then Kennewick was the place that no one of color was allowed. I actually worked with a lady once that—this would have been in the ‘70s, early ‘70s—and her husband worked out in the Area. But he built houses. She worked in the next department from me at Macy’s. And she said they would build a house and they would live in it until they sold it, and then he would build another. He just did this, I say, on the side. But she said that they sold a house to a couple, actually, the couple was Oriental. And she said some of the people that they thought were friends of theirs stopped speaking to them because they sold the house to someone they didn’t approve of. But segregation is still out there. [LAUGHTER]
A person that I worked with at one point at Wal-Mart said to the person that was store manager at the time that—they would take people to the corporate meetings every once in a while that choose someone, say, you get to go this time or whatever. Anyway, how they do it I don’t know, but he said to her, I would really like to have a chance to go to the corporate meeting sometime. And he happened to be Hispanic. And she said to him, I really don’t think that you are the—what did she say? Not the picture but—the image that Wal-Mart wants to show. So he looked at her and he said he smiled and said, oh, do you mean that’s because I’m bald? But he knew exactly what she was saying. But, see, things like that, I mean, you would think that people would be smart enough now not to go there. I mean. But you see it all the time. But as far as African Americans are concerned, it’s still there. It’s definitely still there.
Franklin: Yeah. I want to talk a bit about your work at Hanford. What sort of work did you do?
Peoples: When I first went out there, I worked in the mailroom as a mail messenger.
Franklin: Was that in the 300?
Peoples: That was in the 300 Area.
Franklin: And then what—
Peoples: And I went from there to what they called Engineering Files; you processed all the documents that came through. And this was in support of the FFTF.
Franklin: That was a long project. What on-the-job training did you receive, if any?
Peoples: Well, first of all, I had to learn my mail route. [LAUGHTER] But there was quite a bit of training. Any job you took, there would be some form of training. But I worked mostly in—I went from the mailroom to engineering files and then I went to FFTF Engineering. I actually was the liaison between the drafting section and the finance people. Forget what they were called now. But anyway, at any time we had—I worked strictly for engineering, so anytime there were documents that had to be signed, drafting prints that had to be signed, we were more or less the gofers, the go-between. We took the documents from one group to the other and made sure the documents were signed and signed off properly. And then later I worked in what was called Fuels and Controls, and that was all of the fuel—I was in the group, all of the fuel rods that went into the FFTF were analyzed and assayed in our group.
Franklin: Oh. And what did you do for that group?
Peoples: I was the clerical support. Made sure all, there again, the documents were signed off properly and the documents went to the right place, and to research whatever we needed in support of those documents.
Franklin: How long did you work out at Hanford total?
Peoples: 23 years.
Franklin: Oh, wow, okay. So quite a while. And probably for a litany of contractors?
Peoples: Actually, no, I worked for Westinghouse all while I was there.
Franklin: The entire time?
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: Oh, wow. That’s kind of a rarity.
Peoples: Well, actually, they were the ones that were in charge of building FFTF, and then later I worked in security for them.
Franklin: What did you do in security?
Peoples: The last position I had was, we had documents, again, that needed to be signed. But a lot of it was safety, security—SQS, safety, quality assurance, and security. I actually was the person that, in support of, here again, clerical support, but my one position—one job I had was to take all of the—when they went to the computers and so on, I had to actually take the directories from all three groups. The secretaries would send them to me, and I had to roll all of that into one directory for the entire SQS group. So that was interesting. And that was the computer part. That was really the start of the computer part that I did out there. So you got training in support of any job that you did. There were actually CBC courses and WSU courses that were open to train you for whatever your job was.
Franklin: Yeah. Did you acquire any skills or experience on the job that helped you later in life?
Peoples: Well, I think everything. Because, number one, dealing with people. Also, being able to get along with people. Well, people skills, I’ll put it that way. Sometimes, you know, you have to think about the better way to do things, rather than the fastest way. And I think I learned a sense of responsibility.
Franklin: How would you describe your relationships with your coworkers and your supervisors?
Peoples: You mean now?
Franklin: When you were at Hanford?
Peoples: Or there? I thought they were very good. I had some of the best management, I think. I’m not saying everybody was tip-top, but for the most part, I felt my management was very good. I thought a very good relationship with my management.
Franklin: How were you treated on the job?
Peoples: At Hanford?
Franklin: Yeah.
Peoples: I thought quite well.
Franklin: What kinds of interactions did you have with coworkers and supervisors outside of work?
Peoples: Not much. Not a lot. Because of, number one, I’m a very strong family person. And number two, it’s just not something I did a lot of, outside of work. I have always, more or less, separated work from personal things. I had a—there were two things that I remember when I was in high school, the one teacher used to say—a famous word of his was, or famous saying is, business is one thing and friendship’s another. I have always tried to remember that. Because it doesn’t matter whether you are the friend or not. If it has to do with a job, you get the job done. You don’t let friendship enter into it. And the other one was—this was a different teacher, and he would say, a wise man will not insult you. And you always try to be wise enough that a fool cannot do so. Those are the two things that, from my high school, that I remember, that I have thought about a lot in my life. As far as—now, like I said, I work at Wal-Mart, there are people there—there is one lady there that I have watched—I’ve known her for like 12 years, and I have so much admiration for her and her family that, she’s just a very special person in my eyes. And there are other people that, I mean, I will deal with you if I have to, but I’m not going to go out of my way. But when you see someone with so much respect and such family values that mirrors so much of what you believe in, I don’t know, it just makes you admire that person.
Franklin: Yeah. How did your racial background figure into your work experiences?
Peoples: Well. There is always someone that thinks that they can say certain things or do certain things, and you’re just supposed to smile and go on. But it doesn’t work that way. I am, I think, very strong in my own right. And like I say, I don’t go to a job expecting any favors. I go there to get the job done. That is the bottom line. I just don’t work any other way.
Franklin: In what ways did the security and/or secrecy at Hanford impact your work or daily life?
Peoples: Well, when you think of it now, if what happens on the job—are you meaning with people or with my family or--?
Franklin: Just in general. How did the nature of the job and the security and secrecy impact you?
Peoples: It was just, in my opinion, a part of the job. But the one thing that I saw other people do that I never did, and that was, my husband worked for Battelle. I worked for Westinghouse. We didn’t discuss our work at home. Because number one—and I was not always saying, well, you know, Al did this at work or this, that or the other. That wasn’t my thing. We didn’t do that. And we did not call each other at work unless it was a really good reason for me to call. And for me to go to his building—the only time I went to the building where he worked was when I was on my mail route. Or had to go to that building for a reason. In other words, we didn’t—we weren’t someone that couldn’t go five minutes without calling each other. Because you go out there to do a job, and that’s any job. You don’t—
Franklin: What kind of work did your husband do?
Peoples: He worked in the lab in 325. It was chemistry. And it was, in fact, I think he was in that for most of the time he was there. That was—where he worked, it was—oh, how do you describe it? They had all kinds of research and stuff going on in the group that he worked in. And there are, not in his name, but a lot of patents that he actually worked on that are not in his name. But that was the type of work he did. And he said one day, the one thing he did say to me, one day he said, you know, the kind of work that I do—we do work for a lot of different people. He said, and the worst thing that we can do is to have one vendor know what you’re doing for someone else. So that was the type of way that we worked. He didn’t discuss what he was doing. Because it was research. And that’s just—if you have to discuss that, then you maybe are in the wrong area.
Franklin: Mm-hmm. Is your husband still alive?
Peoples: No.
Franklin: Okay. And when did he pass away?
Peoples: 1994.
Franklin: Oh, so some time ago then.
Peoples: Actually, I buried him one day before my 54th birthday.
Franklin: Oh, wow, okay.
Peoples: And he worked at Hanford for a lot of years. Much longer than I did.
Franklin: Was he always out in 300?
Peoples: Well, he was in—actually, they went to 2-West once for about a year, and he was actually in the same building and the same lab and basically with the same chemist most of that time.
Franklin: And he was brought out here by the Army at the Hanford Camp?
Peoples: He was military. He was stationed at Camp Hanford. And when they sent him to Camp Hanford, he had no idea where he was. He’d never heard of it. Lots of people never have yet. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: And then he decided to stay after—
Peoples: Actually, when he was discharged, we came back.
Franklin: Okay. That’s right, because you followed him—
Peoples: We were—our last duty station was in Fort Hood, Texas. Before that, he was actually in southeast Asia, during when the Vietnam thing escalated, when they had the August 4th bombing, the Bay of Tonkin, the boats, he was actually over in that area at the time. He was evacuated out. It was August 4th, he was evacuated out later that year.
Franklin: What was it that made you want to come back?
Peoples: I had family here.
Franklin: And he was just willing to come, and--?
Peoples: He had friends here, too, and, well, like I say, I have two families. When we came back from Germany—well, actually when we came back from Germany we were stationed at Fort Lewis. And then from Fort Lewis to San Francisco, the Presidio, and then to Fort Hood, Texas, where he was discharged at Fort Hood. We had in the meantime bought a house here.
Franklin: Okay. So you had planned on coming back.
Peoples: So, we came back. Well, we didn’t plan to come back that soon, but—when he went to Thailand, the kids and I needed a place to live. So the house was available, we bought the house, and that’s where we stayed. We were a block from C.J.
Franklin: So you must have bought a prefab then?
Peoples: No, it was a precut.
Franklin: A precut, right.
Peoples: Right.
Franklin: Okay, and how long did you live in that house for?
Peoples: Oh, that was ’64. I don’t remember for sure. When did we move? We moved to Blue Street. Oh, ’67.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Peoples: No it wasn’t; it had to have been ’68, because we came back here in ’67 from Fort Hood.
Franklin: For your work, or for your husband’s work, how did you feel at the time, during the Cold War, about working for the development of nuclear weapons?
Peoples: I don’t know that we gave it a lot of thought. Because research is research. Al was mostly in research. And when I went out to Hanford, it was in support of the FFTF, and it was a test reactor that would—and it was more or less fuel. Fuels and controls, I believe, was the title. So I didn’t think of it was nuclear weapons.
Franklin: How do you feel now about your experiences, having worked out there?
Peoples: I think it was good experience. I would not—I can’t think of anything that I would trade. It also, you know, you do interact with a lot of different people. A lot of different people. That is one of the reasons that I feel at this point in my life I can feel comfortable, I’ll just say, in my own skin, and not be that concerned about what anybody else is doing out there.
Franklin: What did you—when you came to the area in the ‘50s, what did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford?
Peoples: I didn’t. Because at that time, everything was secretive. That was the time that if you left work and you forgot to lock your file, you could be fired.
Franklin: Yeah. From your perspective, what were the most important contributions of African Americans at Hanford?
Peoples: At Hanford?
Franklin: Yeah.
Peoples: I don’t really know. I don’t really know.
Franklin: Okay. In the civil rights era—this is kind of what my next set of questions is about—what were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here?
Peoples: I don’t really know, because I was more or less, up until I was married, it was more like family time, or church, and I worked at a dress shop in Uptown Richland here. It was called Hugh’s Women’s Apparel. As far as Hanford was concerned, it was not something I had a lot of knowledge about.
Franklin: What about for African Americans in general here? Were there any civil rights issues that were important to folks that you knew of? For example, kind of the lack of services in east Pasco or the treatment of African Americans in Kennewick, the sundown laws?
Peoples: Well, sundown laws was before I came here. But I do know that—well, I just know rumors. I didn’t actually know—
Franklin: Were you directly involved in any civil rights efforts?
Peoples: No.
Franklin: Okay. Then I think that is about—that’s all my civil rights activities questions.
Peoples: Well, you know, I was a military wife. When you went to—our first duty station away from here was Germany. When I was in Germany, I went to the post chapel. I didn’t go to the—I went to the Protestant service. There were no African American churches. But I wanted to go to church, so I went to the chapel. So when we came back, when we were at Presidio, San Francisco, I went to the post chapel. When we went to Fort Hood, I went to the post chapel. I took my kids to the post chapel. You know, this sort of thing. When we moved into our house up on Cullum, I don’t know how they got the information, probably from the city, new residents, or new whatever. The people who came to welcome us to Richland and to invite us to their church was from Richland Baptist. And having the experience at the post chapel, I did not have a problem with that. So that’s where we went.
Franklin: What do you mean you didn’t have a problem with that?
Peoples: Because, well, I didn’t feel that I had to go to an African American church.
Franklin: Oh, I see.
Peoples: I had become accustomed to worshipping where there was to worship. Whether it was the post chapel or whether it was a small church.
Franklin: Were you the only African Americans that went to Richland Baptist?
Peoples: No.
Franklin: Were there others?
Peoples: Well, the Mitchells went there before we did. And then there was Shirleys, the Shirleys went there. And the Abercrombies went there.
Franklin: Okay. So really more of a community church than a strict African American—you just felt, you went where the church was closest.
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: Okay, that makes sense.
Peoples: Now, if you’re in Heidelberg, Germany, there aren’t going to be too many African American churches. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: That’s very true!
Peoples: But they had a church service there, not too far from our quarters that you could drive or you could walk, it was that close. So that’s what I chose to do.
Franklin: When did your work at Hanford come to an end?
Peoples: 1996.
Franklin: And what did you do afterwards?
Peoples: Well, I devoted my time to the American Legion Auxiliary.
Franklin: Is that the national organization that you mentioned earlier?
Peoples: Yes.
Franklin: Okay.
Peoples: In fact, I had gone—the day that my—actually, it was my second national convention that I came back, and they had—there was a notice on my email that they were having involuntary—oh, let’s see. Involuntary reduction of force. But you could volunteer for it. If you chose.
Franklin: That sounds like Hanford.
Peoples: So that’s what I did.
Franklin: Kind of like an early retirement.
Peoples: That’s what it was. But in 1995, my husband and I had discussed this earlier, when he was still alive, I told him that I really wanted to go through the chairs up the ladder for the American Legion Auxiliary. So when do you—I said, when I really make the decision, it’ll take me three years to reach that point. And I said, when do you think would be a good time for me to start? So we’d talked about it, and I’d actually been endorsed by my unit for second vice president in 1991—for 1991. Then I found out that there was someone from Cheney that had also been endorsed, and I had decided in my own mind that I would never oppose anyone from the east side. So I didn’t send my endorsement in. However, it was like two months later that we had the meeting with my husband’s nephrologist and I asked him, after he explained everything, I asked him, would you be comfortable in giving us a prognosis? And he said, well, the way I see it, I would say he has three to six months. So, I said, well, I would have had to back away anyway. So I didn’t do anything. So he lived another three-and-a-half years.
So after he was gone, I decided the next year that I would go for second vice president again. So I wrote a letter to each one of the units in the state introducing myself and telling them what my plans were. I made it clear that the reason that I had not been active for three years previous was because of my husband. I felt that if anyone, knowing why I was not there, votes against me for that reason, so be it. So I went for that office. That was 1995, and I did have competition. There were two of us. When the vote was announced, I was the one that was the winner. So I took that position, but when I took that position, I made a commitment. And the person who opposed me actually ran again the following year and was successful, and she ended up being—we ended up being—I had to go second vice president, first vice president, and then you go in as president. She ended up being my first vice president. We had a wonderful relationship. That was—I mean, it’s just, I couldn’t have had anyone more supportive. I could not have had anyone that did a better job of keeping me informed of everything that she was doing and so on. We had, I’ll say, the two of us, we had two really, really good years.
But I made that commitment, and after that, well, we put Washington on the map. We did a really fantastic job, got all kinds of compliments from the national organization, and then I got an appointment for the following year as a member of, what I think, one of the most important committees on the national level, and that was the Americanism Committee. So I did get a national appointment every year for about five years. Then I decided that—well, I had actually promised one of our past state presidents that I would go for national office. So I really wanted to be national chaplain. So I went for that office. And I actually had competition from Kentucky, part of the Bible Belt. And I actually ended up with more than two—almost two-thirds of the total national vote.
Franklin: Wow, that’s quite a resounding victory.
Peoples: I thought so. And I had the national president, several times during her year, to tell me that she was so happy that I was her national chaplain.
Franklin: That’s really great.
Peoples: That’s something that, I will cherish that for a long, long time. I don’t have to be national president or something like that. I was happy being national chaplain. And it was more or less, with my background and my beliefs. The one thing that was unique—or maybe not unique, but—it is a non-denominational organization. You must be very, very careful with your articles and everything. When our Washington State Public Relations chairman called me one day to interview me and she wanted to know how I think about it. I didn’t know she was going to put it in the paper, but she did—but I made the statement to her, was that, I know it is a non-denominational organization, and I will never intentionally offend anyone or their religion. But I say, I will never deny my Christianity. So I had a good year as chaplain, too. So it’s one I’ll remember for a long time.
Franklin: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War?
Peoples: Actually, I don’t know that there’s much I could tell them. Because, number one, I didn’t see it as the Cold War. I saw it as a research project. It wasn’t focused on the bomb anymore when I was there. It was focused more on research and the things that are important to our survival, like the power that FFTF could have generated.
Franklin: Is there anything else you’d like to mention related to migration, segregation, and civil rights and how they impacted your life in the Tri-Cities and at Hanford?
Peoples: Well, in the Tri-Cities, the one thing I remember and the one thing I mentioned a little bit about this earlier, and that was with the families that—well, I’ll just say Kildare. When I came here, it was like I wasn’t just one person. I was part of—it made me feel like I was part of a huge family. Because I remember the—sometimes—well, on Sunday mornings, the Browns, Mr. Brown, they would come by and pick me up to go to church. You know, this sort of thing. Things like that. So in other words, I guess I would call it outreach and just the way they embraced me as a person, just because I was from Kildare. And they would go out of their way to, I guess, make me feel comfortable.
Franklin: That’s great. Well, Emma, thank you so much for coming and taking the time to talk to us today.
Peoples: I hope I didn’t bore you too much. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: No, no, it was wonderful. It was great. Okay.
Hanford Sites
FFTF
Fuels and Controls
Westinghouse
Battelle
325 Building
200 West Area
Camp Hanford
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Years on Hanford Site
Files
