MATILDA CALCOTE
Sources & Activities
Primary Sources



Matilda Calcote Oral History Interview, Bloomington-Normal Black History Project,
McLean County Museum of History, April 25, 1986.
Executive Order 8802 http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc_large_image.php?flash=true&doc=72
The Bloomington-Normal Black History Project collectionhttp://www.mchistory.org/research/resources/blackhistory/
The Bloomington-Normal Black History Project was founded in 1982, and its collections
span the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection contains oral histories,
photographs, portraits, booklets, articles, and photocopies related to people,
organizations, and churches of the local African American community. In 1989, the
Black History Project was affiliated with the McLean County Museum of History, which
now serves as a repository for the project's collections.
Secondary Sources

Hartzold, Susan and Ruth Cobb, ed. Presence, Pride, and Passion: A History of African
Americans in McLean County. (Bloomington, Illinois: McLean County Historical
Society, 2009).
This book is based on the McLean County Museum of History’s past exhibit Presence,
Pride, and Passion: A History of African Americans in McLean County. With this book,
you and your students can learn more about what life was like for African Americans
living in McLean County in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. If you would like a
FREE copy of this book, please contact the Museum and ask to speak with the Education
Department. A copy of the “Choices” activity is included in your packet.

Kemp, Bill. “Williams Oil-O-Matic Plant Beat Plowshares into Swords.” Pantagraph,
August 29, 2009, http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/williams-oil-o-matic-plantbeat-plowshares-into-swords/article_5b025a3e-94e5-11de-83e0-001cc4c03286.html.

Kemp, Bill. “Kiwanis Club Spearheaded Gardens for Area Unemployed in Depression.”
Pantagraph, April 29, 2012, http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/kiwanis-clubspearheaded-gardens-for-area-unemployed-in-depression/article_f5329f2a-9180-11e19506-001a4bcf887a.html.
Suggested Activities & Discussion Questions

Activity 1: Have students read Matilda Calcote’s oral history interview. Then, have your
students read Merlin and Beulah Kennedy’s or Caribel Washington’s oral history
1
interviews from the Bloomington-Normal Black History Project website at
http://www.mchistory.org/research/resources/blackhistory/oral-histories.php. Have
students compare their experiences. What was the same? What was different? How did
race relations change between the 1940s, the 1960s, and the present?

Activity 2: Complete the “Choices” activity from the book Presence, Pride, and Passion:
A History of African Americans in McLean County. Read the scenarios, have students
choose what they would do if they were placed in that situation, and then read what
actually happened. The scenarios are based on real incidents that happened in McLean
County. This is a great discussion activity. This book is a companion to a middle and
high school social science curriculum. It satisfies several New Illinois Learning
Standards.

Discussion Question: Read Executive Order 8802. Have students answer the following
questions and discuss their answers in small groups: Why do you think President Franklin
D. Roosevelt issued this Order? Why would he want everyone to be able to work?
Discussion Question: What difficulties did Matilda have to overcome in her life? What
qualities did she need to do so?

2
Matilda Calcote (1910-1990)
Matilda Calcote was a resilient woman, able to adapt to new situations while maintaining
a positive attitude. These character traits enabled her to meet the challenges in her life, which
were many. As a woman and an African American, Calcote lived through an era of history when
bigotry and prejudice made life difficult. When financial times are tight, minority groups often
suffer; and Calcote lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s. As a child, Calcote lived
under Jim Crow segregation laws in Arkansas, and was forced to face unequal working
conditions as an adult, but she met these challenges and lived through better times resulting from
World War II. Toward the end of her life, Calcote looked back at her life and that of her
family’s, and was proud of what they had and what they had accomplished.
Much of what is known about Calcote comes from an oral history interview conducted as
part of the Bloomington-Normal Black History Project. This project began in 1982 and its
collection spans the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The project contains documents such as
photographs, oral histories, booklets, and articles pertaining to the local African American
community. In 1989 the project became affiliated with the McLean County Museum of History,
which now serves as a holding place for the project’s collections.
Matilda Bell Heaston Calcote was born into a large family on November 30, 1920 in
Randolph, Tennessee. When she was 10 years old the family moved across the Mississippi
River to Luxora, Arkansas where the Heaston family engaged in farming. Whether they were
sharecroppers or independent farmers, farming was a hard way to make a living. As Calcote
later remembered, however, they never went hungry (even during bad times), as they always
raised their own food.
Later the family was able to purchase their own home, probably in town, where Calcote’s
father worked as a blacksmith and her mother did laundry for people in the community. While
living there, Calcote and her brothers and sisters attended school. In fact, all of the schools that
Calcote attended were segregated—meaning there were separate schools for black and white
children.
In 1926, when she was 16, Calcote married Lucious Walton. Later that year, she gave
birth to a daughter, Ruthie Mae Walton. The marriage was brief, and two years later Calcote and
her daughter moved to Bloomington, Illinois. They lived briefly with Calcote’s older sister and
brother-in-law before she found work as a personal maid to Helen Stevenson and moved onto the
3
Stevenson property on East Washington Street. Calcote called Bloomington home for the rest of
her life, although she would leave it for extended periods of time in the years ahead.
In 1930 Calcote and her daughter moved to Holland, Michigan, to stay with her parents
and siblings after the family relocated there. Four year later she was back in Arkansas, but she
only stayed for one year. While in Arkansas she worked in Blytheville distributing agricultural
supplies as part of a federal relief program. This was during the height of the Great Depression
and many people were going hungry. Under this program instituted by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, surplus farm products were given to needy people. Later Calcote said the Depression
did not affect her much; saying, “I always had work to do…I never had anything in my life given
to me free.”
By 1940 Calcote was back in Bloomington and married to William C. Miller. Miller
worked as a janitor and she as a housemaid. Together they earned $944 a year, well below the
national average of $1,548. At this time the minimum wage was 30 cents per hour. Calcote’s
salary was about 20 cents per hour, about two-thirds of the minimum wage.
But, things were changing. Calcote remembered that in the early 1940s, African
American employment opportunities in Bloomington had improved as the nation began to
emerge from the Depression and prepare for World War II. In 1944 Calcote moved to Seattle,
Washington where she lived for eight years. While living there, she worked at a shipyard
building U.S. Navy destroyers for the war effort. These ships were the protectors of allied fleets
crossing the oceans carrying troops and goods. Their purpose was to destroy any enemy ships or
planes that attempted to damage ships in the fleet. While employed at the shipyard, Calcote
worked as a spot painter, welder, and tank cleaner. She recalled seeing some terrible sights on
destroyers returning from battles that needed to be cleaned up and refitted to fight again.
Sometime during her years in Seattle, Calcote and William Miller divorced. On
November 7, 1947, she married L.C. Riley. By 1952, the couple had moved to back
Bloomington and was living with Calcote’s mother on Ewing Street. This marriage also ended in
divorce and Calcote returned to Seattle. While living there, she married William Calcote on May
13, 1960. William was 23 years younger than Matilda, but she said all of her earlier marriages
“were inconsequential in comparison” to this one. According to Matilda, her earlier marriages
were the result of being “young and not knowing what was going on and just married.”
By1961 the Calcotes moved back to Bloomington. William found work first as a
maintenance worker at the Eureka Williams plant. He also worked at the Holiday Inn, and for the
District 87 school district at the Raymond School, and the Bloomington Board of Education.
Matilda worked as a maid until her retirement. The couple was happily married for over 20 years
until William passed away in 1980.
The Calcotes were active members of Union Baptist Church. Matilda joined this church
when she first came to Bloomington. She was a member of the church’s Willing Workers Club
and the Progressive Women’s Club. These were social clubs whose members worked to better
themselves and the community as a whole. In 1975, Matilda joined the Three C Club where
women met regularly to discuss issues affecting African Americans. She also belonged to the
Ladies Auxiliary of the Redd-Williams Post No. 163, an all African American post of the
American Legion. She served one year as chaplain of the group.
By all accounts, Matilda Calcote was a strong, hard-working and adaptable human
being. Through multiple jobs, marriages, and moves across state lines, she maintained her
independence and her dignity. After a short illness, Calcote passed away on December 27, 1990
4
at the age of 80. Her funeral was held at Union Baptist Church on New Year’s Eve. She is buried
next to her husband William in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.
5