530 Runion Avenue
Knoxville, Tennessee
October 28, 1938
D. N. [D ~Q.. N
FOR THOSE WHO LOVE
"My grandfather often said that God would
a
w~
alw~s
rovide
for those who love Him and obey His commandments.
certainly has been
ood to me.
God
He never failed to send me
friends to help me when my need was greatest.
"I don't know .w hat would have happened to my rooming house
when I was in the hospital if He badn' t provided.
About three
years ago I was crossing the street here in Knoxville.
on a dark, rainy night.
I didn't even see the auto when it
cut out of the line of traffic.
have been killed.
~
It was
I guess 1 was lucky not to
I was knocked senseless.
The doctors fowd
right knee cap and right wrist were broken when they got
me to the hospital.
I was past sixty.
They told me it was
going to be a long time before the bones would knit.
"1 had. no money ahead.
No accident insurance.
I didn't
mind being in the charity ward, but I was worried to death
about my roomers.
Being men, I just knew they couldn' t put
up with things very long.
The last one of them came out to
the General Hospital to see me.
Said they could carry on --
fire the furnace, and make up their own beds until I'd see my
w~
to m.a.lrlng some kind of arrangements.
"The very next
ments.
d~
God's loving care provided my arrange-
An old friend of mine
I' d known her since she was
eighteen years old -- read about my accident in the newspaper.
,.
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- 2 -
She and her ,husband came out to see me.
They told me they had
been looking for a comfortable furnished apartment where they
could spend the wiuter.
circumstances.
free.
My
accident just fitted into their
I turned over my room and kitchen to them rent
They were to take care of the house and the roomers,
collect the rent,
p~
bills.
They dld well.
had twenty-five years experience in
t~
And they hadn't
rooming business like
I had, either.
"I started in the rooming house business after m::I husband
died.
I took the five hundred dollars left over from funeral
expenses and set JIVself up.
I rented a big house not far from
the L. & N. railroad station.
It had plenty of rooms.
I knew
how to furnish them chea.p.
Make them comfortable.
girl had both finished
school when my husband died.
h~
were a big help to me at first.
My boy and
They
Wasn't long before Wllfrey got
a job that took him out of Knoxville.
Susan helped me out for
a while with the roomers, but she married before she'd scarcely
turned sixteen.
She has two children of her own now.
I never
was one to think it was my children's business to look out for
me.
live managed to make enough out of the rooming business
not to starve.
"It's not an easy business.
When the depression hit Knox-
ville I had it hard like other folks even to get by.
But at
times since then, I've picked up a little extra. on to the side
to make ends meet.
When times were good -- like in the war and
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- 3for a few years after -- I just cleaned up in that first house
down by the L. & N.
li d clear a hundred dollars
Railroad men and transients are good pay.
~
The railroad men who
stayed regular with me on this end of their run were
bringing in some passenger with them.
all the time.
al~s
They pumped up my place
I next to ran a hotel for years.
transients a dollar a night for room and bed.
able and clean as any hotel's.
month.
I'd charge
Mine were comfort-
I made enough then to have a
Negro woman to help me with the cleaning.
DThings were going good for me when the landlord up and
sold the corner for a filling station.
some place else for my business.
found.
That meant me finding
This house here's what I.
Never has been the sta nd my first one was.
near enough the station to get railroad trade.
for better.
!ut it's
I wo'Uldn't ask
Good railroad men aren't like that bunch of boys
live got upsta.irs now -- coming home half the time lit -- losing
their jobs -
putting off paying me.
Just one thing after another.
"After I had to move, it seemed like I started on the downroa.d with the rest of the world.
freight and passenger trains.
Railroads kept cutting off
Men that'd had good jobs for
years -- conductors, engineers -- were laid off.
vacant and stayed vacant.
My rooms got
Long about the time when President
Roosevelt was elected and the depression was going strong, I
had dropped down just to one regular roomer, Mr. Watson, a
flagmaJl on the L. & N.
He sure stuck by me.
I couldn l t meet
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- 4rtr:f rent half the time but I near about lived for a year off the
fifteen dollars a month he paid me for room rent.
gentleman and the best friend I ever had.
He is a true
I never have paid him
back all the money he loaned me little at a time to piece out
that year.
He's still with me.
That front bedroom there, the
best room in the house, is . Mr. Watson's and Mr. Sim's.
Mr. Simls
a conductor on a passenger and his and Mr. Watson's runs end so
as to make one hit here one night and. the other one on the next.
~~.
Watson's been here ten years.
Mr. Simas been here seven.
And the two of them have yet to spend a night together in that
front bedroom.
ItW~
things are now when this house is full up of regular
roomers I get in about ninety-two dollars.
:By the time rent
and water and lights and laundry and telephone and the rest
of the bills are paid I sometimes have about twenty dollars
left over -
that is in summer time.
Not in winter.
When you
have to bW coal and lights are used more, there's less than
nothiXlg left.
God don't want
anybo~
to skimp along on just
noth1Dg where there're w8\Vs that's not wrong to pick up a little
money.
I guess there's not a woman living. even if she has
turned Sixty, who doesn't like a little spending change for
face powder and perfume and such that keep her from lookiXlg
like a hag.
I didn't make folks what they are and I haven't
got anythiXlg to say one
w~
or the next i f the mated or unmated
shop around a little to get space for their loving.
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- 5"I have never run a regular assignation house.
But since
the depression I have been picking up a few dollars every week
from lovers.
This part of my business runs on the quiet.
It's
a good sideline but I wouldn't have it to get around that I did
it.
And it hasn' t •
So far no couple has ever been caught by
the IBM in my house. nor has
~
husband or wife come around
later to cross question me.
I am sure that not a single one of
~
roomers has ever suspected that these meetings take place
in
~
house.
I'm strict on the boys here and when one of them
brings a girl up to his room, I throw her out and give him
Hail Columbia.
"Lovers' meeting in my house
d~light
alw~s
takes place during
business hours, between ten and three o'clock.
~
two railroad roomers don't get off their runs before fourthirty in the afternoon and leave by ten next morning.
All
the boys upstairs have left by seven o'clock and none come
back till late afternoon.
They work long hours at the sort
of Jobs they have.
"I haven't anything to do with supplying the women that
come here.
I don't make the dates for the men or women.
Lot
of them knew each other years . ago, some are strangers that took
a liking to each other.
The women are scarcely ever young girls.
I wouldn't stand for much of that.
They're married women not
satisfied with their husbands or divorced women working hard
for their living and hoping to get married again.
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Most of the
- 6men are married.
So both parties have to be careful.
"The man just telephones me and says he is coming around
in a few minutes.
That's the reason I have to keep
~
telephone.
I used to make out without it when I just depended on regular
roomers.
The man's one who can get aWEq from his work in
nw
open hours or has his own business so that he can go and come
whenever.
I just let them use one of
~
vacant or my own room if all are filled.
for two of them to get here.
downstairs rooms that's
I don I t hang around
The one that gets here first I
shows them the room and I go right on upstairs about
~
cleaning.
They don't have any trouble finding each other.
"A couple never spends more than an hour here.
allow them that much time.
are gone.
I alwEqS
When I go back to my bedroom both
A gift of money is
alw~
left on the table for me.
It is never less than a dollar, often a dollar and a half or
two dollars.
If they just leave a dollar they usually stick
around some small challge to pay for the laundering of the linen.
One of my best customers is a rich man.
not always the same.
His woman friend is
He never does leave less than five dollars
• on the table.
"The neighbors don't think anything about any man or woman
coming into
my
house.
Roomers are always changing and there t s
insurance agents and collectors coming most any
d~.
Neighbors
don't know I wouldn't put up with a regular woman roomer.
stay in the house all day and bother me gabbing.
Women
They ask so
many all-fired questions and alwEqs have their noses in the other
12575
- 7roomer's affair.
live got to be a lots worse off than I am now
to go after women roomers.
But rrry room rent sign don't
s~
limen
only. II so the lady part of the lover trade could be thought to
be looking for rooms.
anywS¥.
Most anything goes in this neighborhood
Folks that might get curious are probably doing something
in their own house worse than giving folks a little
leasure.
Sending folks to ruination half the time selling whiskey.
"I doni t know any other respectable way I could pick up
that extra money.
I do know God never would have seen me through
that accident if he l d thought I was making rrry living
wrong.
didn't.
a.nyw~s
He could have let that car kill me right out.
But he
He just smoothed things out for me at every turn.
Those
friends just dropping out of nowhere to look after the house
while I was laid up.
And not a one of rrry lover trade letting
out on me by calling up home to fix their arrangements.
"I know they saw in the newspaper's what had happened to
me.
I got some of the prettiest flowers while I was sick.
It's
nice to have money enough to have pleasure your ownself and give
other folks pleasure too by being thoughtful.
When I got home
and got hold of things again and got it circulated around I
was up and about, they started back.
regular roomers.
Stuck to me just like
I appreciated it more then than ever.
"If times got flush again -
rooms rented regular and for
good money -- I wouldn't shut down on them. You just canlt help
having a heart for helping folks out.
Not when you stop to think
ho,"' God bas always been ready to give a hand to help you over like
He has me. II
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