Black Home Owners of 1940: Let’s clean up some data

Disclaimer: This has been sitting in drafts for a year. I forgot what was wrong with it. I’m gonna roll the dice and publish it.

 

So I have a goal to create a big ole spreadsheet of all the residents for all the censuses. Buuuuuut I need to clean up the data. The problem with the Census is sometimes I swear some of the enumerators were raging alcoholics who couldn’t find a job doing anything else. The census data is not pure, nor perfect. Sometimes a person’s only appearance is in the census, but sometimes they’ll appear elsewhere. They’ll be men who had to sign up for the draft, or business people or others who appear in city directories, and for owners after 1921 they’ll be in the Recorder of Deeds website.

So I’m going to look at homeowners who’s square or address has a question mark. These people are Clarence Washington of 126 FL Ave NW, Raymond Montgomery of 121 , Rudolph Blake of 137, Joseph Gibson of 136 Bates St NW, Florence Glover of 109 Q St NW, Jerome S. Jenkyns of 1641, John Lattimer of 1464, Roscoe Patrick, and Laura Ford of 1684 3rd St NW.

I located Clarence Washington on Square 551 lot 172. Now the problem is, that lot no longer exists. The Florida Avenue park sits there. It looks like he’s at 126 FL Ave NW, where previously he might have been at 124. It was unclear. Looking at the records, he obtained his property on September 14, 1935 with a 6% loan from National Savings and Trust Company. He appears to have been single at the time of purchase. He and his wife Clara (listed in the 1940 census) sold the house in April 1948.

Raymond Montgomery had purchased a fair amount of property, well at least someone with that name did so. Just looking at square 552 he owned lot 152, and in the current year that lot’s address is 123 P St NW. So not 121 Bates St NW as I had him in my data. Then a widower in February 1938 he bought the property. According to a October 1965 deed selling the house to a Lucille Baskin, Raymond died February 4, 1959 leaving his wife Estella a widow.

Rudolph S. Blake is another popular name for a property holder. Once again just focusing on Truxton Circle I can pin him down to Sq. 552 lot 159 (137 P St NW) starting in 1925 with his wife Ida B. She sells the property in 1948 after Rudolph as died.

Joseph and wife Novella Gibson are a problem. They are associated with property on squares 551 and 552. The documents for 551 appear to be an outlier as it is concerning a party wall between 213 and 215 Q St NW (Sq 551 lots 7 & 8). I believe they probably lived on square 552 on lot 206, currently 136 Bates St NW. February 1926 Joseph and wife “Navalla” obtain 136 Bates with a $2,250 loan at 6% APR with monthly payments of $30. The Gibsons sell in 1965 to Barney and Henrietta Weitz.

It appears widow Florence O. Glover buys 109 Q St NW, which no longer exists, in 1925. By the sale of the property to the DL & W company in 1957, it seems she is dead. A Florence Glover is deceased as mentioned in the deed, but her daughter was also named Florence Glover, so there is confusion there. And there are more than half a dozen Glovers mentioned on the document. Please don’t leave property to more than 2 unmarried (sans spouses) relatives, it’s really confusing.

Jerome and Ellena Jenkyns bought their home 1629 3rd St NW in 1922, if the records are correct. Once again this is another property that no longer exists. The property was sold in 1972 to the Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) by the heirs. The document listed Jerome dying around about May 24, 1965 and Ellena dying around May 8, 1948.

 

 

Black Home Owners of 1930-1934: Sq 551 Ethel Thomas

I kinda stopped looking at black homeowners when I hit a problem I’ll call the widow Ethel. Ethel Thomas (nee Heywood) was a widow after 1934 when her husband Sanders Thomas passed away. In the 1940 census she was shacked up with some guy she, or someone, told the census was her husband. But there is no record (I could find) that she remarried.

Recently some images of records came available and they really don’t clear up the tale of Ethel, since it occurs around about the time of her husband’s death. I strongly doubt that I will find out who was her mystery man.

Landowner list of Sq 551Square 551, which is bounded by 3rd, Q, 1st, Florida Avenue and R Streets NW, is quite big. Since Destructo-kid has become mobile, very mobile, I’ve had zero time to get back to data clean up. But every so often some new data pops up, and it is just a question of can I do something with it.

If I were free to get around to looking at the owners, I’d look at 1900. That period saw an explosion of growth and building in Truxton Circle, so I could look and see who were the builders building for by looking at the 1902-1903 owners. Then if possible, compare with the census.

1957 Church Survey: Grace Reformed

I know I haven’t posted one of these in a while. But for those of you joining us, this is from a survey of the Northwest Urban Renewal Area, which later got broken up into Downtown and Shaw, from 1957. It is like an awesome census of the churches in the area, from the steeple churches that one thinks of when thinking about what a church looks like, to storefront and house churches. There hasn’t been another survey like this since.

Anyway. This time up it is Grace Reformed Church, at 1405 15th St NW. It was a white church in 1957, and the current occupants Christ Reformed Church appears to be a predominately white congregation. In 1957, very few of the members lived in the NW Urban Renewal Area, a majority lived in other parts of NW DC and another chunk lived in the burbs. They were mainly white collar, dare I guess, middle class worshipers.

CS 60 Grace Reformed by Mm Inshaw on Scribd

So a guy died in my house….. in 1882

Private Tom Lawler was a cop. An Irish cop. One Saturday November evening in 1882 he went into work at the Sixth Precinct. But as his shift went on he started complaining of chills and was sent home around 10PM. A doctor was called but an hour later he died.

He probably died in the vicinity of where we sleep now.

Does this freak me out? No.

It’s been 137 frickin years for one. Two, I have the ashes of a dead woman on my bookcase, and I’d really like her not to be there gathering more dust. Nobody wants their mother in law hovering over them. But I digress.

Here is what I know about this former resident. He was captured in the 1880 Census as Thomas Lawlor, then aged 50. He lived with his wife Ellen, then 30 and their two children Mary (19) and Daniel (12). Mary and Danny were 2 of the 4 kids I know of. They were the only white people on that side of square 509E, if Irish immigrants in the 19th century count as such. Prior to living near 4th and Q NW they lived at K & New Jersey Avenue. When he was appointed as a law man in 1867, a letter of recommendation mentioned he had a large family and that he was a good man. His application said that he didn’t drink. Here I shrug, maybe. Because later in his personnel file (early DC cops have personnel files) he was in a home on North Capitol between P and O Sts (Yay, Truxton Circle) where a grocery was kept (whatever that means) when he wasn’t supposed to be there. This also happened in November, 1880. November was not a good month for Tommy the Cop.

Twelve Years Later…. at Big Bear

Big Bear Cafe April 27, 2007

Today, because it’s Friday and because we came up with lame excuses not to go to work, the Help and I are having a day date. We decided to start it off by having breakfast at Big Bear. It was great. I had french toast and a pot of English Breakfast tea as we sat inside with the Washington Post and the ambiance of the place.

I observed a family, where the father saw two separate friends/ acquaintances. He chatted with one, who came over and joked with the man’s elementary aged kids who were out of school for a thing.

Outside there were people. Some sat alone, tapping away at their laptops. Others gathered with a friend or two. And there were two workers fixing the paving thingamabobs.

About twelve years ago I stood in almost the exact space I was sitting at with my spouse. Big Bear in April 2007 was a possibility. I have a couple of pictures from an open house they held back then. The owners invited neighbors in to take a look at the place and nosh. Then, it was just going to be a coffee shop.

While I sat, I was comparing the feel of the place, then and now. Now it has a rhythm and a rep. It has a certain neighborhood vibe. I noticed parents, besides the one I mentioned earlier, with their kids on the way to school, pop in for a coffee. It just felt comfortable. It wasn’t full of promise or possible failure. It was, what it was.

The physical building and space has also changed. The patio is like part of the building, where people can sit (and battle bugs) under a canopy of grape vines behind walls of plants. The walls have art and shelves of booze (they make a good Old Fashioned) that weren’t there before. Oh, and there is a very tiny functional kitchen. The kitchen was very tiny in 2007, but not as functional.

2020 Michelin Guide Bib Gourmands in Shaw

Laotian spaghetti and meat-sauce
Hanumanh

Michelin has their guide out on-line and there are a few Shaw and Shaw adjacent places on the list.

Chercher– 1334 9th St NW. There are two locations. I’m assuming they are talking about the one in Shaw.

Hanumanh– Normally at 1604 7th St NW but they are undergoing some “unexpected” repairs. So they are on 14th St for now.

Pearl Dive Oyster Palace– 1612 14th St NW.

Red Hen– 1822 1st St NW. Not in Shaw but in walking distance from our house, so Shaw adjacent as far as I’m concerned.

Royal– 501 Florida Ave NW. Another Shaw adjacent place but is actually Shaw adjacent. You can sit out side and look longingly across Florida Ave and see Shaw.

Supra– 1205 11th St NW. Georgian food y’all. You can argue that it’s in Mt. Vernon.

Tiger Fork– 922 Blagden Alley, NW. We keep meaning to go here.

Unconventional_Diner_dish

Unconventional Diner- 1207 9th St NW. Once again we can argue about where this is, Mt. Vernon/Shaw. I’m going to link to their OpenTable page because their website has been hijacked.

and then you will quietly move away

The message I’m hearing is that if you want a high quality public school education for your children, you should move. Quietly. If not quietly, apologize profusely, publicly state your commitment to traditional and neighborhood public schools, maybe mumble something about needing more space, and move to an overwhelmingly middle or upper class neighborhood. There, the minorities are in the minority, other involved parents are in your demographic, and no one is going to make you feel guilty about being a tax paying, college educated homeowner.

Don’t send your kid to a charter

I love charters. They are the thing that kept many people in the city after they had kids. I had neighbors who stayed longer because of charters and moved because of charters (kid #1,#2 or #3 didn’t get in). It stays with you when a family puts their house up for sale soon after the March/ April lottery results come in. And it’s reinforced when I notice families with 2-3 year olds sell or move in late Spring and early summer.

The anti-charter/ pro-DCPS voices are making parents feel bad about charters. Charters aren’t transparent. Charters funnel money and good students/parents away from neighborhood schools. Charters have a powerful lobby. Charters are connected with current/historical segregation. Simply charters are morally suspect and you’re a horrible person if you support them.

And some of that is true. Charters could stand to be more transparent and publish the same data as DCPS schools. With nearly half of DC students attending charters, yup that money isn’t going to DCPS. Involved and conscious parents are going to choose certain schools for their kids. Compared to other pro-traditional schools organizations with older and deeper ties to DC’s political body, the powerfulness of FOCUS is questionable. And even traditional school districts are getting more segregated.

However, I don’t see the anti-charter school push moving parents towards neighborhood schools. Maybe to DCPS schools WOTP (West of the Park- Rock Creek) as one notable blogger has done. And even when some parents decide to take a chance on their neighborhood school, their presence isn’t necessarily welcomed.

Step back, move away from the school

The Post has an article about PTOs, Parent Teacher Organizations and the problems of inclusion with racially mixed parent groups. What the article leaves out is not every DC public and charter school has a PTO. Dunbar doesn’t seem to have an active PTO, nor does Garrison Elementary. It makes it look like this is a DC, East of the Park problem.

So I guess racial harmony exists over in the burbs and WOTP? Because those areas never seem to pop up in gentrification stories, where most of the Washington Post’s readership lives. If involved parents want to avoid this stigma, they should… I dunno, move to the burbs and WOTP?

Private School Snob?

It’s expensive, so move.

There is someone out there to make you feel bad if you choose private schools.

  But Matthew’s kid is still very young and not all private schools are “fancy”.

…. I should write a blog post about all the private predominately black schools in DC. I digress.

I’ll end with this: Can pro-traditional DC public school advocates draw middle class parents to DCPS without sending the message, move to NoVa or parts of Maryland? Yes, DC Charters are the competition, but so are the surrounding jurisdictions of Arlington, Alexandria, Montgomery, Charles, and Howard Counties. Not so much PG County Schools. I’ve heard no one come out and say directly they’re moving because of schools. But when you notice people with kids start mysteriously disappearing when their eldest hits a certain age (2-3 or middle school), it’s hard not to conclude, they are moving because of schools.

Truxton Circle Property Owners, 1933

Okay the pages for Squares 507 to 510 East are crap. But the pages for Squares 519-521, 550-555, 614-618 and 668-670 (the NE Truxton) are readable.

What is it?

The National Archives has images of some of their stuff in their catalog. So I pulled out parts that pertained to Truxton Circle, here (for a better image of sq. 507-510E), and here. This is just more evidence for the history of Truxton Circle. If I (or someone else, hint, hint) decide to cross reference this list of property owners with a city directory or the 1930 Census, we could see who were landlords and who were homeowners. All sorts of questions could crop up from the data.

Anyway, here’s the pdf.

Truxton Circle 1933 Property Owners by Mm Inshaw on Scribd


 

Mari’s Top Math Schools for White Boys

So I wrote I’d post this later.

This comes out of my interest in looking at scores for African American boys based on what I read in the Diverse Schools Dilemma. The author’s main point was for middle and upper middle class white parents, instead of looking at a school’s test scores overall, look at measurements for white students when they are the minority. The idea was to say that minority-majority schools aren’t necessarily bad for white students. In other words, white families don’t need to move for a good education for their kids.

I decided to switch it up for my son. He’s bi-racial, and there really isn’t any data for bi-racial boys. He’s half white, half black we think (adopted), therefore I looked at data for African American boys. That was my earlier post.

For poops and giggles, I decided to look at the data for white boys, to compare. But limited it to PARCC math scores between 2016 and 2019, because I didn’t feel like doing that much work. I limited it to schools that had 50% or more boys scoring 4+ (met or exceeded expectations). Then I took the top ten for that category (ex. Grade 3). These are my results.

BASIS DC PCS
Brent Elementary School
Capitol Hill Montessori School @ Logan
Deal Middle School
District of Columbia International School
Eaton Elementary School
Hardy Middle School
Hearst Elementary School
Hyde-Addison Elementary School @ Meyer
Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS
Janney Elementary School
Key Elementary School
Lafayette Elementary School
Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School
Mann Elementary School
Maury Elementary School @ Eliot-Hine
Murch Elementary School
Murch Elementary School @ UDC
Oyster-Adams Bilingual School
Ross Elementary School
School Without Walls @ Francis-Stevens
School Without Walls High School
School-Within-School @ Goding
Shepherd Elementary School
Stoddert Elementary School
Stuart-Hobson Middle School (Capitol Hill Cluster)
Washington Latin PCS – Middle School
Washington Latin PCS – Upper School
Washington Yu Ying PCS
Watkins Elementary School (Capitol Hill Cluster)
Woodrow Wilson High School

There are a few things I noticed. There aren’t many schools where a lot of kids of European decent (I’m just going to write WB- white boys from here out) are failing. Also this does not include schools where WBs are fewer than 10, like Seaton. For both AA boys and WBs, some top schools are top schools with 5 stars because of girl power. I made another table just for African American students (boys and girls) and some schools that were great for African American girls weren’t necessarily great for the boys. If you compare the lists for boys, there are some schools that are good for both, BASIS DC, Shepard Elementary, Deal Middle School, Hyde-Addison Elementary School @ Meyer, Lafayette Elementary School, School Without Walls High School, and Stoddert Elementary School. Lastly, there are a number of DCPS schools on this and the other list. But more DCPS schools on this list than the other.

Why the difference? I don’t know. I have some opinions, but that’s another post that I don’t want to write.

Mari’s Top Schools for African American Males

I’ve been putting most of my education posts on the City Mom’s Blog. There is a post I have planned but it needs data and the format for it doesn’t fit City Moms. So I’m dumping it here.

A book review inspired me to look deep in the test data particularly for African American boys. So looking at schools (pulling from OSSE’s data for 2016-2019) where there were 10 or more Black boys taking the PARCC test, where 50% or more met or exceeded expectations. If there were more than 10 schools that came up I picked the top 10 or 11 if the last two were even.

Top Schools for Black Boys PARCC Math

Barnard Elementary School
BASIS DC PCS
Benjamin Banneker High School
Center City PCS – Brightwood
Center City PCS – Congress Heights
Center City PCS – Trinidad
DC Prep PCS – Benning Elementary School
DC Prep PCS – Benning Middle School
DC Prep PCS – Edgewood Middle School
DC Scholars PCS
Deal Middle School
Eaton Elementary School
Hope Community PCS – Lamond
Hyde-Addison Elementary School @ Meyer
Ketcham Elementary School
KIPP DC – Heights Academy PCS
KIPP DC – KEY Academy PCS
KIPP DC – Lead Academy PCS
KIPP DC – Promise Academy PCS
KIPP DC – Quest Academy PCS
KIPP DC – Spring Academy PCS
KIPP DC – WILL Academy PCS
Lafayette Elementary School
McKinley Technology High School
Payne Elementary School
School Without Walls High School
Sela PCS
Shepherd Elementary School
Stoddert Elementary School
West Education Campus
Whittier Education Campus

Top Schools for Black Boys PARCC ELA

Barnard Elementary School
BASIS DC PCS
Benjamin Banneker High School
Capital City PCS – High School
DC Prep PCS – Benning Middle School
DC Prep PCS – Edgewood Middle School
Deal Middle School
District of Columbia International School
Eaton Elementary School
Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom PCS
Hope Community PCS – Lamond
Janney Elementary School
Key Elementary School
Lafayette Elementary School
Langdon Elementary School
Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School
Mann Elementary School
McKinley Technology High School
Shepherd Elementary School
Stoddert Elementary School
Two Rivers PCS – 4th St

Just for fun, I’ll post the top schools for White boys in math in DC later.