Debra Martin interview, 30 April 2014

Abstract

Debra Martin, a retired teacher and Beachwood resident, grew up in the Glenville neighborhood in the mid-1950s to mid-1960s, when her family moved to the Lee-Harvard neighborhood. She recalls that her Glenville neighborhood, which had become almost entirely Black by that time, had a politically active block club. She describes a childhood in which her parents sheltered her and set high expectations for her schoolwork. She describes being among the few Black students at St. Aloysius School and among the first Black students at Ursuline Academy of the Sacred Heart. She talks about how her experience of going downtown was limited and did not include most of the commonly cited nostalgic holiday shopping experiences often recalled by whites. She laments the decimation of the once-thriving Euclid-East 105th “second downtown” that accompanied the Cleveland Clinic’s expansion, as well as the east side’s loss of the Cleveland Aquarium that her family often visited when she was a child.

Interviewee

Martin, Debra (interviewee)

Interviewer

Gabb, Julie (interviewer)

Project

Project Team

Date

4-30-2014

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

85 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Debra Martin interview, 30 April 2014" (2014). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 999120.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1046

Related Resources

Project Team @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Julie Gabb [00:00:00] Today is April 30, 2014. I’m here with Debra Martin in Beachwood, Ohio, and we’re going to start off the interview with, could you tell me about yourself.

Debra Martin [00:00:11] Well, I’m 63 years old. I’m a retired teacher. I taught kindergarten in Solon, and I was also an at-home mother for ten years. So I have a strong interest and investment in raising children and teaching young ones. I am active. I swim and dance and do lots of physical activities, and I like to read. I’ve been married for 41 years to my husband Leo, who I met in Glenville, and I do not have grandchildren. We had our children later, so my three adult children are successfully pursuing their careers and living independently, and it gives us a lot of time to look at ourselves and enjoy our own time again. But I would welcome them if they came. The grandchildren. I have one sister and no brothers, and my parents are deceased, so that makes it pretty small potatoes. We don’t have a big family here in Cleveland. There’s cousins elsewhere who I don’t know well. They grew up in other cities, but I have a very strong group of friends, many of which are in that picture. We all went to St. Al’s, and I’ve known them over 50 years. So I have a strong group of friends who are like family, including about four girlfriends that are like sisters. So.

Julie Gabb [00:01:44] What years did you live in Glenville?

Debra Martin [00:01:49] I started living on Elk Avenue, 10561, when I was four. We moved there as a family in 1954, and we moved out of Glenville in 1964, so I lived there for ten years.

Julie Gabb [00:02:07] And why did your family move to Glenville?

Debra Martin [00:02:11] My mother and father were interested in being homeowners, and from what I understand, they lived in other rental areas. I think they lived on Adams and on 115th Street. I’m not positive if that was Glenville or not. I think it might have been. But I know that the area they lived in on Elk Avenue was strong residential homeowners, and that’s what they wanted. My mom and dad were from Chicago, and they had lived in apartments growing up, and I think they really had that as their goal and ethic to have a homeownership, and it was their first home. I wound up living in three homes, which, no, just two that were home owned by them. So, you know, I don’t know why they chose Glenville, but it was a great family neighborhood, and so that probably led them there.

Julie Gabb [00:03:13] What was your impression of Glenville growing up as a child?

Debra Martin [00:03:17] I think Glenville provided a really strong sense of family. The neighborhood that I lived in, each home had a single family with many, many children. My next door neighbor was one of my best friends. Her name was Mary Ann, and she was the youngest of 13 children. Her sister’s and brother’s children were older than we were, and so she was their aunt, but they were older than her, so that was, to me, was really odd. And then the next door neighbor to them had three or four children. And on up the street at the time, I could name every family, and we really didn’t go off our block. So the neighborhood provided a real sense of security, comfort. It was happy, you know, from a child’s point of view, and beautiful. We had major huge trees, much bigger than these locust trees that were around here. And the proximity to the lake was also excellent. It was fun knowing we could get that close to the water. And we had great services. There was a swimming pool within walking distance from my home, and there was a corner store. So it really provided a lot of comforts for living.

Julie Gabb [00:04:41] Did your street have, like, a street club?

Debra Martin [00:04:44] Yes. Mm hmm. The street was highly political, and my parents were part of that machine, so to speak. Most of the families had one car. Most of the homes had one-car garages. Everybody put their car away. And the street club was strong about what they would like the neighborhood to remain as. They wanted it to be, neat and clean and all that. And we would have street club meetings in my house. I remember that. With a lot of excitement because everybody came and the children who were little, because I was among the littlest. My sister’s four years older, so I was with that little group who came with their parents and had to be quiet. And it was exciting to have my friends over late, you know, which was probably 7 o’clock, but we went to bed early. So I also remember the street club working towards solving problems such as there were rat problems for a while, and they had a project about it, and then that the rats went away. I remember Leo Jackson was a councilman, and he was on our block and would check on things. And the politics was strong, and the neighbors were responding well to the politicians. I don’t know the name– I heard you refer when you were talking to Leo about the Glenville Plan. I’m not aware of a name, but I’m positive there was great organization around making our streets successful. And I felt it even as a little girl, not knowing, you know, the details.

Julie Gabb [00:06:42] Was there a contrast at all to Glenville compared to other neighborhoods in terms of, like, appearance with, like, we’re saying, how it was very well-kept and all compared to other neighborhoods?

Debra Martin [00:06:53] From a child’s point of view, I never really knew about other neighborhoods. I was like, I went to church. I went to school. We didn’t really go that far. We would go to the art museum. We went in the city more than out of the city. And as far as I was concerned, they all looked just like my neighborhood. I didn’t feel like anything was better. I guess I was aware that there were apartment type living. We used to drive downtown to somewhere on 30th. I guess there was a market down there. And I remember going down Kinsman for some reason, and somebody was kind of slumped over near a building. And I was probably six or seven years old. And I was, you know, I said, Daddy, Daddy, the man is hurt. He’s drunk. He’s hurt. And I didn’t say drunk, but I said, he’s hurt. And we actually went and found a policeman, and the police told my parents that he was sleeping off being drunk and just in the street. And this was not my neighborhood. This was on Kinsman. But to me, that was shocking. And I remember that, you know, I’ve talked about it over the years with my sister. Did that happen? What was that all about? And so we did not have the consciousness of – the social ills that we see in today’s world were not in my consciousness. You know, I didn’t know that people were poor. I didn’t know, you know, if we. I’m sure we weren’t. You know, I felt like I had everything I needed. I felt like my neighbors had everything they needed, not knowing whether they did or not. But it seemed like everything was like a Hallmark card. You know, it was a great way to grow up.

Julie Gabb [00:08:45] What were some of the things that you would do for fun, both in the neighborhood and out of the neighborhood?

Debra Martin [00:08:51] Well, in the neighborhood there, like I said, there was a great sense of family. So when the fathers came home, most of the dads worked in a plant. My dad worked at General Motors in Euclid. He was a welder. So that was kind of a skilled labor thing. And I really don’t know where other people worked. I just know that when they came home, daddy was home. And we had a huge community on our porches, because our porches were the type that you could sit on one and look all the way down and see everybody on the porch. And we lived on the corner, so we could not only see one direction, I could look around the corner and see the front of people’s houses on that corner curve. So I had a great sense of, we’re all on our porches. You know, we had porch swings, and we used to play jacks. We would have dinner, and then we would- I went to Catholic school, so I always had to come out of my uniform and put on my after school play clothes, so I would have on my play clothes, and I would play in my side yard, and Mary Ann was right next door, and we would play across the fence. Didn’t really go anywhere, because it was just the standard that you stayed in your own space. And I didn’t know any negatives about that. Like, if I went over there, I would have a problem. I just never went there. And the standard of our parents was, you stay on the porch or wherever I can call your name, and you can respond. So, you know, there was no going anywhere. But remember, I lived there until I was 13, so I was in my little years, so lots of social things. We would rake leaves as a family, and we had brick streets in those days, so the men and dads would come home and make little piles and burn the leaves right on the curb, so there would be little spots of burning leaves, and it looked really romantic, like an old movie or something, you know? [laughs] Some of the boys would make, like, a baseball in the street and. Or probably some of the dads. I didn’t have a brother, so I wasn’t interested in that stuff. I was interested in- Like, I’d walk up the street, maybe two or three houses, and say hello to my neighbors, and we would talk about, you know, what I had on, or my doll carriage, or, you know, it was very cute and funny. As far as going out of the neighborhood, we would go to church, which is not out of the neighborhood, but that was a constant. And we went every week, and we went- You know, that was the same place I went to school, so it was kind of a track. I would go to the swimming pool, which is on Dupont, and you could get to it through the park, or it wasn’t a park. It was a sand lot. What did we call that? Because now it’s a park, but it wasn’t a park. It was just sand. And we would- Oh, the field. We called it the field. We would cut through the field and go to the swimming pool, and we went with our elder siblings. So my sister and her friends, who would be- So if I was ten, she would be 14, and then there was probably a 15 or 16 year old among them, and they would all- We’d all go as a group, so there weren’t parents there, it was just the grown teenager-type kids. But I got to go as the little kid, and to me, that was great fun. So we would run over there and go swimming and then come back. But there was never a sense of needing to be watched. You always felt like you were capable of taking care of yourself, and you also knew your parameters, so you didn’t stray away or create, you know, worry for your parents. And somebody was always home. My mother was home. Or Miss Cox, the neighbor across the street, was home. There was always watchful neighborhood eyes, but you didn’t feel it as a child. It was comforting. It was comfortable. You could go, and the lady next door, Miss Minnie, you know, you could go and ask her for a drink of water or if you needed advice, Miss Ellington was home. Mrs. Hayes. I could go up the block. Somebody was home. So it felt good. Didn’t feel nervous or nerve wracking. Very seldom saw people that you didn’t know. And if you did, it would be like, ooh, who are you? Where do you live? Are you new? So it was a welcoming, not a, ooh, we better go in the house like it is kind of today. Not that I would still approach people, but as a family. We would go to the art museum a lot. We would walk there, and I don’t know how we did it because it seemed like it was a very long way, but we would walk through the Cultural Gardens, which are on Liberty Boulevard, which is MLK now, and we would go to the aquarium, which is right in that off of Lakeshore, not Lakeshore, but where the lake was. And we didn’t really go to the, to hear the concerts unless it was with school. But we went to the art museum a lot. A big deal was to go to Howard Johnson’s for breakfast after mass on Sunday. And the Howard Johnson’s was on 107th and Euclid. And so you’d have to drive through the neighborhood and it’s like, ooh, where are we going? You know, because I really literally did not go very far away from our neighborhood. It was self-sufficient. The grocery store was on 105th and St. Clair, and I didn’t have a lot to do either. My parents left us home- I didn’t go to the store a lot routinely. I wasn’t involved with those types of errands. You know, I was mostly at home or at school. So.

Julie Gabb [00:14:54] How was Howard Johnson’s?

Debra Martin [00:14:58] It was– It sounded exciting to go there because there were two that I knew of. The one I’d said and then the one at Top of the Town, the Downstairs on 55th by where channel eight is now, there was a Howard Johnson’s right there. And that was, like, the big deal restaurant when I was growing up. Cause there wasn’t a whole lot of restaurants. And I also remembered Manner’s Big Boy was a big deal restaurant. But going to Howard Johnson was kind of a cultural shift, because when you went up there, there were white people there. And in Glenville, where I lived, it was very segregated Black. There was, I think, one white family still on the street. But when I moved into our house in ’54, I understand later that we bought that house from a Jewish family. I think they were Rosenblatt was their name. And it seems like we were the last family that moved in. And then the street was- I don’t remember any other white families that were there. Seemed like everybody else was already there. And I didn’t recognize that because my school was integrated. St. Aloysius. And that’s why I wanted you to see the picture. My best friends were either white or Black. It didn’t matter. And I didn’t pay attention to it at that time. And so going to Howard Johnson’s was an opportunity for us to see people we didn’t know. Maybe that was the best way to put it. And it’s not that they were white or not, and I didn’t see white people. It was just- I didn’t know. It was like, ooh, here’s new people, you know? Cause I knew everybody at church. I knew everybody in my neighborhood, you know? And so. And you didn’t- We went there for probably the hour that it takes to eat, and then we went home, so. And I was a protected little girl. My mom and dad were always- One of them was always with us. And my sister and I really didn’t go anywhere alone except the pool and school. Nobody took us to school. But I had a route to walk. I couldn’t walk an alternate route. And if my dad came from work and I wasn’t where I needed to be, I would have been in trouble by the time I was in 7th and 8th grade. So I always walked the straight and narrow. I knew exactly where I was supposed to be, and I was there. So. I guess it helped keep the neighborhood neat. [laughs]

Julie Gabb [00:17:32] So, you said that you would like about– I guess I wanted to talk about– You’re saying that white flight– Were there also businesses that were moving out of the neighborhood, too?

Debra Martin [00:17:44] The whole time I lived there, there were corner stores. There was– So we had Ben’s on our corner, Murphy’s was on the next corner, and those were the two that I knew well. And there were other kind of- Clevite and other kind of businesses were on 105th, and most of the rest of where I lived was residential. So I didn’t have a whole lot to do with businesses. From what I could see, it did not seem as though people it was leaving. It seemed like it was very stable, because the whole time I lived there, for ten years, those same stores were there. Nothing moved. I think at one point a Lawson’s might have come to the corner, but that was developed to be the Lawson’s. It didn’t replace anything. So it seemed to me that it would be growth as opposed to flight. And we also had the bus come to turn around. So there was a bus line, which I guess helped the businesses stay afloat, which might make some sense. On Clairdoan, which was about two streets away, or maybe it was the next street, seemed like it was far away. There were apartment buildings close to 105th. So with that multiple living, there might have been more need for more businesses and stores. And there was a post office, which is a stable place. So the answer, you know, I didn’t sense it or feel it. No. Probably right about the time that I moved in 1964, it was kind of the what, when I noticed that the white people were leaving St. Aloysius, but I was also leaving. So, you know, I felt like I might have been, in retrospect, I feel like I was leaving the same time. The very last of the white flight of people who left left. Because when I went to my high school, which was in East Cleveland, about four or five girls from my grade school class went to my same high school, and it was Catharine Reichenbach, Gloria Waukesh, a couple other girls. I can’t remember their names, but they were white. Oh, Linda Mullen. And so, no, they didn’t fly away. You know, they stayed there. And I don’t know if it was economics on their part or they just didn’t care or they wanted to go and they couldn’t. You know, I don’t know all that. But from my point of view, it was like, okay. So I guess I was more naive than a lot of others who might have been in different parts of Glenville because I had such a stable setting. I wasn’t suspicious of anything. You know, it was just real idyllic. And, you know, unfortunately, in retrospect, it makes me feel like, what did I miss? Or how did I not notice these negative things happening? But they didn’t happen to me. That’s why I really wanted to talk to you, because it’s a whole different experience than even my husband, who had moved so many times. You know, I moved in, I lived in two houses, so I lived there. And then Lee and Harvard, and then I went to college. That’s pretty boring. [laughs]

Julie Gabb [00:21:17] So you said about St. Aloysius was your elementary school?

Debra Martin [00:21:23] Yes.

Julie Gabb [00:21:24] And where was that located?

Debra Martin [00:21:25] It was on 110th and St. Clair or Lakeview. So it takes up the whole block. It’s still a huge monolith. It’s actually a historical marker church. It’s over 100 years old. And it was a real landmark and anchor. Even if you weren’t Catholic, you knew what St. Al’s was in the neighborhood. And it was kind of an oddity, you know, for Black kids to go to St. Al’s. There weren’t that many African American Catholics from cradle, you know. Do you know what a cradle Catholic is? So, you know, my parents. My mother was born Catholic, and she was originally from Louisiana. So that whole Creole thing. My dad converted. I don’t think he was a Catholic in his heart, but I think he did it for her. But we were raised to be, you know, completely ingrained is the best way to put it. And I bought it lock, stock and barrel. You know, we did every– We did novenas and all the things. 40 hours and confession every, you know, four weeks. And what did I do? Nothing. So I had to make up some confession things. I did- I was a sacristy girl. I sang in the choir. Sacristy girl means you clean the church for free, basically. [laughs] You know, it was a lot of issues around the church, which are now known, that are so negative. And it’s hard to accept the fact that I bought it so wholeheartedly. But I loved my school. I loved the experience. I thought it was great. I had a wonderful education. I had fun with my friends. I was a Girl Scout through the church. And my memories are golden. You know, those are my same girlfriends that I referred to in the beginning. And I wouldn’t have changed any of that. I know that I was in a protected kind of a setting. I didn’t see fighting at school or any kind of disruptions. We were very disciplined. And the reasons that people send their kids to Catholic school was just the way we were. And it wasn’t about having to be forced into doing anything. Discipline was just part of your life. And we were all studious. We all did our homework. Nobody skipped school. Everybody passed. The argument was whether you got an A or A minus. I mean, you literally had that high of a standard. So the majority of my friends, everybody graduated from college, we’ve all got professional degrees, we’ve all retired from our professions, and, you know, so it’s a hallmark, back to those habits. And I think that many of the things that the public school was struggling with didn’t allow those students to have that same comfort because I loved school and I thought that was my job, you know, and it was my goal to do it really well. And that, you know, was no, the end, you know, there was no discussion at all. I do know that some of the kids who lived on the other side of Lakeview, there was when, when I was like 6th, 7th and 8th grade, there was a story, and I’m sure it’s true, that some of the public school kids would chase us, the Catholic school kids, and beat ’em up and all that stuff. That never happened to me because I stayed on the path that I was supposed to be on. And literally the parents of the people who lived in those neighborhoods literally sat on their porches. Hi. I would say hello to people all the way home. So I always felt safe and I never felt watched, though I was obviously being watched, but I never wanted to be the- I never felt like I needed to go try anything, like, ooh, let me go try and smoke or try and, I don’t know, whatever people did. I went home, I took off my shoes, my saddle shoes and my uniform, and my biggest thing was taking five minutes to rest and watch Captain Pandy or whatever was on and do my homework. That’s all I did, you know, pretty boring, but absolutely how a child’s life allows them to develop. I really feel like I had a great, full development of my childhood. It was just unglamorous, you know, and I would never think about going to a party like on the week night, school night, or trying to sneak and go somewhere. You know, why, why would I want to do that when I could ask, or I could just say, I want to do this? And then we would go, do, you know, so law positivity, those were just kind of normal. And my friends are just as naive as I am [laughs], so, you know, but we made really good teachers.

Julie Gabb [00:26:46] Did you, did you have any like nuns or priests as like your teachers?

Debra Martin [00:26:51] I had twelve years of Catholic education and I had one lay teacher, so, yes.

Julie Gabb [00:26:56] How was that experience? Especially like in the fifties and sixties.

Debra Martin [00:27:01] In the fifties, I was again, a very compliant person. And you really should interview my sister because she was a non-compliant person and she was always in trouble. Just personality. But I was the good little Debra who, you know, if the bell rang, I would put my things away and I’d be waiting for the next direction, and then I would be the first one in in the morning, and I clap the erasers and I got to answer the phone. In 8th grade, I like the nuns. I wanted to be a nun when I was nine. I thought, oh, this looks great, because I could put my hair back and, you know, put the thing around my face. I had favorite nuns. I could tell you the name of all of the nuns that I had from kindergarten, I mean, from first grade all the way up. So it was fun. I was not- I didn’t have a negative relationship with them, though I did see other kids who did. And we had a nun, Sister Ann Michael was a huge woman that used to really threaten and demean the boys. And the thing is, when you’re a good student and a smart person and a good student and a cooperative person, you are a witness to things as opposed to participating in them. So I saw terrible things, like the swatting of the nuns on your hand and all that. Never happened to me. The worst thing that I. That personally happened to me was we had to write a task. Do you remember? Do you know what a task is? So when I was in fourth grade, we had- And the thing is, when you go to school, all these kids in this picture I went to all these years with all of them. So, you know, we all know each other like brothers and sisters. And, you know, the boys would be silly and act crazy, and we wouldn’t be, like, standing perfectly quiet in the hallway like we were being asked to. So Sister Denise in fourth grade said, all right, your task, you have to write, I will not blah, blah, blah, like a hundred times. And I would- Instead of arguing, I would just- I would be outraged, in tears. I would be crying at school and just like this, shaking. And my mother, I would come home and I’d be writing my task, and she’d go, what’s wrong? And I said, I cried a lot. I said, they were talking. We had to write a task. So my mother would sit down and write the task with me. She helped me and explained to me about who has the power and how you have to cooperate with the system. But you, until you are the one making the decisions, you have to concede and do the punishment and accept the law, so to speak. So I was always very law-abiding, but I made sure if I didn’t think they were going to cooperate, I’d already be in the room. Can I help you erase the board? I would remove myself so I wouldn’t have to be in the group. So I figured that out real early, how to stay safer and not in- But then that ostracizes you because then you’re the goody two shoes. But I didn’t care because I had my other nerdy friends, and I guess I was probably one of the first nerdy type. You know, if you had to categorize people in this kind of a setting, the nuns were probably suffering from what now we know was a lot of oppression from the priests and all that. But we didn’t know that. Excuse me. We had, you know, we would- It was like a movie, like The Singing Nun. I mean, that’s. All that stuff was out. And we thought, oh, let’s all be nuns. And we would put towels on our head and we played with it. My sister and I used to play mass in the- You know, she would always be the priest. Cause she was older, but, I mean, we knew the mass that well, that we could just say the whole thing and literally play mass. Like, who does that? No, we were honorable. I was honorable to them. My sister, as she got older, they were more critical and they used to say racial things to her. She’s very light skinned. And they actually said things to her. One particularly horrible one was, oh, you almost made it. You’re almost white. Now this was a high school nun at Notre Dame on Ansel Road, and I guess that’s Glenville still. I don’t know. But before it moved out to Chardon, I didn’t experience that, you know, and she would have all these anger issues around that. It wasn’t- I didn’t get it. Cause it wasn’t my issue. So even in my own house, there was a separation of what our experience was. I thought they were wonderful. You know, Sister Cecilia was our Singing Nun, and we would sing all the time. And sister Andrew was kind of our senile nun, and we would, you know, ask her off, off the wall questions to stop the conversation about what was really- [laughs] That was 7th grade. I’ll never forget that. I didn’t learn anything in 7th grade because we just manipulated her the whole year. And then Sister Patrick Marie was our 8th grade nun and she was the administrator of the school. So we often did our own learning because she was always on the phone or paying bills or something. [laughs] But we were smart enough to go ahead and study. And then I took this test, and that’s what got me at Sacred Heart because they really used me and Mildred Jordan from St. Aloysius to help integrate Sacred Heart, because when I got there, there were only four, five of us who were not white in that class. And Sacred Heart is Ursuline Academy of the Sacred Heart, it’s the same nuns as the Beaumont School and Villa Angela, which is now Va. Villa Angela. St. Joe. Our school didn’t make it. They closed our school. I got in there in ’64, and this is in East Cleveland, and I graduated in ’68, and by ’70, no, ’74, maybe, it was closed. And it just didn’t want to seem to serve the Black community because East Cleveland was flipping real fast and Holy Rosary and Holy Family were the two feeder schools for that. And then St. Al’s, we were like, oh, we’re not supposed to go there. You know, I don’t know where we were supposed to go. But they had built Hoban Dominican and Lee Harvard. And that’s where the majority of the people in that picture who are African American went. But Charlene Ngofka and Kathryn Reichenbach, Gloria Waukesh and Amy Wancheck, those are my friends who came from St. Al’s. And they, they were there. So, you know, it just. I was in the middle of a whole lot of change, but my particular microcosm was very stable, so my little petri dish was just moving along. You know, I was a cheerleader and I had a boyfriend and, you know, he went to Latin, which was right there, Cathedral Latin High School. So. I don’t know, the nuns, they didn’t bother me. They were okay.

Julie Gabb [00:34:30] Did you have to- How often do you go to mass? Every week?

Debra Martin [00:34:34] Every– We actually, at one point we went every day. It was very brainwashing. Now that I look back and- But it. When I was going, I thought it was great [laughs] because I didn’t have to go to school. We were like, we would go every day during Lent. We would go during adventure. So that’s spring and fall. We would go, even on Sunday, we sat with our class. We didn’t sit with our family. And I don’t know if you ever go in St. Aloysius. The church is gigantic, like St. John’s downtown. I remember standing room only in that building. That’s how full the parish was because it covered all of the lower area, all the way up to East Cleveland, where St. Philomena’s is. So, you know, and it was mixed. It was, you know, Black and white together. And the parents sat behind the school children. So it was grades one and four, two and five, three and six, four and eight. And that’s how we sat and our nun sat there. And on Monday, if your envelope didn’t get turned in, they would wonder why, you know, where’s your envelope, Miss Martin, Miss Handy. That was my maiden name, so I always had my envelope in, you know, with my 15 cents or whatever I had. It was just– It was crazy, you know, in retrospect. But when you’re in it, it just felt great because it was comfortable and you didn’t have to do a whole lot of thinking. You just followed the rules. And if you were a rule follower, it was easy. But if you weren’t a rule follower, you were in big trouble. So.

Julie Gabb [00:36:17] Do you remember any specific cases in Catholic school or, like, someone, like, acted out?

Debra Martin [00:36:26] Oh, there was a boy. Unfortunately, this poor child was biracial. His name was Richard Curtis, and he was- He actually looked like my sister. Very fair. And I remember one time in 8th grade, he went in the hall and you heard, and he came back and his face was flaming red. The nuns had wore him out. I don’t know which nun it was, but we were- I was like, oh, my goodness. So, yeah, lots of those. And I had one, the sister Ann Michael, she lifted up one of the boys and hit him against the back of the blackboard, and the board kind of cracked. Yeah. Lot of abuse. A lot. I didn’t have it, but I witnessed a lot. And I just like, oh, you shouldn’t have been talking, you know. Cause I felt– I felt like, well, they never bother me, so why don’t you just be good? You know? [laughs] I was really off the wall on the meter of compliance because I just. I guess it was my way of being safe. You know, I didn’t want to get involved in any of that. And they treated me really kindly and nicely, you know, so it’s real skewed, very inappropriate. You know, you can’t overly love one and then overly do that to another. That’s completely wrong and crazy. So I’m lucky that I survived it, and I did learn from it because I did not manage my classroom that way. [laughs] You know, actually, I probably favored the more active and outspoken child because of that. Having witnessed that, you know, they need more attention, you know, the kid like me, it’s like, here, go read this. Leave me alone. You don’t really have to do much with that child. You know, give them an independent study. That’s what they call it now. But, yeah, it’s all, a lot of what is said about the Catholic upbringing is very true. You know, it’s very harsh. It was very overbearing, you know, adult. You can look back and say, yeah, the nuns were neurotic. You know, you can make all those cases for sure. My experience, I was in a Disney movie. [laughs] You know, it just wasn’t. I didn’t have any of that. Yeah.

Julie Gabb [00:38:56] You mentioned earlier how there is sort of almost like a racial tension with there. Did you ever encounter any discrimination outside of the Catholic school at all?

Debra Martin [00:39:09] Not personally, because I wasn’t out there. My sister was more in the street than I was. She would go further than we were supposed to go and talk to boys and all that kind of stuff. And I really can’t answer because I don’t know. But there wasn’t a lot of mixing of races, excuse me, in our neighborhood experience, so there wouldn’t be like a white family. Like, this neighborhood is integrated. My neighbor is white on both sides. I have Black neighbors across the street. That didn’t happen in Glenville. Where I lived, it was all Black. And that was fine because it was, you know, fine. And just like, this is fine. That was fine. And so it didn’t mean any make any sense. It didn’t make any difference to me who, what color anybody was, because everybody acted in a responsible manner, the way they act here now. Everybody’s in a responsible manner. I’m not happy with this fence because these guys got a dog. But, you know, we’ve lived here 22 years, and they decided to put a fence up last year. And I don’t like that. It’s like, I’d like to say it’s because Obama’s president and they’re crazy, but I don’t know. I don’t know him that well, you know, I don’t know. No, I would say that my personal experience was not to- I didn’t have any tension. You know, I had parties with everybody in that picture. We had a place called the CYO Hall where we had dances. I’ve danced with all the boys, whether they were Black or white. Didn’t matter. Which was dumb, you know, just in general. The guy I went to a prom with, Andre, is in that picture, [laughs] and he made- We were talking about how long we’ve known each other as a group. And Danny Goff, who is in that picture, was sitting there and he said, I’m going to give this pin to my best friend. And he. And it was between him, knowing me, the longer or Danny longer. He gave it to Danny and I said, oh, you’re just stupid because you’re a boy, you know? I mean, that’s. So it didn’t have any race, didn’t have anything to do with anything. I guess my first experiences about being aware of that was high school, you know, and that was East Cleveland. And I didn’t live in Glenville. I was in Lee and Harvard. But at that point, people had left. The people who probably were in that picture left as well as I did. And they probably wound up in south Euclid or, you know, wherever they went, Cleveland Heights or wherever they went. And we were definitely redlined on the second purchase to go to Lee and Harvard, because I’m pretty sure my parents would have picked somewhere else had they thought about it, because the fact that I went to Sacred Heart, I probably would have wound up in Forest Hills right here, because that’s- My dad worked in Euclid, you know, why would he move all the way to Lee-Harvard, and then have to drive across town every day? That didn’t make sense. And, you know, the houses were nice and all that, so. But I didn’t have anything to do with that because our parents didn’t discuss the family business with kids. I mean, we were the kids and they were the adults, and never the twain shall meet. You know. [laughs] They educated us about money and finances and all that, but they never discussed the business of the house. You know, I wouldn’t have known if our house was paid for or how. How the bills were being paid. That was none of our business. So we were protected. You know, we really had a very, just sweet childhood, something most of the kids today don’t have. They know way too much, you know. I think it’s kind of nice to not know much, you know? Here’s your Hostess cupcake. Go to bed. [laughs] And I had to split that, my sister, because it was too much sugar. My mother always knew about food.

Julie Gabb [00:43:24] Do you ever have, like, any rivals between, like, Sacred Heart and other schools?

Debra Martin [00:43:31] Well, once I got to Sacred Heart, there were- The rivals came established because they were Italian girls and Irish girls, and they were rivals. And it really didn’t have anything to do with me and my little group. You know, I had alphabetical friends because Catholics are crazy, and they put you in. My last name was Handy, so my friends’ names were Lynn Hayek, Edith Herman. My name was Debra Handy. And Maris Clem and Marie and Helen Kay, because they were twins. That’s who I was friends with, because that’s who I sat next to. [laughs] Then I made friends with my friend now, Madeline Delgado. I just was with her today at dancing. And Vida Greer was another Black girl, and she came. I don’t know what school she came from, but we became, you know, casual friends. Nothing more tight than Maris and Edith and all them. I ate lunch with those five, and Madeline joined us. Her name was Delgado. So she got there because it was D E F H, you know, it was close. Just crazy. Rivalry, no. Sacred Heart. In those days, Sacred Heart was sort of the sister school to Cathedral Latin, because we were all girls and they were all boys. We didn’t have anything to do with the East Senate, with Tech and Glenville and Collinwood and all those schools. That didn’t mean anything to us because we were Catholic. And in those days, Catholic people went to Catholic schools. So it wasn’t about not doing religion. Religion was a major subject. And in 1964, this Pope who just got nominated to be a saint, which is crazy in my mind, he made the documents for Vatican II. So my four years of high school was studying the documents. So I know I’m inside, like the Bible. I know I’m inside and out. That was a major thrust, and everybody did it. And if you didn’t happen to be Catholic, too bad. You had to learn it. So I don’t really know anybody at Sacred Heart who wasn’t Catholic, which is so odd to me that all these Catholic schools now have non-Catholic people in them. [laughs] It’s like, what? So, no, I think we were all pretty docile. I didn’t have a rivalry with Lumen Cordium or Hoban Dominican. I was mad because I didn’t go to Hoban because my friends went there. But, oh, well, you know, I didn’t fight with my parents. So they said, go here. I went there. And the reason I went there, they gave us a test. The test chopped off the top, you know, four people, and my guy who took me to my prom went to St. Joe’s. Everybody else went to Cathedral Latin, and I went to Sacred Heart, and that’s what happened to us. And then I met other people, and I really don’t know how Mildred got there. I think she was just. That was her neighborhood. But in those days, tuition was like $160 a year, which was a lot of money. And that’s why I had to go, because we had just moved, and my family didn’t want to pay tuition for Hoban when I could go for free, even though I was going to be on a bus all the way down the hill to Euclid-Superior from Lee and Harvard, and I could have walked to Hoban. Nuts. So I didn’t have a great fun time at Sacred Heart, but I had a lot of good learning. We had a lot of nuns. I love my nuns there. Sister Marie Rosier was my French teacher, and Sister Lorita was my sociology teacher. And we used to have these great discussions about race and social order and the economics of prejudice and how much it’s not about race as it is about money and institutionalism. And I was 15, and I was having these discussions, but our school was like a seminar forum. We had a building, and there were two houses that the nuns lived in, and some of our discussion-type classes, we’d have, like, 20 kids in it, and we’d be sitting in the nun’s living room, and we’d have our class. That would be our class period. And, you know, I had a phenomenal education, very unique, you know, and I’m grateful for that, because I would have needed that, and I probably would not have been as well satisfied had I gone to Hoban or any of these other schools. They were much more traditional classroom settings only, you know, my classrooms were so weird. We had these old rooms with cloakrooms where you would put your coat on a rack in the back. My locker was, like this big, and I never even used it. It was ridiculous. You couldn’t put anything in it. We used to do retreats in the hallway, holding a candle and saying prayers and chanting and, you know, sounds like a coven [laughs], but, I mean, it was odd. My graduating class had 85 people in it, so we knew everybody. And it was probably closer and felt okay while I was there. But I resent the fact that I don’t have high school friends. You know, my friends are from my grade school, and I’m sure race played a part in that, because I never went to their houses, they never came to my house, that kind of stuff. And that is a deficit, for sure. You know, and I don’t know why I didn’t. I wasn’t thinking, well, you’re white. How come I can’t come? I didn’t know that wasn’t part of the thought process. It was just like, well, I live way over here. You live way over there. I’ll see you at school. You know? My best friend who went to high school lived in Wickliffe, and she used to take a greyhound bus to school, and my bus ride was about 40 minutes. So at one point, she spent the night at my house in Lee and Harvard, and we decided to walk to her house. It was 25 miles and Sacred Heart was the middle. So I probably had the most unique experience of anybody you’ve talked to as far as school schooling is concerned, because it’s just, you know, I didn’t switch schools. I didn’t have the junior high, grade school thing. It was just like, boom, boom. And it was the same people, you know, people didn’t move if they moved away. They never, they didn’t go until they graduated. You know, Donna Archer left early, and that was like, where are you going? You’re not gonna be with the class. You know, it was- I mean, I can remember these names. It’s crazy, but no, we had a rich kind of experience, but it wasn’t fun or friendly. It was just rich. That’s kind of contradictory sounding, but, you know, it’s true. And, you know, we had different. Probably the biggest prejudices came from the lay staff. Like, the librarian was a lay person, Miss Baffa. And the worst person that we had in our whole school was Mrs. O’Malley. She was our guidance counselor. She had no skills when it came to evaluating someone and guiding them. She told me that I should be a hairdresser because I had a lot of hair. I mean, it was insane. I thought, you have lost your mind, woman. And so, you know, I didn’t give- I mean, I. But the thing is, I never got mad about it. It was just like, okay, I’m not gonna listen to you. I just learned how to do that. So it’s no big deal. But I. The nuns that I did have, I, that I liked, you know, I was able to get learning from them. And so I had this one done, Sister Antoine. I took math four, which I guess is the second year of calculus. And I just was not good at it. I didn’t like it. And she’s like, oh, you must have to increase your- I had taken chemistry with her, and she was like, I know you can do this. So I had a lab partner in chemistry, Linda Fortney, and she took it. She goes, there were only 13 people in the class, so you couldn’t get away with anything. You know, they ask you to answer questions like, no, you couldn’t hide or anything. And I would just sit there and just suffer. And she would just, she wouldn’t let me out, though. She said, this is good for you. You have to learn how to think, blah, blah, blah. And I have to thank her because I have perseverance because- And I hated it because I never had gotten bad grades. And I got, I was getting a c and I was like, oh, my God, this is killing me, you know. It was a great experience, but I hated it while I was doing it. But I was her sacristan. So when we had mass, because I knew how to do it from St. Al. So I would set the mass, the table up. And in the gym, our gym was used for mass and meetings. We didn’t really have gym. It’s crazy.

Julie Gabb [00:52:49] So the gym room was more so used for–

Debra Martin [00:52:52] Mass and meetings and plays. We had lots of plays and we had– We were always having meetings because I think at the time the school was trying to do the same thing we’re talking about is feel us out. I think that they were trying to figure out, can we stay here? Can we be a viable part of this community? Blah, blah, blah. You know, they never told us that, but we had meetings all the time. And I’m like, you know, my boyfriend, by the time I got to be, you know, 17, I had met Leo and I had gone to Glenville. And I’m like, you have basketball hoops. How come I don’t have this in my school? You know? I was amazed at the difference between a public school and Sacred Heart. Now, I don’t think Sacred Heart is typical of most private schools. I think it was an anomaly for sure. But, you know, it was my experience. It was like, you know, Lemony Snicket, one of those kind of crazy, like somebody made it up. So go ahead.

Julie Gabb [00:54:01] Could you tell the difference between the education that you got in Catholic school versus, for example, Leo’s education?

Debra Martin [00:54:09] Most definitely. The difference really isn’t the education because a lot of people who came out of Glenville did really well, like Michael White and Stephanie Tubbs Jones and all those people, who are our peers. The difference is it was so bigger. And anybody who had any propensity to be silly, like you saw in the book, Leo could have been a superior brainiac. He had the whole nerd thing going, but he didn’t have to. So that’s the difference. It’s not the school. It’s- It was the management and the size. And because they were trying to do the whole, you know, what are we going to do about busing? Because it was just- That was the advent of when all that was coming forth. The school, the Glenville school was scary to me. It was too big. You know, 2,000 people or 600 in a class. Are you kidding? You know, that was more than- My whole enrollment was 425, something like that. So I do think people falsely thought that you could get a better education in a Catholic school. That’s not true. There’s plenty of dummies in Catholic school. There was a girl […] She came to school one day, and her hair was green. She was just a crazy. She was a greaser, and I don’t know if you know what that is. And she would do crazy things over the weekend. And I was like, Linda, really? And her hair was the color of that leaf. Literally. She was. I had a bad day at dye [inaudible]. And I’ll show you these people in my yearbook. You’ll say, oh, I see what you mean. So there are some total screwups in Catholic school just as much as there are the nerd people. You know, I’m like the TV shows where you see the nerds and the jocks and the greasers. We just didn’t have any jocks because we didn’t have a gym [laughs], but we had, like, the leadership and the preppy people. And so I do think that it was, in my mind, it would be easier to get a better education where I was just because of the way I had been brought up. Had I been brought up from- And I actually had a friend who was brought up in the public sector, Gail. And she came to Sacred Heart, and she couldn’t take it. And she wound up at Glenville and did fine. But, you know, you- It’s just like, when my daughter went to college, she went up to Northland, which is way up in Wisconsin, in a woods. It’s a math and science environmental school. They literally came here to interview her because there’s no mall, there’s no stores. It’s just like, a woods and a college, and then it’s a Native American– Chequamegon National [Forest] is the place. And they said, we have to see if she can, if this will suit her. Because if you don’t, like, if you need a store, if you need a mall, don’t come here, because you’re not gonna succeed. That’s how Sacred Heart was. If you need a whole lot of people and clubs and popularity and there’s no superlatives in my yearbook, you know, it’s just a whole different experience. So it depends on what you need. I always say, and this is from my point of view as an educator, your education is from your home. If your parents dictate that education is important and make that a mandate, then it doesn’t matter where you go. You know. For me, Sacred Heart was a good deal. I would have been mowed down at Glenville. Cause I wouldn’t know how to try to be popular you know, not to be able to go to Sacred Heart and not worry about your hair. You know, it’s great when you’re 14 and you don’t know how to comb your hair? And, you know, I was wearing knee socks and a uniform and saddle shoes and carrying this many books. I don’t think Leo ever carried that many books. You know, he might have carried them like this. And I’m not saying he didn’t study. He did, and he could’ve- He just could have done more. I think he would have benefited more, but he probably wouldn’t have had as much fun. He wouldn’t be who he is, you know? And I don’t know. I don’t think it’s- I don’t think it’s an either or. I think it depends on the individual.

Julie Gabb [00:58:16] So how did you– I heard Leo’s take. How did you meet Leo?

Debra Martin [00:58:23] We were at a party, and the boy who took me to the prom, his sister Audrey and Andre were both having a birthday party because their birthdays are the end of June, and my birthday is July 8, so we always had the same party, and Andre and I are the same age. Leo lived across the street from her, and they lived on this side of Lakeview, which I could not go on. So when I was growing up, I never went over Audrey’s house, even though I knew Andre all these years. That was just the way it was. And there was enough people to keep me occupied in my own area, so I never was, like, pining to go. But finally, when I got to be- I had moved, and I was pining to get back with my friends, and I said, please, can I go to her birthday party? So we were- I had to spend the night because it was so far. And after a party, you don’t want to go home. So all the girls stayed over, and I met Leo there. We were dancing, and I didn’t even know. I thought his name was Tony. I didn’t know who he was. [laughs] Said, who is that? So Audrey liked him, and in those days, I was a vixen, if you want to put it that way. I thought, oh, I messed this up. So I just kind of went after her, after him, and just- And I didn’t really want a boyfriend. I didn’t have a boyfriend, and boyfriends weren’t on my lexicon. You know, I was worried about getting a part in the play, but, you know, he was cute and nice, and he had a car, accessibility, and he lived in Glenville, so it was a tie to my old neighborhood. And when he came to my house, he brought me home from the party the next day after we spent the night and went to Euclid Beach. I know he told you about all that. My mother met him, and my father had been drinking. He was a weekend alcoholic, and he didn’t ask me for my phone number. So I said, oh, well, another one down the drain. Cause I never thought I’d have success having a normal relationship with anybody until I left my house because I had an odd house, and I know it. You know, most families did not live like we did. We had- I would- Now I would call it, like upwardly mobile syndrome. So when people were out in the street at 8:00 I was at home studying. I went to bed. So I wasn’t popular that way. And I went to all-girls schools, so I didn’t know any boys. [laughs] I was like, my pickings were real slim. So he had gotten my phone number off the dial in the kitchen. In the old days, there was a kitchen. And so he started calling me, and we would talk on the phone, and that’s how I got to know him. So we dated. We dated. Then he got mono. I’m sure he told you that. And he got sick, and he thought it was me. And I said, I didn’t kiss anybody, so it wasn’t me. And then we didn’t go to- I didn’t go to his prom. Cause he graduated in January. He didn’t go to my prom. And what happened, I was calling Andre. Actually, I was calling Audrey because we’re friends, you know, we’re still friends. And he answered the phone because he was over their house. He used to be that kind of friend with them. And he said he heard my voice and he dropped the phone, you know, all dramatic. And then Andre was laughing at him. And I said, listen, I need a date to my prom. Are you available? And he’s a musician. He says, I have tryouts tomorrow. He was at Kent, and he was trying to get into Kent’s honors music program. And he said, I can take you to your prom, but I can’t take it to the Saturday thing. I said, that’s okay. I just need a date for the dance. Had Leo had enough sense to say, I’m right here, you know, we could have made up right then. So I graduated. It was June. We went to the prom. Then they had their party again, and we saw each other again, and that’s how we got back together. So that’s the same story, pretty much. It was interesting and funny because I was not an outgoing social butterfly person, and I was kind of awkward, really, which is why I probably pushed the way that I did in, you know, between Audrey and him. And so he was just silly enough as a young guy, not, you know, and I was like, an oddity because I wasn’t like the girls at Glenville, you know, I was kind of reserved and ladylike, and I wore gloves. This whole drawer is full of gloves. I wear them all the time. And, you know, I’m an odd bird. And his comedy, you know, his calm and relaxation and jokiness was a good complement to my seriousness and my studiousness and all that, you know. So we make a good match, 41 years. So, yeah, it’s been fun.

Julie Gabb [01:03:41] You mentioned earlier about, like, you witnessing sort of, I guess, like, how other. The relations with, like, race back in, like, high school and things like that, did that ever motivate you to get involved with, like, the civil rights movement?

Debra Martin [01:03:56] Well, he referred to when Martin Luther King came to Glenville, and I had referred to– What made me want to talk to you about this too was the National Guard. After the riots, when I was going to high school, I had to catch the bus at Euclid and Superior, and the National Guard was all the way up Euclid, and my school was, like, here. So I had to walk past all these National Guard, and then the bus stop was on this side of where they were standing, so I had to go through that, and then the bus would go up the hill. And that happened probably in ’66, I think. I can’t remember. I was 16, and I was so ticked off because I was stuck between both factions. I had all my childhood friends on that side and my new life on the other side, and I was not- I couldn’t figure out why I was in between all this, and I really was nowhere. We had a program in high school called Thrust or Bust, and it was like I said, we had these seminar type classes where we would discuss how it was always from an economic point of view, because that’s the safe way to talk about race. And they would say, how can we lift the children and how can we save the businesses and all that? So we all had to choose a way to do a practicum. And I went into a school - I can’t even remember where it was, but it was in Cleveland - and I worked with these special needs kids, and this one kid that I worked with was nonverbal. And that was our task. Our task was probably for a semester. So it was about five months. And we would go, like, once, like every Wednesday or something after school. And Nancy Gramps. And I did it. Gramp. It’s funny, I’m remembering these names. And this is a white girl. And we would go to this school, and it was this dingy little place, and I thought, this is a horrible place. I would want to go to school here. [laughs] Anyway, I worked with this kid, and he wouldn’t talk at all. Little Black boy and he was probably six or seven, but he was so, like, beautiful. Just a gorgeous little boy. And he always was very clean, and he just didn’t do anything. He was nonverbal. So he had obviously had some kind of trauma. But I was 15, 16. I didn’t know what I was looking at. And I went through my, you know, okay, today we’re gonna do this. And, you know, I was all. And I always did my protocol. I never gave up. So at the end of our session, and I would have to go back and report, you know, how did it go and what did we do? So we had all this downloading, and, you know, so I’ve been doing this stuff my whole life, even in high school. But at the end of my time with him, I said, okay, this is the last time you’re gonna see me, and I’m not coming back. And, you know, I want to just tell you thank you and whatever I said. And then I was walking out, and he said, bye. I was like, what? [laughs] And I told the people, I said, you know, he can really talk. Just so you know. So my experience is, like, are people coping? Are they pretending to cope? You know, it gave me pause for critique. And I was always in a very non-involved manner ‘cause I felt like I was, like, over here. Because all my life I couldn’t go off the porch. I couldn’t do this. You know, my parents were right here, so I didn’t ever have the feeling that I was ever not completely safe. And I still feel that way. I feel like I’m protected by God or whatever it is. And I just- I don’t have fear about things. I don’t have anger about things. I’m very analytical about race and culture and money and all that. And I have a lot of thought about all of the different areas because I do think people should work hard. I think, you know, based on what I told you, application is a major part of success, but so is opportunity. And institutional racism shuts the doors down like that. You know, I get through because I can talk a good game. I speak the king’s English. And I know, you know, I learned how to get the power. My mom taught me that when I was nine, and I understand the importance of it. So I’m not gonna antagonize you. If you’re in charge of my check, I’m not going to fight with you. You know? [laughs] I’ll get you later. I’ll figure out a way to give the information that I want to give you or to sway you or whatever, but I’m not going to put myself in jeopardy, which a lot of people do. And if you feel like you want to hold a banner and be strong, Nikki Giovanni and Leroy Jones and all these poets and all these, you know, activists were on campus, and I would go and hear them, and then I would go study for my French Four test. You know, you can’t throw away your protocol just so you can get on the bandwagon. I know a lot of people didn’t graduate because they didn’t go to class, and they used the excuse that, well, I had to go to the meeting. Well, the meeting is not why you’re here. Your tuition is being paid whether you go to class or not. That tuition is gone. So make it work. You know, that’s always been- I had a real practical understanding of that from my parents and from watching all those political things in my house. You can have great mass success, but the individual is responsible for himself. You can’t look to an agency to give you support if you’re not supporting yourself at all. So I probably have an odd view of social order, or maybe I have a practical view, and that’s kind of gotten lost with all the brouhaha, you know, because, I mean, we’re all pretty much the same, and now everybody’s intermarrying. My kids are all with other race people and all the children- Everybody’s gonna look the same in a minute, so this is gonna be a moot point, really, and I can’t wait. [laughs] So. Yeah, but it’s hard. It’s hard to wonder, you know, I can think about, why don’t I know my history? And, ooh, I don’t know what tribe I came from or what this, but my tribe is Native American. My dad was Choctaw. I don’t know anything about that. The kinds of history that African Americans have related to Africa are so adulterated because even the Africans’ organizations of their countries, they change. You know, Nigeria is now this and Zimbabwe is now that. And these different dictators and things, they don’t live like we live. Okay? Would it have been different if we had never had slavery, who knows? I live now. I’m not going to argue about that. I doubt about history anyway. Who knows what really happened? So it’s like, live in the present, be well, make life better for everybody you know, do the best you can, and don’t have a heart attack about it because it doesn’t matter, you know. I guess I’m, I’m kind of a- I don’t really- I don’t know if I would take. How I would take a stand, you know, I hate injustice. I hate stupidity. You know, I hate stupid law like the police criminality with the violence. That’s more of an issue than whether you’re black or white. You know, it’s power. It all goes back to that power in economics more than race, so. Cause I didn’t– I wasn’t raised with that racial thing, I guess.

Julie Gabb [01:12:14] You said earlier that you were present during, I believe it would have been the Glenville riots. Were you able- Do you have any, like, run-ins during the Glenville or Hough riots at all?

Debra Martin [01:12:25] No, my. I was there. I was, you know, physically there, but I was not- I didn’t see a thing. I didn’t hear anything. Yeah, I’ve never heard gunshots at night. All that. I had moved by then, actually, I thought about it, because I moved in ’64 and the riots were in ’66 or later, so I really wasn’t there the way Leo lived there, I never saw anybody run down the street with a TV, you know, that kind of thing. I can’t really say that because I was wrong. What I related to was the presence of the National Guard. That’s what I related to. And how different things looked. You know, when I would ride through there with my mother and father, I would- Gee, they burned that down, you know. [laughs] That’s horrible. Like, why would they do that? I didn’t understand. So I don’t know.

Julie Gabb [01:13:23] So did you go downtown at all?

Debra Martin [01:13:26] Yeah, we went down. Not a ton. We would go down and shop, like, for the holidays and do the windows and I got a frosty from the May Company never went to- I’m sure Mister Jingeling was there, but I don’t think- I never remember sitting on his lap or seeing him or anything. My mom didn’t go in for that kind of extraneous stuff. It was like, okay, let’s get on the bus and go home, you know. I do remember, see, I didn’t- I don’t remember it as a child. I recognize it now, the Silver Grille and all those places Black people didn’t go in there. I didn’t know it, so it didn’t hurt me, you know, I didn’t know. I didn’t. Who cares? I had a good sandwich wherever I was, I was fine. [laughs] I guess my mother really didn’t allow us to sense less than, you know. She always was- You know, you’re the same or better than everybody that’s alive. And, I mean, that was her mantra to us, so we didn’t expect experience it. It was a very uplifting kind of relationship. But, yeah, we went downtown. We- I sang downtown once. I was in the Glee Club at Sacred Heart, and we got to sing Christmas carols on the square. They used to have a band box or whatever you call those things, a shell. There was a shell down there, and I got to sing. I thought that was great. I used to take our kids down later, but when we’re talking about those years. Let’s see, we did a lot around 105th and Euclid, and I feel sad that that’s not available to the neighborhoods now. I have a lot of anger at a Cleveland Clinic, and Leo keeps telling me, but they’re a big employer, and we need them, and it should be good. Yes, but they didn’t decimate Ohio City or Tremont, and our neighborhoods were just as well-defined, if not better defined, which could have still been here. And that angers me greatly because 105th and Euclid was gorgeous. And not to say that it wouldn’t have needed to be rehabbed, but, you know, they rehabbed John Hay, and Cathedral Latin is gone. Sacred Heart is gone. You know, the Catholic schools have disappeared. And it’s just like, all the monuments of my life, you know, except for St. Aloysius, they’re just disappeared. I can’t take my kids to show them any of the things that we’ve been talking about. My house is still standing, and it’s occupied, so it’s not horrible, but the whole neighborhood is. You know, there’s a lot of lost homes and empty lots and things. It’s very ugly. And there’s– The trees are gone. I don’t know what happened. How do you lose a tree? You know, they can live 500 years. So it’s a choice city made. It’s how Cleveland Clinic manipulated power money, and it’s the direction in which they chose to go. And Lee Seidman and the cancer and all that stuff with UH even. Those are people we knew. Lee Seidman owned Jaguar, where Leo’s dad worked for a while. And why would they put his name there? I don’t even know if he’s still living. I guess that’s his son Lee. But it’s, it’s insulting. You know, they’re taking down some of those big, gorgeous churches to build a parking lot, and it’s like, really? This is your best choice? It feels disrespectful. Yeah. So, I think that the neighborhood was really affected negatively by the redlining. People left, and it created desolation, just sadness. Even taking the aquarium away and putting it in the stupid Nautica. You have to go in the basement. It used to be by the lake. Hmm. That makes sense. Let’s put the aquarium where the water is. Okay. [laughs] So I see you’re getting chilly. I’m getting chilly, too. Yeah. There’s been a lot of– But, you know, I only know this stuff as an adult. I’d never found it as a child. That’s what I wanted to, I want you to understand. I think you get it. But in retrospect, yeah. I went to Cleveland State. I lived on 24th at Fenn Tower. And the city was fine. It was vibrant. I used to walk to St. Peter’s on 17th, and I walked to the cathedral to go to mass. The Newman Center was right there on Euclid, and there were viable little- You know, the written Mad Hatter was down there and different things. It was. It was not needing to be completely just wiped away. You know? I just don’t understand. My first school was at 55th and Margaret, Margaret Ireland, 55th and Chester. It’s still there. And all that manufacturing and all those businesses that were there are gone. And it’s like, whose decisions are these? Why is this happening so, I don’t know. I didn’t- Maybe I should have gotten into politics if I really wanted to do anything. But why can’t I just be a citizen and trust that my city is going to stay functional and not be eaten alive by power-hungry politicians or whoever’s doing it? I don’t know.

Julie Gabb [01:19:12] Have you ever heard of the phrase Gold Coast?

Debra Martin [01:19:15] Yeah.

Julie Gabb [01:19:16] What does that entail?

Debra Martin [01:19:19] The Gold Coast, in my mind, was basically, there’s a couple of Gold Coasts that I’m aware of. I thought of one that I know there’s one on the east side. I was always thought it might be Bratenahl. And then I thought it was over by not Edgewater, but up from Edgewater on the west side. And I know there was a Gold Coast referred to in Glenville, but I don’t know where it was. So I’ve been aware of it. The Millionaires’ Row of houses and mansions on Euclid was also a big talked about thing. Not aware of it. Never been, you know, into it. It didn’t affect me. Yeah, I was on the porch. [laughs]

Julie Gabb [01:20:11] Do you have any last words about Glenville or just-?

Debra Martin [01:20:17] I think I just said it. I think that the Glenville area was strong and vibrant, and the realties are the ones that should be held responsible for guiding away the foundations. I know that different professions from hairdressers, furniture store owners, small businesses, Woolworth’s, all those existed in Glenville. Banks, the foundations that you need for good living, and they were completely decimated by the loss of the earner, the wage earner. And when you bring away this, the stable feeling that I got to experience, there’s no way that the neighborhood can survive. You’re knocking all the basics away, the standards. So it’s just sad. It saddens me. I see new construction, but it’s very ugly, too, to me. I think that the housing stock is really poor. It’s that old song, the houses are made of ticky tacky versus the beautiful wood and woodwork and leaded windows and stone fireplaces that were in Glenville. And I know it’s our society. People are stealing copper out of the houses and, you know, literally the tin off of the siding of the house. I do believe we have been assaulted by drugs. And I think it was intentional. I think it was political. I know Black people don’t own cocaine fields, so somebody is bringing the devastation in and between that and the prison system, taking all the male African Americans away. How can anything have success? You’re holding on by your toenails to even get people through school and give them the idea that it’s possible to have a living from work and applying yourself. It’s so much easier if you don’t have a dad. I can’t imagine being raised without a dad or an income or having a normal routine like church and dinner at the table. You know, that’s not happening. And it’s because of the racial, institutional raping of these inner-city neighborhoods. And now we’re all- We bought into the hype, you know, move to the suburbs and educate your children in an integrated school. Well, you know, all-Black schools work. You know, if you take the tops of every class and take them, like I was the top of my class, they put me in a white school. Of course I’m going to help their numbers. But what about the Black school where I didn’t go? What happens to those numbers, if all the tops from all the elementary schools are sent to Lourdes Academy or Marymount or all the other schools that were still in existence, you’re going to have a school like Hoban that got built, got fed, and then it disappeared. Now it’s Whitney Young. It’s ridiculous. So, yeah, racism is a huge part of the loss of Glenville. I don’t think it’s gonna ever come to the way that it was because society would have to do too many flips. It’s going to shift back, though, because I think the proximity to the city center, center city is too golden. I mean, it’s five minutes to get downtown, really, if you’re in a vehicle - not 5, 10 - but it’s just, you know, it’s got the proximity and it has the lake, and it’s just a great place to live. And if you’ve lived in Stow or Hudson or, you know, Akron or somewhere in the middle of nowhere [laughs], you can’t get downtown to see a concert or go to a meeting or attend a board this or that or whatever. But it’s not going to be within the next hundred years. It’s going to take way a lot of time, and if we don’t change our carbon footprint, we’re not gonna be here anyway [laughs], so it’s not going to matter. Now, I’m happy to be able to participate in this because it’s Cleveland State, which is my college, and I wanted you to have a point of view that wasn’t a public school point of view, because it really is very different and it’s very flat. It’s not colorful or any of that. But there was a good handful of us that had that experience and more than that, because my sister’s class and, you know, all the classes, we had a nice handful. I think there’s 36 kids in that picture, and that also was part of the Glenville experience, and it helped it to remain calm and a loving place to be, a safe place to be, a happy place to be. And it has one of the best memories that you could have as an adult. I don’t think if I had lived in Lee and Harvard, I would have that kind of experience because we were way, we were very close knit, and I didn’t see that in the new neighborhood that we moved into. It’s not here in this neighborhood. You know, as nice as it is, it’s not close-knit like it was, and I’m sure that’s time-wise, but it’s just not gonna happen. So thank you very much.

Julie Gabb [01:26:17] Thank you.

Debra Martin [01:26:18] Appreciate it.

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