Abstract
In this 2024 interview, Felescia Jordan, an employee at the Thea Bowman Center, discusses her life in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood and the impact of the Thea Bowman Center on her life. Jordan talks about moving to Cleveland from Birmingham, Alabama when she was twelve years old, growing up along Union Avenue, and supporting her children with help from the Thea Bowman Center.
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Interviewee
Jordan, Felescia (interviewee)
Interviewer
Carubia, Ava (interviewer)
Project
Union-Miles
Date
11-22-2024
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
21 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Felescia Jordan interview, 22 November 2024" (2024). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 483004.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1349
Transcript
Ava Carubia [00:00:00] All right, so we are recording. Today is November 22, 2024. My name is Ava Carubia and I’m here at the Thea Bowman center in Cleveland, Ohio. Interviewing Ms. Felescia Jordan for the Cleveland Regional Oral History Project. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today.
Felescia Jordan [00:00:17] Thank you very much for having me.
Ava Carubia [00:00:19] And then just for the record, can you please state your name?
Felescia Jordan [00:00:21] My name is Felescia Jordan.
Ava Carubia [00:00:23] Your birth date?
Felescia Jordan [00:00:24] My birthday? […] 1957. I am 67 years old.
Ava Carubia [00:00:29] And then where were you born?
Felescia Jordan [00:00:30] I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, but I came to Cleveland, Ohio at the age of 12.
Ava Carubia [00:00:34] All right, perfect. So that will start out our interview. And I want to get started talking about. You were born in Birmingham and then you came to Cleveland. What was it like to move up here?
Felescia Jordan [00:00:45] It was weird because we didn’t have snow up down in Birmingham. When I came here to Cleveland, I was scared. I didn’t know anybody because I’m a little country girl, okay? But as time went on, everything became very, very nice around in this area. And I lived right here on Union at the age of 12. And at the age of 15, we moved around the corner on Oakville. And when we came here, it was a Catholic church. And they used to have a basketball court out there, swings and stuff. We used to go come over in the parking lot and play basketball and swing. And we played football in the front of the church also. Yes, as a girl we did all of this, but it was really nice. And as time came along, we met Mr. Jimmie and he’s the custodian around here. I was about 20, 19, 20 somewhere around there. And we grew up around him. And at the age of 20, I got married. At age 18, I got married, had children, but also I have a daughter named Alicia. I had a son named Tim. He passed away in 2020. And I have a son, Charles Gaston, and he’s 47. But Thea Bowman Center has been like a home to us. We lived in this area just about all my life right here on Union, on Oakville. Used to come up here all the time, play football, basketball, whatever with the kids, you know, when we was kids and whatever. And like I said, as time go on, everything became popular around here. We had buildings, stores, all kind of stuff. It was very nice in this area, but it got bad around here. It was bad, it was sad. But Thea Bowman still stayed the same, never changed at all. They had hot meals for us. We come up here and eat all the time and everything, play basketball, like I said, football, skating and all. But they never did put us down. They never did. It was like a recreation party for us, even though it wasn’t like it is now. It was just in the field, you know, out in the parking lot where we came and played around there. They never did throw us out or, you know, get mean with us. And Father Dan, he was a very, very nice person. And the nuns and things, they were very nice here, too, also. But like I said, as I grew, this became my home. Thea Bowman have really helped me a whole, whole lot. I came up here volunteers. I was a volunteer at first, and I had my children. Didn’t have too much, but they looked out for us no matter what it was. They helped me pay my rent, my gas, my light bill and everything. They were called the petty cash then. Yeah, they call that the petty cash. But then they start having hot meals again, like I said. And I volunteered up here. I had my son and my daughters come up here and help us and help me with the food. It was Ms. Barbara Price. She used to go in there and cook. She taught us how to do all this amazing stuff. It was just very, very wonderful up here. We even had the 4H club for the kids. Ms. Marianne, she did that. They had the sewing classes. They had Bible classes for kids and everything. Back in those days, things were just perfect around here. I thought I was in heaven because it was just so beautiful. You never had anything like this because when we bounced out, we ran around, played hopscotch and all this stuff. But up here, it was something to experience. Like I said, time has really changed, and you can’t go back to the past. But I wish in the future that people would just come together as one in this community, because this is a beautiful place. All this other stuff is not good, but I’m just saying this from my heart. Thea Bowman has came a long, long, long way from, like I said, arts and crafts for the kid, music classes, GED classes, computer classes, all kind of stuff. Recreation and everything. It’s beautiful. So all we need to do is just come together as one in this community. Please, please just come together. Okay.
Ava Carubia [00:05:10] I still have some more questions for you. This is gonna be, like, at least half an hour, so you’re gonna have to talk a little bit longer. I want to go back to when you moved up here. Why did your family move up to Cleveland?
Felescia Jordan [00:05:23] Well, my mama moved up here because she had her sister here and my uncle’s here, but she had other siblings down south, and she just wanted a different environment. And it did. Now in the south, we old fashioned. You come to Cleveland. It’s fast lane. Okay. So I wouldn’t go back down south, but I love it up here. And this is where my mother’s at too. And I have a son. He passed away in 2020 from heart failure. And he’s buried here. So this is my home now.
Ava Carubia [00:05:54] Yeah.
Felescia Jordan [00:05:55] Okay.
Ava Carubia [00:05:57] What did your parents do?
Felescia Jordan [00:05:59] Well, my mother, she was what you call it, a lunch aid at Mount Pleasant School down here on 116th. She was in Mount Pleasant. She did cleaning and stuff. I can’t think of the building, but she did cleaning. And she was a mom. She was a mom, you know, she just. She made sure that we didn’t want for anything out of life. That’s one thing I can give my mother credit for. And that’s why I feel like I’m the same way. Don’t let the kids go hungry. Treat them like you want to be treated.
Ava Carubia [00:06:34] And then I just want to focus in on what you were saying earlier about how beautiful it was here. All the stores.
Felescia Jordan [00:06:40] Oh, yeah.
Ava Carubia [00:06:41] Can you describe that a little bit more?
Felescia Jordan [00:06:42] Oh, baby, I can describe it all. On the corner we had Union Center Store. It was a store, a little market. They had the fish and everything back there. We had an apartment building where they had. We used to go get our hair done, you know, pressing iron, pressing and everything. Looking real pretty. Okay. It was called Miss Pearl. And then on the other side, we stayed on Union side and they had apartment building. They had a fish market across the. Across the street where there’s a little church that’s at over here. And on the other side there was a little gas station they had on the outside. And on the way down it was called Super Value and Kroger. And we even had a Marathon Gas station on the corner. We even had a [unclear] bar on the corner. We had a cleaner on the corner, 126th. And then going down Union, we had all kind of apartment building housing. We had drug stores, little candy stores on the street. And on the way down, it was just. The whole area was full of houses and everything. And like I said, didn’t nobody bothered nobody. They even had little clubs and things. We just walked down the street. My mom walked down the street, go to these little after hours spots, joints or whatever. It was just beautiful. But like I said, now everything’s just gone down. When people leave here from this earth, people do not take care of their property at all. The ones that here now, they don’t take care. I’m like this here. Whenever somebody leave you something. Treasure it. Take care. Because you can. It can. Goes down into your family history. That’s how I feel about it. I do talk a lot.
Ava Carubia [00:08:29] No, that’s great. This is what this interview is for. Could you talk about one of your happiest memories from your childhood in this area?
Felescia Jordan [00:08:37] Oh, good. I had a whole lot of happy memories. A whole lot. My mama used to go out. We had a big old tree over across the street. And we stayed, the boys would climb up in the tree, come up, we sit up there and enjoy ourselves. Mama come home, they run out the back. But we didn’t do anything bad. We weren’t no fast girls, though. We weren’t fast at all. It was just that, you know how you just surround with the little boys, they trying to smooch on you. But one thing about it, when a boy kissed me, I just put alcohol on my lip. And I wouldn’t let them kiss me because I thought I was going to get pregnant. So I was grown when I really got into a relationship with a person. I wasn’t like, I wasn’t a fast tailed girl. Okay, I’ll be honest with you. But it was just. It was. It was just so much going around here. We used to skate up and down the street. You know, people really didn’t know about skating. We used to skate. We used to play softball in the street, basketball with the boys. It wasn’t bad like it is nowadays. That was really nice. You know, as we was growing up. Oh, yeah, I followed a lot too. Cause some girls were jealous of you at school. They didn’t like you. So my mama always said, if you don’t beat their tail, they’re gonna beat our tail. So we always beat them up. We had to. Okay. But it was. It was. And we had good friends and stuff, but in this community, we all became good friends. It wasn’t about, I don’t like you and all that stuff. Everybody played together. And like I said, mama, parents. The parents would sit outside, we’d have barbecues and stuff like that. It was just really nice. Everybody just was like a big, ordinary family. Wasn’t no fighting and killing and all that. It was just like. And everybody got along with each other. You can leave your doors open, they’d come over, watch TV. Mama used to sit up here. I used to have my girlfriend to come from school with us. My mama used to sit and fix us lunches and stuff. We used to walk home, you know, on our lunch break and eat. And then we’d go back to school. No matter what it was just really beautiful.
Ava Carubia [00:10:39] Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Do you remember around what time the area started changing?
Felescia Jordan [00:10:45] Oh, back in the 80s, when the drugs came out, that’s when it started changing. Everybody started losing every darned thing. People started killing, robbing, stealing and everything. Because I got married and I worked at J.C. Penny’s and I stayed there about nine, ten years and I got pregnant. So that’s when I had to leave. But other than that, that’s when everything changed. Everything just changed in this area.
Ava Carubia [00:11:08] Can you speak more to how it changed exactly?
Felescia Jordan [00:11:12] No houses, people breaking in your house, stealing, robbing, killing, running around. You couldn’t even walk around at night like we used to. Couldn’t even stay outside. Somebody come up and rob to take. If you got a dollar in your hand, they take it. They take your food away from you. It was just bad. It just really got bad. Right. My son, the one who passed away now, he was working up at the liquor store right here. It’s still open right here on Union. My baby didn’t bother nobody. And he had a disability problem. This man, he had. They paid him. He went and got him some food at C&B. Come home. I used to walk up there in the parking lot and pick him up. But this particular night, he said, “Mom, don’t worry about it. I’ll be okay.” I both checked on him. He walked him home. Somebody put a gun behind his head, took his food. He had $2 in his wallet. Took his wallet. And it scared him so bad. I called the police and we told them. But whoever did it, they knew him. And it was a shame. But like I said, ever since then, that he got nervous and he had a heart problem. He got a bad, bless his heart. And that’s what really scared me about this neighborhood. Ever since then, I didn’t let him. He went up there, but I wouldn’t. Before it got dark, I made him come on home. But it was something he wanted to do, you know, because he didn’t feel like he had a disability problem. And I didn’t treat him like he had one. I wanted him to live his life the way I would live. I wanted to live my life. He didn’t drink and smoke and all that, but he was a good young man. His name was Timothy Orlando Gasson. He’s always in my heart, and I love him.
Ava Carubia [00:12:42] I’m sorry to hear about him dying.
Felescia Jordan [00:12:45] When he was a baby, he had a hole in his heart, but they didn’t know it was so big.[Unclear]. But it didn’t flow. So at age one and a half, Timmy had surgery. He had a pacemaker, and he. Boo. He was. Ooh, you would love him. I got a picture of him in there with the kids.
Ava Carubia [00:13:03] I wanna see it.
Felescia Jordan [00:13:05] The kids loved him, okay? The kids loved him. Oh, the kids just loved him so much. And my daughter, she. Here now. Hold on one minute. I want you to say. I want her to say something to her about Thea Bowman if she can.
Ava Carubia [00:13:17] I can’t. I can’t capture her on the phone right now, but if she wants to come in for an interview.
Felescia Jordan [00:13:22] Oh, yeah, but she. She has work.
Ava Carubia [00:13:24] Uh huh.
Felescia Jordan[00:13:25] They tell her. That’s what I said about Thea Bowman Center. Thea Bowman Center is a community place. It’s a place where you get. It’s love to me. I have been here 20, 30, almost 30 something years, okay? And I love being here. Like I said, I volunteer here. And now I work here. I clean, I feed the people. I help with the kids and stuff. But Thea Bowman has helped me and my family. My daughter, her name is Alicia Jordan. She goes to college. She’s a teacher at college, now. Right down on. And I’m so proud of her. At Tri-C. I’m so very proud of her. They helped my baby when got through college. She has a master’s degree now. Okay. And she’s a certified college ed teacher. She just came from Indianapolis. She travels a lot, you know, helping kids go get into college and everything. And she does something amazing. She does something that I didn’t do when I supposed to have done. You see what I’m saying? Now, my career was to go to college, not have any kids right now, have a home and all this. But, see, I didn’t do it. See, now God gave my baby all this opportunity to do it. And she is doing what I wanted to do because I have always talked about it. And she’s achieving her life, and I’m so proud of her.
Ava Carubia [00:14:38] Can you talk more about raising your kids here?
Felescia Jordan [00:14:41] Oh, baby. It was the best thing that happened to me to have my three children. And I’m gonna tell you one thing about them. I asked the Lord for three beautiful children. One of them incarcerated right now. He wanted to do what he wanted to do. But we’re not gonna talk about my oldest son, but I love him with all my heart. But it’s just that back in the day, he just wanted to be like the other kids. He was not a leader. He was a follower. And he got bad. He got into the wrong situation. But my son and daughter Alicia and Timmy, they was like two peas in a pod. They were like husband and wife. They were sister and brother. I mean, they were very, very, very close with each other because they grew up together. Timmy was 30, 32 when he passed away. Okay. And Alicia was. Let me see. When I had Timmy. Charles was 11 years apart from Timmy. They were 11 years apart, and Alicia and Timmy was like two years apart. So they bonded with each other. But Charles, he was the oldest. He stayed out there, did what he wanted to do. But with them, with Alicia and Timmy, it was just beautiful. With them, it was a beautiful little childhood. Don’t get me wrong about my oldest child. I raised him to be a nice young man. He went to school, got his college degree, got his education, everything. But as he got older, he just got out to that world. He just didn’t want to do what he wanted to do. He wanted to be his own man. So I didn’t stop him and I just let him do what he wanted to do. With Timmy and Lisa. Lisa was. Timmy was 5 when he got baptized. Lisa was 4 when she got baptized. Charles was 16 when he got baptized. I was 20 when I got baptized. Okay. We all was baptized by the same preacher, John. Reverend A. Rest his soul. And I used to go and take care of Reverend A daughter. My son Timmy, Alicia and I. Because he had a disability problem, we used to go out of town. They used to come and get us. And that’s how we came with the food bank, we had the. It was, the church was Our Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church. We went there to go down there. But they would pick me and my children up to take us to church with them. And that was a beautiful thing also. And I used to go down there and serve kids some food and then I came here, serve kids food also. I said, “I haven’t been around this little area for a whole lot.” But that’s why. I grew up here. And I just love being here. But anyway, with Timmy and Lisa, now, I taught them how to survive. Don’t go out here and steal from nobody. Don’t take from nobody. Don’t be diggity dick and cootie coot for nobody. Okay? Get out here and be on your own. Learn how to protect yourself and survive for yourself. And they did that. We could go to centers. Thea Bowman they had this hot meal program going here. I could take them down on Kinsman to the hot meal program. Finding clothes and stuff. I bought them clothes, but they had nice clothes. We go and search in them for things. We got clothes and stuff. It was just something that I taught them how to do, you know, for themselves, to fend for yourself, get a job, educate yourself, go to school, be responsible, enjoy your life, but just don’t go out there and do the wrong thing. And that’s what they did. They did.
Ava Carubia [00:17:42] Where’d your kids go to school?
Felescia Jordan [00:17:44] Well, Charles went to Charles Dickens and Lisa went to. They went to Charles Dickens. And then I moved them to Miles Standish over there across town. Then Hamilton and John Adams.
Ava Carubia [00:17:58] Okay.
Felescia Jordan [00:17:58] Okay. Yeah, that’s what. Yeah, I had to think about that. I’m getting old. I’m 67 years old now.
Ava Carubia [00:18:03] And there’s three of them. Yeah. You talked a little bit about how the Thea Bowman center has kind of been here and been giving service a long time. And you talked about how the neighborhood’s changed. I’m wondering how the neighborhood has stayed the same despite all these changes.
Felescia Jordan [00:18:19] Yeah. Really have. The same thing is that the center is still here. This is still here. But we have grown. Okay. It’s not nothing like it was before. Okay. Like I said, they still have hot meals and stuff. But we have GED classes here. We have community here. I mean, what’s it called? Computer classes here. Okay. They have hot meals here. They have yoga, [unclear] programs. They even have people come in for NA meetings and stuff up here. And it’s just open up to the community. And we have built from the food pantry from one little room to a great big old room, great big old room. And people come to them every Saturday. We even have a market out here where you come get you some clothes and clothes and stuff. Back in the day, they had nice clothes. But these are really, really nice stuff. I mean, people be here left and right, right and left. On Saturday, it’d be packed in that marketplace and it’s so peaceful. But we have some people out here they want to take over. We won’t let them. We’re trying to keep this a decent area for us. We want it to grow like up in Shaker and stuff. Okay. That’s what we trying to do. We trying to get our community back together like it used to be. Let everybody come together and stop taking, stealing and abandoning one another, especially with the kids. That’s one thing we really need to do, is focus on our children, our children out here killing one another. Stealing. Know why they doing it? Because they see us doing it. So we need to just come together and just let them know we’re not supposed to be like this. Just be humble with one another. But I know it ain’t gonna happen. But I wish it could. Okay. Okay, what else?
Ava Carubia [00:20:03] Well, I feel like you kind of have started going this direction, but I’m wondering what message you’d like to leave for future generations.
Felescia Jordan [00:20:10] I just want everybody just to get along and be as one. And God Bless America. Just stop all this stealing, killing, drugs. Just try to do the right thing. Because I want to go to heaven and see my family. Okay. That’s all I got to say.
Ava Carubia [00:20:27] Well, those are all my questions I have for you. Honestly, you ran through them pretty fast.
Felescia Jordan [00:20:33] I talk fast anyway.
Ava Carubia [00:20:34] Yeah, no, but that’s great. Do you have anything else that you want to add?
Felescia Jordan [00:20:38] I just want to say, God Bless America. Thank you. And I want you. I want you to see. I know she can’t come in, but I just want you to see one thing. I just. I just love her so much.
Ava Carubia [00:20:49] Okay, well, I’m going to end this recording because it can’t pick up the phone. All right.
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