Abstract
In this 2012 interview, Thelma Tucker describes her childhood live experiences that will eventually lead her the Shaker community. Originally raised in New York City, she was the daughter of Norwegian immigrants who valued education at a young age. She describes the racial discrimination she witnessed as a child, and how her Scandinavian background always viewed race as a non-issue. Working in Ghana after marriage, she then attended church before making her way to Shaker in the 1960s. She goes on to explain her feelings about Shaker schools, American education, and the integration during the turbulent 1960s. Mrs. Tucker ends with thoughts about the Shaker community today.
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Interviewee
Tucker, Thelma (Interviewee)
Interviewer
Halligan-Taylor, Gabriella (interviewer)
Project
Shaker Heights Centennial
Date
6-26-2012
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
63 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Thelma Tucker Interview, 26 June 2012" (2012). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 915016.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/500
Transcript
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:00] Let’s just start off with, what’s your name? [crosstalk]
Thelma Tucker [00:00:04] Thelma Tucker.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:06] And where did you grow up?
Thelma Tucker [00:00:08] I grew up- I was born in Brooklyn, but grew up in Bayside, Queens from the age of 4 on.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:16] Where did you grow up in Brooklyn?
Thelma Tucker [00:00:18] Bay Ridge. My parents were immigrants from Norway, and that was a Norwegian ghetto in the ’30s.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:26] I live in Parma, so that’s kind of more my area.
Thelma Tucker [00:00:31] Right.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:32] When did you move to Shaker?
Thelma Tucker [00:00:34] We moved. Well, I knew about Shaker and was involved here from ’61 on. My husband and I were teaching in West Africa. My husband was teaching at an extension school of London University. He was doing mechanical engineering teaching. And in ’61 we moved to Cleveland. He was doing graduate work at Case, and when we did that, we joined a church in Hough. Do you know where Hough is? It was the big Black ghetto in Cleveland.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:10] That’s where the riots were, right?
Themla Tucker [00:01:11] Yes. So in ’61 we joined Calvary Presbyterian Church, which was on Euclid Avenue, East 79th Street. Okay. And when I was there, I met a couple who were in early, had just moved in, like, two years previously into the Ludlow area of Shaker. And they told us about what they were trying to accomplish in Ludlow and invited us to house parties. They were trying, trying to recruit white families to move in. So that’s when I got introduced to Shaker Heights. We didn’t actually move into Shaker until ’64.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:58] Who was the couple that-
Thelma Tucker [00:02:00] Okay. Janet and Charles Russell. When he graduated from Harvard Law School, he got a job with Thompson, Hine [and] Flory here in Cleveland. And at that point, they already had three children. So she told me that there was somebody, although he was fresh out of law school, there was a white family in Ludlow that was selling, and they were desperate to sell to whites. And so they got a very good buy on the house in Ludlow and they bought it. So then they were very involved with the Ludlow Association.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:02:36] In Brooklyn. Did you have school in Brooklyn?
Thelma Tucker [00:02:41] I started in Brooklyn because it was the Depression and teachers were having a hard time holding onto their jobs if your class level dropped. So the kindergarten teacher came door to door in the neighborhood recruiting kids. My mother had just had was pregnant. She was going to have a third child, and I was the oldest. And the woman I know, the teacher, my mother told me, the teacher said, I will buy shoes for your child if that’s what’s keeping her from kindergarten, because if I don’t get a certain number, I’m going to lose my job. And, well, my mother could afford the shoes and she said she would send me. So I started kindergarten before I was four years Old because the woman was desperate for students. And my mother was glad to get me out of the house. So I went to a public school in Brooklyn for one year of kindergarten. Then we moved to Bayside and I had another year of kindergarten and then went on in public school.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:03:45] Where did you go to elementary school?
Thelma Tucker [00:03:48] In Bayside
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:03:52] And did you go to college?
Thelma Tucker [00:03:54] Yes, I went to a branch of the City College of New York called Queens College.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:03:57] New York City?
Thelma Tucker [00:04:00] Mm hm.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:04:03] And then did you meet your husband there?
Thelma Tucker [00:04:05] No, my husband was a student at Columbia, but we met on some college weekend.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:04:16] How long did you live in West Africa?
Thelma Tucker [00:04:17] Three years.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:04:18] Did you have any children there?
Thelma Tucker [00:04:19] My first child was born there in ’59. We went in ’58.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:04:26] And kind of living in Africa, did that kind of affect your view of immigration?
Thelma Tucker [00:04:33] Actually, I had been already influenced. My parents had no race feeling. They came from Scandinavia and Norway. And in fact, that was one of the things. My parents were very pro-American, but they said they one thing they could not tolerate was American attitude toward race. So I grew up with that in my home. And then when I was in high school, I had an English teacher who asked me to attend if I would be interested in attending a NAACP meeting. So that was my sophomore year of high school and I said yes. So I went with her. And that was really an important meeting in my life because I went into the room and there was a Black minister and two black school teachers. My high school teacher, who was a white Quaker, and myself and another student. And that was the NAACP for all of Queens County. That’s all that were there at that meeting. This is in the 1940s. And the big issue was trying to get the local Y to admit in Africa. Well, they called them black in those days, or Negro. I can’t even remember. It was probably Negro. Get a student in the summer school, in the summer camp program and the Y would not accept any Black students. And I was shocked. I had no idea. I remember I went home and I told my parents, this is an outrage. Do you realize that the black kids, there’s no swimming pool open to them and the Y won’t let them in the summer camping day camp program. And my parents agreed that it wasn’t right. But I’m just saying that just really floored me. I had no idea until then what race relations were like in the U.S. because my community, it was interesting. I lived in Bayside, which tended. It was a very middle-class area with some upper-class people in it, very white. But we had a small enclave of Black families. And they were middle-class people, not professional, but bus drivers. I had decent jobs. And in elementary school there was one Black boy in the class, in my class. And there was, you know, I would say in the elementary school altogether, there were maybe eight Black kids. And I never thought anything about that. We had one Chinese family and that Black family. And going through elementary school, I did not realize that this was unusual. And I didn’t think about the fact how many whites, Blacks, that was it. That was the way it was.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:07:46] So you were kind of unaware of this kind of racial tension going on then?
Thelma Tucker [00:07:53] Then, in elementary school? Yes. Well, you have to know the Second World War was the big issue when I was in elementary school. I mean, all the concern was about the Nazis and the Japs and I mean, I- Yeah, right. That was the issue. What was happening in America?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:08:16] Yeah, yeah. More abroad.
Thelma Tucker [00:08:17] Well, the war- Everything was the war. I know we were very, you know, this little- This Chinese family, Jaylene was in my class. And my mother told me about this, that there was discrimination against that family because they were Chinese, which our family thought was just terrible. And so we, you know, my mother went out of her way to be friendly to that family. And I always felt I should- I liked the girl anyway, but to be extra friendly to her, that it was terrible to discriminate that way. And the Holmes boy, who was Black, sat behind me, and I was always very friendly. Also, I found out from my parents that they bought a house. When they bought the house, no Jews were allowed to live in the neighborhood. So after the war, a Jewish doctor called our house and he wanted to buy a house. We were in a corner house, and it was going to be at a diagonal across the street. And he asked my father if we would object to having a Jewish family. And my father said, not at all. He says, if you want to come, you’re going to improve the neighborhood. So that was his reaction. And he just- I remember when he hung up the phone, he was just astounded that this guy felt he should call and ask. So that was my parents. You know, I must say, I grew up in that kind of home. And so for me, it was not an issue.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:09:57] So when you learned about Shaker in ’61, was that. Were you shocked there or were you just kind of- Did you want to just- [inaudible]
Thelma Tucker [00:10:06] Well, I wasn’t shocked because, okay, we’d been in West Africa for three years. And when my husband and I came back to the States, it was obvious to us that something would have to be done about the racial situation in America. It was not going to continue. We could tell- I mean, the African countries, we went to Ghana right after they got independence. And we knew people on the faculty, Africans who had degrees from, from Oxford and Cambridge were very, very capable and very sensitive to what was going on in the States. So it was obvious to us, this can’t continue. This is going to have to change. And that was one of the reasons we joined the church in Hough. And there were other white families there, but it was primarily Black. And we thought we had to do something in the area of race relations. So the church had a big ministry to children in Hough. Now the kids in Hough were from really poor families, a lot of single-parent homes. And so the church had a very active program trying to help those kids. And so we were involved in that.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:11:19] So when you heard about Shaker from the Russells, it was perfect timing then, right?
Thelma Tucker [00:11:25] Oh, well, it was all part of this whole- Because they were in the church for the same reason we were. And therefore they felt we would be happy we belonged in a place like Shaker. And we saw Shaker as, my goodness, wonderful schools, wonderful houses. You know, what wasn’t there to like about Shaker? Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:11:51] In ’64 was- Were you involved in one of the community-
Thelma Tucker [00:11:55] No. What happened in ’64. We looked at houses there. I think only three or four houses in Shaker we could afford at that time. And we were a young family, we didn’t have that much money. And there was a house on Aberdeen Road and there was an African American family. It was Tommy and Irving Mason. He was the brother of the Mason that helped, was so active in Ludlow. Well, they had moved into the street the year before and there had been a big problem because I think five or six families had banded together and raised money to buy the house from underneath the Masons. Well, the Masons got the house and then they turned around- The NAACP sued those families. So there was a lot of tension on the street and there was a lot of concern that when that next house came up for sale, which was our house, would a white family buy it or would it go to another Black family? So we bought it. But then people were kind of nervous because we belonged to a church in Hough and we lived in Africa. And we were not exactly the typical Shakerites. But my husband came from an Ivy League background and his father was an admiral in the Navy. And that sort of thought, okay, even though we’re a little strange, we probably are the right kind of people.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:13:28] So was even with white and Black, was there that kind of, like, classist, I guess?
Thelma Tucker [00:13:34] I would say that the bigger problem was class rather than race, and that that is just a continuing issue.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:13:43] And Shaker?
Thelma Tucker [00:13:44] Everywhere.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:13:49] So this kind of class issue did that. How did that kind of- I think that’s probably has a lot to do with the history of Shaker as a whole, you know. Did you know about that kind of going in there?
Thelma Tucker [00:14:03] Oh, yeah, Because I grew up in a community. I told you they wouldn’t sell to Jews. When my parents bought their house in 1940, Jews were not allowed. That didn’t change until after the Second World War.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:14:19] Right. And did you know anything about this kind of elitist attitude in Shaker specifically?
Thelma Tucker [00:14:26] No, I would say that I experienced that growing up in New York City, and that did not surprise me.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:14:34] So you were kinda used to it?
Thelma Tucker [00:14:36] Yeah. And in fact, in the ’60s, you got this immense reaction that elitism was terrible. And I still have questions about why is it so terrible?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:14:56] Well I heard a lot, a lot from doing these oratory projects that you know, elitist attitude. And I took that from Zoe. I didn’t make that up. Kind of helped Shaker thrive, you know, as far as schooling goes.
Thelma Tucker [00:15:10] Oh, yes. Well, that’s why I question, is it so bad because I benefited from it. My parents were immigrants. They didn’t have much money. But because I was a very good student, I was put into the honors. I was always tracked with gifted children and put into an honors track. In my high school, I was the only kid in the honors track whose parents were immigrants. All the others were professional people. But I got a better education because I tested well and therefore I got a good education. And I think that we lose out when we put every. Say, you can’t give a superior education to people who can. Who can use that. But I think, you know, there’s been a lot of confusion in the educational system, I would say, from the ’70s on, and it has not. The schools have not benefited from that.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:16:10] Can everybody paint everybody in the same class?
Thelma Tucker [00:16:13] Well, trying, you know, saying, oh, that’s elitist. You know, you can’t track kids. Everybody’s got to be together. The reality is that some people’s gift is academic. Some people’s gift is they have terrific personalities. They’re really people people, and they’re geniuses in helping people to get along. Some people are very athletic, and some people are very musical. I don’t see anything wrong with accepting that and letting people shine where they are able to shine. So that’s. But I think that’s considered Elitist and. Okay. Yeah, so I question that. I think what is bad is if you prevent people from operating at their top capacity and developing their skills and abilities. That’s always wrong. If you do it because of race or religion or whatever that I say is wrong. But I don’t see anything wrong with acknowledging that some people are more talented in one area than another and letting them prosper.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:17:26] Right. So when you moved to Shaker with your kids, did that elitist attitude hold and were you proud to kind of have your kids go into the Shaker school system?
Thelma Tucker [00:17:40] Oh, okay. I was pleased to be a part of Shaker for a number of reasons. I think these is an absolutely beautiful community. I really appreciate the architecture, all the trees, Horseshoe Lake, the lakes. It was well planned. Very pleased to be part of that. I never fed into nor did I belong- I was never invited to be the Junior League. I was not. I didn’t have the lineage to be in the Junior League. Did that make me uncomfortable? A little bit when I was with Junior Leaguers. But, you know, it was never a big issue with me. Okay. That was just because I knew that in an academic sense, I was their equal. Okay. And same thing. Somebody’s very musical. I’m not musical, but I have my own talent in another place. So my kids did very well in the Shaker schools. And yeah, I mean, I think that we felt Shaker was a very good place for our family.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:18:54] And when you moved officially in ’64, was the race tension? I might be branching a little bit if that matters. But was the race tension still there you mentioned?
Thelma Tucker [00:19:07] Oh, yes.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:19:08] NAACP sued the Masons.
Thelma Tucker [00:19:10] Yeah. No, not didn’t sue the Masons. They sued the neighbors who tried to keep the Masons out. Yeah, there was race tension. Racial tension. Every time a house came up for sale, there was always some tension as to who would buy it. And I will say that the house on either side of me eventually sold to Black families. And they were lower-class Black families. They were not well-educated people. And I have to be honest, I wasn’t pleased about that. I didn’t try to stop it and I didn’t talk about it to my neighbors. But if I’m honest, I preferred having people who had similar goals to mine and read similar books and, you know, they were more like us. Now the Masons are still on Aberdeen and I still know Tommy Mason and talk with her. And then I had Black friends from Ludlow because of my connection with the Russells. But the two families that moved in, they did not Want to associate with the other people in the neighborhood. I went over and brought food and what you do with a new neighbor and greeted them and very cold reception. Did not want to have any interaction with the other people in the neighborhood. That’s one of the things I liked about Shaker generally, is most people here feel a commitment to the community and they volunteer and they see themselves as responsible for keeping this a good place to raise a family, which means you feed into it. Those two families felt no obligation to participate in any way. And that makes a difference in the community. Now, that neighbor, that particular street. I don’t know if any other Black families ever moved on, to tell you the truth, because about that time we moved. But I have to tell you, we were among the first 30 people that volunteered our kids to integrate Moreland School. And that was in the ’60s. And what happened was when they were talking about integration in America, then they looked at Shaker and they said, almost all the Black kids are in Moreland School. And I don’t know how many Black kids were in Ludlow and some in Lomond, but that was it. So they were going to try to spread the African American students throughout the community so that all of the schools would have some African American students and that Moreland would have white students. But then they didn’t know. There was a lot of, oh, my goodness. That caused an uproar. And that’s one thing I will say about living in Shaker. It took a lot of energy because there was constant debate about all kinds of issues and everything going on politically and race, etc. And I remember going to a number of very heated meetings about integration and Shaker. And I was really upset because there was such a strong reaction from the community. They didn’t want that. They did not want to spread bring African American kids into all the schools. And that really upset me. So when they decided to make integration voluntary, somebody called us. In fact, it was Carl Hess. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. He was a pediatrician. He called us and asked us if we’d be willing to have our children integrated. And at that time, I had three children in schools. My fourth child hadn’t been born yet. I said I would send the two girls. My son had a lot of social problems. I shouldn’t say a lot of social- He was just a very shy kid. He didn’t make friends easily. And I thought, I can’t pull him out of his class. It’d be too hard for him. So the two girls went to Moreland, and Vivian was in first grade and Annette was in sixth. So we were. I think there were 30 families altogether that volunteered, and we were one of those 30 families. And then some of my neighbors were upset with me for doing that because they really felt that everybody should have held a firm line and said, no, you know, keep the African Americans where they are and keep the other schools. Because there was a fear that the schools would deteriorate.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:23:48] So even though there was such an effort to integrate the neighborhoods, there was still attention for the schools? Or was it kind of the same people?
Thelma Tucker [00:23:58] Well, the thing is, you have to know that the people that were moving in in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s knew they were moving into an integrated neighborhood. The people that had moved in before that did not know they were going to move into an integrated neighborhood and they didn’t want it.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:24:16] The people who moved in the ’40s, ’50s and prior?
Thelma Tucker [00:24:18] Yes, yes. And the ’30s. And there were people there from the ’20s and the ’30s. Yes, yes. So that. Yeah, people are on different, you know, and people had a different vision of what they wanted in the schools. And the reality is, now, I’m quoting an African American friend of mine, Emily Franklin, who lived in Ludlow, and I remember her arguing with her husband and saying, you have to be honest, Irv. She said, the African American students don’t do as well as the white students in school. And most of them don’t. So it was affecting the schools.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:04] Was that more of a race issue or a class issue?
Thelma Tucker [00:25:08] I would say class. Very few African Americans had had an opportunity to get a really good education. And I know that. So, you know, that was an issue. But that’s- That is part of it. The other part is the culture is not geared to education. It’s more geared to being very, very supportive of your family, very supportive of people in your church, in your community. They’re very people-centered.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:50] It’s not a bad value.
Thelma Tucker [00:25:52] No, but I’m just saying when it comes to school, they didn’t read as much as home. There wasn’t the emphasis on education in the home.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:26:02] And I think that’s probably a lot of, like you said, culturally and historically too.
Thelma Tucker [00:26:06] Yes, because I never thought it was race because I knew these people in Ghana who were graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, very polished, very well educated, very bright. So to me, it was never race. It was always culture.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:26:26] Culture in America.
Thelma Tucker [00:26:27] Yeah. Right. And in fact, I argued with people in the school system. I didn’t. When they. African first started in, let’s see, the late ’60s, getting more and more African Americans coming into the community from the city of Cleveland. I was trying to tell them, hold your standards high and have these kids move up to that. But they felt that that was discriminatory, that you should bring things down a bit so that it was more comfortable for the black students. And to this day, I think that was a mistake.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:27:03] Did your children have a good experience at Moreland?
Thelma Tucker [00:27:04] The two girls? Yes.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:27:08] And did your son stay?
Thelma Tucker [00:27:11] He was- He stayed in Onaway. And then when we- Okay, I’m trying to think. We moved- Yeah. When he was starting junior high, we moved to Torrington Road, which is in the Malvern district. And then the kid that was in Moreland, see, she could- When we lived on Aberdeen, the kids could walk to Moreland. That was one of the reasons I did it, too. The kids could walk over. It’s just across Van Aken. When we moved up to Torrington, I had the- By then I had four children and they were- Everybody was in a different school. And I just had them go to the schools where they belonged, so I didn’t have to drive.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:28:01] Right.
Thelma Tucker [00:28:01] You know. Yeah. Simple. And we had enough on our hands at that point.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:28:08] Kind of- You mentioned kind of like this downgrading with the integration project in schools. Does that kind of continue, do you think? Of Shaker?
Thelma Tucker [00:28:19] Well, I think it was not just Shaker, it was the whole country. And the test scores, you know, national test scores, show it. I was a mathematics and chemistry teacher, and I know what the textbooks were like in the ’60s. And in fact, I taught one year in the Shaker schools. And then they decided it was too tough on the kids, and they got rid of the really tough books and got other books. And there was a lot of discussion over whether or not it was right to have any tracking because the tracking tended to segregate. And there was. I remember. I don’t know how many meetings I was at or things like this were being discussed. And then the year, as I said, I taught in Shaker, one year, and I was, you know, and people called me an elitist because I felt that they should keep the high standards and just let the kids that could reach those standards come in. And if kids weren’t doing the work, they should flunk. And that was not politically correct.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:29:40] So was there not kind of an honor system then?
Thelma Tucker [00:29:44] You mean honors kids? Oh, yes, they did. They had it. But I’m just telling you, there was a struggle in that. And actually, what I did, there was an African American family I knew from. She was. They were in the Onaway School District, where we were. That’s where we lived. And her dad died. It was an African American girl. Her dad died. He had been a physician. And she was told she wasn’t eligible for algebra. And I guess it was the eighth grade. I don’t know. I can’t remember now. It was 8th or 9th grade. That she was not a strong enough math student. And her mother told me about it. She was upset, and I said, you tell her, take the class. I will tutor her. And I did. And she went through, and she did very well. And the teacher apologized to her at the end of the year, and he said, you obviously did very well in algebra. So when I say this, it’s not- I really- I feel strongly about pushing kids to achieve, having them do the work and if they’re a little behind and work harder to achieve it, not say, oh, they can’t do it, and give them something else. But anyway, I don’t think it’s just Shaker. I think it’s all over the country.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:31:07] If they never try, they never will.
Thelma Tucker [00:31:09] I mean, less was demanded of kids from the ’70s on. It was more making kids comfortable and happy in school. And Shaker was part of that.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:31:21] Were you kinda disappointed about all that?
Thelma Tucker [00:31:22] A little bit. Frustrated, I would say. But I was busy. I was offered a job. They called me and recruited me. I only taught that one year in Shaker. And then I stayed home because my fourth baby was born. And then I went and I taught at the two private schools, Hathaway Brown and Laurel. So I wasn’t part of the Shaker public schools. My own children went through the accelerated classes in high school. But, you know, they were annoyed by the kids who didn’t want to learn, who were causing trouble in the classroom and in the halls. Yeah, that annoyed them. And my oldest child, the one who was born in Ghana and who went to Moreland as part of that voluntary program, she’s now president of the school board. So she lives here and raised her kids here. But I have two kids that said it was not a good experience and they would not want their children in that environment because they. My one son was bullied, and the daughter just remembers a lot of people, a lot of horsing around and distracting stuff that took away from studies. So kids are different. You know, what they can handle, what bothers them.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:32:54] So were your kids- Obviously, then at least one of them was in a school district in Shaker during the ’70s.
Thelma Tucker [00:33:02] They were all. All my kids were.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:33:06] That’s when you had the two kids kind of have that negative reaction to the changes?
Thelma Tucker [00:33:12] Yeah, well, you know what? I don’t know if it would have been because of the changes. I would say that the changes that were taking place in all American schools where there was less discipline. Yeah, that, you know, I don’t think it was integration so much as less discipline in the schools.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:33:38] You know, that’s kind of continued today.
Thelma Tucker [00:33:42] You know, it’s hard for me to say. My daughter who is on the school board says that things are better than they were when she was in school. I mean, she came home and told. Told me that there were bathrooms she could not use in the high school because she was afraid to go in them. That bothered me. That should not happen. I went to a big high school in New York City and I felt safe in any part of that building, and that’s the way it should be. But was that peculiar to Shaker? I don’t think so. One of the things, I’ll say as a plus, I felt that the values of parents in Shaker, on the whole were better than the values of parents in many of the suburbs. And that pleased me. I think the parents in Shaker were less materialistic because the people that were very concerned about property values and material things tended to move out of Shaker. A lot of them moved out in the late ’60s and ’70s, and they were mostly the very status conscious people. So I was pleased with that. And in fact, a Jewish mother, I remember her saying to me, you know, if you’re very selfish, you won’t move into Shaker because you have to be concerned about other kids. And I didn’t think of that until she said it. And then I thought, you know, I think that’s probably right. So that part I felt very good about. But you have to know how turbulent the ’60s were everywhere.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:35:20] Right, not just Shaker.
Thelma Tucker [00:35:21] Yes, everywhere in the country, but Cleveland in particular, because we had, aside from the Vietnam conflict and all of that trouble, we had the race struggle. And I just remember being asked to sign petitions, seems to me almost weekly, about some issue or another. Gun control, boycotting lettuce, boycotting grapes, you know, because of, you know, the stuff that was going on with farm workers. It was just continual.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:36:02] I spoke to Emily Barnett not too long ago, and she mentioned that there were some ambassadors that came from Africa to shaker in the ’60s. Do you remember anything about that?
Thelma Tucker [00:36:15] You know, we entertained. I didn’t know he wasn’t an ambassador, but we entertained the cabinet member who was in charge of education for Ghana, in our home, because they knew we had been in Ghana. And it was interesting to me. He said in looking at the schools, they didn’t want these schools in Ghana to be like the American schools, for one thing. He said, we want a Christian emphasis in our schools. He said, this atheism is not good for kids. And then so he saw he wanted more discipline. I remember that was interesting. That was his comment that the behavior of the kids bothered him. But we had a good time together. But that was the only thing that I remember from the conversation where he was critical.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:37:13] Were there any other kind of events throughout ’60s, ’70s, ’80s that do you remember being big?
Thelma Tucker [00:37:20] Well, you know, you have to remember. I try to tell people this. I was busy with. When we came into Shaker. My oldest child was 6, and I had 24 years of PTA because when she was 12, I had my fourth child. So I was busy, busy, busy with children. The Vietnam, okay, civil rights. That was the biggest thing, civil rights. I remember when the police station blew up and a lot of people, our first thought was the Black Panthers, that they had done that. My son, who at the time was maybe five years old, he was standing on Fernway, across the street from the psychiatrist who was being shot by the guy who later went and bombed the police station. I remember he came home and he was trying to tell me, and I was so worn out, I just didn’t want to listen, that a man had shot somebody down on Fernway. And then I was sort of trying to take that in. And the next thing I heard was sirens all over the place. And that was because the police station had blown up. And you know, that same guy who had shot. You know about this whole business, don’t you? Yeah. So anyway, I remember that that was a big event in Shaker. I have to think what were the big events. The things I really remember really, was wonderful neighbors. We had lots of picnics together. There was a very strong sense of community. The mothers all were at home because you had to be at home in those days. There was no lunch program. The kids came home for lunch. And I saw the women in my neighborhood daily. We were outside with our children, playing, working in our gardens. And a very, very, very, very supportive community. And everything centered around in those days before they did do the integration in Shaker, which eventually they did do. Everything centered on the community, neighborhood, school. There were potlucks. The PTA was very active. And you got to know the whole neighborhood at the school. And that’s, if you ask me, that’s what I remember most. And that was very good. And that’s another thing that changed when my daughter, I was babysitting for her, I have to think it was in the ’90s, late ’90s. And she said, mom, I want you to go to the PTO. It was then called the PTO meeting. She and her husband were out of town. She says, there’s a potluck Tuesday night. I want you to go to that. And I said, okay. And I went. And there was a table of about 12 people sitting. And I was the only one at the table born in the USA. And that told me a lot about the changes in Shaker that people from all over the world were coming into. A lot of them were physicians at Cleveland Clinic or else they were visiting teachers at CSU or Case. And so Shaker, in some ways isn’t that different from the rest of America. Globalization had changed, changed everything. When I moved into Shaker, it was very, very comfortable for me coming from the east coast. There were a lot of people in Shaker from the east coast or had gone to school on the east coast, so. But then it was a big change.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:41:28] Right. You mentioned before kind of how you knew about the aesthetics of Shaker. Kind of. You knew you loved the trees and the houses. Can you talk a little bit more about. You mentioned art, architecture, maybe a little about that. Like, what was it? I’m not from Shaker.
Thelma Tucker [00:41:46] Oh, okay. There is a- I’m trying to think. It’s- I think it’s called the Garden City concept, which came from Great Britain. In fact, when we, because of our time in Ghana, we had a number of British friends because the faculty was mostly British at that university. And one of the fellows was a town planner from Great Britain and two others were architects. And when I told them about Shaker, they said, ah, the Garden City concept. So that whole idea of the planned community. And that’s why when the Van Sweringens planned Shaker, all of the streets are named for British towns. And they limited- You had to have a house designed by an architect. But they limited, I don’t know, five or six styles that you could use. So Georgian, you know, Tudor, there were a number of styles. So there’s a symmetry in the neighborhoods. And although every house is distinctive, they go well together. It’s not jarring. And so that’s- It’s just aesthetically very pleasing to look at. And then the fact that there are so many trees, I happen to love trees, so that was important to me. And people obviously took, well you know, the homes were well cared for, which, again, I liked. I don’t know what else you want to know. [cross-talk] Well, you know, I went into our first house, which was a modest starter house that we bought on Aberdeen. It was a white frame house, but had two fireplaces, a fireplace in the living room and a fireplace in the master bedroom. Beautiful molding. I love wood floors because at that time, you have to know, a lot of the houses, they had carpeting throughout, and I never wanted that. I wanted the wood floors and I liked all the wood. Beautiful wood in the houses.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:44:03] Do you think the houses are made the same today compared to what they were made back then?
Thelma Tucker [00:44:07] Oh, never, never, because you can’t afford to build them that way anymore. There isn’t a money. That was a particular. I would have to say. The house my parents bought in New York City was built in the late ’30s. And that was built the way the Shaker houses were built. Plaster walls, beautiful wood floors, a great deal of attention to detail. And so, you know, that’s what I liked. And my husband had grown up in a house like that, too, so we wanted that. But no, you don’t get that in a new house. You can pay a million dollars today and you will not get that kind of detail and all that wood in a house. Well, they just don’t have the craftsmanship, and it’s too expensive. They can’t do it.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:45:04] I think it’s more so like, just more industrial now rather than-
Thelma Tucker [00:45:08] What do you mean industrial?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:45:09] Like kind of industrial kind of mass production versus actual craftsmanship.
Thelma Tucker [00:45:16] Well, I guess that’s it. I just remember the revolution after the Second World War with Levitt in Levittown, where they were able to put up 1,000 houses that were basically the same, but because they were that way, people were, you know, the GIs could buy a house for $7,000, whereas the house my parents had bought at that time was like $12,000. And so these young families could move into those houses, and it was a boon for them. And, you know, they figured out how to cut the cost. But one of the big things was labor costs rose astronomically. And that’s what- That’s the biggest factor is the labor. I don’t know if the people that built houses were unionized back then. They may not have been. You know, so that they didn’t- So that-
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:46:14] I think that was a little bit later the union revolution.
Thelma Tucker [00:46:16] Well, they had unions in the ’20s, but I’m thinking of the carpenters and the plumbers I just know that labor costs rose so dramatically that that is a big, big factor then in houses. And now, of course, wood is scarce. So. Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:46:35] Were there any kind of Levittown places in Cleveland?
Thelma Tucker [00:46:40] Oh yeah, not Levittown because that’s enormous and that’s- You need a big population. But you have, well, Shakerwood in Warrensville Center where you- Just outside of Shaker. I don’t know what you have in Parma, but I would say if you had houses built in the ’50s and ’60s, they called them developments and the houses are very similar, maybe two or three models so that you can keep costs down. And that made it possible for many more people to own their own home, which is a good thing.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:47:23] There’s a lot of kind of developments in Parma. The one I’m thinking of is probably Sassafras Estates.
Thelma Tucker [00:47:31] I have never been to Parma.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:47:33] You’ve never been to Parma? Oh wow, it’s weird borderline.
Thelma Tucker [00:47:34] Well, the thing is that my parents lived in New York City and my in laws lived in Florida. And so we were either anytime we had a vacation we were going there or later we took the kids out west. And I never explored the Ohio. It’s bad. But that’s a very New Yorkish attitude, right?
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:48:04] Yeah. Gotta stay in your neighborhood, never cross the river?
Thelma Tucker [00:48:10] Well, yeah, I only cross the river for the airport and the zoo. So I was typical that way.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:48:17] Kind of going through later, a little bit later. Kind of going through age. I use now how has you mentioned education system, but how else has kind of Shaker changed? Has it changed?
Thelma Tucker [00:48:30] Oh, well, I live now on Van Aken Boulevard. This shopping area has become a lower-class Black shopping center. Wig shop. I mean a place that buys- It’s like a- They don’t call it a pawn shop, but it’s equivalent. When I first moved here, we had a shoe store, a dress shop for middle-class people. I could do all my shopping right here. Yeah, because- Yeah. And that’s- There’s a strip there. There was a good bookstore with stationery. But you see, the thing is now OfficeMax does that. I mean the economy has changed so dramatically. You know, it’s- Yeah. I could say again, I guess that Shaker is really a reflection of a lot of, you know, what’s happening here is happening in lots of places. But I don’t what happened. Okay. The shopping area, it was interesting the way that happened. There was a movie theater on Lee Road about two streets down from Van Aken, from Chagrin. And they started bringing in films that were attractive to inner-city Blacks, not to the people who lived in Shaker at that time. There were two movie theaters in Shaker. There was one at the other shopping center up there, this one, and that brought a lot of people in who did not live here. And this disturbed the people in Shaker. And they tried to talk to the man. Finally they bought the theater away from him, but the damage was done. The people coming in were looking for places to shop and do other things while they went to the movies. And because of that, there were a number of businesses that opened up that catered to that inner-city black crowd that came in. They were not like the African American families that had originally moved into Shaker and that just continued to grow. And now there are times I’m the only white person in a store there. So I would say that’s a big change. Of course, the schools- I don’t know how many Blacks were in the schools when we first moved into Shaker. I don’t even know that statistic. But it was maybe, I don’t know, but definitely well below 50%. And now I believe it’s more than 50% African American students. And a lot of them live in section 8 housing. I now volunteer up at Byron one day a week after school with kids that need help for homework because there are a lot of kids that need help.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:51:52] Right. Do you think that’s a kind of a modern problem, is that we have to- Kids aren’t really pushed anymore. Do you think like tutoring has an effect on that? Because if people, kids can’t do it by themselves then they just kind of give up?
Thelma Tucker [00:52:05] You know, I think the biggest problem is a single-parent home. This is what I see as the big problem, that if the mother has to support the family, she’s holding down sometimes two jobs in order to support the family. She doesn’t have the time or the energy to sit and read with them, to talk with them about what’s going on. The lack of a father in the home for the boys is really bad. But I think that that’s the biggest factor. And I know for a fact that there are all kinds of programs offered in the Shaker schools that people, that the kids do not take advantage of and nobody forces them to, the parents don’t do it. That would help them to move up and achieve. So. And I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you how many of the students from single-parent homes are African American and how many are white. I know that it’s a problem in both areas, you know, both communities, but I do know that those kids have more trouble in school. They definitely do.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:53:27] Which is all related to the divorce rate, too?
Thelma Tucker [00:53:31] Well, yeah. Single parents. Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:53:34] Have you ever been to Shaker Square?
Thelma Tucker [00:53:39] Oh, yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:53:42] Is it still- I’ve- I only went and passed through there.
Thelma Tucker [00:53:46] I’ve gone to Shaker Square forever. When we first went there, when I first came, we had two or three very nice department stores up at Shaker Square. It has struggled, I would say, from the ’70s on. And in fact, they used- For a long time they had a benefit called A Very Square Affair. And some of my friends ran it. They were in charge and I participated. I was the treasurer one year and that sort of thing, raising money to try to enhance that area. And most of the friends that were involved in that have gone. They’ve left and moved out to Chagrin Falls or something. They just got tired and worn out. A lot of the kids in the Shaker schools who come around from Section 8 housing come from the Shaker Square area. Also, though, at Shaker Square you have Moreland Courts. Very sophisticated people, very expensive apartments. It’s a real cross section. Yeah, I go up there to eat. We were up at Larchmere just two weeks ago having dinner and I used Loganberry Books up at Shaker. Yeah, I go to Shaker Square a lot and I’ve tried to support them as much as I can, the merchants there. I bought antiques in the antique stores. Yeah.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:55:20] Trace where the merchants are going somewhere else.
Thelma Tucker [00:55:25] In fact, when we first moved to Shaker and we were buying furniture, I bought most of my furniture. Sedlak’s was a big furniture store on Larchmere and he moved out to Solon, must be 20 years ago, but he was up there.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:55:48] We are running a little bit out of time. We got a couple more minutes. But what do you think is kind of the best way to solve the current issues and Shaker? In a broader sense, Cleveland. A broader sense of-
Thelma Tucker [00:55:58] The world? Well, I am a Christian and I guess the reason I am a Christian is that I really think that unless a person really is committed to serving other people, therefore serving their community and taking care of their family in a certain way, you’re going to have a lot of social problems and I don’t know how you’re going to try to fix them.
Thelma Tucker [00:56:33] I mean, I volunteer for three years. I went down to East Tech and volunteered down there. In fact, one year I was there five days a week volunteering. But it- It’s like putting patches on an old tire or something. I mean, it always doesn’t work very well. It’s the rare kid who comes from a very dysfunctional home who’s able to do well. Even if they achieve in school, they’re going to have trouble in their personal lives. If you’ve never been in a home that was loving and support, how are you a loving and supportive parent? These are things you learn. And so I think, you know, Shaker is trying very hard. I mean, so much money has been poured into the schools here trying to work with kids, and the problems persist. And that doesn’t mean you quit working and you quit. You know, I still try to help. So if a kid wants help, the help is there. But many people are not motivated. I guess the trouble they are dealing with in their homes day by day is so enormous that how can they worry about what’s going to happen next year or two years or three years down the road? So, you know.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:58:03] Even if you go from a functional home, I think just the attitude of the youth nowadays in America, the world is kind of very selfish and very materialistic.
Thelma Tucker [00:58:15] Well, I would say that that’s a continuing struggle, and I think that- But I wonder if it hasn’t always been. I don’t know.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:58:25] Right.
Thelma Tucker [00:58:25] Yeah, I think that. But the concept that, you know, it’s from Scripture, ‘him to whom much is given shall much be required.’ I was raised on that and my children were raised on that. That you owe the community. Nobody earns the brains they were born with. Nobody earns the good health they have. Nobody. You know, these things are given to you as a gift. And it behooves you then to use these gifts for the entire community, not just for yourself. And if you can recapture that, then you can start doing something.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:59:14] Do you have any final thoughts?
Thelma Tucker [00:59:15] I guess that is my final thought. I would say that many of the people that came into Shaker and stayed, and really stayed, had a spiritual base, Jewish or Christian, where they really felt that you owe people besides yourself something and that you should be concerned about how all children are developing, not just your own child.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:59:46] Right, ’cause all children are all going to school.
Thelma Tucker [00:59:49] Well, your children are going to grow up in the world with all these other children. You inherit the world together. And that, I think, was one of the good things about being in Shaker. But there are a lot of people here now who have no thought whatsoever for the community. And that’s destructive.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [01:00:21] The absence is destructive.
Thelma Tucker [01:00:24] Yeah, well, it is destructive because they don’t. In fact, that’s funny. I was crossing the street and there was a group of African American youths in front of me, and I wasn’t paying that much attention to them. And I guess one of the kids, some of the profanity that comes from them, I find very offensive. And some kid was saying something and another kid turned around and he said, madam, he said, does it bother you when people use that kind of language? And I said, yes, it does. He said, do you think it looks bad for Shaker for kids to be behaving like that? I said, yes, I do. He said, thank you, madam. I’m going to tell them. So I don’t know. Yeah, but that’s a change, the language. Oh, my goodness. You know, I didn’t think in terms.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [01:01:17] Well we are out of time. Any final stories that you want to mention?
Thelma Tucker [01:01:21] I thought I would wait. I didn’t plan anything. I thought I would just respond to your questions. I had no idea what you were going to ask. Let me think.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [01:01:40] Anything important you think should be recorded.
Thelma Tucker [01:01:47] I don’t know. Well, I came back. I was away for a while and came back to Shaker. As my sister says, I’ve lived long enough to see it all, from the Second World War through Afghanistan and stuff. We’re going.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [01:02:23] Yeah, I feel like your generation is. Because my grandma tells me and it’s kind of amazing because she was born in 1930s and she grew up during the Depression too. It’s amazing how much she has been through.
Thelma Tucker [01:02:36] Well, one of the things that coming from my era, you realize you don’t have to have a ton of money to be happy and have a decent life. And I think people have become obsessed. Obsessed with having to accumulate and to the detriment of relationships in their family and with other people. So I don’t know. That sounds- I don’t want to be a grouchy old person anyway. Right.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [01:03:05] Well, no, I understand.
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