Mrs. Sharlene experienced a poverty of wealth and of love in her early years. Despite it all, she found a way to raise her daughter differently, without ever forgetting where she came from.
Mrs. Sharlene experienced a poverty of wealth and of love in her early years. Despite it all, she found a way to raise her daughter differently, without ever forgetting where she came from.
(Soft piano music, with a beat that drops when narration begins)
Mrs. Sharlene: My name is Sharlene Pollard. I was born and raised in Old Churchland, Virginia.
Nichole Hill: Mrs. Sharlene has memories of living in ways that are very different to how she’s living today….
Mrs. Sharlene: The place I grew up in, it was called Broadway Street, which now y'all call Churchland Heights, that won't, that then. It was Old Churchland. I don't know the name it was when I was there. Born and raised. I don't know that name. It was a red clay dirt street. We had an old outhouse, and we had a pump, and we had a potbelly stove,
Nichole Hill: This was in the 1960s.
Mrs. Sharlene: In the bedroom on one side, me and my grandmama and my mother, on the other side was my two brothers. And that's how we slept. And at nighttime we used to use the, what you call the basin where we used to do our business in for the next day. And my grandmama, You know, old western Indian woman had this stuff that you put on top of it, a little lye to keep the smell down.
And we had this big old basin where we used to wash up in the morning.
My grandmama would make the soap for us. And after we would finish that, my grandmama would get up and cook us something to eat. It just was amazing how she would have the, the coal and the wood on one side, she would make the biscuits, and then she would have the, they call it Streak o’ Lean, streak o' fat, which was our bacon, and she would cook that for us in the morning time.
Nichole Hill: Then it was time for school. And that task had its own set of challenges.
Mrs. Sharlene: Back in the day, what y'all called the Jim Crow Law, We could not go to Churchland Elementary School. We would get on the bus from Churchland. They would take us all the way across the country, and we had to go to Southwestern Elementary School. So we will sleep going to school, sleep coming back.
Nichole Hill: By “Across the country” she means so far away it would be in what is now considered Chesapeake.
Mrs. Sharlene: We were poor, but we were so poor that we was rich in love that it wouldn't bother us because of how our grandmama used to make us feel.
Nichole Hill: Despite her grandmother’s best efforts to protect her from harm, the danger from racism was pervasive.
Mrs. Sharlene: I remember when my grandma took us downtown, To pay a bill, this white lady and her was friends. This too was friends. My grandmama had the bill in her hand.
My grandmama bill was one thing. When the white lady and this other lady got together, say if my grandmama bill was $20, this white lady took this other lady bill, and added on to my grandmama. Then my grandmama bill became to be something else.
We were so I call it 'or', because we was past poor. So it came to be a part of our growing up where you learn to enjoy what you have.
Nichole Hill: And if they didn’t have it, they got creative, like when they wanted to watch tv for example.
(Sound of an old TV turning on)
Mrs. Sharlene: When we went to Mr. Johnson store on Wednesday, we used to watch. The Three Stooges, Dark Shadow. I can't remember the other one, but it's everything that was in black and white. The old, old, old movies.
(Clip from 'The Three Stooges)
Nununununu. My favorite Stooge was Curly. Because I always used to get in trouble when my brother would do something, I'd go (Curly noise, then laughter)
You know, then I used to have to find laughter and stuff because then I grew up to be a tomboy when it would rain. We used to be Tarzan and Jane. We used to swim in the ditch, and then we used to find the viney tree, and we used to swing from the tree, and being that our house was on stilts, we used to say, the last one is a rotten egg, so we used to climb on top of the house, and we used to sit up there, and we used to just watch everybody come by, and then later on in the evening, we would go underneath the house, because the house was so cool,
So, Churchland has.--Bittersweet, but it was good.
(Soft chimes play with distortion)
But then when I, we got adopted, the lady that adopted her, she gave me stability. So that's what I got my, my foundation from to be strong.
So it's, it's emotional. I have to stop.
(Music ends)
My mother was a full pledged alcoholic. My father's wife told me when I first met her, do not come back to her house again, because I was not going to get child support.
Nichole Hill: For Sharlene, being a mother meant breaking the cycle. Sacrificing whatever it took to give her daughter a life she never had.
Mrs. Sharlene: I wanted nothing like that for her. I didn't want her to want for nothing if I didn't have it. I would not eat. I worked three jobs, so she wouldn't see how it was.
Nichole Hill: And then Mrs. Sharlene was adopted…
Mrs. Sharlene: I was raised in a Pentecostal family. And they said Pentecostal don't lie. And I used to get beat. All the time, all the time I got beaten. It was, Ooh. It was, ooh.
(musical shift: soft piano)
And then as I grew up, I found love. Cause when I moved next door, I met Mr. and Mrs. House. Down the street. Cavalier Manor is where I found them. They never had no kids. Mrs. House was the mother I never had. She taught me love. Mr. House was the father I never had. He taught me love. God knows I miss him. I miss both of them so much.
Piano music changes to saxophone music)
Nichole Hill: Sharlene (finally) found love. And she cherishes it along with all her memories.
Mrs. Sharlene: I never want to forget where I came from. My flour is in what you call a spittoon. My cast iron flour is in that. The basin, that's where I stood up in to wash up in the morning. I never want to forget where I came from.
(music swells)
Nichole Hill: Visit our website Truthbetoldcommunity.com to find out ways to get involved, and share this episode with friends.
This series was written by Jackie Glass and Hannah Sobol, edited and hosted by me, Nichole Hill, Sound Design by Trendel Lightburn, and our work has been supported by the Virginia African American Cultural Center through a grant from Virginia Tourism Corporation. Follow our work by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. We couldn’t do this without people brave enough to share their experiences, so thank you Ms. Sharlene Pollard.