Celebrating Local Black History of Chestnut Hill 2024
Tatiana Paden, Executive Office & Archives Coordinator
One of the wonderfully unique things about the Conservancy’s Archive is just how locally full its history is, from a house call from 1910 to the triumphs of a local legend like Grace Kelly. We aim to capture the subtle narratives of as many individuals as possible, encompassing the experiences of the local Black community. Every person deserves to have their life properly immortalized for future generations. Please consider if you or someone you know within our Chestnut Hill community has any old photographs, newspapers, letters, and ephemera associated with the Black community you would like to add to the Chestnut Hill Conservancy’s Archives. This month, we wanted to focus on the smaller stories, the local lives that are just as much a part of history as anyone else. Even though these stories are seen as small in the grand scheme, they are the life’s work of that one individual, which to them was a pretty big deal. And we believe it deserves to be shared.
Vincene “Vinnie” Morris
We honor local basketball legend and 1994 Philadelphia University Athletic Hall of Fame inductee Vincene Morris. Morris was a three-time All-America selection from 1984-86 for Philadelphia “Textile” University’s women’s basketball team, now known as the Jefferson University Rams. She holds the record for the most rebounds in a single season, including a school record 374 in 1983-84. Morris is the second-highest scorer in the school’s history with 2,180 points and ranks fourth all-time with 148 blocked shots and 209 steals. In the picture above, Morris is in action during the 1986 NCAA Division II women’s basketball tournament.
After graduation, Vincene “Vinnie” Morris protected the community as a Philadelphia Police Officer. She retired as a Sergeant. Vinnie served as a certified Field Training Officer throughout her law enforcement career. She taught and supervised police personnel on community policing and conflict resolution techniques to better serve the public. Vinnie ended her policing career as a supervisor of the 23 Police Athletic League (PAL) centers throughout Philadelphia. These centers provided a safe environment for children in high-crime areas by offering structured programming, educational assistance, and athletic experiences.
Vincene then moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where she became a successful Real Estate Broker. She assists underrepresented communities in buying, selling, and renting properties throughout North and South Carolina. Although she’s not a Philly resident anymore, Vinnie still represents her Philly pride as a loyal Eagles fan to this day.
Click HERE to read more about Vincene in the Chestnut Hill Local.
Frederica Massiah-Jackson
Frederica Massiah-Jackson (born 1951) attended Chestnut Hill College and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School at 23. She worked as a law clerk for Robert N.C. Nix, Jr. and later joined the Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley law firm.
In 1981, at 30 years old, she ran in The Common Pleas Court Race as the only Black Woman candidate. “I started off young…the double minority candidate…we have to let lawyers and defendants know that we won’t let society be ruled by a small minority of violent criminals.” As Massiah-Jackson noted in the May 14th, 1981 Chestnut Hill Local. In 1983, she was elected to the bench and became the first African American female judge to preside in civil jury trials in Philadelphia’s courts. She has since presided over many different genres of cases. She served as President Judge from November 2000 to January 2006. She has also worked as Chief Counsel for the Senate Insurance and Business Committee and taught Legal Studies and Business Law at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Judge Massiah-Jackson has been awarded numerous honors and recognitions throughout her career. She received the NAACP’s Cecil B. Moore Award in 2010 and was selected as one of 50 women of color profiled in the book Voices by the PA Commission for Women in 2005. She is also an active member of several organizations, including the Forum of Executive Women, the Delaware Valley, Pa. Chapter of The Links, Inc., and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. In 2021, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law.
Recognizing the Black Staff of Chestnut Hill Hospital
The Chestnut Hill Hospital has been a pillar of our community since 1904. Through the last 120 years, numerous excellent Black staff and doctors have worked in the hospital’s halls. One of those staff members was Darrell Taylor. Darrell started as a physical therapy aide. Conservancy Archivist Alex Bartlett got to know Darrell Taylor well when he volunteered at Chestnut Hill Hospital on Saturday mornings from 1987 to 1990.
“Darrell was always so kind and appreciative of his volunteers. When I started volunteering at the Hospital, Darrell made me feel right at home. He valued us as people and showed a lot of respect for us. I never forgot this, and I thank him for it.”
Darrell Taylor
From our massive collection of images from the hospital, we have multiple photos of Black staff members with only their names and not their stories. Every person in our collection should have the same level of unique recognition as Darrell. We at the Conservancy want to reach out to those families or staff to share their stories and lives to be added to the history of our collection. This set of photos comes from the 1970s and 80s. We have their names: Darrell Taylor, Dietary Staff Dorothy Rawls, Thelma Williams, Patricia Fleming, Chef James H. Robinson, function technician Gary Hightower. The last photo is still unidentified.
If you know or recognize any of the people in these photos, please contact the Conservancy Archives by email at archives@chconservancy.org.
Dorothy Rawls, 2007.2.128.19
Gary Hightower, 2007.2.128.31
Patricia Fleming, Thelma Williams, James H. Robinson, 2007.2.128.2
Unidentified Man, 2007.2.128.45
Ruth Saunders, 2007.2.128.44
Photo Identification Update
Since we posted this group of photos to our Instagram on Thursday, February 15th, we have learned the identification of many people in this photo. The woman at the desk is Ruth Saunders. She was a unit secretary for many years. The two men behind her are Dr. Divo Messori on the left and Dr. Jack Koltes on the right.
Thank you so much for reaching out with your information, and making our collection whole!
The Many More Unidentified
This next set of photos dates from the 1950s to the 1960s, all contain people who have not been identified. We want to do our due diligence in fully recognizing and immortalizing every person in our archive. Black representation in the medical field is and has been so important to the evolution of medical care, not just here in Philadelphia but for the country as a whole. Though these individuals may not have known it then, they paved the way and opened the door for many Black people to enter the medical field after them.
If you know or recognize any of the people in these photos, please contact the Conservancy Archives by email at archives@chconservancy.org.
2012.18.409.30
2012.18.408.23
2012.18.409.8
2012.18.403.1
2012.18.409.4
2012.18.409.7
2012.18.410.8
2012.18.409.2
“Illuminating the Life of Louise Reid” by Tatiana Paden
Domestic work was among the few occupations available to Black women in the first part of the 20th century. And in Chestnut Hill, that was no different. Thanks to the work of Liz and Andrew Jarvis, we have the documented life story of one of those women, Louise Reid. On Sunday, January 10th, 1988, Andrew Jarvis sat with Louise and recorded her life story.
Louise Reid was born in Burkeville, VA, in 1906, the second youngest of five siblings. Her mother died when she was young, and so her father moved her and her siblings to live with their aunt and uncle in Powhatan, VA. She spent her childhood growing up on their farm and attended a small local schoolhouse for a few years until it was closed down. Her uncle and aunt were very humble and simple people. Her aunt, who was formerly enslaved, never got the chance to get an education and didn’t have any children of her own. Louise realized that her aunt did the best that she could for them.
Louise’s favorite thing when she was young was sewing. She taught herself to sew by hand. Cutting up anything she could get her hands on around the house. Her aunt was not too fond of it, as once she cut up her bonnet to make a dress for her doll. Her passion for clothes-making ignited after she got her first doll as a gift from her oldest sister. “She wasn’t around much after our mother died…she used to come down and bring me nice little dresses and things, so she brought me a doll, a great big doll like that…and I was so proud of it. And I always liked dolls because I like to make clothes for them.”
Louise Reid with the family dog, Timmy
Once Louise was old enough to work, she left the farm and took the train to Richmond, working as the nanny for a doctor with three sons and one daughter. At 16, Louise moved to Flushing, New York. She started working for the Melcher family after the woman hosting her saw an ad in the paper. This job was the start of a lifelong change for Louise. “I stayed with Mrs. Blannon three years…but all my happy days were after I came to your grandmother,” Louise told Andrew. When she first started working for the Melchers, she only had experience in childcare, less so cooking. The Melchers paid for Louise to take cooking classes, which she used to her advantage. Bill and Clarissa Melcher had two daughters: Deborah “Debbie” and Sally. Louise scratched her sewing itch by creating clothes for the Melcher girl’s dolls. A full photographed catalog of her creations is available in the Conservancy’s Archives collection.
Over the years, Louise and the Melchers would move a couple of times. First to West Orange, NJ, and settled in Chestnut Hill by the 1930s. During the Great Depression, Bill Melcher lost his job at Baldwin Locomotive Works and struggled to support the family. Even through this hard time, Louise decided to stay. “I stayed on, yes…because I tell you I didn’t mind, I didn’t have anywhere special to go either, so I was glad they was willing to let me stay on, you know?” she continues, “It would have been so hard for me to go and get some new job because by that time I had got very well adjusted to the family. It would have been hard for me to go off and find somewhere else.” While unemployed, Bill found a way to pay her $5 weekly until he found a new job at the Smythe Paper Company.
Louise continued to work for the Melchers as the years went on. Debbie and Sally would go on to have children of their own. She would care for their grandchildren as she cared for their mothers whenever they visited their grandparents’ house.
By the 1960s, Louise started taking summer vacation bus trips through the Chestnut Hill Travel Agency. On one trip, she began to notice the racial discrimination she experienced when traveling. “It never occurred to me…I made my arrangements with the lady…and I did ask her…will any colored be in the group…at first I wasn’t scary or nothing, but I felt a little funny…of course, the people was real nice, but some of them was looking at me, you know, but I didn’t let it…I always try to be nice to people.” She was always the only Black person on each bus tour she went on, but she had no problem with that. She would send postcards to the family while she was away, sharing her experiences as she traveled from Tennessee to California and even Canada.
After 52 years of working for the Melcher family, Louise would move from their house in Chestnut Hill to her own home in Germantown. Louise attempted to reconnect with her family in Virginia a few times but decided to stay in Philadelphia. She lived a happy, humble life until she passed away in 1994. Her ashes were interred beside Bill and Clarissa Melcher’s at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. “I hope I said something that amounts to something…my life wasn’t exactly a happy one when I was a little child, but I had to live through it anyhow…but I am very happy and like my apartment here. I’m very happy now.”
The Chestnut Hill Conservancy maintains a rapidly growing, professionally managed collection of more than 50,000 items documenting the community’s architectural and social history from the 1680s to the present. The collection contains architectural drawings and other records, more than 24,000 photographic images, maps including real estate atlases from the 1870s through the 1930s, prints, drawings, deeds, diaries, genealogical materials, books, taped and transcribed oral histories, and selected objects. The collection is available to the public for research purposes.