Sonja Brooks

Sonja Brooks Transcript
Interview by Raven Elder
Time: 38:20
Also Present: Arlie Sommer

Arlie Sommer: [00:00:00] The date and the location. It's right up here before you start. Okay. Thanks.

Raven Elder: [00:00:04] My name is Raven Elder and the day is April 30th, 2010. The location is in the Boise area family room downstairs. And, uh. Yeah. Okay. So would you like to do the whole for the record thing again or.

Arlie Sommer: [00:00:23] Um, it's. Yeah, sure. Why not? Just for the.

Raven Elder: [00:00:26] Flow. So for the record, we'd like to please state your name and age.

Sonja Brooks: [00:00:30] My name is Sonia Marie Brooks, and I'm 72 years old.

Raven Elder: [00:00:35] Okay. When did you move to the Boise Eliot neighborhood? And why did you come here?

Sonja Brooks: [00:00:39] I moved here, I was two months old in June of 1938. And the reason is my father got a job with, um, Southern Pacific Railroad. So I was born in New Orleans. My father got a job up here. And so that's how I got here.

Raven Elder: [00:01:01] So New Orleans. So have you been there recently or.

Sonja Brooks: [00:01:04] No I haven't.

Raven Elder: [00:01:05] What was it like? Do you remember anything?

Sonja Brooks: [00:01:07] No. I moved here when I was two months old.

Raven Elder: [00:01:10] Probably. So what was this neighborhood like in the 40s?

Sonja Brooks: [00:01:15] In the 40s? Um, actually, I lived more in Lower Elliot, which is, um, around Northeast Broadway and Weidler. Um, Broadway was a two way street. Williams was a two way street. Vancouver was a two way street. There were houses on both sides of the street. So that's how it's changed. It's now sort of a four lane highway, you know, running through town. So that's changed.

Raven Elder: [00:01:49] And how is it like in the 50s?

Sonja Brooks: [00:01:51] In the 50s, it was still pretty much of a neighborhood. Um. A lot of my friends live down where the Coliseum is now, so that was all neighborhoods. And, um. I don't know, we we went we we went to drugstores to for entertainment. We'd meet at drugstores and have sodas and ice cream cones and, um, toasted cheese sandwiches and, um, let's see. There were a lot of stores. We never needed the car. We walked every place. We walked downtown. We walked to Safeway stores. We of course, the drugstore where cones were nickel double dip. A double dipper was $0.10. And, uh, then as teenagers, there were several little like restaurants along Williams Avenue where the Urban League is now. There was a place called Citizens Cafe. Um, there were lots of grocery stores and big markets like meat markets and, um, I don't know, it's just so different. Um, our entertainment was pretty simple by today's standards. Uh, telephone was connected to the wall. We had a party line, so that's different.

Raven Elder: [00:03:23] So have you lived anywhere else other than this neighborhood?

Sonja Brooks: [00:03:28] Not really. Well, I, I've lived in Venezuela. I've lived in, um, a little bit in Mexico, uh, Los Angeles.

Raven Elder: [00:03:39] Uh, it must have been different.

Sonja Brooks: [00:03:40] Yeah. Eugene. So. So I traveled and then, you know, then I got married here and had my children and grandchildren and great grands. So time goes on.

Raven Elder: [00:03:59] So tell me about your parents.

Sonja Brooks: [00:04:02] Um, my father, as I said, worked as a waiter on the railroad. So he would take trips to, um, round trip to maybe Oakland, California, sometimes LA, and I'm not sure, but I think he also traveled across the southern part of the United States to get to New Orleans.

Raven Elder: [00:04:25] Do you ever go with them?

Sonja Brooks: [00:04:26] Uh, no. Well, yeah, I did, I did it was kind of nice because, um, we got to eat in the dining car. You know, they have white tablecloths and white napkins and and we'd get served, and then they wouldn't charge us either. Huh? So that was good. Um, my mother, uh, more or less stayed at home most of the time, except for a few odd jobs. Um, later in life, she became a teacher assistant. So she did that at, uh, King School. Um. I don't know what else to say right now. Another question.

Raven Elder: [00:05:14] Can you describe the home you grew up in?

Sonja Brooks: [00:05:17] Uh, in what way? You mean just just.

Raven Elder: [00:05:19] The what was it like? What was the feel, the atmosphere?

Sonja Brooks: [00:05:24] Well. I suppose it was pretty much probably the family. Family was different then. Um, I was the oldest of four children. Uh, mother and father. Like I said, my father was off traveling a lot of the time, so we were at home. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. School. Um, listening to the radio, you could do things while you listen to the radio. You could wash dishes. There was no excuse. You wash dishes. You had the radio on. So night after night, we would sit, either sit in the living room and listen to the radio, or we would do our chores and listen to the radio. Um, we didn't get a TV till I was. Maybe 13.

Raven Elder: [00:06:19] I can't imagine life without TV for a while now.

Sonja Brooks: [00:06:22] And it was really funny because it was black and white. And, uh, with your TV, they would sell you, uh, this little piece of plastic that had blue red in the center. And green was supposed to be grass, skin color and sky. So you put that on your TV no matter what was on. Strange.

Raven Elder: [00:06:46] Wow. That's different.

Sonja Brooks: [00:06:50] Mhm.

Raven Elder: [00:06:51] So what did your house look like?

Sonja Brooks: [00:06:54] Um, my mother, um, loved to paint, so she was always painting. Uh, are you talking about just the rooms in the house?

Raven Elder: [00:07:07] Yeah. Like, do you have any connections to the rooms or how it looked? Just thinking back, do you get some of that nostalgic feeling for what it looked like back then and how it looks now? And.

Sonja Brooks: [00:07:19] Um. A little bit because, um. Well, my my mother loved to decorate. I mean, I'd go to school in the morning and I'd come back in the afternoon, and it was a different color and maybe new furniture and new drapes. She just loved doing that. But later on, when I lived in the house, I, um, it was kind of a Victorian house, and I had very little small rooms, so I tore down walls between rooms to make the rooms larger. So, um, I don't miss the tiny rooms at all. Um, we had five bedrooms, very small house. To look at it from the outside. You would never think it had five bedrooms. Uh, I did get rid of one of the bedrooms, so there's four now. Um. Big mistake that I made in the 70s when there was a big crisis. Energy crisis again. Um, I had all the ceilings lowered. Very sorry about that, because I think. This is. Um, so they're a little over eight feet tall now, and I think they were probably ten, ten feet tall. So at this point, I think I'm too old to start tearing the stuff down again. So I'm just going to leave it.

Raven Elder: [00:08:47] So who were your neighbors?

Sonja Brooks: [00:08:50] Um. On one side of us, there was a woman named, uh, Mrs. Walker. And she was very sorry that we moved into the neighborhood. So she. She would call us names and dance on her front porch. Nigger, nigger, nigger. You know, that kind of thing. Um, and then on the other side was a family, actually, several families, off and on. I can't remember their names now, but there's probably, since I was small, there's probably about six different families that have lived there. Um, the neighbors across the street were an elderly couple we called Uncle and aunt, and they were like. They were like pretend grandparents. Really? And then there was another family. I don't know if you guys have interviewed the Carsons. They lived for years and years and years across the street from us, and they had a two bedroom home and they had ten kids. Wow. Don't ask any questions. I don't know where everybody slept, but there were ten of them, and they just recently sold last year.

Raven Elder: [00:10:19] So did you have any other family in Elliott?

Sonja Brooks: [00:10:24] No. I didn't.

Raven Elder: [00:10:29] So where did they live? Or did you see them often or.

Sonja Brooks: [00:10:33] You know, I'm going to correct that because my one of my dad's sisters moved here. Um, she lived in the King neighborhood, I think. So we saw them. She had six kids. And I think later on, she moved to the Irvington neighborhood around 14th and Fremont. Um. But other than that, most of our relatives were still in New Orleans. My grandparents eventually moved to Oakland, California, and several of my mother's brothers and sisters moved with them. So. So we'd visit them that way. Trains again.

Raven Elder: [00:11:18] So where did you go to school?

Sonja Brooks: [00:11:20] Went to school. I started, um, Elliott School when I was five. In kindergarten. Elliott was then on Knott Street, 77 Northeast Knott Street. So I only went there for a year. And then first grade, I went to, uh, Catholic school, Holy Rosary, and it was on third and Weidler between second and third and Weidler. Let's see. Then I went to Washington High School. Um, I think I went one year to the University of Oregon. Came home, got married, start having family. You know, I had really had five kids. And, um, then later, when my kids were just about ready to get out of school, I decided to go back. So I went to school. I became a teacher when I was 55, so I went to Portland State and I got a master's degree there. Job I know I feel good about it.

Raven Elder: [00:12:38] So out of those school buildings, which one do you think was your favorite?

Sonja Brooks: [00:12:42] The school buildings.

Raven Elder: [00:12:43] Or just the the school itself? Like which one did you have the most connection that you just liked the most?

Sonja Brooks: [00:12:48] I think Holy Rosary.

Raven Elder: [00:12:50] And what was that like on the inside? Just.

Sonja Brooks: [00:12:53] Um, actually it was shaped like a big U. And so this part of the U was the first and second grade classroom. Across the hall was the library. Next to that was the cafeteria. Gym was everything. Then the seventh and the eighth grade and the fifth and sixth and third. It was just like a U. So in the middle was the playground. And it was so much like a community because usually we, uh. We knew everybody because they were in the neighborhood. And, uh, then our church was right across the street. Um, I don't know, it was just kind of more of a family feeling because everybody was there, you know? And what else?

Raven Elder: [00:13:51] Uh, what sort of memories did you have from that kind of place? Like any friends that you really remember some great times you used to have?

Sonja Brooks: [00:13:59] Um. Not really. It's hard to explain because you'd see people I mean, you'd see them outside of school, but it was in it wasn't like, um, you know, friends making an appointment to get together. And it was just that people were where you were at. You know, if you were at the drugstore, you'd see them there, or if they were walking down the street to the store and you were on the way to the store, you'd see them there or Mass on Sunday or. Oh. Hmm'hmm. It's funny trying to explain this because, you know, you live your life and you just take so much for granted that you don't think of anything as special to talk about. But, um. Hum. Even even, like, birthday parties, sometimes we'd have it at our place that we all went to nursery school at, like the blessed Martin Day Care. You know, they had a kind of a little, um, party room, so we'd have parties there. Um hum. I remember taking trolleys downtown. Sometimes your friends would get on the trolley with you. Mhm. Which brings me to talking about the new trolley cars they're putting in now. They tore up all the tracks from the old trolleys all the way down Broadway, all the way up Williams Avenue. And then they covered them up at some point, you know, and now they're digging up everything and putting them back. It's just kind of funny, you know.

Raven Elder: [00:15:52] So around town, what was your story? What was your favorite place to just hang out with your friends?

Sonja Brooks: [00:15:58] The drugstore on the corner of Broadway and Williams. And as a teenager, the Citizens Cafe on Williams. And, um, what is that street called? Russell. Oh, and then as a teenager, we also where I went to school where Elliott School was, they tore that down and build uh, built um mat Dishman. So we'd have dances there, you know, a band would come and we'd have dances there. But also there was a place on, um, Williams and Tillamook. Um, which is now the Elks Club, but then was um, uh, the Y. And so teenagers would have dances there, and there was a big woman that was a police officer because all the, you know, like 19 year old boys would try to get in. Yeah, she was big. She was tough. She wouldn't let them in. They were scared of her. So she'd chase them off. And that was kind of funny, too. Um. There were lots of theaters downtown. Sometimes we'd go to downtown to. I can't even think of all of them now. The names of them. But there were several, maybe 4 or 5 right on Broadway downtown. So we went to movies down there. Um. Um, there used to be something called, um, the Young Oregonians where we'd go downtown to the Oregonian Building and take, uh, tap dance lessons and baton twirling and. You know, I can't think of anything right now. Anything else? It'll come to me after the interview. Probably.

Raven Elder: [00:18:03] So do you remember when the Rose Quarter or Immanuel Hospital or Minnesota Freeway was built?

Sonja Brooks: [00:18:12] The what? Freeway. The Minnesota high five.

Raven Elder: [00:18:16] High five.

Sonja Brooks: [00:18:16] Oh, I five. You know, I think I, I don't know. Does anybody know what year that was built I think I might have been away.

Arlie Sommer: [00:18:28] I don't know.

Sonja Brooks: [00:18:30] I don't know, I don't remember. Um.

Raven Elder: [00:18:34] 70s.

Sonja Brooks: [00:18:35] Yeah, 70s. I wasn't here 67. Yeah, I wasn't here. Um.

Arlie Sommer: [00:18:44] I guess what it was like before those things.

Sonja Brooks: [00:18:48] Oh, neighborhood, two way streets, all kinds of businesses. Lots of businesses. Um, there's a man that made baskets. You go into this house. If you needed a basket for laundry or something. There was a Japanese grocery store. A lot of ethnic grocery stores, a lot of different people from European. Um. Uh, bakeries, shoe shops, clothing shops, meat markets, grocery stores, lots of business. Little tiny gas stations on almost most of the corners. Family owned. Um.

Raven Elder: [00:19:37] But gas wasn't so expensive back then.

Sonja Brooks: [00:19:38] Oh, when I was a teenager, it was like $0.16 a gallon. Huh. You know, and we'd get in the car and say, we have a dollar's worth of gas. You last us all week, you know. Uh. What else? You ask me another question. I can't remember what it was now about about the. Oh, the Coliseum was all neighborhood. All neighborhood. Wow.

Raven Elder: [00:20:11] So what was your first job?

Sonja Brooks: [00:20:17] My first job was, uh, I worked for a cleaners. Down where? The Coliseum. It was called Perkins Cleaners. And, uh. Like the kids in the family were friends of mine, so we all worked there and then my uncle owned a shoe repair shop. So I worked there. And then when I was 18, I worked at a store called Lipman. Wolf was downtown on Fifth Avenue. And I think I got married and oh, yeah, I worked for the phone company too, as a, um, information operator. The long distance operator back in the day when you had to, you just couldn't dial. You had to go through an operator. Um, then I started having children, and I didn't work. It's fighting.

Arlie Sommer: [00:21:25] Do you want to try the headphones? Do you want to trade me? Okay.

Raven Elder: [00:21:38] So what advice would you give to young people my age?

Sonja Brooks: [00:21:42] Advice? Um. You probably hear this all the time, but try to get your education, you know, and you'll have a lot more options. Um. What kind of advice are you looking for?

Raven Elder: [00:22:03] The education advice was good because I think some people really take for granted just how far you can go with the right amount of education.

Sonja Brooks: [00:22:12] Right. So there you have it.

Raven Elder: [00:22:18] Is there anything that I didn't ask that you'd like to talk about?

Sonja Brooks: [00:22:22] Mhm. I can't think, you know, somehow I feel really unprepared for this church.

Arlie Sommer: [00:22:31] The church and all of it. The church. You were talking about.

Sonja Brooks: [00:22:37] The school.

Arlie Sommer: [00:22:38] Across from the school. Talk about that.

Sonja Brooks: [00:22:41] Oh that was a no. That was a different church. Are you talking about? The church in the neighborhood or my church? Your church? Well, my church. Not much to tell. Um. It was sort of a complex of nuns house. The school. And across the street, the church. So it's kind of all one thing. Um, so that was kind of my life, was that church, if you're talking about the church down the street from my house, which is Mount Olivet Baptist Church, a lot of my friends went there. And so, um, you know, I'd go to their baptisms. They had, they have and still have a pool underneath the church. So when you go to church there, if somebody used to be if somebody was getting baptized, they move the floor back. There's a pool there. And they had dunk them in the pool. It's still there. Oh, another thing I wanted to talk about. Uh, has anyone mentioned that on Broadway and Interstate, there's a tunnel under the street. Oh well, a lot of times if you wanted to go over the Broadway Bridge and you were walking, say, on the north side of Broadway, going west, you get to that corner and you go downstairs and you can either cross the street or cross diagonally across the street to get onto the bridge. And I don't know when they covered that up, but that's gone too. Oh, it's still probably still under there. Just a big tunnel, you know, all tiled in. Did you know that.

Raven Elder: [00:24:34] It's cool.

Sonja Brooks: [00:24:35] Mhm.

Raven Elder: [00:24:36] There's so many things. They're just covered up. People don't realize how significant they could be or just how cool they are.

Sonja Brooks: [00:24:44] Wonderful. I mean those are part of the memories that I think that's why I'm having a hard time is just, um, jogging my memory because a lot of the stuff's been gone so long. But, you know, seeing people on the streets and walking a lot and having places to go, you know, where you'd see people you knew. And, uh, of course, one thing, we weren't so connected to other neighborhoods and other people because it was so parochial and it was just everything was right there. Everything you needed was there. So then, of course, when you know, you branch off and go to high school, then you meet a lot more people you know from all over. So I think I just miss the the familiarity with everything, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Raven Elder: [00:25:40] Do you still have friends that you talk to sometimes from your childhood or from high school?

Sonja Brooks: [00:25:45] Mhm.

Raven Elder: [00:25:46] Do what are they like.

Sonja Brooks: [00:25:48] Where's that picture? I brought a picture. Um, this was my friend, um, Eunice McElroy was her name and her dad, and it was her wedding. And so this is her sister, and this is a friend of ours, and this is me. So I still see these two. She died. Oh. In fact, everybody here died, and only three of us are left. Even the flower girl and the little boy.

Raven Elder: [00:26:24] I'm sorry about that.

Sonja Brooks: [00:26:26] So they died, but anyway, so I still see them. And then here's a picture at, uh, the church school I was telling you about. This was a summer. Summer camp. Oh. So. This is my brother. I still see him and I still see her. And once in a while I'll run into some others. But for the most part, uh, it's her I see all the time. Mm. Her name was Judy Byrd. She lived right across the street from the school. So I do still see people. It must be nice. It is not to say, wow, I've known you for, you know, 60 some years. Wow, 69 even. Because, um, I exercise with a woman that I. That we went to nursery school together. Same time, same place. But we didn't know it back then. If we just been talking, we discovered we both went. But I've been seeing her all of her adult life, so. Wow. So, yeah.

Raven Elder: [00:27:51] It's so great to have friends like that because then you think, well, for me, my age, I think, wow, I've been friends with you for like three years. That's such a big thing. And then you think about six years. That's so cool.

Sonja Brooks: [00:28:04] Well, I think three years is pretty good. Really. You know, I mean, everything moves so fast now. Yeah. Me, you know, you know, sometimes I feel kind of strange. You go into a place and. Uh, I'm from the paper generation. So you're you're going through paper, looking for stuff, and, you know, they've got it right here. Everything is right here. And so it makes you kind of feel like, you know. Dinosaur or something. I'm just always looking for paper. I have it here somewhere.

Raven Elder: [00:28:38] It's weird. I do that too. Oh, good. I keep a lot of things on paper, too.

Sonja Brooks: [00:28:42] A good old fashioned girl, I love it. Yeah.

Raven Elder: [00:28:48] So, just to wrap things up, is there anything that you wanted to ask me through this interview?

Arlie Sommer: [00:28:55] Yeah.

Sonja Brooks: [00:28:56] You're in the eighth grade. Seventh grade, seventh grade. So what are your plans, say, in the next two years, I.

Raven Elder: [00:29:03] Uh, well, I'm. I guess just go to high school. I mean, I'm I will try to get good grades. I'm an a student, so.

Sonja Brooks: [00:29:12] You know, I figured that I knew at the minute you started talking. Um, so, I mean, what strong interest do you have?

Raven Elder: [00:29:21] I love writing, I want to be an author when I grow up.

Sonja Brooks: [00:29:26] Okay. I hope to be reading you someday.

Arlie Sommer: [00:29:32] Yeah.

Sonja Brooks: [00:29:32] Good writing. What? Just fiction or.

Raven Elder: [00:29:36] Yeah, fiction. Just coming up with stories. Just as many things as I can come up with. There's nothing in particular. Just things and description. I really like hearing about description and.

Sonja Brooks: [00:29:48] Wow. I love writing, I love to read.

Raven Elder: [00:29:54] Um, in that case, what are your favorite books?

Sonja Brooks: [00:29:58] I knew she was going to ask that. I was just telling my sister the other day, I love reading, but you know, I have a hard time remembering the authors. Oh, there's an author that I really like. Uh, I like Barbara Kingsolver. He's one person I like. You know, her and.

Raven Elder: [00:30:17] I haven't really heard.

Sonja Brooks: [00:30:18] Of her, you know? Uh, what was that one title about the bean trees, I can't remember. Look her up. If you can sometime I will. It's a real interesting, uh, especially the one there's a sequel to. Has something to do with bean trees.

Arlie Sommer: [00:30:40] Poisonwood. Bible.

Sonja Brooks: [00:30:44] Oh, yeah. Poisonwood Bible.

Arlie Sommer: [00:30:47] Oh, that's.

Sonja Brooks: [00:30:48] A good one. Yeah. Okay. Good luck with your pursuit of writing.

Raven Elder: [00:30:58] Thank you.

Sonja Brooks: [00:30:59] Yeah.

Arlie Sommer: [00:31:02] And go ahead and say thank you.

Raven Elder: [00:31:04] Thank you for your time. That was really interesting. I really like hearing about all the things that you've done. It's just cool. I mean, looking back, you realize how much things have changed, but then just how important they are to have just a memory of everything.

Arlie Sommer: [00:31:20] Um.

Sonja Brooks: [00:31:23] I just wish I could have done a better job. I don't think I was prepared so much for the really question. She's good. The question she asked that was good.

Arlie Sommer: [00:31:33] That was good. Anthony, did you have any questions from the, um. Anthony is taking notes. Um, do you want to introduce yourself and quickly say them in the microphone? Okay. Okay, okay.

Raven Elder: [00:31:50] Uh, I'm Anthony Brown, and, uh, like, about the 40s and 50s. Like what was it like living, like, during World War two?

Sonja Brooks: [00:31:57] Well, or like the.

Raven Elder: [00:31:59] Aftermath of.

Sonja Brooks: [00:31:59] It? Well, okay. I was going to say in World War Two, I was probably, um, three, 4 or 5 years old. Um. I don't remember much. I, I remember once, uh, rationing, I remember women, um, couldn't buy stockings or as they called them, then nylons or whatever, the ones with the seam up the back. You had to make sure the seams got straight. Well, during the war, they had to stop using those. And because they were rationed out and they put makeup on their legs instead, some of them would draw a pencil line up the back. Uh, that's one thing I remember. I remember, um, servicemen would go to the Y. That's on Williams. The Elks Club is on Williams now, but it used to be the Y. Before that, it was, um, the USO. What are they, United States? Organization or service organization was for. It was for the guys in the Air Force and the Army to come and meet young ladies in town. And so actually, one of my aunts was visiting here from New Orleans, and she met her husband here.

Arlie Sommer: [00:33:24] Oh.

Sonja Brooks: [00:33:27] Um, so those are the two things I remember is that there was a lot of things you couldn't buy. There was a shortage of a lot of things. And I remember the USO because my aunt met her husband there, but she also worked there checking people's coats and hats, and she would make really good tips.

Arlie Sommer: [00:33:50] So awesome.

Sonja Brooks: [00:33:53] But I was really too young to know too much in detail.

Arlie Sommer: [00:34:00] Okay. Yeah.

Raven Elder: [00:34:02] This was very interesting and thank you for your time and sharing your story.

Sonja Brooks: [00:34:07] You're welcome.

Arlie Sommer: [00:34:09] Okay.

Sonja Brooks: [00:34:10] I'd like to be better prepared and do it over.

Arlie Sommer: [00:34:12] You did such a good job. It was awesome. So fun to hear about how much everything has changed.