Compiled by and photographs by Michael Kleiner

From the moment Shirley Melvin, Liz Hersh, Jerry Foeman, Sylvia Carter, Dorothy Guy and Don Black started introducing themselves and how they came to live in West Mount Airy, one could sense the lure of the neighborhood. Those that moved to the community as adults with children, never left. The ones who grew up here, left at some point, but have returned to raise their own families here. You can't take the Mt. Airy out of the person.

These six people spoke at West Mt. Airy Neighbors' (WMAN) Annual Meeting June 15 as part of the organization's 40th anniversary activities. Melvin, Carter, Guy and Black were some of the trailblazers in the early days of the integration of West Mt. Airy, although modest about their achievements. Foeman and Hersh, the children of that generation, were clear about how living in West Mt. Airy prepared them for life. The program was coordinated and facilitated by Billy Yalowitz, who in June 1995 produced a movement theater piece based on oral interviews with residents, Joshua's Wall, as part of his doctoral dissertation in dance at Temple. It was performed at Pastorius Park. A New York native, Yalowitz was living in West Mt. Airy at the time and has remained. Following are Bill's questions and our neighbors' stories:

1. What I'd like to do first is invite each person to say their name, and say very briefly where you live in the neighborhood, when you moved here, and your circumstances of arriving in Mt. Airy.

2. Tell a story that in some way talks about what living in the neighborhood has meant to you, how it's been good living here, particularly relationships, or a moment in time that typifies something about what living in the neighborhood has meant.

3.Given the positive ways that the neighborhood shaped your life, what were some of the challenges in your early years here?

4. What kinds of successes have you been involved with in terms of actively building the type of community you want in Mt. Airy? Some of the examples we talked about are neighborhood projects, block association initiatives, informal cooperation among neighbors, building relationships with people of different backgrounds. What kind of successes did you have in taking initiatives to make things happen around you the way that you wanted them? I think initiatives can happen in large ways. Finding an organization is an initiative, but deciding to share your lawn mower with your neighbor across the street is also an initiative.

The Trailblazers

1. "I'm Shirley Melvin. My family moved to West Mt. Airy in 1943 and I'm now living on the same block where my parents bought a house that year. We moved from Grays Ferry, where we grew up. At that time, my twin sister (Doris Polsky) and I were 19 and attending the University of Pennsylvania. We couldn't believe our good fortune to come to this gorgeous community. The big problem was in 1943, nobody paid attention to us. Everybody was distant from everybody else. We needed to do something about that and that's what we did."

2. "Getting to know your neighbors has always been a major issue in this area. Way back in the very beginning days of integration, a black family would move onto a block in West Mt. Airy. We would call neighbors on the block and tell them, 'you're going to have a tea and invite all of your neighbors to meet the new neighbors.' It worked. We wrote articles about it. We had articles published all over the place. Later on when we thought about it, we said this beautiful integration of the neighborhood was a self fulfilling prophecy. We made it happen. We got publicity before it actually happened and it did happen.

"We had a real estate committee of the West Mt. Airy Neighbors when we first organized. Some real estate agents would put notes on their doors: 'This is the time to sell your house to get the highest price possible because things are happening other people may not like.' We would go to the offices of the real estate agents and say, 'We have 600 members of our organization. We put out a monthly newsletter and your name is going tp be in the headlines of the next newsletter if you don't stop leaving those notes on the doors.' They left Mt. Airy. Unfortunately, they went to other communities. The whole experience of integration was quite remarkable, but exciting. I have been in the real estate business for many years. Many years ago we would get calls from California. A man would call and say, 'I'm moving to Philadelphia to teach at the University of Pennsylvania and your neighborhood is exactly where I want to raise my children.' Some of that is still happening."

3. "When my nephew was quite young, he came home from school one day and was very upset because one of the kids in the schoolyard picked a fight with him. My sister asked him, 'Who was the kid? What was his name?' 'No, I don't know his name.' 'How about describing him?' He described everything you can think of about this kid. He didn't say one thing about the color of the child. My sister looked at me and said, 'I think we did it.'

"The other thing I wanted to comment on was one of the single major items in this community is the Allens Lane Art Center. It still is. When we started the Art Center 45 or 50 years ago, we started the first integrated day camp in Philadelphia. We're very proud of it. When you see all those kids playing out there at McCallum Street and Allens Lane this summer, (remember) starting the camp was a major achievement. We got the Fairmont Park Commission to turn over the property to us. We had art, dance, music, theater, children's theater. That was a major help in stabilizing the community.

"One more thing, my twin sister and I started the first all women's real estate office (Twin Realty) in Philadelphia. We were on Maplewood Mall. We used to get telephone calls from lawyers and other people in real estate, saying, 'I want to talk to your boss.' 'I am the boss,' I would say. Then, the answer would come, 'No, I mean the man in charge.' So, we had the same kind of experiences as Sylvia and Don."

4."One of the experiences that I had in West Mt. Airy that I'll never forget, is in 1962, my very close friend, Kate Shaffmaster, directed A Raisin in the Sun at the Allens Lane Art Center. It was on one of the most remarkable experiences that I've ever had. The man who played Walter had never been on stage before. He had told his wife that he would love to play Walter. His wife came to him and said 'I just saw this audition notice. Here's your chance.' He was wonderful. His name is Ed Bernard and I see him on TV all the time because he's an actor. We've had a lot of wonderful influence on people who started out at Allens Lane and in this neighborhood, who've done some great things. A young fellow played (the boy Travis) in A Raisin in the Sun, Marcus Brown, and he went on to have a lead dance role in Bubbling Brown Sugar. He started off as a tiny little kid at our day camp. Learned how to dance, learned how to perform, right here at Allens Lane."

1. "My name is Sylvia Carter. I moved to West Mt. Airy in 1958 as a young married mother with a young family. We were fortunate enough to have a small little six-room single house, and when my son took up the entire living room when he laid on the floor, we decided we needed to have a larger house. We were very fortunate we could move around the corner and get a larger house and still be in this wonderful neighborhood of West Mt. Airy."

2. "One of the occasions that come to mind when I think about the kind of things we encountered over the years happened in the early 1960s. I was on the board of C.W. Henry School and Bea Chernock was the principal. I'm sure that will bring many smiles. We got calls to come over to the school. She was expecting an entourage from West Chester County, New York to come visit Henry School. They came. We met. They were astounded that we were able to integrate with such facility at such a school. Also, they were here to see the neighborhood. (They wondered) How in the world could we have done it in the fashion that we did without rioting? That was an education to a similar neighborhood which was trying to integrate.

"There was another thing we did in the earlier years. I worked very diligently with my sister, Madelyn Morris, who was the one that started Walk and Talk. One of the things that was very important to us back in those days was to get to know your neighbor. Get to find out who lives next to you. Who are the children in your neighborhood? This was another thing that was extremely helpful. We did not go through life ignoring each other. We were very close, we were very friendly, we spoke to each other. We always knew if we encountered someone on the street you were probably Billy's mother or Joey's father because if we saw you in the neighborhood, we knew you were a neighbor."

3. "When I would answer the door, I was always asked if the lady of the house was at home. This went on constantly. I would say I'm the lady of the house. The person would always be embarrassed. They would come in and I would be the lady they didn't expect to see. Before they would leave, they would thank me for being as kind as I was. That took a lot of courage and determination for me, but I decided I would begin my education of those who weren't as fortunate as I.

"There was something else that was interesting for me and a challenge. My son was just three years old when we first moved here. It was a long, long time before I would know whether his friends were black or white. He didn't discuss it. I had no clue whether Joey or Mary or Miss Smith or so and so, were black or white or Jewish until I met them. The challenge was, at what point do you begin to teach a child, or do you teach a child – I was quite young then and this whole race issue was so new to us – as to how to handle this with young people? What perspective do you want to teach them? I will say that West Mt. Airy prepared, as Jerry said, and taught our young people to face the world. They know how to find character. They know how to look at each other. The challenge was no longer the challenge. It was the beautiful part of being young and being raised in this neighborhood. They didn't have to deal with these differences. The diversity was there and they learned to understand that diversity was good, healthy and wonderful. I'm quite proud of our young people that we raised, in the way they look at each other. It's very comforting if I know they're from West Mt. Airy, you know you have a good, positive character sitting in front of you, and the loyalty the younger generation develops is absolutely marvelous."

4. "I hope to continue to be active where I can and participate. Right now, it happens to be the Co-Op. Over the years, it's been Henry School, West Mt. Airy Neighbors, Allens Lane. It's been a pleasure working with all the folks I've met, and working as long as I have over the years."

1. "I'm Don Black. My wife, Vivian, and I decided we wanted to buy a house. We tried Frankford. When I called the agent, he said, 'the area you want to move into, colored people are moving in there so I better find a better house for you.' So, I went and saw him and embarrassed him. We started looking in Mt. Airy. My dad wanted to find a house on the east side, and I said let's try the other side. We drove down Westview Street and saw this house, and that was 45 years ago. We've been living there ever since."

3. "My mother and father were living with us. One time, my dad was cutting the grass out front and someone drove up and said, 'Would you mind cutting my lawn? I know you're working for this man here.'

"The thing that stands out most was we got a phone call from somebody who was selling cemetery plots. He gave a long list of questions...like how many columns in the graveyard. If I could answer six or seven of them, he would give me a prize. Sure enough, I answered a few of them. I said to my wife, 'When this guy comes, he's going to have a big surprise.' Sure enough, this guy comes to the house. I stood inside the door waiting for him and just as he opened the porch door, I opened the door and said, 'Good afternoon.' He said, 'Well, uh, is this 54 Sharpnack Street?' I said, 'no, this is 54 Westview Street.' 'Oh, he says, I have the wrong address. I meant to go to 54 Sharpnack Street.' I said, 'Okay. Thank you.' As he turned, and before he closed the door, I said, 'Incidentally, my brother lives at 54 Sharpnack Street.' His neck got red."

4. "I think about being on the Home and School Association at Martin Luther King High School and Germantown High School and also at Henry School. It was a bit of a challenge. A lot of times the problems in the high schools were problems with gangs. One of the best experiences I had working with Henry School Home and School Association was one time Martin Barol and I went to City Hall because the teachers were talking about striking. We were trying to avoid a strike. At the time, Frank Rizzo was mayor. We went to the meeting and expected to meet only with Hillel Levinson, the managing director. Fortunately, Frank Rizzo came to the meeting. He was here and I was sitting where like Dorothy is. We were talking about how to avoid the strikes and how it will be beneficial for schools. After we talked about it, he says, 'Is there anything else? I think the meeting should be adjourned?' I said, 'I got one question. I've always wanted to ask you this. Why did you appoint Michael Marcase as Superintendent of Schools? The man has no background in education. He graduated in hotel management. How come you appointed him?' He said, 'He's an honest man.' I said, 'What's that got to do with education? We need somebody to help our schools.' He looked at me. 'Who are you? How dare you question me?' I said, 'I'm a parent. I want to know why you appointed him. The man has no education background.' We argued a little bit. I wondered how am I going to get out of this? This man is as big as Goliath. I'm feeling like a little David. I felt trapped. Then, Hillel Levinson said, 'Mr. Mayor, we have other things we have to do. We think we have to close this meeting.' I was happy he did. It got me out of there. It gave me a chance to challenge him and I always wanted to ask him that. I'll never forget that experience."

1. "I'm Dorothy Guy and I've been here in the same house since 1956. We had a brief stint in Tennessee and that job didn't work out. My husband was up here at a new job and hunting for a place to live. I was waiting in Tennessee with four little children and pregnant with the fifth, so one of the things we needed was plenty of bedrooms. My husband was the one who found the house, and being of a very spiritual turn of mind, he was always convinced that the Lord told him to drive down Carpenter Lane. That's where he saw this sign and it turned out to be the right place."

2. "I brought with me a letter that I wrote in 1966. I have a large extended family and I have developed a custom of periodically writing very detailed letters to keep in touch with family, but to also record for ourselves something about our own family history. In developing this program, I ran across this letter in sorting some files, and here's an interesting paragraph written by me in 1966 to my extended family:

'As most of you probably know, our social concern is with integration. We are not civil rights demonstrators but are in our 10th year of living in an integrated community and participating in integrated schools and church. Our community does what other people talk and march about. We live together in peace and are proud of it. A Negro father – notice in 1966 you used the word Negro – recently approached me about the possibility of keeping his children during the summer when school is out. This may seem odd to those of you in totally white communities, but for the most part we don't think anymore in terms of black and white. I will not pretend every aspect is easy going because it isn't. For instance, Shannon -- my youngest child -- is the only little white girl in her class. This can be a lonely experience, but life is full of lonely experiences and properly approached, they can also be learning experiences.'

3. "On into the next grown up generation, we had six children. Four of them married Jews and one married a black woman. So, that presented perhaps one of the biggest challenges to me and my husband, but we lived to be happy about it."

4. "As Sylvia said, I didn't go out and mastermind any big civic organizations. I did start the first Henry School newsletter and wrote that for two years while my children were there. In those days, you had to cut stencils and run the mimeograph machine. Then, I was a den mother for the Cub Scouts and I was on the Girl Scout committees for years and years, and drove car pools for scouting, then moved onto the Co-Op. I was Vice-President for a while. That's a hard job."

The Second Generation

1. "My name is Jerry Foeman. My family moved to West Mt. Airy in 1958. Having been around the world and back again so to speak, I'm back in the neighborhood again. I think that the whole trajectory of my life has changed by having lived here, just in the way that living in West Mt. Airy prepared me to meet the world."

2. "One of the devastating illusions that African-American young people harbor is that to study is to act white. When I lived at 25th and Diamond, the fact I got good grades got me ostracized. Thank God, for my parents and for me, I moved up here, and I met pretty girls who liked guys who got good grades. One of whom is in the audience – my wife, Diane. So, I was encouraged in that way to do better in school... African-Americans living in segregated societies view European-Americans as either authority figures or marks for their perpetrations. Never do they experience European-Americans from a position of parity so they can't see having friendships or rivalries based on character. Living in West Mt. Airy allowed me to see the basis for these things were character, and armed me to meet the world and made me realize how special my experience was. Also, listening to Mrs. Guy, I was one of those Negroes who had lunch at Mrs. Guy's house and my father was one of the Negro fathers beseeching Mrs. Guy to take me in for lunch from Henry School.

"...Listening to Shirley and Dorothy, it occurred to me. Jeez, all this orchestration, all these hearty ideals that organized this neighborhood. To me, this was just a nice place to come. I didn't know that all these politics, all this social vision was undergirding it. I would bring my friends up from North Philadelphia. They would say, 'These look like the streets in Dick and Jane!' There were no streets where they lived with grass on both sides...I realized then that I was living in someplace special, that I lived on streets like the ones they had in Dick and Jane."

3. "I had my first job at Allens Lane Art Center and I have been working with young people ever since. I'm a Research Analyst for the Health Department for the City of Philadelphia and this is the first job where I don't see people, so I teach college at night. A lot of this interracial stuff is nice. A lot of white folks don't realize that among African-Americans there is a prejudice that DuBois referred to as a pigmentocracy. I had to deal with that, I being of a darker hue. We would have what would be known as brown bag parties, where you weren't allowed entrance unless your complexion was of a brown bag or lighter. I'm always fond of saying to my students that I was referred to with racial epithets more from African-Americans than from European-Americans. So I had to deal with that shot from a place where I expected it least, and then had to realize that not all light skinned African-Americans were like that. That also helped arm me for the world I met once I left West Mt. Airy."

4. "I was one of the founders of the Weavers Way Co-Op Credit Union. I'm proud to say that in 25 years, I've never missed a shift when it was my time to work. That did it. That's a good one."

"...Let me add, one of my kids at Allens Lane, Michael LeLand, is doing off Broadway productions and he always sends me notices. I've yet to go, but let me just add Michael to the honor roll from Allens Lane."

1. "My name is Liz Hersh. I was born in Mt. Airy and I left in 1975. My own family moved back here in 1992 and we bought my parents' house and are raising our children here now. My parents moved here in 1957 out of Center City because they heard it was an integrated neighborhood, and they decided that's what they wanted, to live out their values."

2. "For a long time, I didn't realize Mt. Airy was different. It's just the way the world looked to me. It wasn't until I went to Girls High when I met kids from other neighborhoods, and then moved to Wisconsin, when I realized how different this really was. There were a lot of things that were different. I remember the early days of the (Weaver's Way) Co-Op, multiplying big sacks of sunflower seeds in the basement of the Summit Church with my parents. I found an early curriculum for a co-op nursery at Summit Church, where parents had written all the lesson plans. I remember going to a viewing of Milhouse, a benefit to try to defeat Nixon. I think lots of things about Mt. Airy created a unique perspective. The other day someone asked me if I remembered when I first learned to read. I don't remember when I first learned to read. I do remember when I first realized I was never going to be black. I was deeply disappointed and mystified to realize this was just a state of life. I remember my sister coming home from school crying, and asking my mother why she couldn't have skinny, black legs like all the other girls in her class."

3. "I can't really remember all that many challenges related to the neighborhood, but one that comes to mind is the Acme at Sedgwick and Germantown. For as long as I can remember that store has been so poorly maintained and so poorly stocked. It always aggravated me. I used to go grocery shopping with my mother every week and we always went to the Acme. She always complained bitterly about it. 'If this weren't in a neighborhood with black people shopping here, they would've fixed up this Acme years ago.' You know my mother still shops at that Acme every single week."

4. "I have great admiration for people who have time and energy at the end of the day to do civic things. The closest I get is living next door to Tom Sugrue (Past WMAN President) -- and (that's like) guilt by association. I feel like the least I can do is have a nice garden and keep the house nice and make a statement: we live here, we're proud of the place we live, and we're not going to let evil encroach upon us. We're maintaining our neighborhood. Actually, some of our friends have moved in. We have some friends who have moved from Chicago, bucking the trend. We keep hearing the politicians talk about people leaving the city. Maybe our fixing up our block is worthwhile."

The Third Generation:
Elizabeth Babcock

"This was originally written as an essay for school as a nomination for Older Person of the Year.

"My nomination for Older Person of the Year is my neighbor Don Black. To me, Older Person of the Year applies to the man or woman who has helped the community to help people who are less fortunate; the person who puts effort into helping the lives of others besides his or his own. Don Black has done all these things and deserves recognition for them.

"I have been his neighbor for almost 10 years and I can't recall one year when he didn't help out in the community. He lives in a twin house and although his house is lovely, the other house has been deserted for years. After a while, the roof next to him began to leak when it rained. He did not want to see the house fall apart, so he helped to fix the roof. Every morning I would see him outside laughing and working with many others fixing the roof and making the house as nice as he could. He wasn't complaining about having to fix the roof because he didn't have to do it. He did it out of sheer kindness and generosity. I greatly admire that.

"As you know we are electing a new mayor in the year 2000. As an eighth-grader, I didn't know a great deal about the candidates. Don Black changed that for me. He held a coffee klatch at his house for the mayoral candidate named John White. I was able to sit five feet away from the man who was working on becoming Mayor of Philadelphia. To me, a mayor is someone working hard for the community with such things as education and crime. By seeing John White, I learned about the ways he wanted to improve our schools and neighborhoods. I became educated about the problems of our neighborhoods that I did not realize existed. After leaving the house, I knew what his intentions were for our community and that is an important thing to learn about.

"You may wonder what Don Black does in his spare time. He's involved with a group of people who travel to different schools all over Philadelphia. At these schools, he performs a program on ethnic diversity, that is a very important issue in our society today. Not all schools are aware of racism and because of people like Don Black, they can learn about the ways to be equal and diverse. Some schools are aware of it, but don't refrain from being racist. Don Black is able to open their eyes and let them see there really is no difference in everybody's color.

"I greatly respect and admire Don Black because of his caring and friendly presence. The fact the man cares so greatly about his community and the fact he is so willing to make a difference says to me he should be Older Person of the Year."