Abstract of an interview with John A. White, Sr.

Benjamin Von Clark Neighborhood Documentation Project
Neighborhood Oral History Project
Savannah Department of Cultural Affairs
Oral History # 1
John A White
May 12,2003
Savannah, Georgia
John A. White is a retired officer of the Savannah Police Department and was one of the first nine
African American police officers hired in Savannah's history on May 3, 1947.
The following is an abstract of the interview:
John A White was born October 27, 1924, at 21 Bouhan Street and lived there and at 23
Bouhan Street all of his life (78 years). He stated many whites lived in his neighborhood. Captain Bill
Gunn lived next door to us- he was Swedish and sailed under thirty-nine different flags. He took blacks
to colonize Liberia in the 1890s. Captain Bill lived at 101 Bouhan Street, and the white Barretta family
lived next to him at 103 Bonham. The Barreters' son-in-law lived on the site next to what is now Frank
Spencer Elementary School. Captain Bill Gunn lived next to my family from at least 1924 to 1940s.
When he was in his nineties when he died. The Barretta family moved from the neighborhood in the
late 1940s. A Mr. Hill, who was white, lived with Captain Bill Gunn, and he owned the Hill Electrical
Company.
Whites owned property on Wheaton Street from Bouhan Street to Live Oak and Wheaton. The
New Way Laundry (white owned) was on Wheaton and Live Oak. The Millers, a white family, owned
the Miller Carpet Cleaning Company at Wheaton and Live Oak, and lived on Wheaton Street. They had
Henry, a son, and a daughter. The Meyers, a white Irish family, lived on the corner of Wheaton and
Pounder. Lillian Grotheer, the Meyers' daughter, became clerk at the Chatham County Courthouse,
and held the position for thirty-five years. Across the street on Wheaton, going north was the white
owned Anderson Grocery Store. Herbert Dixon, Sr., who died in April2003, was a black lhat lived on
Wheaton Street in front of Ott Street. Today, his son, Herbert Dixon, Jr., is a federal judge in
Washington, D.C. Devereaux Dixon, Herbert Dixon, Sr.'s brother, is a retired postman.
The Hohnerleins, a German family, had a meat market and raised over sixty cows in a fenced
in area called the Bottom (the area was at the end of 6th Street and extended to President Street).
Bonaparte White, my father, had fifteen cows in the Bottom. On the comer of Wheaton and Waters
Avenue, adjacent to Hohnerlein's Meat Market, was Lasky's Grocery Store. The Lasky's were Jewish
but Hohnerlein rented the property to them. The Meyers' Feed and Seed Store was located on 7th
Street and Wheaton. Bouhan Street was named for Johnny Bouhan, a powerful white Savannah
lawyer, in the firm of Bouhan, Lawrence, and Williams located at Bull and Gaston Streets. Johnny
Bouhan had a house on Bouhan Street located in the current parking lot area of Frank Spencer
Elementary School.
Otto Hohnerlein, whom we called Mooker, and /, grew up together. We often played together.
The Hohner/eins lived over their store on Wheaton and Waters Avenue. 'Mooker' was older than me
but we kept up over the years. He invited Marion Simmons, Ethel Jackson, and me to his fiftieth (Otto
Hohnertein, said it was his sixtieth wedding anniversary in the May 20, 2003 interview I conducted with
he and Mrs. Hohnertein) wedding anniversary celebration about three years ago. Otto Hohnerlein had
two sisters (Mickey was one sister), and Joseph was his brother. Otto was a butcher until he retired
from working several years ago. Hohnerlein's Meat Market opened in the 1920s and closed in the
1950s. When they closed the store, Otto Hohnerlein was my neighbor and lived at 101 Bouhan Street
after he was married there. Otto and Emma Hohnerlein eventually had eight children. His children
Page 2 of2 August 27, 2003
played with John Jr., my son, who is filly-two years old. The Hohnerleins moved in the late 1950s to
East 60lh Street when their children were eight or nina years old.
Joseph Leggett (white) ran the stone yard on Wheaton and Bouhan Streets. He had two sons,
Neal and Graham, and a daughter. Leggett's father-in-lawwas Spanish, and owned a shoe shop on
Wheaton and Pounder Streets. When Leggetfs father-in-law died, his wife's maternal uncle sold the
shoe shop, located at 1018 Wheaton Street, in 1950, for $600 to Jason Cutter, Jr., a black man. Cutter
eventually moved his shop to Waters Avenue. Whites moved away from the Wheaton Street area
because more blacks moved into the area.
-End of interviewPlease note: Problems with my tape recorder did not allow me to tape the interview with John A. White.
I took very careful notes so I oculd reproduoe the interview in linear fashion. The facts are as he related
them tome.
Abstract prepared by:
Charles J. Elmore
Project Historian