Transcript of an oral history interview with George Ponder

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Ponder, George
Oral Histmy Interview
DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL
AFFAIRS
EASTSIDE DOCUMENTATION PROJECT
Interviewee's Full Name: George Ponder
Interview's Address: 4719 Oakwood View Drive
Savannah, Georgia 31405
Interviewee's Neighborhood: LePageville
Interviewer: Charles J. Elmore
Date of Interview: November I 0, 2008
Length of Interview: 37 minutes, 46 seconds
Interview Medium: Video (Reginald Franklin - Videographer)
Transcriptionist: Samanthis Q. Smalls
Date of Staff Review: 19 Februa1y 2009 by Michelle L. Hunter
RF: I'm ready when you are.
CE: Alright. This is Charles J. Elmore interviewing Mr. George Ponder 4719 Oakwood View Drive,
Savannah, Georgia November 10, 2008 for the Eastside Documentation Project, City of Savannah.
Okay, we'll start now. Okay Mr. Ponder, tell me about your early family origins, as much as you like:
where, where you, where your parents came from, where your grandparents, how you got to Savannah.
And we want to talk about your experiences as you, you know, passed through the early part of your life
growing up in Savannah.
GP: Okay, I, I was urn, born in Screven County; Sylvania, Georgia. And uh, my, my brother, he left and,
Georgia, and come down here and he start working for the railroad.
CE: What was your brother name?
GP: Alvin Ponder.
CE: And which railroad did he work for?
GP: Atlantic Coastline.
CE: How much older he was than you?
GP: Oh, he was a man, 1 was a kid. 1 don't know what exactly.
CE: Okay.
GP: And uh, we was .. . he wanted his mother and the children, there were three of us. And he wanted us to
come to Savannah and live. And he, he lived out on LePageville.
Ponder, George
CE: And how old were the, how old were the ... ? And you lived in LePageville. Okay.
GP: I, I was about, I was about eight years old when I come to LePageville.
CE: Okay. What was you mother's name?
GP: Mary.
CE: Okay. Um hum.
GP: Anduh, the houses on LePageville had some little houses there that belonged to the railroad. And he
was working for the railroad. And uh, he lived in one but a lot of people worked for the railroad rented
those houses. You had a permanent job and you got a house. But they never lived in it. They just rented,
they sub-rented it out, leased it out. And he leased the house for us, for his mother, for us to stay in and
that's the ...
CE: That was your older brother?
GP: Yeah. Alvin.
CE: Okay.
GP: And uh, we lived there. And uh, did a little work, just all, you know worked, raised gardens and ...
CE: When you say "little work," what kind of work?
GP: I mean you know, farm, there's plenty land out there, we ...
CE: Okay.
GP: ... we worked out there, did a little farming and one stuff until I got... and my, my mother ...
CE: Until you got how old?
GP: Huh?
CE: ... You say you raised and farmed until you got?
GP: Oh, 'til I got about .. . well I wouldn't say farmed. We worked on gardens and little things, we didn't
plant no ...
CE: Um hum.
GP: ... we just worked enough to make stuff to live off and sell vegetables and stuff like that see?
CE: Um hum.
GP: And uh, 'til I got, l imagine about, 'till got about fourteen.
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Ponder, George
CE: You lived in LePageville 'til fourteen?
GP: I lived, still lived on LePageville ...
CE: Okay.
GP: I still, still lived there and uh, then, my, my mother was working for the, the uh, superintendent of the
railroad.
CE: You know what his name was?
GP: Huh?
CE: Remember his name?
GP: No.
CE: Of the, that was ACL railroad?
GP: ACL, yeah.
CE: Okay.
GP: Atlantic Coastline.
CE: Okay, I got you.
GP: And uh, so I was, they got, he got this man down to the fe11ilizer mill there, uh, Southern State, to give
me a little job working 'round, picking up, doing things you know?
CE: Um huh.
GP: Cleaning up and working 'round there and I worked 'round that until, until I don't know how old I was.
I started working for the railroad, the railroad company. They hired me. They didn't want to hire me at
first but, you know, Mama worked for the superintendent so. This the woman that sign, you know ...
CE: Um hum. Okay, then?
GP: ... so, they give me a job working for the railroad. I was young I don't know how old I was. And um ...
CE: Still in your teens you think?
GP: Huh?
CE: Were you still a teenager you think?
GP: Yeah, I know I was still a teenager.
CE: Wow. You going good.
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Ponder, George
GP: Yeah. And I worked for the railroad.
CE: I'm listening.
GP: I worked to the railroad until '43. I went in the Army.
CE: Okay, tell me about the Army.
GP: Well, I stayed, I stayed in the Army. I got out but I went back in, I didn't get... I got used to Army life
doing one thing, you know? And um, I got out and I didn't, I didn't come back home in time enough to
get my job with the railroad, see. You know, you get seniority, I had seniority then.
CE: Um hum.
GP: And um, you had ninety days you get back. In ninety days you get yolll·job back. If you didn't get back,
they give whoever had it, make them foreman . So I come back. That was later, I stayed 'round Atlantic
City. Got discharged in New Jersey, stayed 'round Atlantic City that, 'til my ninety days was up; gone
before I knowed it. So I got back they told me I didn't have to wony, I had, I was next out, they'd hired
me next out, you know.
CE: Um hum.
GP: But they couldn't place me so, I didn't get a job right away so I went back in the service. I went back in
and um, stayed three years and things didn 't look no better outside. I got out for, well, you couldn't stay
out over ninety days and go back in with your rank, if you had any. So, I went back in and stayed in. Uh,
WWII.
CE: So you fought in WWII?
GP: Yeah I was in .. .
CE: All of it?
GP: I was in WWII. Korea .
CE: In Korea. And tell me where else. Korea,
GP: Well WWII I was in uh, Europe. I really was in North Africa and Germany and France, you know, for
WWII.
CE: Um hum. Were you in any, any combat?
GP: Yeah, yeah WWli I was, I was in combat.
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Ponder, George
CE: You ever kill a man?
GP: I don't know.
CE: But you were in combat?
GP: See, you fight different from they fight now, see. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I was in combat, I was in
combat. I was, I was in, I was in combat in um, you know; in combat zone. I was in, I was in um, I was
in food service see.
CE: Okay, but you worked in food service?
GP: I worked in, my duty was food service.
CE: So you really weren't an infantryman or nothing like that?
GP: No, no, no, no.
CE: Okay.
GP: I was in food service. I'm one of the blessed ones. I stayed twenty-nine years in, I served twenty-nine
years in, and about twenty-eight of them was all food service. Yeah.
CE: When did you get out of the Army?
GP: Got out the Army?
CE: Urn hum.
GP: In 1968.
CE: Wow.
GP: After Vietnam. Come out of Vietnam.
CE: You were in Vietnam too?
GP: Yeah; three of 'em.
CE: You were in Vietnam, Korea, and WWII?
GP: WWJI, Korea, and Vietnam.
CE: Good grief. Okay, what rank did you come out?
GP: E-7, Sergeant First Class, E-7.
CE: Wow. That's awesome. I'm amazed, you Reggie? Wow man.
GP: Yes sir.
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Ponder, George
CE: U m, do you have any recollections of you father?
GP: My father died early, I don't know much about my father.
CE: Okay. Your mother name was Mary Ponder?
GP: Yeah.
CE: Okay. What about your older brother, what eventually happened to him?
GP: Well, he died. He died early 'cause he died in 1939.
CE: Okay. What about your other brothers and sisters?
GP: Well, my sister. ..
CE: What was her name?
GP: ... uh, Ophelia.
CE: Um hum. She still living?
GP: Um um, no, she dead. All of ' em dead.
CE: And what was your other brother's name, your younger brother?
GP: Jesse.
CE: He dead? Yeah, they all dead.
GP: Yeah, he well, he died two years ago last month.
CE: Was he a Savannah person too?
GP: Yeah. Yeah, all of'em.
CE: All of ' em lived in Savannah?
GP: Yeah he did. He had
CE: Okay, what. Did he have a, what did he do?
GP: Worked for the railroad.
CE: Okay. Coastline?
GP: Yeah.
CE: Okay. Alright. Tell me what it was like growing up in LePageville. What did people do?
GP: Well, worked for the railroad mostly. People that lived out there worked for the railroad. But a few
houses where they subbed out and had somebody look out for them, you know, 'tilum ...
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Ponder, George
CE: Um hum.
GP: ... Paid some of they people got the house for 'em and looked out for 'em and they stayed there and got
other jobs and just paid sub, you know, rent for the houses. And um, the main owner worked for the
railroad and he rent the house, he permanent. That mean if you had a house, you were permanent. See,
there were a lot of people was permanent didn 't have a house, you know.
CE: So, well let me get this straight. The railroad people who were permanent could buy a house.
GP: No, you didn't buy the house.
CE: You leased it?
GP: You rent it. In other words, see it's a whole lot of people who come and wanted to work and they didn't
have no where to stay.
CE: Okay.
GP: So the railroad built so many houses out there and would let ' em have a house, see.
CE: Um hum.
GP: Let 'em have a house to work, you know.
CE: Um hum. l got you. They would lease the house to them, rent the house, so they would have somewhere
to stay.
GP: Yeah. They ...
CE: I got you.
GP: ... they rented you the house for so much you, and they took it out your salary, you know, out your pay.
And uh,
CE: You know, you remember how much it was?
GP: ... what?
CE: To rent the house?
GP: Oh, I don't know five, four, five, three or four or five dollars a month.
CE: Great day.
GP: Something like that.
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Ponder, George
CE: Now your brother, your older brother, he had his own place and then he leased one too for you and your
mother and your brothers and sisters?
GP: Yeah. Until J start working for the railroad. J start working for the railroad and uh, at the end you know,
got a house. See they, they'd rent you, they, if you stayed so much they'd rent one house to two or three
people just to make ' em on, to put them on the seniority list. Then you got to work if they need you,
see? Once you on the seniority list, you got to.
CE: Then they can go off and get and rent they own house?
GP: Yeah.
CE: Urn hum. Okay. That's, I think we got enough. Urn, what did uh, where did you go to school? Where
did the kids in LePageville, where did ya' II go to school?
GP: Uh, up to Paulsen Street. There was a school on Paulsen Street in town. I went to Paulsen Street
CE: Um hum.
GP: School.
CE: How long did you go?
GP: I went to Paulsen Street School ' til J was in sixth grade.
CE: Do you remember any, any of your teachers?
GP: Huh? No, I don't remember.
CE: You don't remember? No. Okay. Did you continue school after that or did you drop out?
GP: We ll, I, I dropped out but I went back to school, went to, it was Beach High, it was Cuyler High School
then ...
CE: Okay.
GP: ... it wasn't Beach.
CE: Alright.
GP: I went to night school, took up night school you know .. .
CE: Um hum.
GP: .. . to get some more education. And I went there.
CE: Did you complete it?
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Ponder, George
GP: Eighth grade. That was it, back then when I, back then, eighth grade was it; for black.
CE: Um, okay. Okay, let me get that. That's real important because that ...
GP: I just can't remember them years.
CE: Um hum, that's alright. You told me.
RF: You doing a good job.
GP: Urn hum. Excellent.
CE: Okay. Um, so the most of your time you spent in the Army. Yeah, you stationed all over the world
right?
GP: Um hum. Yeah. Oh yeah.
CE: Okay. Uh, what about uh, in terms of what you can remember about LePageville. What about where
black and white people lived in the area.
GP: Didn't no tnn, didn't no white people live in LePageville. All black people lived in LePageville.
Railroad hands, supposed to be, you know.
CE: Would, you would say mostly, mostly railroad hands then huh?
GP: Yeah, that's what they was.
CE: Urn hum.
GP: You know, or some of they people you know, brought 'em there. But they, they might've not been
working like I wasn't working there when I first come we wasn't working but we stayed there until
well, Mama got a job with the superintendent cooking, you know.
CE: Yeah, tun hum.
GP: And then that's what opened me to get started so early.
CE: Okay. Um, in terms of segregation and Civil Rights, that was kind ofuh, what was that like in your
time? Were people talking about Civil Rights when you were a kid in Savannah?
GP: No, not during, when I was no kid nobody talk about it. You didn't, you know. I, if they did I didn't, I, I
wasn't around, I wasn' t around. See I was out there in, in uh, they started all of that see once I got up
and they start to talk about ...
CE: You were in the service going all over the world by then.
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Ponder, George
GP: Yeah.
CE: Yeah.
GP: Yeah and uh, see when I start remember hearing about Civil Rights, it was the time when Martin Luther
King got started.
CE: Um hum.
GP: See. And uh, yeah. See, in the Army you couldn't even, you couldn't even talk about no, see the Army
was segregated and uh, see you couldn't even talk about no, no kind of outfit, see? Like the NAACP and
different things, you couldn't even talk about it or carry no card, or nothing like that.
CE: That was off limits, huh?
GP: Um hum.
CE: Okay. Alright, all your travels; anything you want to tell me about all the time you were in the Army
that was, or just, that you just did your job and? Okay. What about uh, what did people do for fun? I
know, you already told me everybody around there worked at the railroad.
GP: Well, for, for fun people got together certain time and they had, most of the people hustled for liquor
and stuff and the houses and stuff like that, that was. And once in awhile you'll find a 'til place a black
person run the place, you know?
CE: Um hum.
GP: A business, uh, sociable place.
CE: Can you think of any of them?
GP: Not name, I can't, I can't think.
CE: Okay. You say they were run I ike a, maybe like a speakeasy? A liquor house?
GP: Yeah its, yeah, you know.
CE: Would it have music and stuff like?
GP: Yeah. Yeah had music [unclear].
CE: It was music and food?
GP: Yeah, that's about the idea.
CE: Um hum. So, and you had to pay for your food?
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Ponder, George
GP: Liquor was, liquor was the black market. You bought that, you know.
CE: Um hum.
GP: You, you didn't get, I didn't even know, there might have been some but, I didn't know no licensed
liquor places or nothing. See, I didn't know no ...
CE: Did anybody black have like a store in the area? Like a, a confectionary or anything like that?
GP: Yeah they had some of them scattered, they had some of them. Yeah. They called 'em one thing and did
it all, did everything when night come. That you wasn't, you know, that you ...
CE: Okay, let me ask you about um, where did people go to church in LePageville?
GP: Well, we had a, we had a, a Baptist church out there; LePageville Baptist Church.
CE: Was it a big church?
GP: Hum?
CE: Was it a kind of small church?
GP: Well, it was, it was enough to hold the people out there and more. 'Cause they had, you know, people
different things just like now but not as much as churches they do now.
CE: Um hum.
GP: They had things and people uh, coming.
CE: Did you?
GP: Had different things in the church, yeah.
CE: Did you go to church there?
GP: Yeah.
CE: Were you baptized there?
GP: Yeah, I was baptized in the river. Yeah, we did, see at that time, wasn't no running water or nothing. We
was baptized down in the river, Savannah River.
CE: And of course, ya'll didn't have any, any, any kind of indoor water or toilets or nothing?
GP: Um um, no, no, no.
CE: You wouldn't happen to name, remember the name of any of the preachers there?
GP: Um um.
I I
Ponder, George
CE: And black people pretty much kept to themselves?
GP: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You stayed to yourself. You stayed, you know white folk, white folk was mean to
black people back then man.
CE: Anything you might want to tell me that you didn't tell me or that I didn't ask you?
GP: No. I can't think, I can't think of too much now.
CE: But you told me a lot.
RF: Charles? Did you want to ask him about the cemetery?
CE: Yeah, LePageville Cemete1y. What can you tell me about it? Yeah, that's right, yeah. 'Cause you said
you had to fight to save it. Tell me about that.
GP: Well, it was, it was just a cemetery where we used to bury at. You know, people got buried, buried,
buried. And when I got out of the service, I didn't come right back here. But, when I come back here
and they were building and building buildings over there and had done start, done tore the church down
and moved out, its just out there and
CE: When, when did you come back though?
GP: I come back to, I come back to Savannah in uh, in uh, '79.
CE: Say they had torn down the church. And you say they were building over people's graves.
GP: Building all kind ofthings out there just like they got now, you know.
CE: Um hum
GP: Yeah.
CE: So what did you do then?
GP: And I was checking, I saw where they were doing it and I said, "Well that was the cemetery." And uh,
then I met Patricia Jenkins. She, they used to have a, a baseball park out there and she was something
with the baseball park, with the baseball team. And then I was telling her. And I went down there and I
met um, what's his name? I met uh, fellow, I know his name good, just can't call it. He was running
CE: Ellis Cook?
GP: Huh? No, no, no. This, this, this fellow was, was running a chain company.
CE: Uh.
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Ponder, George
GP: And he took, he say, "Yeah, this the cemetery right behind." He told me right behind his building that
they were digging for something and they found grave bones and graveyard stuff: And uh, then looking
through there l found a couple of graves with tombstones on a couple and me and my brother went out
there and had the man to take pictures of the setting on the tombstones on the graves. And then uh,
Patricia helped me found out who owned the, who owned that land and stuff out there. And after talking
with his lawyer, him and his lawyer and arguing with him for a couple of years, he uh, come down and
made a deal with me about LePageville Cemetery. He said, now they done used some of it they say,
done used some of it. He said, "But I'll settle with you for what's left. lfyou sell, whether or not it's a
grave, if you sell, then that's what I'll settle for the rest of it."
CE: And they would settle. And what did they mean by settling with, with them?
GP: Just, he'll turn it over to us for the, as a cemetery and stop the law, stop a lawsuit.
CE: Let me get that?
GP: And I agreed it would be no lawsuit. He, it was uh 3.8 acres. 3.8 acres, so that's the cemete1y now.
CE: We were able, ya'll were able to reclaim 3.4 acres.
GP: Yeah.
CE: OfLePageville Cemete1y.
GP: Yeah.
CE: Okay. And your brother Alvin was the one that help you when he was alive? That was Alvin and you?
GP: Hum?
CE: That was you and your Alvin that did this?
GP: No, no, no; me and my bother Jesse, the one that died last year.
CE: Okay.
GP: Me and him, Jesse. Me and him.
CE: Any of your relatives buried there?
GP: Oh yeah, I can't even, I got about. My, my niece she wrote, had 'em wrote down. They got 'em
somewhere. It's about, I got about seven or eight people buried out there. But I don't know they names,
I done forgot all of that now.
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Ponder, George
CE: Is your mother buried there?
GP: Yeah.
CE: I think ...
GP: Mother, brother, sister-in-law, and sisters.
CE: Wow. That's awesome. So what are the plans now for LePageville? I know, I know next Saturday, I'm
gonna go over there uh, where they're going to have this Boston Butt and barbeque rib sale and I'm
going to buy ...
GP: Right, right.
CE: ... going to buy something because I thought it was vety ironic that uh, Ms. Jenkins, you know, being
white and all like that, when you told her the situation would come and help ya'll, you know.
GP: Um hum.
CE: That was, I thought, very nice of her.
GP: Well see, just like uh, what his name? The, the white fellow, you called his name.
CE: Ellis Cook?
GP: Ellis Cook and them, see he was a alderman downtown and I went down there. I went downtown a
couple of times um, trying to get help. And then they, after they give us the place, everybody, they
wanted to tax, wanted us to pay tax and I had to fight the city and county to cut the tax, to stop paying
tax see. Then they stopped paying the tax and they wanted to, to pay the back tax a couple of years and I
had to fight, me and my brother fought 'em for that. So they dismissed it all from tax and the county did
finally.
CE: And finally the city and the county left ya'll, left the taxes alone?
GP: Yeah.
CE: Okay. Was uh, was Ellis Cook ever ...
GP; He was uh, he was uh alderman when I first went down there and statt. And then from time, as time
working with him and uh, and uh, Patricia Jenkins got him to work with us and a couple more of 'em
and um ...
CE: Okay. Alright.
14
Ponder, George
GP: And they statt working now I got sick. Cancer stopped me from driving and all. And uh, and I don't get
out that much. And they went on and Patricia Jenkins made me a promise that she was gone try to keep
it going. So now, it's just a cemetery. And we're trying to get a fence around, that's what I'm trying to
do, is get a fence around it. We get a fence around it, that's it, you know? It'll always, put it a sign up,
it'll always be there. You know people; I don't know what they might do with it. People tried to buy it,
tried to buy it from me and all but I can't sell it. The way it's drawed up, I can't sell it, it don't belong to
me. And then we were looking in there, I don't know what it mean, I could, I did, I did uh, you know.
CE: Um hum.
GP: It's, it's got this steel corporation.
CE: Okay. So the cemetery man is in the hands of a corporation.
GP: LePageville Memorial Cemetery, corporated. That's they way they made, that's the way he made out
the ...
CE: And land can never be sold. Okay. I think that'll do it. What do you think Reggie?
RF: That's good.
CE: Mr. Ponder I tell you, it's been fascinating.
GP: Yeah.
END
City of Sa vannah NOTES
1. Filmed on the da te indicated at the home of the resident.
2. Designa tions -- "GP" indicates George Ponder. "RF" indica tes Reginald Franklin, the Project
Yideographer. "CE" indicates Charles Elmore, the Project Historian.
3. Pg 13, CE erroneously notes the acreage a s 3.4 acres when GP clearly indicated the a creage
as 3.8 in his comments.
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