Interview with Barbara Clowers, St. Peter Claver, Macon, Georgia

Oral Memoirs
of
Barbara Clowers
St. Peter Claver, Macon

An Interview
Conducted by
Bettye Middlebrooks &
Katy Lockard
on
September 12, 2019

Accession: 20190912.01
Community Elders, Black Catholic Oral History Project

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Table of Contents
General Policy and Purposes iv
Oral History Procedure iv
Legal Status iv
Interview History v
Collection/Project Detail v
Interview Transcript, 9/12/2019 1

General Policies and Procedures
A member of the Oral History Association, the Archives & Records Management Department of the Catholic Diocese of Savannah (A&R) supports and embodies the goals, guidelines, and standards of archival quality prescribed by the national professional association to ensure long-term preservation of memoirs. It is the practice of A&R to select narrators whose recollections, as participants or eyewitnesses, are relevant to the departments chosen research topics. Their recorded memoirs provide links between the immediate past and the present in a very human way. A scholarly but relaxed and conversational atmosphere exists during the interview. To encourage completely candid recollections, the narrator is asked to regard the oral history memoir as a highly personal journal. The transcribed historical document, which the finished memoir becomes, is the raw material used by historians and professional scholars.
In the interest of preserving these memories for future use, the narrator and interviewer must sign a deed of gift agreement. Generally, this releases their portions of the interview to the oral history archives of Catholic Diocese of Savannah for historical and academic research and public dissemination. The narrator may also choose to restrict the memoir by limiting access or by sealing the memoir until a specified date.
Memoir Procedure
Initial contact with the narrator.
Arrangements made for interview(s).
Recording of interview(s).
Transcribing of recording(s) in the A&R office.
Audit-checking and editing of transcript(s) in the A&R office. Abstract(s) created.
Review of transcript(s) by interviewer.
Review of transcript(s) by narrator. Due to edits requested, transcript(s) may not match audio recording(s) exactly.
Upload of draft transcript(s) and recording(s) to A&Rs web portal.
Presentation of bound copy of completed memoir to the interviewee.
Legal Status
Scholarly use of the recording(s) and transcript(s) of the interview(s) with Barbara Clowers is unrestricted. The deed of gift agreement was signed on November 5, 2020.

Interview History
The recording(s) and transcript(s) of the interview(s) were processed in the offices of the Archives & Records Management Department, Catholic Diocese of Savannah, Savannah, Georgia.
Interviewer: Bettye Middlebrooks
Transcriber: James C. Wright
Editor: Stephanie Braddy
Collection/Project Detail
The Diocese of Savannah is collecting oral histories from members of the Black Catholic community to fill in gaps in the documentation.

Barbara Clowers (ne Brooks), 88, was born in Macon, GA in 1931 to Julia Bell Brown of Albany, GA and Harold Sheffield Brooks of Macon, GA. Her mother worked as a teacher and her father was an agent with Atlanta Life Insurance in Macon, as well as a musician. Sadly, Julia died in childbirth with her youngest child, Essie. Barbara was only five years old. Following the death of her mother, Barbara and two of her siblings, Marilyn and Harold Jr., were raised with their grandmother. The baby, Essie, was sent to live with the niece of her grandmother in Philadelphia, where she met Mother Katharine Drexel (canonized a saint in 2000) and served her whenever Mother Katharine visited the school Essie attended.
Barbara worked as a teacher for 5 years in Bibb County Schools and was a social worker for 20 years in Bibb County, DFACS. In 1956, Barbara married Frank Clowers, a mechanical engineer. Frank received his degree from West Virginia State College (now a University). He worked for Robins Air Force Base and Travis Air Force Base in graphic and design. He also taught at Macon Technical College. After 53 years of marriage, Frank died in 2009. They had two children, Michael who also died in 2018 and Francine lives in South Carolina.
Barbara and Frank were not born Catholic. They converted later in life. Franks sister was Catholic. After Marilyn (Barbaras sister) married, she and her husband became catholic and shortly after that Frank and Barbara became Catholic as well and fully immersed themselves in the St. Peter Claver community. Barbara served as the first Director of Evangelization and organized the Vacation Bible School summer programs. She also volunteered with St. Peter Clavers food pantry.

Bettye Middlebrooks is a longtime member of St. Peter Claver Parish in Macon, GA and a member of the Black Catholic History Advisory Board to the Archives.

Katy Lockard is the Director of Archives & Records Management for the Catholic Diocese of Savannah.
Interview Transcript
BMiddlebrooks Okay, my name is Betty Middlebrooks and this is September 19, 2019. I am interviewing Barbara Clowers for the first time, and this interview is taking place at the Diocesan office, Pastoral Center in Savannah. This interview is sponsored by St. Peter Claver Catholic Church and School. It is a part of the Black Catholic History interviews. Okay Barbara, first let me thank you for agreeing to this interview. I want you to think back, go back in time, and tell us what you remember about your earliest days at St. Peter Claver and school.
BClowers Well, as a child, I would go to St. Peter Claver [00:01:00] to mass sometimes with Mrs. Essie Hutchings who was the organist at that time, and a dear friend of my late mothers. In the early sixties, I was not Catholic, but Mother Cleophas, who was sort of a person who wanted her way, and had her way. She was not the type of person to just say yes, yes to everything Father Galvin had asked. And Father Galvin was an Irish priest and very accustomed to running a very lean school. I think tuition was about ten dollars per month at that time. But anyway, Mother Cleophas said that she was not going to collect [00:02:00] students fees and try to teach a class too. That she wanted a certified teacher to come in and teach her eighth grade classes. My sister, at that time, was Catholic, and still is. She said [to Mother Cleophas] Well, my sister is a teacher and shes not working, shes staying home with her children. So she [Mother Cleophas] said Well, will she come? and she [my sister] said, Ill ask. And I did, I went. And the first time I went, was to the kindergarten classroom. That was Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Mary Davis, who was about four feet tall. Everybody loved Mrs. Davis. And everybody wanted their children to be in her [00:03:00] kindergarten class, especially the teachers in Macon and Bibb County. But Mrs. Daviss mother died the secondabout the second day into school, and Mother Cleophas called me and asked me if I would come and teach this class. Well, the children had not gotten acclimated to school. They had not, um, they talked with their fingers in their mouths. They were just sort of very shy. And uh, it was sort of hardits the hardest work I have ever done in my life. Especially, there was no air conditioning, there was no fans, no screens at the windows. [00:04:00] And these children sat at these cute little tables, and um, there was no lunch room. Everybody, all the parents made lunches for their children. So every child had a cute little Shirley Temple lunchbox with a thermos inside. And inside those boxes was Kool-Aid, inside those thermoses was Kool-Aid. Well, there were about sixty plus children every day. In fact, Mrs. Daviss classroom is now two classrooms. They made it into two classrooms when St. Peter Claver was redesignedwell, yes, redesignedon that floor. By the time I would go around and get all these thermoses open, the children would eat [00:05:00] their little lunch and then they would try to start putting the tops back onto the thermoses. And the thermosesthey couldnt get them on straight and they were spilling Kool-Aid on the table where they had to work. Flies were everywhere. The tables were sticky. It was hot. So, I told Mother Cleophas I just had to have some help to at least get those thermoses back on because it took a long time for me to go to sixty children and put thermoses backto screw the tops back on. But anyway, it was, like on Friday evening, the floors were so sticky, that I mopped. Every Friday, I would mop. The two Fridays I was there, I would mop the floors. And uh, [00:06:00] maybe change the water three times. That was the hardest work Ive ever done in my life. But, it was so enjoyable.
BMiddlebrooks Talk to me about Fr. William Coleman.
BClowers Father Coleman came to Macon, I think, to integrate the schools and the churches. And uh, it was said that uhthis is ugly to say on tape especiallythat the people at St. Joseph told him this is our school and our church. But, Father Coleman did things to bring the schoolsto right interactions between the parishioners at Holy Spirit, St. Peter Claver, and St. Joseph. We had [00:07:00] picnics. We had various outings. I think the beautiful thing, and I dont know whether they do it now or not, was Confirmation. Parents had to attend Confirmation classes. And it was held at St. Peter Claver. So, the people from St. Joseph had to come to lowly St. Peter Claver for Confirmation. But the actual Confirmation ceremony was held at St. Joseph, in their basement, and it was beautiful. I remember candles being around some of the posts and the candles were down in sand. It was just beautiful. But it brought us together and we got a chance to interact with one another. But I dont know whether any of that is going on now or not.
BMiddlebrooks So when he [Father Coleman] came, he came to work with all [00:08:00] three parishes? Not just
BClowers No, he was with St. Joseph. He was the priest at St. Joseph. But, the goal was to integrate St. Joseph, St. Peter Claver, and Holy Spirit and try to bring about a good Christian relationship between the three.
BMiddlebrooks Okay, Sam Hall Construction Company, you remember you all had a relationship with him?
BClowers Mr. Willie SWilliamI think his name was Willie Smith, he worked for Sam Hall. And hethis was when the men would go over and do the playground once a year. During the summer, while the children were out of school, the men would go over and take care of the playground. Get the equipment [00:09:00] painted, refurbished, whatever needed repairing. And Mr. Smith, working for Sam Hall who was in construction, he would bring histhe big machinery over there and whatever was needed, level off things. It was just a beautiful relationship because we [the school] didnt pay anybody to do anything then. Absolutely nobody. Nobody was paid.
BMiddlebrooks Okay. Now, when Fr. Liam Collins came, he gave youwell, he asked you to serve on a special ministrythe Evangelization Ministry. You were the first to work in that ministry. You were the chair of that ministry. Want to talk to us little bit about that and how that got started?
BClowers Well, Father [Collins] was concerned. I called him the Little Leprechaun. He was concerned that St. Peter Claver was [00:010:00] in the midst of a Black community and that the church was getting more, quote pale. And he wanted us to keep the relationship within the community as much as possible. So, we did some neat things. We were funded by the Koch Foundation, whose daughter [the founders daughter] happened to be a pilot. She flew up to Macon to interview us because they funded us several years to do the work that we did. And we involved the children across the streetthere was a cul-de-sac across the street with a lot of children. We also involved children from the Booker T. Washington Community Center. And we would take them. [00:11:00] But we also had our own [school] children. So, we wanted to bringwe wanted to try to bring people together to show Gods love. To not proselytize, but to just show Gods love in the community and that St. Peter Claver is here if you need us. And I can remember the Sisters giving out bread to people in that cul-de-sac. But those children came over and theywe took them to CNN [in Atlanta]. We chartered a bus to CNN. We took them to Perry, Georgia, to the Agricenter [State Fairgrounds] in Perry [00:12:00].
BMiddlebrooks Nutcracker.
BClowers Yeah, forgot about that! Yeah, we took them to the Nutcracker. And this is where the funding came in so good from Koch Foundation, because we could buy these childrens tickets. We would take them to the Museum of Arts and Sciences [in Macon], to see the Christmas trees once a year, and we were always praised for how well the children acted. So
BMiddlebrooks Did part of that funding also go to the vacation bible school?
BClowers Right, vacation bible school was also done. And weIm trying to think, I dont want to leave anything out. Ive mentioned CNN, oh, the Air Museum. We took them down [00:13:00] to the Air Museum also. We wanted to give these children enrichment because any child can learn whats in a book. But they didnt have the enrichment that they needed. And I knew how important that was, and so we tried to take them out to places where they ordinarily would not have gone. It was a wonderful time and I miss it, but Im too old to do it now [laughs].
BMiddlebrooks Okay, when did you actually becomeI know you were there all the timebut when did you actually become Catholic?
BClowers I think it was in 1970, maybe it was 1970, and it was a large class. I dont think there has been a [00:14:00] larger class in RCIA. Father OSullivan was the priest then. He really rushed us through, and weit was just a beautiful time. And I think we had maybe had our first communionIm trying to think, was itI dont remember if it was at Christmas or during the spring, like when they normally do it. Maybe it was in the spring. As I said, Father OSullivan was the priest at the time.
BMiddlebrooks Okay. And then you had two children that went to St. Peter Claver and graduated from Mount de Sales, correct?
BClowers One son. The son graduated from Mount de Sales. The daughter went to South Carolina and graduated from a school over there.
BMiddlebrooks Okay. [00:15:00] What about grandchildren?
BClowers Grandson went to, my sons son, went to Mount de Sales and was quite a smart young man. Very proud of him. He works with an electrical engineering company in Norcross, Georgia. Mount de Sales prepared him well; of course, he was a very focused young man. So, he was a Georgia Tech graduate.
BMiddlebrooks Okay, Katy, do you have any other questions?
KLockard Well, I was just interested to hear a little bit about your story of why you chose to become Catholic. You know, you sounded like you were part of the community, and maybe you can talk just a little bit about that sort of journey?
BClowers Well, I guess [00:16:00] the journey had started early with Mrs. Essie Hutchings, who was the organist years and years ago. Then when my sister married a Catholic, and my sister-in-lawmy husbands sistermarried a Catholicthey lived in South CarolinaI guess I was thinking about my children too. If something happen to us, what would happen to my children? And plus, the priestmaybe I shouldnt say thisbut he didnt have problems with not having a large family. And that was a concern to me because my mother died when I was five years old. [00:17:00] Childbirth and pneumonia. We were little stair-steps. I was the oldest at five years old and twelve days. So I just had a problem with the Catholic Churchs view on contraceptives and things of that sort. But as I say, Father OSullivan, he was a different kind of person [laughs]. And he said he came up very, very poor, so maybe thats why he had some of the thoughts that he had about it. It made me feel like, well, you can come to the Catholic Church, you know. So that was, I guess, my motivation. Plus, I wasI was at a churchat the Presbyterian church, [00:18:00] which was my mothers church, and it wasat that time, it was a dying church. It was just a few families and I was playing for church, teaching Sunday school, doing the flowers, you know, and I just felt like I was washed out. And I told my husband, I am going to leave the Presbyterian church and Im going to the Catholic church. And he said I will go too.
BMiddlebrooks Okay. Now, in a lot of the interviews Ive done, Mrs. Essie Hutchings name came up a lot.
BClowers Yeah, she
BMiddlebrooks So she was very well known in the community, wasnt she?
BClowers Yeah, she grew upshe was in a convent at one time.
BMiddlebrooks Oh, okay.
BClowers Yeah, in a Catholic school, boarding school. And she married Willie Hutchings, of Hutchings Funeral Home. And she was sort of like, I guess, a mentor to my mother. And a very dear friend of hers, but she was a very devout Catholic. And she played the organ there for years.
BMiddlebrooks Okay. Thank you very much, Barbara.
[End of interview]