They Don't Make Them Like They Used To

Dear Boo and Bubble,

My last couple of blogs focusing on women and their natural abilities to minister have spurred some thoughts about the abundance of strong females in your lineage.  Of your four great, great grandmothers on your mother’s side, three outlived their husbands and had to forge lives for themselves and their families afterwards. I’ve shared with you stories about two of them - Captain’s paternal grandmother Lucille Tally (Sat. Nov. 24 – “A Steel Magnolia in the Family) and my paternal grandmother Mattie Kendrick (Friday, Feb. 27, 2015 – “One Heck of a Nanny Goat” and Monday, Feb. 23, 2015 – “A Grandmother’s Gift) - but it occurred to me that as yet, I haven’t spent any time acquainting you with Eva Crew Bethany, Mamaw Mary’s mother for whom I am named. 

Her story mirrors that of the others in that she assumed a role of self-reliance when widowed which then later broadened into one of community service once she no longer had to provide for her children.  Bebe, as I called her, grew up in a Quaker household in the late 1800’s.  My familiarity with this particular form of Christian expression is quite limited and any attempt to explain it to you here would fall woefully short. But there are some historical tenets that stand out such as opposition to slavery prior to the Civil War; a refusal to swear oaths; wearing modest dress; and total abstinence from alcohol.  Perhaps the signature identifier of a Quaker is the element of pacifism, a word that shares a common root with peace, which is defined as “opposition to violence as a means of settling disputes, specifically: refusal to bear arms on moral and religious grounds.” Pacifism not only governs one’s individual actions towards others but also extends to the refusal to participate in war.  (I remember Mamaw telling me the story of how, when your great, great, grandfather James Foster Bethany came courting Bebe in Texas, he would un-holster his gun and leave it on the mantle out of respect for the family’s Quaker faith.)

By the time I came along, Bebe had become a Methodist, but she still exhibited vestiges of her Quaker roots.  Not even a drop of liquor ever passed her lips.  Her clothing, although fashionable, never flaunted fancy patterns or flamboyant colors.  And, I don’t think that she ever cut her hair.  I remember watching her brush it while she sat at her dressing table.  It flowed down well past her waist and she would wrap it into a beautiful bun on the crown of her head.

James Foster died suddenly in 1936 as The Great Depression engulfed most of the country.  At the time, he represented a syrup company and rode a circuit out from Houston soliciting orders from local grocery stores for his product.  His untimely death left Bebe with no inheritance and no means of support. Even though her children were older – Mamaw’s older sister Dorothy was married and pregnant with her first child while Mamaw had just started her freshman year in college at Rice Institute – Bebe found it necessary to establish some source of income.  The times were tough and definitely not favorable to women in the workforce.  Somehow, she convinced the company to allow her to assume his syrup route.  As she had no car, nor the ability to drive one, this meant hiring a driver to take her everywhere.  I’m sure her success in this endeavor came as quite a surprise to many, but not to the ones who knew her best.

Sometime in the 1940’s, Bebe joined the staff of Ripley House, one of the nation’s first community centers, in Houston’s second ward on the east end of the city and for the entire time I knew her, she and Ripley House were synonymous.  She lived in a small apartment in the building and, among other responsibilities, oversaw the children’s puppetry program.  Because of the distance between Greenville and Houston, my trips there growing up were few (see “The Great Train Race” – Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012), but I can vividly recall singing “White Christmas” from the stage in the dining hall in my purple tulle ballet recital costume and, if I close my eyes, I can see the black and white checkered vinyl floor in the hallway and picture Bebe’s apartment right down the hall from a kitchen where she did her cooking. 

In preparation of writing this to you, I did some research on Ripley House and found a fascinating article about its history on the internet at http://houstonhistorymagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/mcwhorter-Ripley-House.pdf.  It told me many things I did not know.  

Ripley House arose out of a broader national movement in the early twentieth century called “Settlement Associations.”  For several years prior, major cities in the U.S. created Settlement Houses which modeled after Toynbee Hall in London.  Established by Samuel and Henrietta Barnett, Toynbee was located in “one of the poorest, most crime ridden, and underserved areas of London.” The concept of the Hall sought to “bring the most privileged – the future elite – to live in the poorest area of London, a privilege for which they had to pay.”  The goal was to educate the country’s future leaders about the need for social change by offering them a close up and personal experience in the very place where change was actually needed.  The hope was to move them from concept to reality.

At the time, Houston experienced a period of accelerated population growth. The influx of people came from other states and countries, many of whom settled into the aging and deteriorating Second Ward.  As is always the case, the wealthy, more established families migrated away from the city and into the suburbs, pulling resources away with them.  Very few social welfare programs existed to address the needs of the new Houstonians.

In February of 1907, “a group of twelve influential and civic-minded Houston women met at the home of James A. Baker, under the leadership of his wife, Alice Graham Baker (grandmother to future Secretary of State James A. Baker III).”  The ladies determined to form a “Settlement Association” based upon models from other major cities where actual Settlement Houses had been successfully implemented.  In forming the Houston Settlement Association, they hoped to “engage and involve Houston’s elite in one of the city’s most underserved neighborhoods” and “extend educational, industrial, social, and friendly aid to all those within our reach.” There was a corresponding belief as well that “the citizens they served should also take an active role in working towards their own betterment.” 

From the turn of the century until 1940, there were several precursors to Ripley House, most notably the Rusk Settlement which ultimately grew into a facility large enough to house staff on its second floor and rooms for club meetings, pool tables, and a dispensary with a full-time nurse on the first.  Originally, the population that the Settlement served had come from Russia, Ireland, Germany and twelve other countries as well as significant number of native-born African Americans.  But, in 1910, with the beginning of the ten-year long Mexican Revolution, masses of Mexicans crossed the border and settled in Houston’s Second Ward.

With the recognition of this change, the Rusk Settlement began the critical service of classes in English literacy for both adults and children. A job placement program was created as well as expanded daycare service.  There was outreach into the community to visit the homes of pupils who had ceased attending school.  The Settlement organized all-Mexican Girl and Boy Scout Troops.  There was a tremendous lack of basic services to the surrounding neighborhoods and the Settlement offered free shower facilities to those families who had no running water or sanitary service in their homes. 

In 1940, through the generosity of philanthropists Daniel and Edith Ripley, a different kind of social welfare center opened up in the East End that served as an early model for community centers to follow. The Ripley House, built approximately one half mile east of the Rusk Settlement, was made possible by an endowment left by the Ripleys to construct a building that would benefit the women and children of Houston. Their foundation had searched for just the right partnership, which they found in the Settlement Association. As part of the agreement, the Ripley Foundation constructed the new facility, which then became the new headquarters for the Settlement Association.

It was not built without controversy.  By then, more established Anglo families had returned to the section of the Second Ward where the construction site was located.  When the local paper announced that “Ripley House would be a facility for the underprivileged people of Houston,” residents in the neighborhood protested saying they were not in that category.  Once construction began, pickets formed daily.

However, by the time the building was dedicated in March of 1940, there was great fanfare and a crowd of 2500 people celebrated.  Perhaps this was due to the farsighted decision by the Ripley Foundation to hire renown Houston architect Maurice Sullivan to design the building.  His research on existing settlement houses on the East Coast provided the inspiration for a state-of-the-art facility that included a diagnostic clinic with exam rooms and x-ray machines, game and club rooms, a kindergarten and a nursery school, space dedicated to the arts, an auditorium, and a gymnasium.  The cost per family to have access to all of this was only $2 per year.

In 1943, the Foundation hired Franklin Harbach to assume the directorship of Ripley House which he did for the next forty years.  He came from the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side in New York and was extremely qualified to manage the challenges of integrating Ripley House into its surrounding community.  It was early into his tenure that Bebe came to work there.

From then on, Ripley House became her home, her job, her life until 1966 when she died in her sleep in that little apartment.  Franklin Harbach was the one who called to tell us. For those 20 years, she dedicated her life to the underprivileged children in the surrounding neighborhoods, perhaps demonstrating more than anything her Quaker roots of peaceful, constructive solutions to problems.

(Years ago, when your Aunt Bee was trying to determine where she wanted to continue her ballet career, the choices boiled down to Houston and Boston. She and I flew to Houston to explore that possibility.  One of my very close high school friends, Karen Hartnett, lived in Houston and happened to be on the board of the ballet there.  She graciously invited us to stay with her for our visit.  After we had finished our official duties, I asked Karen if she would mind helping me find Ripley House.  I knew the street address by heart – 4401 Lovejoy.  Perhaps Google Maps were in existence then…..I’m not sure….but somehow she navigated us through the streets out from town to the eastern part of the city and into the Second Ward.  We found it – not as large or as grand as I remembered, but still there.  That was the last time.  I think it has now been torn down.)