Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person Interviewed: Henry Fitzhugh
Aged: 90
Home: Rooms at 209 Walnut Street
Several "colored" districts are scattered throughout Hot springs. On Whittington, within a block of the First Presbyterian Church and St. Joseph's Infirmary stand the Roanok Baptist and the Haven Methodist (both for colored). Architecturally they compare favorably with similar edifices for whites. Their choirs have become nationally famous. Sunday afternoon concerts are frequent. Mid-week ones are not uncommon. At such times special sections are reserved for whites, and are usually filled. Visitors to the resort enjoy them immensely.
Across the street a one-time convent school has been converted into a negro apartment house. A couple of blocks up Whittington, Walnut veers to the right. It is paved for several blocks. Fronting on concrete sidewalks are houses, well painted and boasting yards which indicate pride in possession. Some are private homes, some rooming houses and some apartments. Porch flower boxes and urns are mostly of concrete studded with crystals.
Finding Henry Fitzhugh wasn't easy. The delivery boy at the corner chain store "knows everybody in the neighborhood" according to a passer-by. He offered the address 209. That number turned out to be an old, but substantial and well cared for two story house. Ringing the bell repeatedly brought no response.
A couple of women in the yard next door announced that to find Fitzhugh one had to "go around back and knock on the last door on the back porch." This procedure too brought no results. Another backyard observer offered the suggestion that Fitzhugh was probably down at the restaurant eating.
School had just been dismissed. Two well dressed negro children walked along together, swinging their books. "Can you tell me where the restaurant is?" asked the interviewer, stopping them. "Do you mean the colored restaurant?" one of the tots asked, not a whit of embarrassment in her manner, no servility, no resentment—just an ordinary question. "It's right over there."
The restaurant proved to be large, well lighted, scrupulously clean. Tables were well spaced and quite a distance from the counter. Sunshine streamed in from two directions. Fitzhugh was sitting just outside talking to the boot-black.
"Yes, ma'am, I's Henry Fitzhugh. Can't work no more since I got hit by an automoble. Before that I had a shoe-shine place myself. But I can't work no more. Yes 'um I gets the pension. I gets $10 a month. It's not much, but I sort of get by. I's got my room up at 209 and I gets my meals down here at the restaurant. Yes ma'am, pensions seem to be coming in pretty regular now.
Been in Hot Springs a long, long time. Come here in 1876. I remembers lots of the old families here. What yo say your name was? Your Mother was a Dengler? Sure, I remembers the Denglers. Mr. Dengler had a soda-water shop. I remembers him.
When I first come, soon as I was able, I cleaned up for Captain Mallard. Cleaned up all along Central in that block he was in.