Vie Taylor Wims | Interview 1 | March 1, 2005

WILMOT: Good morning. Today is March 1, with Mrs. Viola Taylor Wims. I'm Nadine Wilmot, here from the Regional Oral History Office. Good morning.

TAYLOR WIMS: Good morning

WILMOT: We start off by asking when and where were you born?TAYLOR WIMS: I was born in Texas in 1914, August 21.

WILMOT: And what part of Texas are you from?

TAYLOR WIMS: It's a little country place in Texas called Alleton, Texas, in Colorado County of Texas. My dad worked for people who built roads and my mom 00:01:00said we never lived in one place very long, because once they fixed the road here, we had to go on some place else. So it was the early part of my life, before the war. We didn't live in one place very long.

WILMOT: What were your parents' names?

TAYLOR WIMS: My mother was named Bessie Townsend and my dad, Elijah Townsend.

WILMOT: And what kind of work did they do? You said your father worked on the roads.

TAYLOR WIMS: When he and my mom first married, like I said, he worked for people who built roads. I guess there weren't many roads then, highways I guess you would call them now. They'd get a certain area built, they'd just move on down, 00:02:00I guess maybe a fifty mile radius.

WILMOT: Were both your parents from Texas as well?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yes, they were from the same place.

WILMOT: Did you have any siblings? Did you have any brothers or sisters?

TAYLOR WIMS: Two half sisters. They didn't live close to me.

WILMOT: On your mother's side or your father's side?

TAYLOR WIMS: Father's side. One died very young, and the other one died later in life. We knew each other and our parents were friendly.

WILMOT: You said that was the early part of your life. How old were you when you came to the Bay Area? Did you come by yourself, or did your family come and then 00:03:00you came?

TAYLOR WIMS: I didn't come to the Bay Area until 1940.

WILMOT: So you were at that point--?

TAYLOR WIMS: Twenty six or twenty seven years old. I've forgotten now. My mother died. My father died first, my mother died, and I had an aunt who lived in Oakland, and when my mother died, she wanted me to come live with her. But I was just about grown at the time.

WILMOT: Had you been in Texas all that time?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, yeah. During the time when my mother and dad were moving around a lot, the war started and my dad went to war, and my mother moved away from 00:04:00this little place to Galveston, Texas. And I lived there until I came here. And I've been in Oakland since 1940. Now wait a minute. I came to Oakland in 1938. My daughter was born in 1940. Yeah, I'm sorry.

WILMOT: It's alright. Your father went away to war. Do you know where he went?

TAYLOR WIMS: To France. That's about all I can remember, because when he came from the war, he and my mother separated. I don't know what happened to him in 00:05:00the war, but he was real mean. His whole personality had changed. So my mother didn't stay with him. Then not longer afterwards, he was killed in a car accident. I don't remember too much about my father.

WILMOT: Can you tell me a bit about the aunt that you came to see in Oakland? Where did she live?

TAYLOR WIMS: She lived in West Oakland, where most black people lived in those days. She had a restaurant and I worked in the restaurant with her.

WILMOT: What was the restaurant's name?

TAYLOR WIMS: The Forty Niner.

WILMOT: Where was it?

TAYLOR WIMS: On Seventh Street. I went to night school at Laney College and I 00:06:00took a secretarial course, and then I started working in Downtown Oakland, at a store in Downtown Oakland.

WILMOT: Did you know a lot of people who had come from Texas to the Bay Area during that period? Had you known friends?

TAYLOR WIMS: Quite a few.

WILMOT: Why were people moving?

TAYLOR WIMS: Because of jobs. During that time, they had all of these shipyards here, and they came out to work. Most of them stayed; they never went back to where they came from. I think they came from all over the south.

WILMOT: But for you, the push was more that your mother had passed. You weren't 00:07:00so much thinking about--

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, no. After I was here almost two years, I married. And I had two children, and my husband worked on the railroad. He was a waiter on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and we stayed here.

WILMOT: You said you came and took a secretarial course, and then you got a job in Downtown Oakland. And you were probably around twenty seven or eight at this time?

TAYLOR WIMS: I guess so.

WILMOT: Maybe I'm wrong. What kind of work were you doing in Downtown Oakland?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I was a sales girl and secretary.

WILMOT: You were working two jobs?

TAYLOR WIMS: On the same job. If I wasn't busy, then I would help someone who came in and wanted to buy something, or some of friends came in who wanted me to 00:08:00wait on them, then they would just let me sell them.

WILMOT: What kind of a store was it?

TAYLOR WIMS: It was a clothing store.

WILMOT: So you were selling fashionable items, like, gloves and--?

TAYLOR WIMS: It was the Capitol Clothing Store on Washington.

WILMOT: And I'm not sure if you told me your aunt's name.

TAYLOR WIMS: The name was Farana Boulter.

WILMOT: So did you have a room in her house, or did you eventually move out?

TAYLOR WIMS: I moved in with her until I married, and then I moved out.

WILMOT: And where did you and your husband set up your household?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, he lived with his mother. And he, his mother, and I lived together. It was on MacArthur Boulevard.

WILMOT: East or West?

TAYLOR WIMS: It was in North Oakland.

WILMOT: Close to MacArthur BART?

TAYLOR WIMS: Close to Market Street, on MacArthur Boulevard. Actually, they didn't call it MacArthur Boulevard then, it was 38th Street.

WILMOT: Was he also from the Bay Area, or had he moved here from some place else?

TAYLOR WIMS: He had moved here when he was much younger. His people came from San Antonio, Texas, to California.

WILMOT: But they were here before the first wave of people who came during the war?

TAYLOR WIMS: Right, they had been here a long time.

WILMOT: That's interesting. You came from two different kind of eras. And what was your husband's name, your first husband?

TAYLOR WIMS: Walter Taylor.

WILMOT: So you lived over off of MacArthur?

TAYLOR WIMS: On MacArthur.

WILMOT: On MacArthur, on what was then called 38th. Did you continue to work after you were married?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah.

WILMOT: And did you continue to work after you had your children?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, mmm-hm. My aunt ran a cafe and it was easy for me to work because with my husband's mother living with us, I always had someone to keep the children. I worked at the cafe a long time before I worked downtown. Because when I came, I worked for her, and after we got married, I worked a long time. I don't think I took this class until my husband and I separated.

I haven't thought of this in years, so it's gradually coming back, but--[coughs]. Then I took this secretarial course at Merritt College and went 00:11:00to work at the Capitol Clothing Store, because I had to keep--at that time, my husband and I had separated and I had an aunt in Texas, and I had her come out here to stay with me so she could keep my children. And this is when I took the secretarial course and then went to work at the place downtown, Capital Clothing Store.

And then after working down there for several years, with the salaries that were paid, I knew that I would just be in that same rut for a long time. And there 00:12:00were not any hardly real estate people in Oakland, but I so many people, black people came out. And they wanted to buy homes. This man, this real estate broker, used to come in my aunt's café all the time, and even when I started working at this clothing store downtown, I still worked on the other job, because I worked nights.

WILMOT: So this wasn't like a fancy free time for you.

TAYLOR WIMS: Right. [chuckles] And this is when I met a lot of people who wanted to buy houses. And I worked for a girl in Richmond. She persuaded me to work in Richmond because she thought there were better opportunities in Richmond because at that time, Oakland, then, was pretty segregated. There were so many areas where they would say if you go and look at a house, they would say it was sold 00:13:00or it's off the market, and it was a problem.

WILMOT: What areas in Oakland were segregated? Do you recall? And this would have been around what year? Around the fifties, or the late forties?TAYLOR WIMS: It was between the forties and the fifties. It was around the forties and the fifties. There was segregation almost everywhere at that time. Because before the war, there were very few black people in California. Most black people came here to work and stayed. If your relatives are back in Texas or Louisiana, southern states, they came out here because of the job opportunities. Lots of the kids came out here and grew up, and went to the war from here. My husband 00:14:00was lucky he wasn't drafted. I don't know why. I really don't know why, but he wasn't.

WILMOT: I just realized when you were talking about the war, about your father, that you were talking about World War I. Is that right?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah.

WILMOT: Yeah, it just took me a minute. Excuse me.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, that was in the teens. I think the war ended in 1918.

WILMOT: And you said there were many parts of Oakland that were segregated. Were black people living in East Oakland at that point, or was it mostly West Oakland, or--?

TAYLOR WIMS: It was West Oakland and East Oakland, east of East 14th Street. That's where they first started settling. Not on the west side of East 14th, east side. I guess that's east.

WILMOT: It's confusing because in Oakland east and west doesn't really mean east and west. It's always funny that way.

TAYLOR WIMS: Right.

WILMOT: So you said that you had a friend, could you tell me a little bit more about how you got involved in Richmond's real estate market?

TAYLOR WIMS: I had a friend who had an office out there.

WILMOT: Who was this?

TAYLOR WIMS: Her name was Neetha Williams, was a woman. And she wanted me to work for her.

WILMOT: Did you have to take courses in order to do that?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh yeah. I had to take real estate courses and an examination to get a license.

WILMOT: Did you know, were there other black realtors or real estate agents?

TAYLOR WIMS: There weren't many. There were only two or three.

WILMOT: When you entered the field, who were they?

TAYLOR WIMS: I think there was Neetha Williams and Albert McKey. Oh gosh, I 00:16:00can't think of those names now. They might come to me later on. S.B. O'Dell.

WILMOT: I've heard of him. I remember, I think Edith [Hill] told me about S.B. O'Dell.

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh yeah. She worked for him for years. Arlene Slaughter. That's about all I can think of right now. There were a few more, but when I first 00:17:00started, it was very, very few. But they just popped up, kept popping up. And most of them are dead now. There's a very few, very few who are living. Some of them got to be very prominent. And they did a lot of good work. We had a lot of battles, discrimination in housing. After the war stopped and jobs played out, 00:18:00we had to work with the NAACP, and in Oakland, we had a little group called "Spend Your Money Where You Can Work." We did a lot with that, because we felt that if a store or business didn't want to hire black people, then we wouldn't shop there. So that helped.

WILMOT: And this was after the war, once those jobs were not as plentiful.

TAYLOR WIMS: That's right. So we had--with the NAACP, and it was just around in the Bay Area, this group we called "Spend Your Money Where You Can Work." People in other areas had different kinds of programs, but this was the one we had here. If we didn't see black people in a place, we would ask them. And if they 00:19:00would say they didn't hire black people, then we would say, "Well, we won't spend our money with you."

WILMOT: These were organizations that you were involved with outside of real estate.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah. Real estate organizations did a lot, too.

WILMOT: What was your real estate organization that you worked with?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, it's still in existence. It's still here. It's Associated Real Property Brokers. I'm not active with it, and I haven't been active for many years because I haven't sold real estate for many, many years. But I support them. It's a very strong organization.

WILMOT: Did you assist in founding it?

TAYLOR WIMS: Huh?

WILMOT: Did you help found it?

TAYLOR WIMS: No, it was founded--well, I had founded the chapter here. I helped start the chapter here, but it was nationwide. It still is. We are called 00:20:00Realtists and Realtors. Now, most of the black people belong to two organizations, the Realtors and the Realtists. I was never a Realtor. I applied once, and they sent me a letter back and my check for fifty dollars. I still have it somewhere. It might have got burned up in the fire, when this house burned down. But when they started letting black people in, I felt that I didn't need them then, so I never joined the Realtors.

WILMOT: What reason did they give for denying your application?

TAYLOR WIMS: Black.

WILMOT: They put that in writing somewhere?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah! Mm-hmm. And they finally let black people in--.

WILMOT: How did they know? If you sent in an application.

TAYLOR WIMS: That was on the application, race. So they finally had to let black people in because 00:21:00they knew they could make more money. And then when the law was passed, too, the discrimination law was passed. But I didn't want to join afterwards. I was asked many times. Because afterwards, they had even two black presidents, but I didn't want to join. They didn't let me join when I needed them, so when I could get in, I didn't need them.

WILMOT: What were the things you thought they could do for you if you joined?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, you had activity at all properties.

WILMOT: Sorry, would you say that again?

TAYLOR WIMS: You could sell any properties anywhere.

WILMOT: So it essentially meant that you could not sell properties everywhere?

TAYLOR WIMS: Right, because they didn't say, "You can't sell this property." They would say, "We have an offer." Or "It's already sold. It's off the market." There was always something they would tell you, but we knew better. Because many times, people would call us and say, "I don't mind selling to blacks. All I want is money." So after this started happening--but then the discrimination law was passed, that desegregated the schools, and desegregated where you could live, where you could go. After that law was passed, they had to because it was illegal not to.

WILMOT: Are you speaking of the Fair Housing?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, the Fair Housing.

WILMOT: I'm trying to think if that was in 1950--I think it was the mid fifties, but I'm not certain.

TAYLOR WIMS: I'm not certain either, because actually I haven't thought of this in so long.

WILMOT: As a realtist, how did you navigate, for example, the housing covenants, 00:23:00like for example, I know in Trestle Glen there was a housing covenant that specified that property owners could not sell to other than white people? As a realtor or realtist, how did one get around things like that? Was it possible?

TAYLOR WIMS: You didn't hardly get around it until after the law was passed. After desegregation.

WILMOT: So what did your business look like before desegregation?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, there were a lot of people that would sell. At first, there weren't too many blacks here, until after the war. But, it was tough. Really, really tough. Because I worked in Richmond at that time more, and people would 00:24:00even burn down houses. I know where my broker lived in Richmond--.

WILMOT: What neighborhood was that?

TAYLOR WIMS: I don't remember the street, but it was a nice neighborhood. Weren't too many blacks there in that neighborhood at the time. I think it's in the realtors, its history, because, oh, what's the area out there? I've forgotten what the area was called. We had a listing on a house out there, and she had a sign on it. And they didn't bother the people in the house at the 00:25:00time. But they bothered her house where she lived. We'd go home, we'd go to her house after work. We couldn't get in it, there were stink bombs. They'd go put stink bombs under the house. You talk about a bad smell. We couldn't stay in the house until we'd aired it out and everything. And then, when she sold it to a black person, and oh, it was terrible in Richmond. They tried to burn the house down. They bothered the children, he had some young children.

WILMOT: Who was this family? Do you recall? Not by name, but just--.

TAYLOR WIMS: I cannot recall the name now. I was just trying to think of someone I could call--I think they still live in Richmond in that house. I can't even remember where the house was now. But it was just an ordinary neighborhood.

WILMOT: Was it by what's called Parchester Village?

TAYLOR WIMS: Parchester Village, that's right. And this family was the first black family out there. My company sold that house. I didn't sell it, I think the broker sold it.

WILMOT: Would that broker be Neetha?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, Neetha. I just can't remember now. Anyway, after then, there were houses started selling gradually all over. Sometimes they wouldn't bother you--sometimes whites wouldn't bother you, sometimes they would.

WILMOT: And this was in Richmond?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, Richmond and all around then, even in Oakland. But most times 00:27:00they wanted to keep it quiet, but the news would get around.

WILMOT: Do you mean the family moving in would try and keep it quiet, or the realtists would keep it quiet?

TAYLOR WIMS: I think the community, if they'd hear about it. It was bad sometimes and sometimes it wasn't bad. I moved here in 1977.

WILMOT: To this house?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, in 1977. And almost every day, when we first moved up here, when my kids would be coming home from school, walking up Skyline Boulevard, many times my granddaughter used to come home crying and I would ask her what's 00:28:00wrong. And she'd say, "Well, they did it again." I'd say, "What?" I knew what she was going to say. "Go home, nigger." And she'd say, "I'm going home."

WILMOT: How old was she?

TAYLOR WIMS: She was going to junior high so--

WILMOT: Thirteen, twelve or thirteen.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah. And they even said it when they were going to high school. Although we lived in this neighborhood, my granddaughter didn't want to go to Skyline. Her father and her mother taught at Castlemont. Her father was in charge of the singing, the music, at Castlemont. And he was the leader of the 00:29:00group at Castlemont that went all over the world, the Castleers. And my daughter was a teacher. So she said, "If I go to Skyline High, I would be just another good student. If I go to Castlemont, I will be an excellent student." So she stayed at Castlemont and during the four years she was at Castlemont, she was able to travel all over the world, because the Castleers went everywhere and sang, and everywhere they went they either won first or second prize. And of course, you'd see kids lived all over town, but they'd give different addresses and things to go to Skyline High. We even let some of our friends use our 00:30:00address to go to Skyline High. And let them get their mail here. For years, we always had three or four students living with us, up here, until they finished Skyline. So they would live with us, go home with their parents whenever they wanted to.

WILMOT: These were friends of the family?

TAYLOR WIMS: Mmm-hmm, yeah. Then my granddaughter finished Castlemont. Then she went to Howard University, Washington.

WILMOT: What's her name?

TAYLOR WIMS: {Zenzalee?} Reid

WILMOT: What a beautiful name.

TAYLOR WIMS: That's not her name now. Well, that wasn't her name then. Well, yes it was. Her name is not Zenzalee Reid now, it's Zenzalee Scott. That's her husband's name. Now she has grown up, and as of now, she's my pastor. In school, in her fourth year at Howard, she didn't graduate. And I said, "School is very expensive. When are you going to get your piece of paper, honey, because if you don't hurry up, we can't send you to school." She finally realized. She said, that God had called her to preach and she was ignoring it. So she finished Howard in six years. And she was a member of a church there, who got her into 00:32:00Colgate Theological Seminary in, somewhere there. And she stayed there three years and got her degree in Theo--

WILMOT: Divinity.

TAYLOR WIMS: What is it?

WILMOT: Divinity? I'm not sure.

TAYLOR WIMS: She came back and went back to the church she grew in, where we all were members. And then the church split and the pastor that was splitting the church said, "If you come with me, I'll make you assistant pastor." So she went with him and stayed with him two years.

WILMOT: What church is this?

TAYLOR WIMS: That was {Amana?} International Church on MacArthur Boulevard. And 00:33:00then after two years with him, she organized her own church, which was just five years ago.

WILMOT: What's her church now? Is this where you go to church?

TAYLOR WIMS: It's our church now. It's Abundant Light Ministry. It's at 3236 San Pablo in Oakland. And in three years, she has had over six hundred to join. But when they join her church, and they don't come back or they don't respond to letters and everything. I think they come and they get excited with the ministry or something. And her church is over three hundred now. And the congregation is seventy five percent under forty years old. It's a youth church, and she's my 00:34:00pastor. I belong. And in that church, my generation is four generations. Me, one generation. My daughter, one generation. Her two daughters, a generation. And the two daughters have--one has two and one has one child. So that's the fourth generation, three little girls. In this house, there's four generations. We all live here.

WILMOT: That's such a blessing.

TAYLOR WIMS: It is a blessing. And we've lived here for twenty seven years.

WILMOT: Would you say most of that congregation comes from that area in Oakland, or does it come from Richmond or East Oakland, or--?

TAYLOR WIMS: Richmond, East Oakland. She has some who come from Pittsburgh, San 00:35:00Francisco, even Sacramento. And the family that lives in Sacramento, they sometimes come during the week, usually to what we call prayer meeting, they call Save The--I forget what she called it, they tell me I should remember what the names of the different groups are because they're a little different from regular church. Life Study. She doesn't call it prayer meetings--no, she doesn't call it bible study, she calls it life study.

WILMOT: I want to turn to talk back towards Richmond in the 1950s. Is that alright?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah.

WILMOT: So you kind of got your wings with Neetha. You really learned the ropes 00:36:00from her. What did you learn from her about being a realtist?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I learned everything about real estate. How to get listings, how to talk to people, and how to write contracts, and how to work with lenders, appraisers. I got my basis from her because she knew it and she demanded that we learn it.

WILMOT: Who was lending to black people at that time?

TAYLOR WIMS: Not too many lenders. We sometimes, in certain areas, we had problems getting loans from--there wasn't too much problem if it was in a black 00:37:00area, but it depended on the area. My experience was, in certain areas, they wouldn't loan money, like if I wanted to buy this house at that time, I couldn't get a loan.

WILMOT: And when you did eventually buy this house, did you have any problems at all?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, no, not then. Twenty seven years ago, not then.

WILMOT: Who sold the house to you?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I sold it to myself because I was the broker for myself. But I sold it--I didn't buy it in my name, I bought it in my daughter and son-in-law's name. But I have to declare that I'm a real estate licensed real estate broker, and the buyers are my daughter and son-in-law. So I had to disclose that. And they were both schoolteachers, so there was no problem 00:38:00getting the loan, because at that time, twenty seven years ago, this house was only, I think $180,000.

WILMOT: Wow.

TAYLOR WIMS: $180,000.

WILMOT: Wow. Unbelievable. I'm sorry I just keep bouncing us back and forth.

TAYLOR WIMS: I don't mind.

WILMOT: That's just how my head is. So you learned the ropes from Neetha, and did she have a pool of lenders that she worked with that you eventually kind of inherited, her connections to these lenders and appraisers?

TAYLOR WIMS: Not really, because when I was working for her, most of my sales was in Richmond, in Contra Costa County. And when I got my real estate license, I had my office, I just turned my garage, I lived on Ashby Avenue then.

WILMOT: In Berkeley?

TAYLOR WIMS: In Berkeley. And I just turned my garage into an office. I just started calling my friends that lived over here, and people I knew that lived over here. And it was easy to get listings over here. So I worked over here, although I didn't do too much listing and selling. I didn't like to list houses and sell them from a listing. At that time, I just started buying little houses, fixing them up, and selling my own property. As a matter of fact, not by myself, a girlfriend and I got this idea--that why should we list and sell, and sometimes you've got to split the commission four ways, like it's from another 00:40:00office and it's fifty fifty split, and if the salesman sells it, you just get half of it. So we decided that we would just buy old houses, fix them up, and sell them. And that's what we did.

WILMOT: And what neighborhoods were you working in primarily?

TAYLOR WIMS: Anywhere we could find a house. Richmond, Oakland. And at that time, they were building a lot of freeways, and there were a lot of houses that they would move. You could move if you had a lot--like from MacArthur Boulevard, and even in Richmond, we did a lot of building in Richmond. We even moved churches. So, we did pretty good that way. They were building a lot of the highways then, enlarging the highways. And we were familiar with the Richmond 00:41:00area, and we bought lots of houses and moved them to lots.

WILMOT: Where did you move them to?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, plenty of lots then. Plenty of vacant lots at that time.

WILMOT: In Richmond.

TAYLOR WIMS: Richmond and Oakland. We didn't do too much moving in Oakland, we did more of it in Richmond. Because it was a little bit more land, and there were more houses being moved. Because in Oakland, the freeway was going into East Oakland, we weren't familiar with that area. We had been working--me and this friend of mine--been working in Richmond, so we were familiar with that area, and she lived in Richmond, so we worked out there most of the time.

WILMOT: What's her name?

TAYLOR WIMS: She's dead, she died with Alzheimer's. Ruby Bims.

WILMOT: Bims.

TAYLOR WIMS: She got her training from Neetha, too. We worked together with her.

So it was fun. Working with contractors and movers and surveyors and lenders and neighborhoods. [chuckles] Sometimes we had problems with the neighbors. They didn't want their--when there's construction next to you, you have to be very careful. And we had some contractors that we worked with that they just worked for us for a while because we had enough business for them. And then, my son got his got a general contractor's license, and then we could be our own contractors. It was fun.

WILMOT: What was fun about it?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I like people. I like to help people. And I have never sold a house where I didn't have to spend some of my commission helping the person to close the deal. They would always be a couple hundred dollars short or something, and I would say, "Well, just take it from my part." I always tried to help people.

WILMOT: The people that you have been working with over the tenure of your career, how has that group of people changed? How has your customer changed? How did your customer group change over the years? Who was it when you first started out, who were your customers?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, all black people. Black people, although I have sold whites and I've sold, lots, I guess you'd say most of the homes I've sold were white owners.

WILMOT: Were from white owners or to white owners?

TAYLOR WIMS: From white owners, because they were moving out of the neighborhoods that were getting black. They were ready to sell and move into an area that wasn't integrated so far.

WILMOT: Do you know where they were moving to?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, a lot of them moved to Lafayette, Orinda, and up in this area. And Piedmont. Alameda.

WILMOT: And the people who were buying? Were those people who were primarily migrants, or who had arrived in the past ten years to the Bay Area?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah.

WILMOT: Were they college educated?

TAYLOR WIMS: Hmm?

WILMOT: Were they college educated?

TAYLOR WIMS: No, most of them were not. Because college educated people didn't leave the south too much in those days because they had jobs. People who came out here were people who, not really college educated. Educated, but not college educated, because I had not finished college when I left Texas. I had just 00:46:00finished junior college, and that's as far as I went. I took the real estate course, and I've taken different courses in real estate. I took a secretarial course, but I didn't like sitting down typing. That was boring to me, sitting there at that typewriter all day. I didn't like that.

WILMOT: Well, it's lucky then that you got to have your own business, so you weren't working for anybody else.

TAYLOR WIMS: That's right.

WILMOT: Tell me, how has that been for you?

TAYLOR WIMS: Fine. I retired a long time ago. I was retired I think, I retired 00:47:00just about when I moved into this house.

WILMOT: 1970, 1980?

TAYLOR WIMS: 1977. And the real estate that I had purchased--now, I live off the money I get from two of the buildings. So I thought that, why work when there's enough money to support me? And I always felt that I don't want to die and leave a whole lot of money. I want to use it as I live. And I told my children all the time, "When I die, don't look for money, you've got equities in the properties, but no money, because mama spends it." And none of my children liked real 00:48:00estate, except my youngest granddaughter. And she and her husband--she's been married now about six years--and her husband knows how to build. She went to the University of California and after two years, she wanted to get married, so she got married and she hasn't finished her college education yet. She said she'd finish some day, but I doubt it. And she said, "Mom, I never like the real estate like you did it, because it's too much work." But what she's doing is more work. But fortunately, she married a person who is a builder. And he's 00:49:00getting his general contractor's license now. His dad is a builder, and just in the last two years, I sold them an old lot with a house on it, and they built their first house. They just finished it last summer.

WILMOT: Is this in Oakland?

TAYLOR WIMS: In Oakland, on East 29th Street. They sold it to some friends, who were just getting married. And they wanted it, so sold it to them at a price that they thought would be that. And when they finished the house and got it appraised, they were selling it $75,000 too little.

WILMOT: Oakland has changed so much.

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, it has.

WILMOT: It's really amazing. For you, as someone who was involved in real estate since the 1950s, how do you watch--what does this kind of boom in real estate that's happening right now mean to you?

TAYLOR WIMS: I really don't know.

WILMOT: Do you think it's going to last? Is there such as a thing as a crash, or a bubble bursting?

TAYLOR WIMS: If it doesn't stop, even the houses in areas where, well, I would say like, five years ago in an area right across, maybe just a mile from here, around MacArthur and around there where houses--

WILMOT: Laurel?

TAYLOR WIMS: $150,000, $200,000. Now they're $500,000-$600,000. Like this house, we paid $180,000 in 1977. And we just had an appraisal on it a couple of months 00:51:00ago, and the appraisal is $2,000,000. From $180,000 in twenty seven years to $2,000,000.

WILMOT: Well, also the same thing, for example, my family bought a house in Maxwell Park, when I was four, so 1976, and that $25,000 or $28,000 then. But now houses in that area are now selling for $500,000 easily. And this is Maxwell Park, you know, East Oakland, where for so long people would never think to buy. So strange.

TAYLOR WIMS: That's right. And you see, I just hope it doesn't fall 00:52:00because too many people would be hurt that could never recover, because so many people are retired and they don't work. And I just hope the social security thing won't pass because too many people with medium incomes, they live on that social security check, with maybe they have a little bit more income some other places. And you know it's there and it wasn't to take care of you anyway, it was to help take care of you when they first started it years and years ago. So I hope that that doesn't pass because Bush's plan is not really secure.

WILMOT: Well, my next question for you also is about--you lived through World 00:53:00War II--how do you reflect on that war time was different from the war time we're in currently?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, in that war, they're were plenty jobs. In this war, where are the jobs? You know, they had all kinds of shipbuilding places, airplane building places. Now, they don't have those jobs. I don't know where they build ships. I don't know where they build airplanes. But I guess they're building them somewhere. And of course they had so many of them in--what do you call them--graveyards?

WILMOT: Shipyards?

TAYLOR WIMS: Shipyards. But after the shipyards, when they would put all these 00:54:00boats in a place in the water, which you know going to Sacramento?

WILMOT: Launching? Oh, no. Graveyards for the ships.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah. And I don't know who is really--now, lots of people are going overseas getting jobs. But the way they're getting killed, I don't know if anyone would want to go over there, because you might not come back.

WILMOT: In World War II, did you feel a sense of patriotism?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, yeah.

WILMOT: Is that different this time around?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, because this is a different kind of war. This is a war that, I don't know, there are so many tales. In my opinion, this was a war that should 00:55:00not have been. And now, it can't be stopped, it seems. And more people are dying. Like just last night, I think 150 people died.

WILMOT: Yes, it was a suicide bomb attack.

TAYLOR WIMS: And every day--it used to be, until re-election, three or four would die. Now it's, to me, it's never less than twenty. And when I see families, with children who will never see their fathers and their parents are not going to have enough money to live on, unless--. It's hard for people who 00:56:00don't have a family, like a single woman with two or three children. She has nobody to leave them with, and baby care is high, high. I don't know how people could pay it and pay rent too. But if you have to do it, you have to do it. I don't know what's going to happen, I just pray.

WILMOT: It's a good time for that. We have about a four more minutes on this tape, and then I wanted to return to this question--oh, I'll just finish the question. In the 1940s, when you were working here in the Bay Area during the war, what kind of, for example--and I know you were married part of that time, 00:57:00but did you have an active social life? Did you go out? Did you meet people, did you go dancing? Did you do any of that? I know you also had two children, so maybe that wasn't part of your life.

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I had two children, but I had an aunt who lived with me who kept my children. And then, although my husband and I were separated--

WILMOT: This was when you lived over on Ashby?

TAYLOR WIMS: Uh-huh. My ex-husband didn't live far from me. They spent a lot of time with their dad. I had no problem with the father. Although we separated, we remained friends. I even sold him property. I sold him his home. We were very good friends. And when he married again, my husband and I gave him the wedding reception, so he saw a lot of the children and I saw a lot of the children.

WILMOT: And as far as your social life during that time?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, my social life was beautiful, because I married later on. I've always been active in my church and very active in politics, and in the real estate association, and social clubs, a very popular social club.

WILMOT: What social club was this?

TAYLOR WIMS: It was called the High Hatters Civic and Social Club.

WILMOT: Where was it?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, where was it? It was for years and years and years. [pause] It 00:59:00was during the time when I didn't have a house and I lived in Campbell Village. I lived in Campbell Village a long time.

WILMOT: What village?

TAYLOR WIMS: Campbell Village, down in West Oakland. The projects. Project houses. What do you call them? Low rent houses. We had club meetings, we played bridge, we gave dances, we went to dances. There were a lot of social clubs around because we couldn't go like to the Fairmont or the hotels, and so we had to create our own activities. And we had picnics. We had a beautiful social life.

WILMOT: Who else belonged to the club?

TAYLOR WIMS: Let's see, I'm thinking of Edith. Edith was always--I forgot that 01:00:00she belonged to a social club, too. I've forgotten what she belonged to, but we've known each other, we be social all the time. We still belong to one club together, although it's a civic club. It's not social, it's National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women. We're both members of that. As a matter of fact, she was one of the founders of the club. She was in it long before I was. And we went to baseball games, football games.

WILMOT: And this was when you were a woman in your thirties?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I guess twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies--still doing it!

WILMOT: Uh-huh. Okay, I'm just piecing it together.

TAYLOR WIMS: We had--black people had a beautiful social life. And you know there were, on Seventh Street down in West Oakland, there were a lot of black 01:01:00clubs. And I had an aunt and uncle who owned a club down there. I think I told you already.

WILMOT: You said a restaurant and then café.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, the Forty Niner club. Although I worked during the day, I still worked for them at night, because I had an aunt who would keep the children, and then the father would keep the children.

WILMOT: So you were doing a lot?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah.

WILMOT: May I show this picture to the camera? If you could put it next to you, so I could just show beautiful that is. There you are! How old were you in that picture?

TAYLOR WIMS: In my thirties.

WILMOT: Thank you. This was taken at Johnston's Photo Studio on Seventh Street, at 1664½ West Seventh Street, Oakland, California.

[End Audio File Taylor Wims, Vie1 030105.wav]

[Begin Audio File Taylor Wims, Vie2 030105.wav]

WILMOT: Did you have friends who worked in the shipyards at all during that time?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yes. I worked in the shipyards.

WILMOT: You did?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah. I was a burner.

WILMOT: Which shipyard did you work in?

TAYLOR WIMS: The one right down here in Oakland.

WILMOT: Kaiser?

TAYLOR WIMS: No, it wasn't Kaiser.

WILMOT: Moore?

TAYLOR WIMS: Moore.

WILMOT: Moore Dry Dock. And was that when you first came here, when you were in 01:03:00your late twenties?

TAYLOR WIMS: No. Whenever they had the shipyards, that's when I worked there. I don't remember. I know that I was married.

WILMOT: Were you a mom yet? Were you a mother yet?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, I had two children.

WILMOT: By that time, when you were working in the shipyard?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah.

WILMOT: And were you part of a union?

TAYLOR WIMS: No. I don't know if I was a member of the union or not. I don't remember that. I don't think so. I worked there just because everybody else was working there. My husband's mother lived with us, so I had somebody to keep the children, so I just went to work at the shipyards.

WILMOT: Was it hard work, do you remember?

TAYLOR WIMS: What I did wasn't hard because I was a burner. And that was easy and fun. I never worked on the ship. One day they sent us to work on the ship and a big piece of iron, bigger than me, fell. It two feet from me. If it'd have hit me, it would have killed me. And I just told my boss, "Don't send me on the ship any more. If you send me on the ship, I'll go home." So I worked on the docks, cutting iron.

WILMOT: Cutting iron up. With a blow torch?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah.

WILMOT: Whoa. Did you have to wear a lot of equipment? Protective clothing?

TAYLOR WIMS: Not really equipment. The hat, and you pulled it down so 01:05:00it wouldn't get in to you. Because you weren't that close to it because the thing was about two or three feet long, where the fire was. And you were about two or three feet from the flame. Although a lot of people did get hurt. But I never had to go to any close place. We were always, like, outdoors, and long pieces of steel, and they would roll one so many feet this way or that way. They would put it where you could just take that torch and just run it over it and cut it, and you were through.

WILMOT: Do you remember who you were working with? Did you have friends who worked with you?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, yes. Oodles of friends. Oh gosh, I can't remember who they were 01:06:00now. I think most of the kids I worked with are dead. A couple of them I can remember who live in Los Angeles now. It's been so long. I can see them, but I can't think of their names.

WILMOT: Was this an integrated working environment? Did other black people work there?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, lots of black people. I don't think there was any--maybe we ate in different places. We had the same restrooms, and that's all we had there.

WILMOT: Did folks get paid the same as white people?

TAYLOR WIMS: I guess so, I don't know. I think so, I don't think there was any difference in pay. On those boat jobs, there might have been different--as you went up to higher paying jobs, like maybe electricians or I don't know.

WILMOT: Did you remember seeing people who were supervisors who were black?

TAYLOR WIMS: They had some black. Most were white. But there were some black.

WILMOT: Were there other young moms there, young mothers?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh yeah, lots of young mothers. Because most of my friends were young mothers. I just can't think of them.

WILMOT: Did you have a social life around that work? Did you go out--?

TAYLOR WIMS: Not from the work. I had the social life, and my social life wasn't with the people I worked with. They were like a different group of people. Only maybe one or two. Because my social life was with church people, my club members, and just people I knew.

WILMOT: I want to stop for a moment and check in with you. Are you comfortable the way you're sitting?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh yeah.

WILMOT: Okay, just making sure. Did most of the people you worked with, did they also live in West Oakland? What was called West Oakland, 38th Street?

TAYLOR WIMS: Now, when I worked at the shipyard, I lived in the projects. We had 01:09:00moved off 38th Street. We lived in the projects because the rent was cheaper. Everybody who didn't own a home, and you qualified to live in low rent housing, then you lived in low rent housing. Because they were brand new and the rent was cheap, and that was a blessing. And it wasn't uncomfortable, we had enough space. And it was right across the street from the school. Where I lived was right across the street from the school. Close to stores, close to the bus line. Didn't have a car. I was farther from my church that I was from anything else. 01:10:00No I wasn't. The church was right around the corner. So it was very comfortable.

WILMOT: Was this Alana Church?

TAYLOR WIMS: No, that church wasn't even in existence then. It was long years before. Because the church is still there, it's one of the largest churches in Oakland.

WILMOT: Is it Lutheran?

TAYLOR WIMS: No, it's a Baptist church. I can't think of the name of it. It's on, I think, 12th Street. 12th and Willow. I can't think of the name.

WILMOT: At that time, West Oakland, as I recall, there was also large Italian 01:11:00and Portuguese populations in Oakland. Did you recall interacting with the Italian and Portuguese groups?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, I had lots of Chinese friends. Portuguese friends. Yeah, because the project was integrated. You know anyone lived there. And the Portuguese had stores that sold that kind of meat, sausage and linguiza, and those kinds of sausages. I think I had more Chinese friends than white, though.

WILMOT: Were there any Mexicans?

TAYLOR WIMS: Very few, very few.

WILMOT: Was there kind of a tension at that time between people from different 01:12:00ethnic backgrounds? Was there kind of a sense of, you know, not crossing the lines, or--?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, you're right, we did not go to the same places for social life. We were more or less friendly at home, and in the stores. But not social life, no. I had a group of kids that we'd get together and play whist together. And we'd cook and eat together. And I had a group of friends that we played bridge together, and pokeno together. But it was always all black.

WILMOT: I wanted to turn to this other question, which was about when you first 01:13:00started selling in Richmond, who you were selling to and how that changed over the years?

TAYLOR WIMS: In Richmond, it was more or less black customers in black areas, or areas that were turning black.

WILMOT: Do you remember the name of those areas?

TAYLOR WIMS: North Richmond, South Richmond, around 23rd, 28th Street, 37th Street, and over in that area. And then they built those houses, a track of houses in Richmond, sort of out--what do they call that? [Parchester?] And most 01:14:00black--actually, all black people bought out there. And in Oakland, most people bought in West Oakland, North Oakland, and East Oakland, right off East 14th Street. And there are a couple of track homes, track builders out there, where they started building fifty or sixty homes in one area. There are two of those in East Oakland now. I can't think of the names because it's been so long since I've even thought about that.

WILMOT: Do you mean out by 64th Avenue and East 14th?

TAYLOR WIMS: A little farther out. It could be 64th.

WILMOT: Past 73rd?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, around there. Going toward the airport. Around in there. You 01:15:00know, later on in years, that area went down. People just, I guess they didn't like where they lived, but they wouldn't take care of the property. And now in those areas, Mexicans live there and it's just beautiful. Just beautiful.

WILMOT: Lots of roses.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah. This is bringing back so many memories. I've thought of so many things.

WILMOT: Share, share.

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, it's just the way it has changed. Changed from white to black and now to Spanish. Hmm. And now, blacks live everywhere. I have some friends 01:16:00who live in Blackhawk. Of course, they have the money. When we moved up here, there were quite a few blacks, but not like it is now. More blacks. Up here, white and black are friendly, but we still don't socialize together. And I think that even--I don't think the time will ever come when different nationalities won't still continue to socialize together, because we do different things. We 01:17:00eat different foods. We eat the same food, but I think it's cooked different. But up here at one time, we started to say let's--one family up here, right in this little area, I think three streets--let's get together at Christmas. The lady on the corner started it. And then the next year we had it. There hasn't been one since, and that's been maybe fifteen or twenty years ago. People are moving out, and others move in. Next door, she's been there since we've been here. Across the street, it's now the fourth family since we've been here. On 01:18:00the corner, it's the fourth family. And down the street here, it's the third family. Next door, it's the third family. So, the younger people I guess want to stay to themselves, with their own families, or with their own people they know. Like I still have my same friends over town who I've known since I've been in California, people who are still alive. The same friends. I have new friends, and a lot of friends, but it's still part of that old bunch.

WILMOT: How long after you moved here in 1938, how long did it take for this to feel like home?

TAYLOR WIMS: No, I moved here in 1977.

WILMOT: I mean moved here to California.

TAYLOR WIMS: How long did it take what?

WILMOT: For this to feel like home?

TAYLOR WIMS: Here? In this house?

WILMOT: No, just California, the Bay Area.

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I felt like home when I moved here. I wasn't married and I moved here with an aunt. And there were people I knew that had moved here from Texas. They were older, but I knew them and I knew their children or grandchildren. But in my aunt's house I felt like home.

WILMOT: You felt like you'd gotten home.

TAYLOR WIMS: I guess it's different when you move in with a relative, or just move in. See, she was my dad's sister, and she and my mother grew up together, so I've always felt like home.

WILMOT: I also wanted to ask you, what kind of work did you do before you moved out here?

TAYLOR WIMS: I worked at a place where you made sacks, you now the sacks that you put vegetable--no, not vegetables--well, maybe potatoes, those big--what do 01:21:00you call that stuff? Big sacks, the sacks had little holes in them.

WILMOT: Mesh.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, mesh. What did they call that?

WILMOT: Gunny sack?

TAYLOR WIMS: Gunny sacks, I guess they called them. But anyway, they were brown and we sewed them. There was a way they made those sacks. You had the material and they were already cut, you just sewed them up. You had to sew so many of them a day. And you got all full of dust, but it was work. The job was just sewing sacks. My aunt used to work at a hotel in Galveston. It's still there, the Galvez Hotel. I read about it in the paper sometimes, different things 01:22:00happening there. They remodeled it and everything, but it's still there. And it was segregated. I couldn't have lived there, I couldn't eat there or nothing. But my aunt worked there and she used to take me sometimes. She said, "Well, you have to learn how to do everything." So I learned how to make the beds and clean the bathrooms, and I cleaned the rooms, all of that. And I think sometimes you didn't have sweepers, I had to sweep with a broom. I had to sweep with a broom. Seems to me I can remember sweeping with a broom. Because I don't remember vacuum cleaners there. I didn't get paid for that, I just went with my aunt. She was just trying to teach me what to do and what not to do.

WILMOT: What did she teach you what not to do?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, she said cooking was harder. Because sometimes you cook good, 01:23:00sometimes you didn't cook good, and sometimes you couldn't get it all together. Like I used to see my mother get up in the morning, go out in the garden, pick the vegetables, come in the house, wash them, cook them on a stove that you put the wood in, and the stove had to get hot. And on holidays, where you cooked the turkey and all that, I don't know how she did it. Oh yeah, she had to kill the turkey and pick him. Kill the chicken and take the feathers out, cut him up, wash it. I don't know how she did that. And we have all the conveniences and can't get it done.

WILMOT: What do you feel like you learned about being a woman from your mother?

TAYLOR WIMS: Everything. Almost everything. Because I had a cousin and the half 01:24:00sister that died early in life, that lived together, and they would teach us just about everything. How to sew, how to cook, and how to plant flowers, plant vegetables. And there were certain seasons we went to the field with them, and I never chopped any cotton, but I've seen my mother chop it. And at time of the season--this was about a few years before my mother moved from the country to Galveston after I was maybe nine, ten or twelve years old, something like 01:25:00that--I had to pick cotton, pick the cotton. And I'm afraid of worms, still afraid of worms. And she had a time with me, because every time I saw a worm, I started hollering. But that didn't last very long. Because that was at a time when one of my aunts had moved to Galveston, and then my mother moved to Galveston. But like I said, from teaching.

And we always went to school, segregated schools. And I can remember when I was a little girl, when my momma and dad were still together, I went to school on a horse. Now see that much have been in like 1918, or something like that. I can 01:26:00remember going to school on that pretty little horse. And when I got to school, there was a man there who would take the horse, take the saddle off, and then put him in a yard with the other horses. And was school was out, the horse would be ready, I'd ride him home.

And I think my dad was always disappointed that I wasn't a boy. He would make me ride a horse with no saddle. And said I better not fall off. So, my dad was pretty rough. And he'd take me fishing, take me hunting. I've gone with him hunting, where I have seen him shoot rabbits in the forest.

You know, I'm glad you're here because I'm remembering so many things now that 01:27:00I'd forgotten. Yeah. Hmm. Because I don't think I'd ever remember me going, because my mother didn't like it. And that was when I was very young. [laughs] I can remember now my other grandmother, my father's mother. Oh, boy. How she used to feed her chickens.

But we're supposed to be talking about the war. [laughs] Well, my daddy went to war.

WILMOT: I know. So your grandmother on both sides, you grew up around both of your grandmothers?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah.

WILMOT: And aunties. Aunties are really special. They're so important.

TAYLOR WIMS: Three aunties, two my mother's and one my dad's. It was my dad's who had me come out here. [off microphone interruption] She's making me remember so much I had forgotten. That war. Which war do you want to know about, that one?

WILMOT: I'll bring us back then. I was listening to you. We had started talking about what kind of work you did before you came to the Bay Area. So now I'm going to go back to this question of, you became basically a developer. You were buying homes and selling them. At what point in your career did you make that transition?

[interview interruption to meet Wims' daughter ]

WILMOT: Do you remember when the war ended?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yes, kind of.

WILMOT: The day the war ended.

TAYLOR WIMS: The day the war I ended. [to her daughter] Tamara, I had taken you guys to the movies? [phone rings]

DAUGHTER: And left us there.

TAYLOR WIMS: And when the war ended, I picked you up?

DAUGHTER: Mmm-hmm.

TAYLOR WIMS: Then what did we do?

DAUGHTER: I don't remember that.

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I guess we came home and celebrated.

WILMOT: Do you remember Pearl Harbor? Do you remember the day that happened?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, I remember the day it happened. And I remember how frightened we were. A lot of us--I lived in the projects there--a lot of us got in the backyard, and maybe about ten or fifteen of us, we were all women with little 01:30:00children. And wondering what we were gonna do, if they were going to take our husbands, and what would we do if they went to war? I guess things that almost everybody did. And we wondered how we were going to live, because the money that they paid you wasn't hardly anything, but living in the projects your rent was based on your income. I think for three or four days we just talked about it, because we were all frightened. I think there was a blackout, we didn't have lights. And everybody, we bought lamps and candles. I think they had told us to keep our lights, cameras, flashlights--I even do that now. And just trying to 01:31:00plan what could we do.

WILMOT: Did you recall when the Japanese were sent away to live in camps? Do you remember that kind of disappearance?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, when they sent them all to camp. And I was very sorry because we had some Japanese friends that lived near us. Their children went to the same school and I didn't like that, because that was like segregation because I felt that even though it was a war with Japanese, all Japanese weren't bad. And I 01:32:00thought that sending them away was a terrible thing, taking their furniture. I didn't like it.

WILMOT: And then there were many people who lost their property in that time, Japanese people.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, they lost their property. Although the families got paid later on in life, but it was not like having your own property and building it up. It wasn't the same. It wasn't even equal.

WILMOT: Also, do you recall hearing about the atom bombs, the nuclear bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, yeah. I was always afraid they were going to drop one on us. We even talked about it. What would we do? I always said, "Well, I don't have to worry about it because I'd be dead." I felt that whenever they dropped a bomb, 01:33:00it was going to kill me. And I guess it would have, because it killed all those people. I didn't like that. Every day you hear about hundreds of people getting killed. And over there, it wasn't the war, it was an earthquake, it was God that killed thousands of people.

WILMOT: You're talking about the tsunami?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, oh boy.

WILMOT: I'm also wondering--and now I'm going to switch back in the to the real estate thing--but I wanted to ask, did you ever sell in Point Richmond, or buy in Point Richmond?

TAYLOR WIMS: Hmm?

WILMOT: Did you ever sell in Point Richmond, or buy in Point Richmond?

TAYLOR WIMS: I think I sold in Point Richmond.

WILMOT: It's a really beautiful area.

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, is it beautiful now?

WILMOT: I went there for the first time last week and I just thought, "Oh my goodness, how beautiful is this!"

TAYLOR WIMS: And you know what I regretted, at that time, we could have bought land in Point Richmond dirt cheap. And I was out there not too long ago, and I 01:34:00said, "My gosh, why didn't I buy some of that land years ago?" Why didn't we buy some of that land? And I didn't even think about it in those days?

WILMOT: Why?

TAYLOR WIMS: I don't know. I guess we were young and didn't have the foresight.

WILMOT: It's just this area that looks over the water.

TAYLOR WIMS: I know. But you see, we, you--I don't know why. I just don't know why. We were concentrating on other things. And I don't think at that time, we were looking toward the future. We were living now. What can I do to live now? Because it was a long time before I felt, "Well, what am I going to do when I 01:35:00get old?" And I didn't think about it then because I could have been much better off if I had really looked into the future. Because I've just almost given property away, didn't want to be bothered with it. Right now, in West Oakland, where the port is, and where it's expanding, too, there were three of us who worked together and whatever we bought, three of us owned it. Until later life, we stopped working together.

WILMOT: This was you and who and who? Who were the other two people?

TAYLOR WIMS: One of the girls still lives in Richmond, Ermastine Martin is her 01:36:00name. She owns about half of Richmond.

WILMOT: I'll talk to her. That would be good. And the other one?

TAYLOR WIMS: She died. Her name was Ruby Bims.

WILMOT: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Well, you can't always know at one point--you can't always be living in the future, so I think sometimes just living in the present is just fine.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah. Living in the future, like educating my children and maybe having a home, and maybe I didn't even think about that at that time, because I build an eight apartment unit, and I built my unit pretty. I had a fireplace, 01:37:00hardwood floors, beam ceilings, about two or three thousand square feet, four bedrooms, and I thought maybe I'd live there forever.

WILMOT: Where was this one?

TAYLOR WIMS: On Shattuck Avenue in Oakland. 61st and Shattuck in Oakland. And right now, I get $1700 per month from Section Eight. And it's a very nice unit. And like I said, I thought I'd probably be living there the rest of my life.

WILMOT: The work that you and Ermestine and Ruby were doing in West Oakland, what kind of properties were you buying up there?

TAYLOR WIMS: Just old raggedy properties. And we should have remodeled them and sold them and I didn't want to. I think I got sick or something, and had to stop working for a year or so. I mean I just gave mine away. If I foreclosed or what, I don't remember. I think I just gave them to someone. Maybe for two dollars or three dollars, but I think I gave some property to a church at one time. And it wasn't a lot of property. I think it was about four different properties. But now it's beautiful down there, where they were.

WILMOT: When you were most active, how many properties did you own? About?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I've never owned over five or six at one time.

WILMOT: And over the years, how many do you think you've owned that you don't own any more?

TAYLOR WIMS: Maybe about fifty.

WILMOT: At what point of your career did you start to move out of Richmond, leave Richmond behind?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, when I decided I didn't want to work for someone else, I wanted to work for myself. And I got my broker's license, then that's what I concentrated in Oakland more.

WILMOT: Do you think that was about the mid 1950s? or 1960s?

TAYLOR WIMS: Tamara was born in 1940. She was a little girl. I guess, yeah, the 01:40:00forties or fifties.

WILMOT: Did you find that lending sources were different in Richmond versus Oakland? Did you have to go to different lending sources, or direct your customers to different lending sources?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I tell you, in those, days, we had an advantage. There were two black Savings and Loans in the Bay Area, Transbay Federal and the other one, in Oakland. I knew the people who owned the banks.

WILMOT: Did you know Norvel Smith?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh yeah, I knew him very well. He died not long ago.

WILMOT: He did. I know he owned one of those Savings and Loans, or he worked with a group of people with one of those Savings and Loans. Twin Circle, no, I'm wrong.

TAYLOR WIMS: Twin--I almost thought of it. It starts with a "T".

What I did, I got with the two girls that I worked with, we came up with an idea. Why don't we get our church people, because we belonged to three different churches, and get our friends to put their money in Transbay in San Francisco, and the other one in Oakland, and see that they'll give us our loans. So we did.

WILMOT: Was it hard to get loans otherwise?

TAYLOR WIMS: [answers in the negative] And see, a lot of the churches, we'd go 01:42:00to the preachers' meetings, when the pastors would have their meetings, like there's one called the Baptist Ministers' Union, and the other one where its mixed churches. And we'd tell them to put their money in Transbay, then we could sell them churches. We refinanced quite a few churches. And this is when churches really started building beautiful churches. And then they'd get their congregation to put their money in Transbay, and the other. And so we had no problems with financing at that time. We were very lucky.

WILMOT: Would one go and get say, FHA loans, or veterans loans--?

TAYLOR WIMS: No, that was different. They didn't handle those loans. You'd have 01:43:00to go FHA or to the VA.

WILMOT: Did you ever have any success with those?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, yeah.

WILMOT: Because I understand that during that time, FHA and VA were both red lining.

TAYLOR WIMS: They did some red lining, but we were--I've always been active with the NAACP and the Democratic Party. And there was someone I always knew who knew somebody. And that meant a lot. And if I didn't, one of the other girls did.

And I used to--but I can't tell you this on television [chuckles]--I'll tell you this when we're finished. But we used to do different little things to get the loans. Not nothing bad, but we had little ways of--. What I would do, sometimes 01:44:00when I would go to a lender, or go to a group of people who were making loans--I was the broker too, the other girls got their brokers' license later, I had mine first--and one of the girls was very dark, but beautiful and had a body like one of the best models you've ever seen. And the other girl was very attractive, but she was a girl who asked the questions. And I would sit close to the person with my pencil in my hand. And we would be talking, and I would have Ruby, the gal 01:45:00who had the pretty legs and everything, sit where the men could see her. She didn't realize what she was doing, but she was very frisky. She would turn this way, and she would turn that way, and when she talks to you, make little expressions that were beautiful. And I think sometimes those men would get more interested in us than the business. Or maybe they had other thoughts in their minds. And when I would see that they were looking and they were thinking, and we were talking about this and that, we would tell them all about the new loan, what we'd like to do in "blah, blah, blah". And when we got ready, I would say something, "Well, do you think you can work with us and everything?" And I'd be handing him my pencil, and a lot of times I think they signed right at that time. So it worked quite a few times, because we'd always dress nice. And I know 01:46:00we always looked good. And Ruby was--

WILMOT: I'm sure all three of you were just beautiful.

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, we thought we were. And like I say, we were very active in politics.

WILMOT: Would these be white lenders, or--?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, weren't any black lenders at that time.

WILMOT: It would be lenders of any color, of any ethnicity?

TAYLOR WIMS: Most of these were--

WILMOT: Oh, no these were white lenders. Now would this be like Bank of America, Wells Fargo?

TAYLOR WIMS: Bank of America, Golden West. We got lots of loans from Golden West. It wasn't Golden West at that time. It was--oh yes, it was Golden West at that time, of course it's not Golden West now. But anyway, there were a lot of 01:47:00lenders in those days. And then there was a group of guys that I knew that started their own mortgage business, and they knew all of us. And they started their mortgage business, and a lot of times we would go to them, and they would give us loans anywhere.

WILMOT: They would give you loans anywhere.

TAYLOR WIMS: Mmm-hmm.

WILMOT: So it was almost like the loans were being floated to your organization, you three, you, Ruby, and Ernestine.

TAYLOR WIMS: No, we were very aggressive women. We were very active in politics, we were active in our churches, and we were active with the organization, the black organization. We went everywhere. Everybody knew us, like my name is Wims, 01:48:00but I'm know by Vie Taylor. And you can almost ask anybody in Oakland who's been here a long time, "Do you know Vie Taylor," and they'll say, "Yes." If you know Ruby Bims, they'll say yes. If you know Ermestine Pengrave in Richmond, they'll say yes.

WILMOT: You were at that point securing a pool of loans to work with your buyers, or would they then give the loan to your buyers?

TAYLOR WIMS: It depends. A lot of times it depends.

WILMOT: That's a wonderful story you told, though.

TAYLOR WIMS: I guess we knew all the tricks of the trade. I can remember when we 01:49:00could get with someone, and if they really wanted to sell, we could tell them what we could do. I know one time, I had a preacher, put on overalls, and went out with the appraiser as a workman to look at a house and it needed appraising and everything, and sell the house to the preacher. I mean the people in the neighborhood wouldn't know the difference. Maybe the seller would know. But they 01:50:00didn't care, they wanted the money. And then many times, we have sent black people who look like they're white to look at a house, and they think that person was buying the house, and when the house sold, it wasn't them. There were a lot of little things you could do where you could fool people. It wasn't illegal.

WILMOT: There was a practice that I've heard about in interviewing other people, was that practice of finding either a white person or someone who looked white to initially front and buy the house. And then sign it over right away to a black family, or property owner. So I've heard about that before.

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I don't think we ever had to do that. We would just go ahead and sell it. Maybe we would bring them through the house, and maybe they thought 01:51:00that that was the person who was buying the house, but if they didn't ask questions, we wouldn't say anything.

WILMOT: This group that you mentioned, the group of men--and I assume they were men--who owned the mortgage company, what was that? Who was that?

TAYLOR WIMS: I've forgotten the name of the mortgage companies. One was in Richmond. And they had loans from lenders, but there were a lot of people who gave them money for investments that they didn't care who they sold the house--who they were going to, as long as the papers looked alright, and as long as the credit reports looked alright. They didn't care. So we could get loans through them.

WILMOT: Did you kind of assist your buyers? For a lot of people, buying a home 01:52:00is a totally new experience. You don't know how to present yourself to make yourself an attractive borrower to the lending companies. Did you kind of assist your buyers in that?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh yes, I told my buyers everything.

WILMOT: Like say, "Okay, this is how"--

TAYLOR WIMS: Lots of times we wouldn't take them to see the house. We'd just tell them to drive by. And if they liked it, a lot of times people bought houses and never saw the insides.

WILMOT: Wow.

TAYLOR WIMS: Unless they had an open house, maybe sometimes if they would let us have open house. But see, a lot of times they didn't want us to have open houses because we were black. But most of the times, what we did, we bought the house ourselves and sold it. Maybe through the mortgages companies, because we had 01:53:00good credit and everything. There were so many ways you could do it, legally.

WILMOT: Legally. What neighborhoods did you move into as you moved into Oakland?

TAYLOR WIMS: Me?

WILMOT: Yeah, your business, as a real estate, realtist. What areas did you being to sell in?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, like I said, I didn't sell too many houses for other people. Most of the time, the houses we sold, we owned them. We would buy an old raggedy house, fix it up, and sell it.

WILMOT: So you were working West Oakland for a long time. Did you move into areas like, close to Lake Merritt? What's that area that's right by Oakland High School?

TAYLOR WIMS: Temescal.

WILMOT: There's Temescal. Then there's the one that's by Park Avenue. Between Park and 14th Avenue. Did you work on that area at all?

TAYLOR WIMS: I tell you what. Most times, the properties that we bought, we either bought them through foreclosures--what do you call it, when you die?

WILMOT: Estate.

TAYLOR WIMS: Estate. We'd go to the estate sale. Many times we went to Sacramento for sales where people didn't pay taxes. But most times, we bought foreclosures, probates. Foreclosures and probates, but there were sometimes we 01:55:00would make contact with sellers and buyers before the foreclosure, so they wouldn't lose their credit and everything. We just didn't go in neighborhoods like getting listings and all that. I never did like that. Just a little while I worked with listings. But that's a lot of more work because you've got to call one hundred people before you get an appointment. So we decided we would do it another way.

WILMOT: Can I ask you a little bit more about your political work?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, well, I started in politics long years ago when Byron Rumford ran for assembly, and I worked with him, and worked with him, and worked with him until he got out of the business.

WILMOT: When you say you worked with him, what did you do?

TAYLOR WIMS: I would go up to Sacramento a lot. Go to the meetings and see what was going on, and he'd take us all around. Find all about what's going on in Oakland, then the county, then the city, then the state, then the national. Because we had a political club, and we learned about everything. And then Lionel Wilson. Oh, I learned a lot from Lionel because the first two times he ran--. You know we had a political club, he was president. But anyway, I learned 01:57:00a lot from Lionel. And we didn't just work in Oakland. We would go to Sacramento, have meetings in Sacramento, and I would go to national political conventions.

WILMOT: Were you instrumental in getting that fair housing law passed?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, yes. I even made trips to Washington.

WILMOT: What's the political group that you were working with at that point?

TAYLOR WIMS: The East Bay Area Political Club.

WILMOT: East Bay Political Club--.

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I'm trying to remember, that was the thing.

WILMOT: There was one that was also called the East Bay Democratic Club.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, the East Bay Democratic Club.

WILMOT: So you worked with people like Norvel Smith, Lionel Wilson, Judge--

TAYLOR WIMS: Broussard.

WILMOT: Allen Broussard.

TAYLOR WIMS: All of them. All of them were my friends, we were all together. They even, at my building on Shattuck Avenue, we used to have many meetings 01:58:00there, many meetings. I've been to national conventions.

WILMOT: Were there other women who were kind of involved with the East Bay Democratic Club?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh, yeah, plenty.

WILMOT: And the Men of Tomorrow, as I recall. I know they were first, the Men of Tomorrow came first and then the East Bay Democratic Club. Where did your interest in politics come from?

TAYLOR WIMS: Lionel. Lionel and Byron Rumford.

WILMOT: In the early 1970s, I remember there was a time when they were running, I guess, Elaine Brown, against Lionel Wilson, to be mayor. I think Elaine Brown, she was someone that came from the Black Panther party. Do you recall that?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh yeah. I was working with Lionel.

WILMOT: Do you kind of remember when that shift occurred for the Black Panthers, 01:59:00when they started thinking about electoral politics, and entering the electoral arena?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, you know what, when the Black Panthers were getting started, I knew all those kids. There the same age as my kids, my son and my daughter. I didn't know what they were trying to do. They used to have some of their meetings in my house. I knew all those kids. Knew their parents. I always kept a lot of food at home, and I cooked big pots of food. Come home, wouldn't be a crumb left. My kids just let all the kids come in. My house has always been full of kids. And all those Black Panther kids, I knew all of them.

WILMOT: What did you think of what they were trying to do?

TAYLOR WIMS: I could understand what they were trying to do, but I didn't like 02:00:00the guns. I felt that if they would leave the violence out, it would work. But you see, they saw me and their parents working at the NAACP, working with the Democratic Party, and we weren't gaining fast enough for them. So they just decided they would take over. Just some of them got to be terrible. I had to stop them from coming to my house. When what's his name, he's still living, when he comes to Oakland, every time I see him, he says, "I can remember when you put me out!"

WILMOT: Who was this? Bobby Seale or--?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, Bobby Seale.

WILMOT: And Huey Newton. He died. Do you remember in 1972, when Shirley Chisholm 02:01:00ran for President?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh yeah, we were supporting her.

WILMOT: You were supporting her?

TAYLOR WIMS: Oh yeah, supporting her.

WILMOT: Good. I just saw a film about her, called Unbought and Unbossed. She's so brilliant. She's so brilliant. I just loved it.

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah, well I've been to many places with Lionel and Byron Rumford. D.G. Gibson, oh, just all of those. Most of them are dead now. Oh, boy.

WILMOT: How'd you meet them?

TAYLOR WIMS: I don't know. Well, when he first ran for office, naturally every black person knew it. We'd just get together. They used to have meetings at my house when I lived on Ashby. Oh, it was a meeting at my house every week.

WILMOT: How would you describe your role in Democratic politics here in the Bay Area?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, we used to have a little thing called Spend Your Money Where You Can Work that me and a few friends of mine started. Because I worked downtown at a store. The store where I worked and {Myland's?} Jewelers were the only stores that hired black people. So that little group down there, we just decided that we said, "Spend your money where you can work." But we'd get together and--what was your question now? I forgot.

WILMOT: I just asked you about politics. How would you describe your role in the political machine of Democratic politics?

TAYLOR WIMS: Well, I would say I followed the leader, and my leaders were always good. I had voter registration every--and on election day, we'd get up and get on the telephone, work at the polls. Done just about everything you could do.

WILMOT: How did you feel, in terms of mobilizing people to vote in Oakland in particular, how did that happen? Did you feel that that was challenging?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah. But it was a job well done, because nobody ever said no. Very few. Like I said, on election day, we'd get up and ring doorbells, tell them, "Get up and go to vote." If they didn't have a car, we'd take them. And on election day, we'd get people to call and afterwards, if we'd win, we'd have a party and if we didn't win, we'd have a party. We did our best.

WILMOT: Is there anything else you want to talk about today?

TAYLOR WIMS: I can't think of anything, because everything you asked me I had forgotten. I don't remember anything, it's just wonderful. I'm glad I thought about it, I'm glad you're here. I've got something else to do. There's an organization here called American--it's over on my desk there, on my table--any way, they are honoring people over eighty years old, every year they honor people over eighty years old. And the girl who is head of it used to live next door to me, and she was young, and every day--I mean sometimes--her mom and her sister would come over to my house and take my daughter Tamara, the one that was in here, would take my daughter over to their house. And I'd be looking for my daughter and couldn't find her. She was too little to remember. But she's the head of this group, and she said, "Vie, it's been a long time, but I didn't realize you were ninety." She says, "I was looking for you this year." And this year they are going to put me in that group honoring people over eighty years old. She says, "I was waiting for this year, I didn't know you were ninety." I said, "Can't you count? Don't you remember how old you were? You were just a little girl." She said, "I guess that's why I didn't remember, because I was just a little girl."

WILMOT: I'm going to stop recording now, is that okay?

TAYLOR WIMS: Yeah.