Flint Photos: Clark School Students in 1922

The Golden Leaf Revisited

In October, I interviewed the manager of the venerable Golden Leaf Club, as well as talk to my mom and her good friend Adrienne Oliver about one of Michigan's oldest black-owned nightclubs. A few days ago I ran across some recent photos of the Golden Leaf, along with some dispiriting shots of nearby Clark School, on the Welcome to Beautiful Flint blog. Here are the photos, along with the original post.







I was at a wedding party for my friends Keith and Kim at the Potrero Neighborhood Center, known as The NABE, last weekend in San Francisco. I spotted a guy in a Red Wings jacket who turned out to be Albert Johnson, a NABE employee who was born at Hurley Hospital and went to Clark Elementary (left) in Flint. His parents, Jerry and Jimmie, still live on Providence Street.

We ended up talking about The Golden Leaf, one of Michigan's legendary black clubs. It’s still in business at 1522 Harrison Street, just across the school yard from Clark Elementary. It’s a membership-only club, just as it was when it opened in 1921.

“My dad liked to play cards there,” Albert remembered, before our conversation turned to how glad we both were that Matt Millen is finally out as the Lions GM.The Golden Leaf is a well-known Flint landmark in my family. One of my mom’s best friends from the old days in Flint is Adrienne (Wilson) Oliver, who is the mother of Notre Dame assistant coach Jappy Oliver (left). Although it wasn’t unheard of for a black girl and white girl to be such close friends at that time in Flint, it was rare. And it was even rarer for a white girl to visit The Golden Leaf. But Ardrienne took my mom, Pat (McFarlane) Young, on several occasions.

“We never looked at Pat as being white or black. Pat was just Pat,” Adrienne told me during a recent conversation. “She was with me and she was my friend, so nobody thought anything of her going to the Golden Leaf.”

Except, perhaps, the girls' parents. Sometimes a little subterfuge was needed.

“We did some of the craziest things,” Adrienne remembers. “Pat would say she was spending the night at my house, then we’d tell my parents we were both going to spend that night at another girl's house, then we’d sneak out.”

Adrienne and my mom both remember Central High, where they graduated in 1948, as having good racial relations. Blacks and whites interacted and formed friendships.

“I remember there being more economic prejudice than racial prejudice at Central,” my mom says. “Students seem to divide over their neighborhoods and how much money their parents had.”

Ardienne adds: “At Central, everybody was wonderful, but there was a lot of prejudice hidden in Flint. Nobody came right out and said it, but it was there.”

And there was prejudice built in to the structure of Flint life. When performers like Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole or Lionel Hampton came to the I.M.A., whites went to a separate early performance, while blacks were only allowed at a second midnight to 4 a.m. show.

“That was terrible,” Adrienne says. “It’s sick to even think about, especially when most of the performers were black.”

The Golden Leaf was a popular destination before the midnight dances at the I.M.A. “You know, it’s just a hole in the wall, but we thought it was the greatest joint in the world,” Adrienne remembers.

Today, the look of the Golden Leaf is relatively unchanged. It’s owned and managed by Lottie Reid, who told me on the phone that it’s still the same long, narrow brick building with a dirt basement, a bar, and several tables, much like it was when Adrienne and my mom went there, not to mention more famous visitors like Sammy Davis, Jr., Dinah Washington, and Malcolm X. The age of the members ranges from 21 to around 80.

But the neighborhood has changed, starting with the massive I-69 — I-475 interchange that obliterated much of the community that once surrounded The Golden Leaf . And like many Flint schools, Clark Elementary is boarded up.

“There’s really nothing around us now,” Lottie Reid said. “There’s nothing but us on this block.”

The Walker Walkers

It's time to celebrate the Flint school with what is easily the best nickname ever — the Walker Walkers. These photos are courtesy of Scott Hiteshew and Jim Holbel, both of whom regularly compete for the Sacred Carp Chalice, a Flint ritual shrouded in mystery and intrigue. But the photos probably originated with Sue Kettler. It's all a little confusing, but the photos sparked a nice little digital reunion of Walkers on Facebook.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the names or details, so feel free to offer updates or corrections.

5th/6th Grade Walker Walkers 1978/1979

First Row (L-R): Scott Hiteshew, David Shulman, Ted Mott, Eric Tillman, Beth Green, Jim Holbel
Second Row: Mr. Malcom Alexander, Kenneth Carter, Susan Kettler, Matt Theodroff, ???, Ben Dennis, ???, ???, Valerie Barrett, Marsha Goldfarb
Third Row: Jen Kells, ???, Corey Cahoon, Todd Chaney, Lisa Phipps, ???, Keith McGee, Michelle Zacks, Alexandra Tyler

The Walker Walkers 6th Grade fieldtrip to Kampsville Archeological Center in Illinois.

In a semi-organized left-to-right order: Todd Schaefer, Jim Holbel, Logan Hansen, Peter Kleinpell, David Shulman, Merry McGhan, Marsha Goldfarb, Carol Flippen, Laura Phillips, Kris Nemeth, Lori Archer, Holly McLeod, Michelle Zacks, Janet Haley, Lester Fykes, Jen Ramsdell
When I ran a postcard of the original Walker School, longtime reader/commenter smrfz ink offered up this brief history, which I've edited for length:

The original Walker School was on the corner of Kearsley and Hunt Lane. Hunt Lane, Ash St., and portions of Manning, Mathews, Forest, and Crapo Pl. were vacated when the Cultural Center was built. Old Walker was demolished and so was much of its attendance area. The Sloan Museum sits where Walker once stood.

The "new" smaller Walker was built in the late '50s or early '60s on the corner of Kearsley and Avon, next to the Administration Building.

When I-475 was excavated even more of Walker's attendance area was lost — Mill St, Albro Place, Newton Place, Vine St. Clark and Oak Elementary had the same issues. Walker survived however. Neighborhood kids were moved to Pierce, while Walker recreated itself once again as a magnet school with citywide enrollment.

Walker's status as a magnet school lasted from about 1975-1989 or so. The gifted program was moved to Garfield and Doyle-Ryder, and the building sold and used for offices.

Jim Holbel says:

As a Civic Park kid, I never really knew anything about Walker until 3rd grade, which for me was the 75/76 school year. I was placed in a 'Gifted' students program at Walker. One day per week, I was bussed to Walker for an enrichment program. In 4th grade I was somewhat dismayed to learn the day before classes started at the end of summer that I was not going to Civic Park with the neighborhood kids, but Walker full time. So for 4th-6th grade, I was in the full-time program, often referred to as the 'upstairs kids', as the upper floor was used by the FT students, and the day-a-week program used the downstairs rooms. I recall some enrichment classes were combined with FT and PT kids.

They must have been trying a lot of (then) experimental concepts. I recall almost everything was self directed, in centers, or in small groups. There was a lot more hands on education. Looking at my kids in school now this is pretty common, but I do remember it being a lot different than life at Civic park. The self-paced nature allowed me to perfect procrastination and develop the ability to create a great deal of work under deadline pressure — an attribute which has paid dividends my whole life.

I also wrote my first computer programs in 1976 because the Walker building was right next door to the administration building where a brand-spanking new PRIME computer resided. We could hook-up teletype terminals by making a phone call to the admin computer and plugging the old plastic handset into a foam receptacle. Instead of a screen, messages were printed on paper. We actually were taught the BASIC language and had programming assignments. I have worked in the IT field for about 23 years now, and each time I share this, no one can believe it happened in a rust-belt town with a fat slob socialist spokesmodel. I have not met anyone colleague of my generation who was offered an earlier start in the field.

Despite the fact that the distance from my Haskell Park neighborhood to Walker is less than four miles, we routinely faced 45-minute or more bus rides because we picked up fistfuls of kids along a route with 10-12 stops. One year I drew dreaded first-picked-up, last-dropped-off position on the route. We did get a brand new bus, #200. On the first day, a kid noticed the '2' looked like a 'Z' and it was then called the Zoo bus from then on. And we worked hard to live up to that name. We had a cool ‘70s dude bus driver named Bill who was not above a little hot rodding. The highlight of the trip was always a 'shortcut' from 5th avenue, cutting through on Forrest St. toward E. Kearsley. It runs right between the Sloan Museum and the Sarvis Center and then up by the courtyard in front of Whiting. There is a left-right chicane-like jog in the road, which rose maybe six feet in a short distance. Taken at even moderate speed, kids in the back of the bus were launched like popcorn in a hot pan. We LOVED it!

As we rose to be upper classmen (i.e. 6th graders), Scott Hiteshew, myself and a few other kids found an old dirty sock in the back of the bus. It became a running joke that no one ever cleaned the bus or removed the sock. One day Scott decided it was a Holy Sock, and we made a big joke over the course of that day's bus ride of constructing a faux religious history around the sock. But see NOW is where the ‘Gifted’ part comes in. We didn’t stop there. Over the course of the next few weeks, we start holding sock worship masses, with ceremonies, rituals, and sermons — the whole nine yards. Well, eventually word of this makes it to some of the 3rd and 4th graders’ parents, and naturally they freak the heck out. We were called into various meetings and lectured for what seemed like hours but in the end suffered no consequences, at least in the eyes of the school. I suspect readers in touch with the various faiths of the world can caution the that the consequences of our actions may yet come.

The Golden Leaf

I was at a wedding party for my friends Keith and Kim at the Potrero Neighborhood Center, known as The NABE, last weekend in San Francisco. I spotted a guy in a Red Wings jacket who turned out to be Albert Johnson, a NABE employee who was born at Hurley Hospital and went to Clark Elementary (left) in Flint. His parents, Jerry and Jimmie, still live on Providence Street.

We ended up talking about The Golden Leaf, one of Michigan's legendary black clubs. It’s still in business at 1522 Harrison Street, just across the school yard from Clark Elementary. It’s a membership-only club, just as it was when it opened in 1921.

“My dad liked to play cards there,” Albert remembered, before our conversation turned to how glad we both were that Matt Millen is finally out as the Lions GM.

The Golden Leaf is a well-known Flint landmark in my family. One of my mom’s best friends from the old days in Flint is Adrienne (Wilson) Oliver, who is the mother of Notre Dame assistant coach Jappy Oliver (left). Although it wasn’t unheard of for a black girl and white girl to be such close friends at that time in Flint, it was rare. And it was even rarer for a white girl to visit The Golden Leaf. But Ardrienne took my mom, Pat (McFarlane) Young, on several occasions.

“We never looked at Pat as being white or black. Pat was just Pat,” Adrienne told me during a recent conversation. “She was with me and she was my friend, so nobody thought anything of her going to the Golden Leaf.”

Except, perhaps, the girls' parents. Sometimes a little subterfuge was needed.

“We did some of the craziest things,” Adrienne remembers. “Pat would say she was spending the night at my house, then we’d tell my parents we were both going to spend that night at another girl's house, then we’d sneak out.”

Adrienne and my mom both remember Central High, where they graduated in 1948, as having good racial relations. Blacks and whites interacted and formed friendships.

“I remember there being more economic prejudice than racial prejudice at Central,” my mom says. “Students seem to divide over their neighborhoods and how much money their parents had.”

Ardienne adds: “At Central, everybody was wonderful, but there was a lot of prejudice hidden in Flint. Nobody came right out and said it, but it was there.”

And there was prejudice built in to the structure of Flint life. When performers like Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole or Lionel Hampton came to the I.M.A., whites went to a separate early performance, while blacks were only allowed at a second midnight to 4 a.m. show.

“That was terrible,” Adrienne says. “It’s sick to even think about, especially when most of the performers were black.”

The Golden Leaf was a popular destination before the midnight dances at the I.M.A. “You know, it’s just a hole in the wall, but we thought it was the greatest joint in the world,” Adrienne remembers.

Today, the look of the Golden Leaf is relatively unchanged. It’s owned and managed by Lottie Reid, who told me on the phone that it’s still the same long, narrow brick building with a dirt basement, a bar, and several tables, much like it was when Adrienne and my mom went there, not to mention more famous visitors like Sammy Davis, Jr., Dinah Washington, and Malcolm X. The age of the members ranges from 21 to around 80.

But the neighborhood has changed, starting with the massive I-69 — I-475 interchange that obliterated much of the community that once surrounded The Golden Leaf . And like many Flint schools, Clark Elementary is boarded up.

“There’s really nothing around us now,” Lottie Reid said. “There’s nothing but us on this block.”