Interview with Alice Marcella Bailey, St. Peter Claver, Macon

Partial Transcript: KLockard: OK so to begin would you please state your name and spell it for us?

ABailey: My name is Alice Marcella Bailey. A L I C E and Bailey, B as in boy A I L E Y. The middle name, Marcella, M A R C E L L A, is the result of my mother's relationship with Sister and later Mother Marcella, who was a nun and then the principal of St. Peter Claver in, I guess, the thirties, the nineteen thirties.

BMiddlebrooks: Ok Alice, thank you for agreeing to interview with us and tell us your memories of St. Peter Claver. So, can you go back as far as you can and start?

ABailey: Oh yes. Yes, actually I can go back to St. Peter Claver when I was a little girl before [00:01:00] going to kindergarten. Miss Mary Davis was my first teacher here in kindergarten, but we come to Mass here [in the Church] and sit in the front. Children sat in the first two rows on either side of the altar which I think is the best place for them to see and to learn and of course practice what they've learned in the mass. So we would come here every Sunday for--for church and I remember that so well because as a little girl I had a chance to sit in the front and that was important at the time. My mother enrolled us in St. Peter Claver, but even before then we say that my mother and her brothers and sisters all attended St. Peter Claver. When this church was being built at this location, this parish at this location, my grandfather, Dosent Ceverda de Lopez Oliver, friends knew him as Lope Oliver, as a business man he was always Lope Oliver, L O P E, helped to rebuild this church with their [00:02:00] hands their talents and their funds and their dedication to St. Peter Claver. So this church is a very, very special and indeed a holy place to me and my family. All my brothers, my mother's brothers and sisters attended school here at St. Peter Claver. My mother was a very young child about six or seven, [when] her mother died in childbirth with her last child and there was a nun here, Sister Marcella, who sort of took her in as her little girl. That's my mother's story and became her mother at school. My mother talked about that with great emotion all the time. So when I came along and it was time to be baptized...thus as Alice Marcella Bailey, something I'm real proud of. You can see it by the big grin on my face. I'm real proud of that.

Segment Synopsis: Ms. Bailey describes her early childhood experience as a parishoner at St. Peter Claver Church in Macon. She also describes her family's connection with the church, including her grandfather, Lope Oliver, helping to rebuild the church, and her mother's connection to the Sisters at the church.

Subjects: Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament; St. Peter Claver Parish, Macon, Ga. (SPCPM)

Partial Transcript: ABailey: I'm especially happy about [00:03:00] the experience afforded me as a child and a student at St. Peter Claver. This is a holy place to many of us. My first teacher, as I said, was Mrs. Mary Davis, kindergarten, and then the illustrious and very dedicated Miss Eva Lunday, first grade. I don't recall my second grade teacher. However, my fourth grade teacher was Sister Johanna. Now Sister Johanna didn't play at all. You better learn and if you didn't learn she introduced you to her ruler with your hand outstretched upturned. However, she is a very fine teacher, a math teacher. She taught us the appreciation for arithmetic and was steady in that. We had nuns, women who taught us, and made sure that we received a proper education that could be afforded under all circumstances of the times. [00:04:00] One of my fondest memories is our teacher, the teacher who became very dear to me into my adulthood, Sister Louis Marie. She was gonna be out of class for the day and Mother had to come across the hall on the second floor of the school on the east side of the school and manage both her class and ours. She left the doors open so she could hear any disturbance across the hall. She gave us something to learn in a few minutes, The Psalms of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. That was the first poem that I remember having to learn. It's something like 10 or 15 minutes. And she came back across the hall eventually and had us all repeat this poem. And she looked us in the eye as we were doing it to make sure that we knew the poem. It sparked my interest and [00:05:00] appreciation for literature. To this day. The Psalms of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

ABailey: "...Tell me not, in mournful numbers, "Life is but an empty dream!" For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Things are real! Things are earnest! And the grave is not its goal..."

ABailey: He goes on and on and on. A very, very wonderful experience. We learned to respect one another. We learn to achieve. We learn what was important to us: Family; Personal appearance; Doing for others. I learned that you share with others because it's the right thing to do. I learned that you share with others because it makes you feel good about yourself and all in all, what's most important, is to be a good person. You don't have to be pretty. You don't have to be thin, [00:06:00] or be fat, or be rich, but you have to be respected and one way to be respected is to give respect and to share. Now that came out of my household and out of here, St. Peter Claver. This to me is a very special place.

Segment Synopsis: Ms. Bailey describes her experiences and teachers at St. Peter Claver School. She also describes the values instilled in her while attending the school.

Keywords: A Psalm of Life; Catholic education; Catholic values; Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882. Poems; Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (BSS)

Subjects: Catholic Church--Education; Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882. Poems; Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (BSS)

Partial Transcript: ABailey: I come to Mass early, half hour early, because I must sit in the seat that my grandfather sat, which became my mother's seat and when I was a little girl all the children sat in the first two rows in the front facing the altar which I would really like to see happen again because when you learn the mass as a child in the school and you come to Mass on Sunday and you're behind these tall adults who all you can see is the back you don't have a chance to practice what you have been learning five days a week in school. It just seems so terribly unfair to these babies [00:07:00] that they can't see and practice a Mass. So I sat in the front, a nun would sit on the first two rows at the end, boys side, the girls side and a favorite seventh grader or eighth grader would sit directly behind them to manage the second row.

ABailey: Now that meant you had prestige and honor if you were that favorite seventh or eighth grader and you worked for that position. You made sure that you qualified for that position which help you establish character in very small way, but a consistent way. That's what you get at St. Peter Claver. That's what we got in St. Peter Claver. No one said, "Oh you must be such and such." They put you in a position that you could see, this is where you want to be. This is the kind of person you want to be. This is the achiever you must be and that is so very very important especially now with so much that's on television and in the news that's not positive and certainly [00:08:00] not instructive to our children. So way back then that's what St. Peter Claver was establishing for us. Very very important. I'd like to see that happen again.

Segment Synopsis: Ms. Bailey describes her early experiences in Mass at St. Peter Claver Chruch. Children sat in the front rows of the church, monitored by nuns and older children who earned a place of honor.

Partial Transcript: BMiddlebrooks: What do you remember about those activities. Well what kind of activities where here when you were here?

ABailey: May Day. Girl Scouts. Boy Scouts. Standing up reciting poems. Those were important. Those ones made the greatest impact on me. Selling Turkey raffles. Trying to be the one that sold the most so you can win that bicycle. I remember the boys band, the boys being in the band: Bernard Abrams, Bernard Brown, [00:09:00] Joe Russell. All of these young boys were introduced to music, introduced to being a musician. A couple went on to really stand out at Ballard Hudson High School. I think they were in the band, they were respectable. They came in understanding the instruments and how to be in a band. And I don't think any other grammar schools in the area offered that experience during the 50's here. But that was very, very important.

We had to because we had to stand up and--and recite which gave us a lot of confidence. I think that those are the things most I remember. I think we went on a couple of field trips. I seem to think we went to St. Elizabeth's in Atlanta, I think. [00:10:00] I think that's where. But mostly I remember how dedicated our teachers were to making sure that we understood. I don't remember ever being chastised and in a demeaning way or seeing others chastised in a demeaning way. Now, Sister Johanna had a ruler, and you didn't want her attention with that ruler. That's one of the things. You had to put your hand out. She would reach way back and come down on your hand with that ruler. But there wasn't meant to be cruel. It was meant to get your attention.

Segment Synopsis: Ms. Bailey describes some of the activities she remembers from school, including young men in a band.

Keywords: Ballard Hudson High School; Boy Scouts; Girl Scouts; May Crowning; May Day

Subjects: Ballard-Hudson Senior High School; Boy Scouts of America; Catholic Church--Education; Girl Scouts of the United States of America; May Crowning; May Day

Partial Transcript: BMiddlebrooks: You spoke about Sister Louis Marie. She was here as a teacher.

ABailey: Oh yes.

BMiddlebrooks: And I remember she came back to when I was here. She came back [00:11:00] as the principal.

ABailey: Yes.

BMiddlebrooks: You were gone then, when she came back as principal, right?

ABailey: But let me just tell you something about her and I definitely want you to hear this. When it is time to go to Xavier, go to college, my parents, the marriage at broken up and my mother had been a housewife basically all of her life with my father. And so the funds weren't available. They just weren't there. And she called Xavier University down in New Orleans and spoke to another Sister of the Blessed Sacrament, about providing an opportunity for me to go to college. I became assistant to the House Mother of the freshman dormitory which paid my room and board. She got a job for me as the cashier in the cafeteria for dinner which paid for my tuition. And then I had other jobs off campus. I'd been in radio here before as a disc jockey, WIBB for two and a half years prior to going, so I was able to get another job in New Orleans and she arranged [00:12:00] to have them accept that I would leave the campus every day to go work yet come back [at the end of the day]. Without her, I would not have been able to go to Xavier, would not have had one of the most incredible experiences of my life, learning and social experiences and just all around character building experiences.

Segment Synopsis: Ms. Bailey recalls working her way through college and Sister Louis Marie helping secure various work-study positions at Xavier University in New Orleans.

Keywords: Catholic; college life; education; university; work-study

Subjects: Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament; Xavier University of Louisiana

Partial Transcript: ABailey: We moved in Philadelphia while I was at Xavier move from Macon to Philadelphia. She introduced me to a Mother Raymond at St. Ignatius so that she would have another connection to the Catholic Church and a nun who was a very fine connection. My mother died when I was in college and Sister Louis Marie had become Sister Bernadette Stack by then I think. Eventually I moved downtown from West Philadelphia, two blocks from St. Peter Claver [00:13:00] church establish there and I would go to church on Sunday there. But one day I went to a different mass. And lo and behold who's there, Sister Louis Marie. Well this was an incredible experience to be back together. By that time, I was working for a major company in Philadelphia, Blue Cross. She would come in from the Mother House (after the school closed down there) to see a doctor. We would always have lunch and there were a Catholic meds at Blue Cross, who were Senior Staff, Vice Presidents, and he saw us once having lunch and realize that I knew some nuns. Well he started coming to lunch with us. And it was just an incredible experience to have her as my friend that I was introducing into a Vice President of the company I worked for, [00:14:00] so it uped to my status. And she was able to tell him all about me as a child. And that was just a little personal thing. She was such a fantastic influence on our lives. A very special human being.

Segment Synopsis: Ms. Bailey describes her move to Philadelphia and reconnecting with Sister Louis Marie (Sister Bernadette Stack) near the Mother House of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.

Keywords: Philadelphia, PA; St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic School; St. Peter Claver Catholic Church, Philadelphia PA

Subjects: Our Mother of Sorrows/St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic School (Philadelphia, PA); Philadelphia, PA; St. Peter Claver Catholic Church (Philadelphia, PA)

Partial Transcript: KLockard: Now did you graduate from Xavier, or did you graduate from St. Ignatius?

ABailey: St. Ignatius was a grammar school. No, no. A graduate from Xavier and I'm very involved Xavier. In fact, I've been responsible for several of the young people from this parish going to Xavier on scholarships. And I always want to talk to any young person who is interested in going to Xavier. It's a fine, fine, fine university establish Mother Katharine Drexel from the famous and rich Drexel family in Philadelphia. And she established the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, an order that I have tremendous respect for, tremendous respect. It not that I heard about them, I knew about them, very personally I knew about them from my mother's time [00:15:00] to this time through today.

Segment Synopsis: Ms. Bailey briefly describes her involvement with Xavier University and the Sister of the Blessed Sacrament, an order of religious women founded by St. Mother Katharine Drexel.

Subjects: Drexel, St. Katherine; Our Lady of Sorrows/St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic School (Philadelphia PA); Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament; Xavier University (New Orleans, LA)

Partial Transcript: BMiddlebrooks: Tell us a bit about the book you want to publish.

ABailey: Oh yes. Oh yes. I'd like permission to do further research and publish a book on St. Saint Peter Claver and who he was, what he did, the character image that he's established for us to follow. I think when you come to any institution that's named for a person in history should know about that person. I want our children at St. Peter Claver School to know about him. I want those who have chosen St. Peter Claver as their church home, who have come from elsewhere to know where they are and why this church exists, this parish exists.

ABailey Initially, this parish was established for African-American people and it has always been open to anyone who want to come. And now it is very, very integrated. [00:16:00] We're all one big church family here, but there are people who don't know about Peter Claver. I think that should be taught in kindergarten, first grade, and it certainly should be a pamphlet always available for persons, maybe every few Sundays a passage from the book can be taken out put in the Bulletin so for persons passing through or learning gradually without buying the entire book we'd be able to know about St. Peter Claver, because his life is a pattern for us to follow. And we should have that option, we should have an opportunity to know it.

Segment Synopsis: Ms. Bailey describes her desire to publish a book about St. Peter Claver, the person.

Keywords: St. Peter Claver

Subjects: African-American history; Black Catholic History; St. Pater Claver

Partial Transcript: ABailey: I also would like to see the children sit in the front again. They sit behind us and we are all, especially some of the men, the men are so broad I can't see around them! They can't see. They can't see the concentration of the host, one of the most important pieces of activity in the mass. [00:17:00] I seem to attract little ones, three or four-year olds they come and sit with me. I enjoy that they're busy, but when it's time for the concentration of the mass I put them on the aisle, and I'll tell the person in front of me, "Please move over a little bit sir." I guess I'm the Church Patrol Officer that moves so that the baby can see what's going on at the altar. I think that we must do that is our obligation. I really want them to sit in those front row seats. I really do. I want to see us invite young people to be in the choir. Gives them an opportunity to use their voices and let them know this is their church. In Southern language, "This belongs to them." We should have them very active in every part of it. And that choir I'd love to hear some nice young voices in that choir and be able to pat them on the back of that in the end of mass and say, "Baby, you did so well today. Thank you. Thank you." We don't have an opportunity [00:18:00] and they don't have that opportunity. We don't have that pleasure and they don't have that opportunity. We have an obligation. Okay. And I'd like to see us stand up to our obligation.

BMiddlebrooks: I'll see what we can do.

ABailey: Please. Please. And I'll come over. I can't teach them how to sing, nobody wants to hear me sing. I don't even hum to the children, but I'll come over and be whenever I'm needed it to be to support this.

BMiddlebrooks: Thank you so much for interviewing with us.

ABailey: Thank you.

BMiddlebrooks: So hope to have this ready for Black History.

ABailey: Thank you for asking me to be a part of this inviting me to be a part of this. I get very emotional about St. Peter Claver. It has been a major part of my life and my mother's life. And there's a fourth generation my family here married. That's two generations of married into the Baileys. So we are very dedicated to St. Peter Claver.

BMiddlebrooks: All right. Thank you so much.

ABailey: Thank you.

[End of Interview]

Segment Synopsis: Ms. Bailey encourages the people of her parish to ensure that children and young people are able to see and enjoy the celebration of Mass.