A woman
living alone in the city faces dangers. Dorothy had said earlier in our
conversations that someone at Partlow State School had tried to teach her about
danger, but that she never really understood danger until she left the
institution and moved out on her own. Today we will hear from Dorothy about the
some of the dangers she encountered, some real and some imagined.
The first
incident she recalls in one that I remember. It happened while I was working as
Program Director at St. Andrew’s Foundation. Dorothy came into the office,
visibly upset, talking about how someone had taken all the money out of her
bank account. I talked with her some that afternoon to find out what had
happened. She had fallen prey to a scheme which others, particularly elderly
people, have fallen prey to. Some con
artists had talked her into giving them some money on the promise that they
could get more money in return for her.
Apparently, some people took her to another branch of her bank to get
her to withdraw some funds from her account. Once Dorothy realized that she had
been swindled, she went to the branch of her bank where she ordinarily did her
banking to tell them, hoping that she could reverse things, but was dismayed
when she found that her account was almost empty and there was nothing they
could do. She had not clearly understood that her money would be gone from her
bank account when the funds had been taken out at a different bank location.
Dorothy was
so upset at the time that I took her home and stayed with her for awhile. She
settled down after a while, but I was afraid to leave her unattended for the
evening. I stopped by again on my way
home from work. My colleague at St. Andrew’s, Edsel Massey, lived nearby, so I
asked him if he would check in on her that night, which he did. Dorothy made it
through that trial with some help from her friends, and eventually she was able
to build her bank account back up.
During one
of our conversations I asked Dorothy to talk about that day. She recounted the
incident and then went on to talk about other frightening incidents that had
occurred in her life on Southside.
“This
one time there were some folks that tricked me out of my money. I had got my
July check and went to the bank. It was in 1993. I went in and deposited my
check. Then I told that lady I’d like about $300 to keep for myself and she
gave me $300. Then I was coming out of the bank and saw an old Cadillac, it was
an egg colored Cadillac. It was a colored man and a colored woman that had a turban
around her had, and there was a white lady. They got me and took me up on that
little hill. They claimed they were going to take me up to a lawyer and get me
some more money. I had met them up at Woolworth’s when I went up there to get
my pastor a birthday card. I saw them there [at the bank] and I said well
they’re going to help me get some more money. They conned me into going
upstairs on the elevator and when I got up there, there wasn’t nothing but
doctors and nurses up there. They were in a little hatch back Civic and it was
another time I met them three and they took me up there. It was when miss
Hardin was working at the bank and she noticed it. I told that little man, you
just get me up to that police station, and he wouldn’t do it. He just took me
to Chris’s Restaurant. That lady up there said she wished she had got their tag
number. They got away and I never did see them no more.
“They
fooled me by telling me that they were going to go to a judge and get me some
more money (that was the $300). I didn’t have no better sense than to believe
them. They had me take my money out of the bank.”
“Not
long after that there was a woman named Susan came up one night when it was
raining. She knocked on the door and I knew her so I let her in. She went to the
bathroom and I forgot I had a pocketbook back there with some money in it, and
she locked the door and stole my money out of it. She came in here acting so
calm and everything and said ‘What did Jesus say about helping the needy?’ and
I said, ‘You don’t argue with me about Jesus, You get yourself out the door or
I’ll have somebody put you out of here.’ I didn’t know she stole my money ‘til she left
and I didn’t have but three one dollar bills left in my pocketbook. She had
asked me if she could spend the night with me, but I wouldn’t let her. She got
up and I shoved her on out the door.”
“Three
old colored boys came up over there one time. I pushed all three of them out
the door and told them to get away from here. They said they were visiting
their grandmother out in Hootersville. I told them I didn’t care who they were
visiting and I shoved them on out the door.”
“When I
first moved here, there wasn’t a light on this street. There was just a light
up at the churchyard and on people’s porches. One night I had to go to the
bathroom real bad. There was an old tall vine out here and it was dark and I
couldn’t see. I thought it was an old man out there. I thought ‘if I move, that
old man will see me.’ Then a car came by and the headlights shone on it and I saw
it was an old vine – and me about to wet on myself! I had waited the longest,
thinking there was a man out there.”
About the
Photographs: The pictures above were taken in the Five Points South area where
Dorothy often walked in her excursions as she did her shopping and banking
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