Jenks Gibbs (interviewed by Sister Buchanan and Lisa Hayes on May 9th, 2023)

Jenks Gibbs (interviewed by Sister Buchanan and Lisa Hayes on May 9th, 2023)

2023-05-09

William Jenkins (“Jenks”) Gibbs was born in 1938 in Charleston. He grew up downtown and had a career in banking and shipping. He served in the US Coast Guard and is a descendent of the Ball and Simons families. Mr. Gibbs discusses changes he’s seen in Charleston throughout his lifetime and recollects events with memorable people, including childhood friends and a beloved caregiver. Mr. Gibbs tells of a 1955 fire that decimated Charleston’s waterfront and of a sailboat that he sailed in Colonial Lake with his brother.

Hayes, Lisa

Buchanan, Sister

Cox, Danielle

MP3

Audio

English

JenksGibbes_OralHistory_20230509

1:36:27/132.5MB

00:00:03 Lisa Hayes

So my name is Lisa Hayes. I'm the special collections librarian at the Charleston Library Society. And today I am with Sister Buchanan and Jenks Gibbes, who are in conversation. The date is May, May 9th, 2023.

00:00:25 Sister Buchanan

So Jenks, you were saying you, you would tell us, how did you phrase that? You would tell us what you, what we, what we wanted to know. But, but you need to tell us what you find more interesting in Charleston as well.

00:00:43 Jenks Gibbes

I'm thinking about Charleston. Not what I did or what happened to me. I, you know, I'm one of a group. We are very similar to each other, which is going to narrow Charleston down a good bit from others.

00:01:08 Lisa Hayes

Tell, tell us who's in that group.

00:01:11 Jenks Gibbes

Well, let's, let's, let's divide it up. I was born in 1938. I do remember a little bit in the first World War, the second World War. I lived on Colonial Street, which was next to Colonial Lake, which is the garden now. The important line, dividing up the city by various kinds of interests as Broad Street, and I stayed Broad Street to the battery. Growing up Broad Street was a parent, “Don't go across Broad Street,” you know, “Stay below Broad Street." Then below Broad Street to, to the battery, to the water was it divided again. That was the King Street gang and the Savage Street gang. I was in the Savage Street gang because I was on Colonial Street which was on the other side. It wasn't anything but an identification that kids used for various and sundry things, teams, just parents would say, “You know, don't go below whatever and I'll go, my dad, I can lose you for two to three hours. I don’t know where to find you.” Nothing financial had anything to do with any of it. It's, it's really interesting to me that nobody was so concerned about how much he's worth, she's worth, one thing or another. Just kind of, and I guess our parents grew up in the depression. You know, they were very mindful of what they spent. My father was a lawyer. And you know, he made a living, and that's all I know. So when you're talking about the neighborhood, Savage Street had two or three Black families, Tradd Street had Black families. Price's Alley had Black families. What's the little street that goes between King and Meeting?

00:04:35 Sister Buchanan

Horlbeck. That's Northbrook.

00:04:38 Jenks Gibbes

The little alley, you know. It's got a little little Lamboll, you know, little Lamboll and big Lamboll.

00:04:54 Sister Buchanan

Price's Alley

00:04:55 Jenks Gibbes

Price’s Alley. Prices Alley had, they had about, they had several Black families. The Parkers on the corner of Logan and Tradd Stree had a and beautiful big house. Slaves’ quarters at the back of the house, which I knew very well because I grew up, when my grandmother died, we moved into her house on Logan Street and we were right next to that piece of property. And it was, it, it was owned by Miss Ellen Parker, who was Dr. Parker’s aunt. And that's the house that Tee Parker now lives in.

00:05:51 Sister Buchanan

Stayed in the family.

00:05:52 Jenks Gibbes

So I saw that. I was in the back, I don't know, you know, six or seven people. It's, it's, you know, it's different. You know, we probably had more Black people than we had Catholics or Jews or Greeks living below Broad Street

00:06:31 Lisa Hayes

And you, and they were some of your playmates? The the Black families, the Black kids?

00:06:38 Jenks Gibbes

Very limited, I mean. The Savage Street gang had the horse lot. And the King Street gang had East Bay playground. And we would get some Black kids that that would usually have some connection to some Black people working below Broad Street because I can remember that. I mean, you'd have, you know, we, we knew who would do, who the good baseball players were and who weren't, you know.

00:07:20 Sister Buchanan

And yeah, so, Jenks, was Moultrie playground active then? I know Hazel Parker was but...

00:07:29 Jenks Gibbes

Moultrie Playground was on the wrong side of Broad. You got to understand that. And East Bay and Moultrie were, the horse lot and East Bay, with the two playgrounds, Moultrie Playground was sort of interconnected with that, but they, you know. They, they really did touch Broad Street but...

00:08:09 Sister Buchanan

Well, did they have dances at East Bay that you all would go to? I know East Bay used to have lots of Friday night, not lots of, but occasional Friday night dances. And so would you go to those in spite of...

00:08:24 Jenks Gibbes

Absolutely. Well, I mean you got. I got to tell you, you know that, that once we got in school everybody got mixed up. I went to Miss Watts, Crafts School, Charleston Day School, Charleston High School, and Saint Marks School. And I, to get out of the 12th grade, as I'm many schools I went, I went to one college. But that's just how, and I never went to Gaud or Porter or any of them. By the way, the best school I went to was Crafts School, well, the public school. Best teacher I've ever had was Miss Hazel.

00:09:12 Sister Buchanan

I had her too, she was.

00:09:14 Lisa Hayes

Is that right? Is that Hazel Parker? That the name comes?

00:09:17 Sister Buchanan

No, it's another family, I think.

00:09:17 Jenks Gibbes

From, she was at the day school for you.

00:09:22 Sister Buchanan

No, I went to Crafts through the 6th grade and then transferred to Ashley Hall.

00:09:28 Jenks Gibbes

OK. Well Crafts.

00:09:29 Sister Buchanan

Crafts was 1st grade with Miss Hirsch, who my first grade teacher, whose husband was a sculptor here. What is his last name. His first name is escaping. Willard Hirsch. Has a little sculpture down at Murray Blvd. I mean down at the White Point gardens, little dosey doe.

00:09:50 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, I thought that was Willard Hirsch.

00:09:57 Sister Buchanan

Well, I think he did that. It was a wonderful. She, Miss Hazel was a wonderful teacher. I agree.

00:10:05 Jenks Gibbes

Well, she went to the day school after she retired from the school because I was on the board of the day school.

00:10:13 Sister Buchanan

And you know, you were glad to get her.

00:10:15 Jenks Gibbes

Well, but, but everybody and we got all the gangs going to a public school, private school, one thing and mixing up. And it was absolutely determined by where you lived. The school district, I mean, you know, you had to go to that school. You wanted to go to public school, and you live below Broad Street. You went to the Craft School, which is above Broad Street, but just above Broad Street

00:11:02 Sister Buchanan

Jenks when you, when you got to that age, the groups all began to mix. Did you go to dancing school with Miss Whaley and Miss Robertson?

00:11:14 Jenks Gibbes

I went to dancing school. I got kicked out of dancing school by Miss Whaley. And the reason I got kicked out, is because you had to go pick partners. One line over there, girls. One line over here, boys. And it was getting down and, and I refused to dance with the fat girl. And Miss Whaley kicked me out of dancing school right there. Well, I lived on Logan Street, which was about two blocks away. And damn, she didn't beat me to my mother before I could tell my mother I got kicked out of dancing school.

00:12:08 Sister Buchanan

Well, that was the charm of Charleston then, being such a small town. And what do you see are the changes now that the things that you feel have been lost, the things that have been gained?

00:12:24 Jenks Gibbes

Well, I think, I think the thing that's more impressive to me, and I don't know in a good way or a bad way. Too much money. Way too much money. There's such an amount of good that's been done by foreigners’ money coming to Charleston and, you know, whether they're buying their way into society or joining, and then you know you, how can you, you know, how can you, how can you tell that? You know, we don't have a Tiger Woods just trying to give away $10 million or whatever. And I don't, I don't think that's, it's really just exploded the real estate market. But on the other hand, great example, Library Society. It it, it just goes on and on. My friend that used to live right down the street from me when I lived on Wadmalaw Island. She just took you a million books. But you know she is, she, I don't know if she's on the board, but she loves you. She got the husband that's so noisy. That has the airplanes and all, you know.

00:14:26 Lisa Hayes

Sorry, I don't know who you mean.

00:14:27 Jenks Gibbes

Lives in the Fort Sumter Hotel?

00:14:34 Sister Buchanan

Do I know them, Jenks?

00:14:36 Jenks Gibbes

I don't know if you do. They’ve been here three or four years.

00:14:36 Sister Buchanan

Of the, of the, of the new people that moved here? I probably don’t know.

00:14:39 Jenks Gibbes

His connection to Charleston, there was, he was Van Moore's class principal. And he came down and he wanted to move down there and he looked at Wadmalaw and Van got hold of him, talked him into buying a lot and building a house where I live. And I never will forget. After he had been to, he and she had been to a cocktail party at, in the village, which is a good, you know, 7-8 miles from where I live, and his comment was, “Good God,” he said. “I spent all that money building that house, and I could have bought one of these. This is so much better.” You know, and it's, it's, and it was the houses that were built by farmers to come to during the summer to get some sea breeze, instead of being stuck in the sun on the farm. And it's a beautiful, gorgeous place if you've never been there.

00:16:02 Sister Buchanan

Yeah, it it's a lovely little villages at the end of the road that.

00:16:07 Jenks Gibbes

His name is Hambleton.

00:16:09 Lisa Hayes

Oh, Oh yes. Diana Hambleton and George, yes.

00:16:13 Jenks Gibbes

But I mean that's that to me is a wonderful example. People with some money, wherewithal coming and being a part of the neighborhood. I mean, you know, they didn't come in and buy a beach house and take off for, you know, Sweden or someplace.

00:16:33 Sister Buchanan

Well, my neighbor at Wadmalaw, who's built a very large house, has moved here from somewhere along the East Coast. He was in the corporate world and it never fails that their name is at the top of the givers, whether it's for Spoleto or Charleston Symphony or the Gibbes. So I agree with you. There are people who've made an enormous difference in, and maybe the Library Society too. I’ll have to look.

00:16:59 Jenks Gibbes

But you know. So I would say the city wouldn't be what it is today if that hadn't happened. And the people in Charleston that have been here for 2-3 generations don't like it. And you know, and that doesn't mean they don't benefit from it. They just don't like it. But I mean, I talked to Louise Maybank all the time. And Louise has a house on Meeting Street, almost on the battery. And she said, and she's lived here forever. And she said “Jenks, you know, I, I make a point of getting out and about at dusk and looking down Meeting Street and nobody on the street. No children, no parents, no nobody.”

00:18:05 Sister Buchanan

And certainly it's a change. It certainly is a change.

00:18:11 Jenks Gibbes

You know, a lot of, I guess a lot of the house owners don't have children or they got children, they're somewhere else. I don't know.

00:18:25 Sister Buchanan

And many second homes or third homes. So they're only here for a short period of time in a lot of cases that it's it's...

00:18:33 Jenks Gibbes

But anyhow that, you will see the heat, and the desire bigger and better than it's ever been. When you push into this development of the Port Authority project that's going to, that's going to explode everything. I myself I don't know why you know, the legislature can't go back to the governor and one thing or another, and let's just shut down the Ports Authority. I mean, we want them to. Whatever or whoever we, we gave away the Port Authority property to the Ports authority. Because they needed it and they just had a fire and one thing and another. And the city I'm talking about did that.

00:19:42 Sister Buchanan

Was that the tidewater dock fire you're talking about? Did you say they had a fire? Was it that Tidewater dock fire that?

00:19:51 Jenks Gibbes

If it was windy, wind have been going in the other direction and burned the town down and burned out the whole waterfront.

00:20:00 Sister Buchanan

I, I remember that fire because I lived north of Broad a block on Church Street.

00:20:06 Jenks Gibbes

I was working on Broad Street when the damn thing was burning and the wall in my office was hot. I, I thought it would explode, but then, but I, I don't know. I don't know what to say. It’s like, ocean rising, you know. It will happen.

00:20:41 Sister Buchanan

That is so true. When you, I, I think back so fondly of your friendship with Peter and Bobby and the fishing and the fun that you all used to have. You have any tales to tell us of your waterfront stories of, even as a child? Did you sail from the, any? Always just fish and motorboats.

00:21:06 Jenks Gibbes

We had, my brother and I had a sailboat and we took it away. We kept it at the marina and one time we went out and tide was coming in and the next thing we knew we were stuck underneath the Ashley River bridge with our mast holding the boat there and this like this and we had, I might have been nine years old. My brother would have been 11 or something like that. Maybe a little bit older. And we had to wait for the tide to go out for the, for the mast to come down enough to get unstuck. I think the old man got rid of the sailboat the next day. Sort of things that, well, sort of different to me is when we lived on Colonial Street I had a grandfather that ran a fertilizer company that had a shop where they built stuff. He made a boat for my brother and I, and the old man somehow got the mayor to give us permission to leave it in the lake. So we had, we had a system to, you have to throw it because you would wouldn't let it get close enough for anybody else to get in it. So you put it, you walk it, you know, dock it 20 feet from the deal and you had to throw a sinker or something that would hook on to a seat and you can pull the boat in, but that, that's, oh, that was that that was fun. But no Bobby Cathcart, who was a doctor that was a great friend of mine. We had five or seven boats together.

00:23:50 Sister Buchanan

Was he in the Savage Street gang?

00:23:53 Jenks Gibbes

He, he lived on Savage Street

00:23:57 Sister Buchanan

Put him on the right side of the street to be in the gang.

00:23:59 Jenks Gibbes

No problem with that. I tried, I tried to figure out how many people lived there and it must have been 1000. But anyhow we did. I, I, I, I grew up with access to two plantations. One that my grandmother owned and one his sister owned, on the East branch of the Copper River. Fabulous duck hunt. And I started shooting ducks when I was about that high and the last time I went, I went with T Parker to Canada. About five years. And I had just too old. Too cold, too.

00:24:58 Sister Buchanan

Was it freezing?

00:25:03 Jenks Gibbes

I never worried about that. I mean, the old part, right?

00:25:12 Sister Buchanan

You know, Jenks, that's the one that gets you. I think people always comment on, certainly the people who've come here and they've done beautiful restoration jobs off and on properties and given to the community, but they talk about the lack of Charleston characters, which were aplenty in our youth. Who are some that you remember?

00:25:46 Jenks Gibbes

Sam Stoney. Sam Stoney lived in the back of the house on Tradd Street. Well. You can yell from 4 Logan Street we've got four porches going straight out. Four story house. My grandmother who lived there and Sam Stoney were great buddies. And Sam would ride a bicycle down the street to go in there. My grandmother would yell at him from up on the deal and you said, Sam, it's time to drink. And he'd come on over. And my brother and I went over there to see Sam. Sam Stoney, one time and he had just gotten a box full of books from overseas. He had been married to a poetess named Frances Frost. And, and, and she was in the islands somewhere.

00:27:08 Sister Buchanan

Frances Frost. Real far away islands.

00:27:10 Jenks Gibbes

She wasn't married, they weren't married too long. But anyhow, Sam invited us over there. We went up there to see him and said, and he said, let me show me, show you a painting. And he had gotten his trunk. And it had a lot of big painting in it. And he had, he had crossed out all of the letters except the one that said the dirtiest word.

00:27:48 Sister Buchanan

I'm sure that it got your all's attention. Well, was this Frances Frost related to the...

00:27:58 Jenks Gibbes

I doubt it, but I don't think so.

00:28:00 Sister Buchanan

Not from here because I never knew that he was married. I remember him on his bicycle and he was, never wore socks. He wore sandals.

00:28:09 Jenks Gibbes

He didn't wear socks. Yeah.

00:28:12 Sister Buchanan

Which nobody wore then. He was a Birkenstock man, ahead of the Birkenstock.

00:28:18 Jenks Gibbes

But he he was, he was a character, Ashmead Pringle was a character. I don't know. It goes on and on in different ways. You know I've, I think Elliot Hutson. Elliot Hutson I adored. But he was his own guy.

00:28:54 Sister Buchanan

I don't think of him as being a character, but I agree with you, he was a wonderful fellow. Can't think of any of the other sort of off beat up, certainly growing up where I grew up a block off of Broad Street, there was Emmett Robinson and a lot of the theater group whose names I really can't always remember because as a child I don't think I even knew what their names was.

00:29:26 Jenks Gibbes

Emmet Robinson? He wasn’t a character, was he?

00:29:27 Sister Buchanan

No, he wasn't a character, but he was certainly contributed to the cultural life of the city. He and his wife Pat that you remember. That did the, you know, the Footlight Players. Wasn't her name Pat? Pat Robinson, she wrote a book by Charleston, set in Charleston with Nancy Stephenson. Our first Lieutenant governor, female Lieutenant Governor Nancy Stephenson. They, they published a book together.

00:30:01 Jenks Gibbes

She was immoral wasn't she?

00:30:05 Sister Buchanan

Yes, I think? I was going to let you say. But I I think your mention too of the the other element in Charleston of the crooks, I guess. Not that you’ve got to name them, but what were some of the more criminal activities? I know it was probably bootlegging. And at one time certainly.

00:30:30 Jenks Gibbes

That book I just showed you is a a girl who's bragging about her father owning and running the Carriage House and that he and, she, she is saying that Market Street used to be nasty and rough and tough, and one thing and another, but that is not my father's place. You know, the Carriage House was the first place I ever saw a naked striptease.

00:31:09 Sister Buchanan

What about the 5:00 O'clock club? That was pretty raunchy. And the Carriage House was where?

00:31:19 Jenks Gibbes

It was on Church Street, almost next to the Peninsula Grill. That sort of thing now. But as she say in what's there now, some Mexican place or something. But I mean, that was a, he was a, he was a bad guy and a gangster.

00:31:43 Sister Buchanan

The guy she's talking about in the book?

00:31:45 Jenks Gibbes

Her father. Old man Renken was a gangster.

00:31:53 Sister Buchanan

And what was his gangster business? Was it was it sort of rum running, or gambling, or?

00:32:05 Jenks Gibbes

Well, they owned Renken Boat Company, they owned Renken Finance Company, they had a car dealership. One thing or another there there was a huge poker game playing on the battery. Renken was in it, Pritchard. I don't know. They, they were people that would bet big money not $2. And there’s a story that he got, he got knocked in the head, robbed, going, walking home from one house on the battery to the next.

00:32:54 Sister Buchanan

He must have won all the money. Somebody wanted to get back.

00:33:03 Sister Buchanan

Oh my goodness. I never heard about that.

00:33:09 Lisa Hayes

When you were, when you were really young was the market area safer then? And then it became sort of a sort of red light district kind of place in the, what, the 1960s or 70s? Or not, not then?

00:33:24 Jenks Gibbes

Lisa, I'm talking further back. Market Street from Meeting, well, from East Bay to King Street was mostly all bars and one thing or another, and that was during the war, and that was because of the sailors at the Navy base and one thing or another. And, and the other thing was someone around me, to me that impressed me as a little kid walking up and down King Street is, and about every 3rd or 4th window was a tattoo shop by a Chinaman. Or something you know, and you could look in the window and see what kind of tattoo you could get. I was a little young for that at the time.

00:34:21 Sister Buchanan

Fascinating nevertheless, and not tempted to get one?

00:34:25 Jenks Gibbes

I did try to get one one time in Virginia Beach and, but when I told the guy I wanted it on the bottom of my foot.

00:34:38 Sister Buchanan

Where your mother wouldn't see it. Would Jenks you were in the Coast Guard? You went in the Coast Guard. Where were you, were you stationed here? Or where did they send you?

00:34:50 Jenks Gibbes

I, I'll tell you what. I went to boot camp for six months and I went to Cape May, New Jersey. And what I learned, how I learned how to do 2 things. I learned how to fry 300 eggs at one time. And and how to how to ride a floor scrubber. You know, that goes around the circle. We get these big holes and you know, all of us were, you know, the lowest rates you could get in them and deal. And we raced those things back and forth. I never got on the boat the whole time.

00:35:45 Sister Buchanan

Come on, you didn't really, they didn't?

00:35:47 Jenks Gibbes

No, I was reserves 8 years. But what that was that I went and I graduated from college in 60 and three days later I was at Cape May. And because I was, we had spent a lot of time looking at what was going on in the world and all that sort of thing, and this is a little bit before Vietnam and the Berlin Wall had just been built, I guess. And the only call I got the whole eight years in the Reserves was the Cuban Missile Crisis and all they said is don't leave home for the next 24 hours.

00:36:49 Sister Buchanan

That was a frightening time. That was a frightening time.

00:36:53 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, I did, I didn't get a medal or anything.

00:36:58 Sister Buchanan

Well, I pictured you right there on the high seas chasing rum runners or something. Jenks, Lisa says you've given some family papers to the library society, and I know that the two plantations you talked about. One, the wonderful one that was on the East branch of the Cooper River. The frame house, the oldest frame house on the Cooper River.

00:37:25 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, I knew this was going to come up. Middleburg.

00:37:28 Sister Buchanan

Do you want to talk about it or not? Middleburg, thank you.

00:37:38 Jenks Gibbes

Middleburg was built by a Simons. 1697. Simons had to have a daughter who married a Ball, I think

00:38:16 Sister Buchanan

Ball gives the connection to the family, your family.

00:38:19 Jenks Gibbes

Well, well, yeah, but before it all got down, I mean, all kinds of things happened and everybody bought it. Must have been in Marion once a week. I never seen anything like it, but anyhow. Hyde Park. Hyde Park is on the other side of the East branch of the Cooper River.

00:38:44 Sister Buchanan

I've never heard of it.

00:38:45 Jenks Gibbes

With my grandmother. And when my grandparents died there were four brothers. John Gibbes, Coming Gibbes, Jim Gibbes, Charlie Gibbes. They drew straws for whatever they wanted and my father got 4 Logan Street Jim got Hyde Park, which he was killed for. The four boys got Middleburg together because Aunt Marie was still alive and her husband is a fellow named Edward von Siebold Dingle, who was a bird artist that was married to my great aunt. No joke, he looked like Hitler.

00:39:54 Sister Buchanan

He did? He looked like Hitler? Von Dingle looked like Hitler?

00:39:59 Jenks Gibbes

He did. He's a German too. But he really did. He had a mustache, you know.

00:40:08 Sister Buchanan

What's happened with Middleburg now?

00:40:11 Jenks Gibbes

Well, we sold it a long time ago.

00:40:13 Sister Buchanan

Right. And is it in private?

00:40:18 Jenks Gibbes

Max Hill bought it. And then he sold it some to some people who sold it to some people of Charlotte that were very wealthy, evidently reasonably young. Go-getters. And they've got plenty of money. And they bought it. But they have they have a company called Highlands or something out of Charlotte that buys properties and then tries to create a function for the American public to have a place to go to go in the woods and hike and all that sort of stuff. And this place is on the water and almost in the National Forest. So it's a perfect damn place for them, but.

00:41:22 Sister Buchanan

Yeah, that was wonderful.

00:41:23 Jenks Gibbes

They were they the only thing I can tell you about them that I know is that they, they had the contract to redo the whole city of Columbia. You know, when they go redo the Congaree River and all. And so they have, you know, I I don't like it some. Bad guys.

00:41:45 Sister Buchanan

And the Hyde Park? Is that what you said it was called? Where was that? And is there? Across on the other side.

00:41:54 Jenks Gibbes

Right next to the Stoneys.

00:41:59 Sister Buchanan

Is there a house there now?

00:42:02 Jenks Gibbes

I don't know where it will go.

00:42:07 Sister Buchanan

Why did you prefer that it were, you said all of you would have fought over Hyde Park.

00:42:26 Jenks Gibbes

Better duck hunt. But, that, that was owned by John Coming Bull.

00:42:32 Sister Buchanan

Was he the first one of your ancestors to come...

00:42:37 Jenks Gibbes

I I think probably so. My grandmother, her name was Anne Simons Ball, who married a Gibbs. And the Gibbs is all related to all the same people too. That's why I'm telling, they all sleep in the same bed.

00:43:05 Sister Buchanan

Well, I think, you know, I think that happened a lot with little sections of the country, but of our state, where they say that the Scots all lived up here and I'm sure they intermarried and Germans all lived here. The French, got upper in Georgetown or something. Walter Edgar gave a little talk about how different ethnic groups were of different nationalities were sent to these areas

00:43:33 Jenks Gibbes

Well, you know there was some. There was some French mixed up with the English blood before he got over here. The only reason I know that is I applied to join the Huguenot society. I found the name of some French person that was, sounded like that would work and I had some relatives that were members of the Huguenot society. But the only reason I did it because they they give a scholarship. And I was trying to get, and you can't get it unless you got a Huguenot society connection, so I was trying to put my granddaughter in. That didn't work, but I'm still paying $100 a year to be a Huguenot.

00:44:45 Sister Buchanan

Well, maybe it would be a great grandchild or something like that. Any child, that you can still apply for that thing.

00:44:56 Jenks Gibbes

To get back to the city. I think the, the, we did the most horrible job of screwing up Charleston by building the Crosstown. You could have, you could have built the damn Berlin Wall and it wouldn't have been any stronger than what’s happened. And while you know I'm, I'm sure those students are happy to have a place to, place to live now, that's not, you don't need a machine gun to get through, but that destroyed the Black community, in my opinion. I grew up, my grandmother's house on Logan Street. I'm not sure I want children to have, anyhow. When she got married, her father sent to Charleston with her Lavinia Simons, who was a Black girl, little girl. And she was, her job was to look after my grandmother. Well, my grandmother died and, my father was looking after her. My father was looking after her and he died and Jenks was looking after her and and she she had no damn relatives in Charleston you can shake a stick at. She lived in our backyard, raised chickens. A little rosary. And all of that but... Lavinia, she was a great buddy of mine as a little boy and. She left me a $10 gold piece.

00:47:24 Sister Buchanan

Jenks. Did she? Is that the dearest thing?

00:47:28 Jenks Gibbes

Had a had a hole through it, so she was probably wearing it as a necklace, yeah.

00:47:34 Sister Buchanan

Yeah, but she had been with your family through what? It sounds like 3 generations.

00:47:39 Jenks Gibbes

Well, I'm sure you know, I don't know how many generations and you know, she probably came right off the plantation. I mean, they were not without slaves yet.

00:47:49 Sister Buchanan

No, I'm sure not, that was the case. Well, Jenks, what other memories like that do you have? Because that it gives such an insight into what I think we've lost in the Black-white relationship and the, the closeness that there were with families. I think Sam Applegate told me the story of a young fellow who lived down King Street from him, and they would go fishing and he would remember him coming in in the morning and saying get up, get up tides in, tides in. Or out or whatever you wanted it to be to fish successfully. So were there more like that that you remember of...

00:48:36 Jenks Gibbes

With the Blacks?

00:48:38 Sister Buchanan

And sort of, how closely tied they were to families

00:48:46 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, I think. I think it's kind of a two way street. That White people think that they have overcome the problem of racism or being unhappy with the Blacks, for one thing or another. And I think, this isn’t just me, that's not equal. And then you take a White person and a Black person, and I'm not saying we are not, we are not treating them as equal. I'm not saying they're not equals, but I don't, I think that there are too many White people in this country that still think that when you see a gang shooting somewhere and it’s Black kids shooting Black kids. And that person that I'm talking about, the White guy, is going through his mind as “kill them all”. And until we get over that, we, we, we ain't getting anywhere.

00:50:37 Sister Buchanan

No, I I think it's very true and it's sad that in all of the, roadblocks that were put in the way when you and I were younger for Black people to advance in life, there was a different kind of, well, for my family at least, I felt a different kind of feeling about Black people, a fondness. A real affection in many cases, you know where you.... Do you think that was true? And the sense of helping when you could?

00:51:14 Jenks Gibbes

Well I’ll tell you. The last maid or whatever my mother had was Lula. She had Lula, she had Lula’s daughter, she had Lula’s granddaughter. She had Alfred. Alfred was a Black young man, of Lula’s. And she, Lula was my mother's closest friend, no doubt about it. And Jenny and I got married at Saint James Church in New York City. Alfred had gotten a job at a Jewish resort in the mountains of New York making salads. We invited him to the wedding. And he came, you know. Long trip.

00:52:44 Sister Buchanan

But there was that deep connection that existed.

00:52:49 Jenks Gibbes

My mother also taught Alfred to drive. She put Alfred in the front seat behind the wheel and she’d get in the front seat with him. And it took him, I don't know, several trips before he would let her get in the, in the front seat and Alfred said, “Your mother, you know, she cursed at me, she said, ‘Alfred, God dammit, you're going too slow.’”

00:53:32 Sister Buchanan

That's a wonderful, a wonderful story. Well, I I think there's so many of those recollections of that, those relationships. It’s said that they get tainted or lost or....

00:53:48 Jenks Gibbes

Well the best story about that family is that Lula had a daughter named Edward Ann. Better known as Eddie. And Eddie was a con artist. Wonderful talent. She was the happiest, funniest girl you ever seen. And she had jobs all around. She lived in New York for a long time and was down here, and she raised our little children for, you know, three or four years, and then she went back to New York, but she wasn't stupid. Because she had met Jenny's father two or three times who was a surgeon in New York. And she wanted to go to nursing school. Well, she went to see Dr. Morton. Just immediately got into nursing school. So she was there and all that worked out fine. And Jenny and I had gone to New York. I guess I was on business. So we took the two children, 2 girls with us. We were staying at the Barclay Hotel, which has this big round, as it's gone now, but that's right next door to the Waldorf Astoria. Big round seat in the middle of the lobby with flowers and all kind of stuff going over one time another. And Jenny said, why don’t we call Lula? I mean, Eddie, and get her to come and babysit for the girls, and we'll go to, I don't know what she was. Whatever we've been doing that, that's fine, great. And I told Eddie to just get them to call our room and I'll come down and get you. And I got this phone call to Mr. Gibbs. I got this Black lady over here that says she's supposed to come see you. I said yeah, that's, that's my friend Edward. Edward Anne. Yeah, I'll be down to pick her get her right now. So I went down there and got her and one thing and another and I said, well, I figured that out. Eddie was a big girl. She had on the tightest yellow pantsuit I have ever seen. And a hat. I don't blame the guy.

00:56:56 Sister Buchanan

What's this about, Jenks? One of the things you told us about when we were talking was about going to the, was it the palace theater? And what you got to take. Two bats? Or was it the movie theater?

00:57:13 Jenks Gibbes

Oh, and no, it was the Majestic.

00:57:14 Sister Buchanan

Was the Palace one of them?

00:57:20 Jenks Gibbes

You had to take two sticks, one to beat the rats off and one to hold the seat up.

00:57:28 Sister Buchanan

I can't imagine you are up in the balcony.

00:57:32 Jenks Gibbes

That was the Palace. Blacks could only go in the balcony. So you made damn sure that you either sat way under the balcony, or way in front of the balcony. Because you were a target of whatever they were serving that day.

00:57:59 Sister Buchanan

Would you have other tales like that about memories of you all roaming the city doing, having fun doing naughty boy things?

00:58:10 Jenks Gibbes

You, you want to when you were talking about Characters in Charleston. One died the other day. Hillyer Rudisill. God almighty, he, he was the funniest guy. He, that this was, I don't know if you ever heard of him.

00:58:29 Lisa Hayes

We met him. He gave some papers to the library.

00:58:30 Jenks Gibbes

OK. OK. Well, he had a damn very fancy convertible European car that he'd ride up and down King Street. So we decided what we need to do is turn them into our driver and and see if we can't pick up some girls on King Street. And away we go. And he he’d come looking for us before that was all over. And his biography. His education and what he's accomplished and all that. So it's not, it's just absolutely fabulous.

00:59:19 Sister Buchanan

I never knew him. I always knew the name. But I never remember him. I guess nobody picked me up on King Street.

00:59:32 Jenks Gibbes

Well, you weren't there at the right time.

00:59:36 Sister Buchanan

I'm probably a little too young.

00:59:43 Jenks Gibbes

Taking all that away, what's happened to Charleston? What's going on in Charleston? That kind of stuff is pretty well gone and what so much, gives you so much pleasure when you go somewhere. And you see somebody that's probably your age of one thing or another, and they speak to you and remember your name and all that sort of stuff. And it does happen, but it's getting less and less, I can tell you that.

01:00:19 Sister Buchanan

It does change and I think it's, success can, can spoil a lot of things. There's some good successes, no question, but I guess you pay a certain price for, you know, a loss of the sort of small town sense of things.

01:00:40 Jenks Gibbes

Ohh, you know. Yeah, I just, I just I'm not going to get it back to where it, where I want it to be, and neither is anybody else.

01:00:56 Sister Buchanan

But you know, maybe when you think of the history of Charleston in the hard times it was such a wealthy city, one of the, one of the wealthiest, I think on the East Coast in the early time. The times we remember were really times when Charleston was in an economic slump. After the war, the Civil War, and then just maybe, what the depression did to it. Don't you think that's true? And then this sort of surge of success with Kiawah, and Spoleto and national recognition put it back on the map?

01:01:31 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, I think that that when the troops came back and settled in after the Second World War things started rolling. And you had to rebuild Europe. You had to rebuild Japan. You had to rebuild this. You had to rebuild that. And all of a sudden, you know, going to San Francisco was like going to Moncks Corner now, you know. Everything's possible. And you know, we just maybe everybody's got to be exactly the same fellow. I have the same pillowed eyes and all that sort of stuff. And then we'll be OK or awful.

01:02:30 Sister Buchanan

Yeah, well, I must say the thing I do miss were the grocery stores of different, you know the German one or the Greek one, or the on every corner. That had their own sorts of character and personality and maybe specialty things you like to eat. I remember pickles from the Queen and State Street grocery store, I’ve forgotten his name, he was German. Big wooden barrel. So I suppose there's always a nostalgia about childhood things you remember so well, but it does seem a very different place in just a few short years.

01:03:15 Jenks Gibbes

Well, there are all sorts of things. Most of the bad things I remember.

01:03:17 Sister Buchanan

Bad things?

01:03:20 Jenks Gibbes

Well, bad things I did.

01:03:22

Oh, like what, Jenks?

01:03:31 Jenks Gibbes

Well, one day, on East Bay playground we were all hanging around outside and I don't know, maybe Hazel hadn’t showed up to unlock it or something. But we were standing around and there was a lot of, they were doing some construction and there was a sort of next to the three sisters House or whatever it was and we were picking out pieces of dirt and throwing them at cars that were riding by. We weren't going to hurt anybody. There might have been thirty of us. I don't know how many it was. Somebody threw, threw one and it hit, hit the lady in the head. She slammed on the breaks and a truck came and ran into the back of her. So they called the cops. The cops got called. So everybody scattered. My brother would not give me a tour on his bicycle. So I had to run with three other desperados. Who were Skipper Igoe, Billy Dotterer, Heywood Harvey, and me, we went to the Carolina Yacht Club and hid under the steps. We got caught by the cops. They came and put us in there. And police car took us to the police station and told us to go sit down over there. Don’t move. So we did that. And nothing happened and nothing happened and nothing happened. Finally, I don't know, somebody got the nerve to go up and ask them how long we would be here. And he said well, you got another hour and a half to go because we called your father and he said leave him there.

01:05:56 Sister Buchanan

No more dirt. Well, what a typical thing activity when a bunch of boys get together looking for a little something to entertain them.

01:06:07 Jenks Gibbes

Probably the worst thing that I was responsible for 100% was, my father gave my mother a Prefect. A Prefect is a four door Anglia. Built as an English car, but they don't make them anymore. Anyhow, not very big. I had just got my driver's license, so I was 14 and two days later. Sunday School. So I said, Mom, can I use your car to go to Sunday school? So she thought to herself, “There's no way you'll get in any trouble going to Sunday School.” I picked up Ed Good, Bobby Cathcart, Peter Read. We all picked them up. There was no way we were going to Sunday School. One thing and another, so we were riding around the Battery and one thing and another and we came around one time and damn it, we didn't turn the car over right in front of the damn, between the Battery wall and the Fort Sumter Hotel, you know? Wide open for everybody to see. We got up, picked the car up, put it back, but it wouldn’t run.

01:07:50 Sister Buchanan

It wouldn't run?

01:07:52 Jenks Gibbes

Not until it got fixed a little.

01:07:59 Sister Buchanan

I remember people hearing people talk about riding their little cars under the Timrod Hotel. Timrod Hotel was a hotel next to the Hibernian Society on Meeting and it had a porch thing over it and the, the columns were along the edge of the sidewalk. Which you could ride a car if you had a little car. Volkswagen. Did you ever try that in your mother's car? No? Good. Probably a very bad decision. Do you think, do you think there's anything about the papers?

01:08:39 Jenks Gibbes

But what what you getting anything y’all want?

01:08:42 Lisa Hayes

Great. It's all it's. Yes, it's all wonderful. Everything that you've shared. I mean, it's so fun to hear your stories.

01:08:51 Sister Buchanan

I think so too. Yeah, and it does bring back up...

01:08:55 Jenks Gibbes

But the sort of thing that is so amazing is I'm living in Mt. Pleasant right now. And I can't believe Mt. Pleasant. I can't believe how big it is, how prosperous it is. You ride around Charleston, you ride around West Ashley, you go up in North Charleston ride around. You don't see anything like you see around here. All the cars are new. Lots of them are, you know, very expensive. And shiny and you know, there's a grocery store every two feet, there's a liquor store every two feet. Got two Costcos. I mean. On the main street, Coleman Blvd, opposite where the high school was on this side of the road, on that highway, that Hwy. 17 when I was a kid. And we could drive across the street from the high school was Mr. Royall’s pecan orchard. What we were doing over there before it was over there was going to Seabreeze Drive-in. And you know. That was 70 some years ago, you know, and and and I don't know how many stores in that you know, it's just Jenny and I ride around and get lost. We can't ever figure this out. So this is amazing. This is amazing to me. And it's, it's they're trying to get, up to Awendaw they already in Berkeley County with that place right over there.

01:11:34 Sister Buchanan

So much development.

01:11:35 Jenks Gibbes

James Island. Whatever you calling the island?

01:11:40 Lisa Hayes

Daniel Island, Daniel Island.

01:11:41 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Daniel island, you know, it was all but damn near overgrown. Going like gangbuster. And then we get all these plants showing up here. I mean, we got another damn plant the other day. Nobody asked me if I would allow Volvo to come here, but I sure as hell wouldn't. The Chinese own Volvo.

01:12:20 Sister Buchanan

They do? I didn't know that.

01:12:23 Jenks Gibbes

That, well, that's what I'm telling you, you know.

01:12:27 Sister Buchanan

Not a good old German. Not not a good old German company.

01:12:31 Jenks Gibbes

Used to be Swedish

01:12:32 Sister Buchanan

Used to be what? Swedish? Before it was German?

01:12:46 Jenks Gibbes

It never was German. And so that's changing and it's not going to get any better. It's just going to get more expensive.

01:12:55 Sister Buchanan

Well, I guess too, when the naval base closed, I guess that meant North Charleston just dried up so much of that that you're talking about. You don't see any, but, but some of the business up there was not anything elegant, it was functional, or bars or....

01:13:17 Jenks Gibbes

Well, what what they... The Navy base was started in the early 1900s for the First World War. Then Mendel Rivers got it going like gang busters and the Second World War, and it took a lot of people to work on it. And that brought in a lot of people with very cheap, nasty houses. Government housing. And what they were doing, you know, we need 10 years to build these ships or whatever. Now they, now they, you know they. All the all the, all the property’s there. And look who's going to be the next mayor. Teddy? You want Teddy? Who was who was the head of the was the chairman of the County Council, Teddy Pryor.

01:14:22 Sister Buchanan

Teddy Pryor? Yeah.

01:14:25 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, he's a crook. I know that. I'm amazed that the mayor's son ain't been pulled in there to be the new mayor, but he may get more money at the airport. And it's just, you know, they will, they will have some head knocking because they got that railroad, they they got to deal with and now they got the ports authority they got to deal with that. And I don't know. You know, once I don't know, they ought to give everyone on the, that gets on the City Council, you have half a million a piece if they promise not to screw up this town.

01:15:17 Sister Buchanan

That might be a good incentive to get somebody to do it. Well, certainly the days when you'd see nuclear submarines coming in and out of the harbor on a daily basis wouldn't you say Jenks? And that was a huge change when destroyers, and big Navy ships. I don't know what they all were. No aircraft carriers or anything of that size. Now it's all container ships going in and out.

01:15:48 Jenks Gibbes

And that's, you know. That's a, that's an interesting dynamic about Blacks and Whites, when you talk about the ports authority and the longshoremen. Having been an expert in the shipping business, that I don't know how they will resolve that.

01:16:15 Sister Buchanan

Is that other terminal not functioning still because of...

01:16:18 Jenks Gibbes

Well, it ain't functioning like it's supposed to.

01:16:21 Sister Buchanan

Well, I when I ride by, I always look to the north and there never any ships there.

01:16:29 Jenks Gibbes

Longshoremen have the contract not with the Ports Authority or the stevedores, but with the ship owners. And they, and what’s done, what’s done, is the union is trying to get the crane operators into the union. If they don't go into the union, they will unload ships that are members of the deal, so they just shut down the damn port. I mean, they can't, the new dock, new lifts and all, can't unload a ship that's a member of that union, because the union has got, made them do it.

01:17:26 Sister Buchanan

I didn't know.

01:17:27 Jenks Gibbes

I mean, we used to, when we were in the stevedoring business, you would negotiate with the union for the price you pay. And it would be a contract. It would last until the next one comes by.

01:17:45 Sister Buchanan

To unload and unload or load the ship.

01:17:49 Jenks Gibbes

And then somebody smart as hell figured out how to screw everybody over by doing this, and that's ruining the truck driving, it’s ruining everybody.

01:18:02 Sister Buchanan

Are they any closer to resolving it?

01:18:07 Jenks Gibbes

I don’t know. They didn't call me.

01:18:09 Sister Buchanan

But we’ll tell em to give you a call. Let you give them some good advice.

01:18:14 Jenks Gibbes

But they the you know. What they're doing is the ships that, that are part of the group that signed up with the union are going to the other port. All of our, all of our other ports, our other ports, not, they're going to the dock there, but they're leaving that one, and then that they've done how much we spend on that.

01:18:45 Lisa Hayes

Ohh are you talking about the Wando Welch Port, or the?

01:18:49 Sister Buchanan

Yes, well, I get.

01:18:49 Lisa Hayes

One that's down....

01:18:51 Sister Buchanan

The Wando Welch one that, if you are headed to Georgetown. That's on the... Yeah. On the City side.

01:18:56 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, and but that's the one doing all the work now and the other. And you got another dock in North Charles. We have to rub on the other side of that breast.

01:19:08 Sister Buchanan

But those cranes must be hugely expensive that they've...

01:19:12 Jenks Gibbes

Building the dock is a huge expense. We building a railroad.

01:19:17 Sister Buchanan

Oh, that's right. They were going to have that. They're going to have an inland port. Offload stuff, then run it all the way up.

01:19:26 Jenks Gibbes

Lisa, would you like some good reading?

01:19:29 Lisa Hayes

I'm going to see if we have that book at the Library Society. Thank you.

01:19:34 Sister Buchanan

Do you know Miss Waring's book? Was it that? What was it? Things we remember of? What's the name of that little book that she wrote? Of memories of Charleston. I want to say it was a Waring lady. I've never read it, but it's it's it's one that's very familiar. I just can't call the name.

01:20:01 Jenks Gibbes

I don't know.

01:20:02 Sister Buchanan

In our time? I, I have not read it. I left it you. All have a copy of it the library I know.

01:20:07 Lisa Hayes

I yeah, I think I I thought that was more like a picture. Was it a picture book?

01:20:13 Sister Buchanan

Well, you know, I've not read it. I don't know. I just have seen the title and I thought maybe it was some...

01:20:17 Lisa Hayes

Charleston In our Time.

01:20:20 Sister Buchanan

Something like that. Well, Jenks, if you think of any other memories of your tales.

01:20:25 Jenks Gibbes

Well, I I know I, as I say, I, I would prefer to have you all sort of edge me along about what you want to talk about.

01:20:41 Lisa Hayes

Could we come back another time and hear more about some of the friends that, like Skipper Igoe and Peter Read and...

01:20:49 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah the Shakespeare guy, right?

01:20:53 Lisa Hayes

We'd love to know more about maybe how, and how you you and your wife met, family kind of things like that if?

01:21:01 Jenks Gibbes

Peter's daughter Margaret was operated on yesterday for breast cancer. But everything supposedly went fine.

01:21:14 Sister Buchanan

Jenks, do you think Peter would be willing if we got you together?

01:21:20 Jenks Gibbes

I, I don't know. You know, I'm, he's wanting to talk to me and and we thought it was a good idea to. It wasn't a good idea.

01:21:33 Sister Buchanan

Well, maybe if he's had good news about Margaret, he won't be worrying about her and...

01:21:37 Jenks Gibbes

I don't know how you can, how you can do this but. Booboo was there at Bishop Gadsden, and he and Peter, you know, they’re first cousins, they live next door to each other. So it's them over there and I don't know how straight in the head Booboo is.

01:22:09 Sister Buchanan

Well, I I just guess I picture you and Peter, two little comrades in arms. Didn't you all go off to see all the county buildings in the state?

01:22:23 Jenks Gibbes

The Kennedy buildings.

01:22:24 Sister Buchanan

County. Courthouse. Courthouses.

01:22:27 Jenks Gibbes

No, we were going to do that, but we we decided not to. We were going to go to, to, to the courthouse, the County Courthouse, every county in the state

01:22:41 Sister Buchanan

Right, I remember hearing that you were going to and I thought you all had gotten through some of it?

01:22:45 Jenks Gibbes

We never set foot on one.

01:22:50 Sister Buchanan

I think I thought you had been to 33 of them. Well, I certainly got that wrong. It sounded like a great project. It was every time I ride through a little town, I think wonder if they came here to this one. In this in this courthouse.

01:23:05 Jenks Gibbes

They all have an author coming, I just came and went. That's a big deal.

01:23:15 Lisa Hayes

Oh, are you talking about David Rubenstein? That he was here like a month ago. Is that who you mean? Not David McCullough. He's a, he's a, he runs the investment group, The Carlyle Group. And he is. Excuse me, I'm sorry. He has a show on PBS and he's written a few books on investing and leadership and... does that ring a bell?

01:23:46 Sister Buchanan

He's quite a philanthropist.

01:23:48 Lisa Hayes

Philanthropist no, not Blackstone, the Carlyle. I think it's called The Carlyle Group.

01:23:54 Sister Buchanan

He's, he's in Washington.

01:23:56 Lisa Hayes

He lives in Washington and his show’s on PBS about leadership. But yeah, he's a philanthropist, as far as like making American history government documents for the people.

01:24:12 Sister Buchanan

And he gave a lot to the restoration of the Washington Monument and the Kennedy Center, supports Kennedy...

01:24:18 Jenks Gibbes

But I I know exactly who that would be.

01:24:20 Lisa Hayes

You know, I'm talking about, yes.

01:24:21 Jenks Gibbes

Jewish guy lives in Baltimore, Baltimore.

01:24:23 Lisa Hayes

Yes, yeah, yeah. He was just here.

01:24:29 Jenks Gibbes

Has got a wonderful story.

01:24:30 Lisa Hayes

Yes, he is a...

01:24:31 Jenks Gibbes

I heard him in person give the graduation address at the University of Virginia several years ago. And he was very impressive.

01:24:51 Lisa Hayes

He is, yes.

01:24:52 Jenks Gibbes

He just wrote a check for him to fix the monument..

01:24:55 Speaker 4

Yeah, good. Yeah, yes. I think he would, it would, it sounded like from the things they talked about, he's given enormously to support things in the, in Washington, but also just in this whole idea of making, helping people know the history of our country and taking civics and that kind of thing.

01:25:22 Jenks Gibbes

Well, if you could get that guy in Nebraska to do the same thing it would be nice.

01:25:30 Sister Buchanan

Oh, Warren Buffett? Would that be nice? Wouldn't that be? Well, Jenks, are there anything? So I think that, that when we first started talking about this, it was to try to capture a way of life in those years. What it was like to grow up in Charleston, what Charleston was like, different aspects of it, whether it was the effects of the war and the naval base, you know, just any of the things that you experienced. Were there any other things that sort of stand out with you in your memory that, while we're here and sort of got it on your mind.

01:26:09 Jenks Gibbes

Well, you know, if you you talk about the little Broad Street And you talk about it. Years gone by. You know, it's sort of rebuilt to some degree there. There was not an evacuation of Charleston people like there has been in the last five or six years and that's because the damn prices are high. You know the, one of the, one of the things that was very interesting to me is that, well, the parents that grew up during the, not the Second World War, but during the depression, had that tough time, but one thing that is very interesting about Charleston, that is what they did, what those parents did for their children educationally. We got private schools, prep schools, ivy league colleges. You know, not South Carolina.

01:28:04 Sister Buchanan

There was an emphasis on...

01:28:05 Jenks Gibbes

And all that and people and people really sacrificed to pay that damn tuition. And, and now they will give the money back. I don't know how to get that. I never will forget going into Hollins and talking, talking to those people, talking to those people about how about a loan or scholarship or?

01:28:38 Sister Buchanan

Right, payment plan.

01:28:42 Jenks Gibbes

They laughed at me.

01:28:43 Sister Buchanan

Did both girls go to Hollins?

01:28:46 Jenks Gibbes

And my wife.

01:28:47 Sister Buchanan

And your wife? I knew your wife did I think. But I didn't know if both the girls.

01:28:54 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, cash on the line.

01:28:56 Sister Buchanan

Oh, that's painful. Gotta pony up right there.

01:29:03 Lisa Hayes

Jenks, do you think people assume things about you, about your family because of your last name and and where you live, where, where you lived when you grew up? Did they assume that you were... You were saying that when your daughters went to college, you considered a loan, but do you think people would have assumed that you're, you're from Charleston and you live downtown, that you wouldn't have needed a loan just based on who you were? I'm just I'm wondering people have assumed things about you based on your last name I guess.

01:29:37 Sister Buchanan

Preconceived.

01:29:38 Jenks Gibbes

No, no, I understand what you're saying. But a place like Hollins does have so many people walk through there and pay the deal. The people that are going to get help were gonna go get help way in advance. And politics in a school is important. Maybe if my grandaughters had gone to Hollins, they might have some, built up some points and, but I don't think so. But the admissions people at Hollins is going to know everything about everybody before they even get there. I went to Washington and Lee, everybody knowing everything. You got to you got this crowd of whatever you go put and you will let come in for free. You know, they already picked them out. And then everybody else gets killed.

01:31:05 Sister Buchanan

With the bills. Jenks, how about the banking? There was some characters in the banking business when you were, and I don't know if at the bank where you were, but with Arthur Swanson and Frank Rhett and you had some sort of colorful personalities.

01:31:25 Jenks Gibbes

Frank Rhett was in the banking business?

01:31:28 Sister Buchanan

I believe he was at a time before he went into the boating business. And Walker Coleman.

01:31:34 Jenks Gibbes

Well, I worked with Walker. Well, nothing funny about him.

01:31:41 Sister Buchanan

He was straightforward and straightforward. But what about Arthur Swanson?

01:31:46 Jenks Gibbes

Well, Arthur was just Arthur. He wasn’t a character.

01:31:49 Sister Buchanan

He wasn't a character.

01:31:52 Jenks Gibbes

The only funny thing I can tell you about Frank Rhett, his partner was, damn I can’t remember.

01:32:09 Sister Buchanan

But it's in the boat business? Later in the boat?

01:32:15 Jenks Gibbes

I can't, but anyhow, it was all about Frank having stomach problem. And it wasn’t Arthur Swanson, but somebody told him, but he said, “Well, Frank, I've been watching you, you know. And you go to lunch. And right next to the thing is, you know, one of these steak places that cost a dollar and a half.” And he said, “You know, you could you ain't nothing but a grease ball. I mean, no wonder you got stomach problems."

01:32:51 Sister Buchanan

They were my neighbors for a long time with these three bad boys. And it was so much fun to hear, you know, the days of air conditioning now really wall us all off because as you tell the story of Sam Stoney and your grandmother saying it's time to drink. You know, windows were open and you could hear everything that was going on. It's, it was fun to hear those.

01:33:17 Jenks Gibbes

I think if I'm delighted to talk to you all again if you got. Maybe you ought to try to come up with what you want to know and maybe I can help him, maybe I can’t. OK, but would that make sense?

01:33:36 Lisa Hayes

We can do that. Well this has really been great.

01:33:39 Sister Buchanan

I think so too. And I I do think if you, you know, come up with any wonderful thoughts that come to you that that need to be memorialized in some way, Lisa would love to know it, and I'd always love to hear it. I think we've you know the colorful side of Charleston gets sort of sloughed away of the seamy side. And I remember hearing stories about how the, at the Yacht Club when the slot machines were out, they’d get a call saying the police are on the way to raid it and all of a sudden all slot machines disappear. Is that true?

01:34:21 Jenks Gibbes

Yeah, I mean, that's true. I, they have so many stories about what they did with them. Some people said in the attic. Some people say stuff them up the chimney in the Yacht Club and cemented them over. I don't know. I can't believe, I don't know what to believe.

01:34:39 Sister Buchanan

Apparently they'd hide them, I heard when the police would come to raid them because it was against the law.

01:34:44 Jenks Gibbes

Well, see, we we we had cut a deal with the state that they would they would not take away our tax free position because we are only [unintelligible] deal, which is a damn lie. But that's why we got a Jewish member. I think we got a Black member now.

01:35:13 Sister Buchanan

I think so.

01:35:15 Jenks Gibbes

But I haven’t been a member of the Yacht Club for 30 years.

01:35:18 Sister Buchanan

I think he's a doctor, and I also heard recently Jenks, that there are two Black families living on Meeting Street. One living in the, and I thought, isn't this wonderful that there's been no sort of hue and cry.

01:35:35 Jenks Gibbes

You’ve got the singer that bought the catholic bishop’s house

01:35:46 Lisa Hayes

Yeah, Darius Rucker. Hootie and the Blowfish? On Broad Street, yeah.

01:35:52 Jenks Gibbes

He's one and and then there's two more on Meeting Street. But that's what I'm saying. I mean, that's changing around a little bit.

01:36:00 Sister Buchanan

And it's nice that it hasn't, you know. In fact I said that to somebody. I said, were you aware? And somebody that’s always had her ear to the ground, Elizabeth, and always would know any little stir up that was going on. She hadn't heard. And I thought this is good. Jenks, thank you, can we pour you a glass of lemonade before we go, or get you a cookie?

01:36:23 Jenks Gibbes

No, I'm fine. I'm fine.