Richard M. Lilly (interviewed by Lisa Hayes on June 5, 2023)

Richard M. Lilly (interviewed by Lisa Hayes on June 5, 2023)

2023-06-05

Richard Lilly was born in Birmingham, AL in 1930 but grew up in downtown Charleston. He discusses his colorful childhood in Charleston, including experiencing devastating tornadoes that passed through in the 1930s. Mr. Lilly was in the Navy and had a long law career with Esso, which allowed him and his wife of 66 years to live abroad in Europe. He moved back to Charleston in 1997 and he reflects on the significant changes brought to the Library by the leadership of Steve Gates and Anne Cleveland.

Hayes, Lisa

Cox, Danielle

MP3

Audio

English

RichardLilly_OralHistory_20230605

40:27/55.5MB

00:00:01 Lisa Hayes

OK.

All right, so my name is Lisa Hayes, and I'm the special collections librarian here in Charleston at the Charleston Library Society. It is Monday, June 5th, 2023 and I am sitting here at the Library Society with Richard Lilly, who has been kind enough to agree to speak with me today to tell us a little bit about his life and to learn more about his connections to Charleston and the Library Society. So thank you, Mr. Lilly. It's really nice to meet you.

00:00:36 Richard Lilly

Well, it's nice to be here with you, Lisa. And I'll tell you a little bit about my background in Charleston. My family moved here in 1937 because my father was moving here to become pastor of First Scots Presbyterian Church. I was 7 at the time and fortunately they brought me along. I grew up here, of course, and it was a great place for growing up here, it was very safe. Children could go out on their own at any time. At age 7, I could walk to school at Craft School and later we bicycled to a school on Wentworth St., a public school, and then to the high School of Charleston, just north of, just north of Calhoun on Ashley, on Rutledge Ave. Growing up my close friends and I very much enjoyed playing in the neighborhood where we lived. The block bounded by Water St. and Atlantic Street and Church Street and East Bay was ours. We knew every inch of it. We could jump over any fence in the back, back of peoples gardens. People put up with us, almost all of them. There were two ladies who, sisters who always called out to us and said, “Get off my property.” My friends were Rivy Jenkins and Jean Guerre, [?] Guerard, Louie Dawson, Budsy Howard. We played an infinite number of hours in Zigzag Alley and enjoyed that. We also played at East Bay Playground, used to ride around on the backs of Olan’s trucks, Olan’s grocery store located at the corner of of Water and Meeting. One would go in there and give his order. A maid would usually read off a list and she could either carry it home or it would be delivered by truck, and so they had several trucks and we loved to ride around in the back of and it, swinging out fromit, screaming, making a general nuisance of ourselves. As teenagers we could get a full drivers license at age 14, which gave us enormous freedom. And of course, at age 14, some of the girls could barely see over the dashboard, but we had a a wonderful teenage life here. There were the beaches, sailing every summer, lots of sailing. There were about 20 boys and 20 girls in a loosely knit group that ran around together. We had a terrific time together and when I moved back here almost 50 years later, unfortunately, about half of that group still lived here, and that was unusual for an American city where people have frequently all of them have gone to live in other places. But it was a wonderful welcoming back with the, the people I have grown up with in the early years. It wasn't all joy. We had a terrible tornado. Actually 5 tornadoes hit Charleston in 1938 and they have about 30, 32 people killed as I recall, nearly all of them South of Market Street. We lost almost all the windows in our home at 48 King Street. Uh, it was really a terrible time.

00:05:22 Lisa Hayes

You, you were at home when it happened?

00:05:24 Richard Lilly

Yes, yes, it happened about 8:00 o'clock in the morning. Fortunately, it was not later when more people would have been on the street. But we were just getting ready to go to school and very dark clouds came over and within, within a minute or two thereafter, the tornado just did enormous damage. The next year Charleston suffered a polio epidemic. That was 1939, and there were a number of deaths of young people and a number of young people who caught polio, or with, with severe effects.

00:06:17 Lisa Hayes

Did you know some of those children, any of your classmates get sick?

00:06:22 Richard Lilly

No, I don't think so. But others who were friends. Rutledge Webb, for example. Who suffered with after effects of having polio as a teenager. And all of that summer children were restricted from doing anything. You couldn't go out. You couldn't go to a movie. There were no movies, no church, no schools until about the end of October. Talk about sheer boredom. Everybody got very tired of the children, and the children got very tired of the situation. And then the next year, 1940, we had a a very bad hurricane. And I recall on Folly Beach out of the front row of 25 houses in one stretch, 24 of them were lost, so it was a pretty substantial hurricane. But all in all, it was a wonderful teenage, wonderful growing up. After high school here and I went to the public high school of Charleston. I went to Davidson too young at age 16 because, at that time South Carolina only had 11 grades, which placed you at a great disadvantage versus your classmates. Nearly all of whom had come from states and prep schools that had 12 schools, 12 years. So the first year, the first semester particularly I was, I was really running scared. Charleston, talking now more about Charleston than how it's changed. In the 40s, 50s, and 60s there were many military installations here. But very little business activity. There was the sub base and the destroyer base and Air Force Base and and other military bases, but very, very little business. Charleston was to say the least, impecunious. There was just no money about. Houses sold for very little. Usually they were in a poor state of repair. Very few people moved to Charleston. Charleston was quite inward looking, not because it meant to be, but because there had been no reason to have it otherwise. Each day the schools let out at 2:00 o'clock, children went home for lunch at 2:00, which was really dinner. The dinner for the day at 2:15. It was dinner, because at that time, aides were in almost all homes. They cooked the midday meal, and the evening meal was a very small one. Men walked home from Broad Street to their homes for dinner and frequently they took a little nap before going back to all this. Very few people moved to Charleston at that time. Possibly it was the 300th anniversary of Charleston in 1970 that brought the city to other peoples attention and gave it publicity. And then it started to change and become much more recognized as a possible destination for tourists. And of course, you know, the growth since then. It certainly accelerated as the years went by. Nowadays neighbors likely to have moved here. And they're very nice people. They've done a wonderful job of restoring their houses. Sometimes excessively so, but usually not. We have 8,000,000 tourists a year. Prices of houses have soared at that time. The church bought the house, a home at 41 Church St. as a mans for my father and his family. They bought it for $12,000 in 1945. Sold it for $14,000 in 1955 ten years later, and felt that was a really good deal. The last time that same house sold, it sold for $3.8 million about five years ago with only modest changes in between. It has, it has had the effect that many of the people who grew up here, the next generation finds it difficult to afford the, as young people difficult to afford those houses. When I moved away from Charleston, after Davidson and I went to Wharton after Davidson. And after 1951, I really was out of the nest and away most of the time from 1951 to ‘97. I went in the Navy and served on destroyers for three years in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. And that was really an excellent time for me when they gave you great responsibility at a very early age, 22. You can see why captains get gray hair turning over their ship to a 22 year old as Officer deck at sea. But then, after the Navy, 10 days after the Navy, I went into Harvard Law School. Was fortunate in meeting my wife, Laska, there. We met the first couple of days I entered the school in September and married 2 3/4 years later and right after the final exams.

00:14:12 Lisa Hayes

Was was she in school also?

00:14:14 Richard Lilly

We're married in 1957, so we've just celebrated our 66th wedding anniversary.

00:14:21 Lisa Hayes

What an accomplishment that's that is wonderful.

00:14:25 Richard Lilly

I then started working for ESSO and worked for the, the companies of Standard Oil New Jersey, now Exxon for 35 years, working about a quarter of the time on the Gulf Coast in Baton Rouge and Houston, a quarter of a time in New York and Rockefeller Plaza. And there are, the remaining half in Europe. And we very much enjoyed Europe, European living. We were, we were there 23 years in total and that was a wonderful experience. We returned to Charleston in 1957 and bought 23 Tradd St. just a couple of blocks from where I had grown up and it was in awful condition and we had to do a year of restoration on it. But then it became a house we enjoyed very much. I was fortunate in being asked to be on the Board of South Carolina Coastal Conservation League and the Historic Charleston and and then the Library Society, Charleston Library Society starting just before Anne came here. The Library Society before Steve Gates and Anne Cleveland was unbelievably different from what it is today. I asked my brother-in-law, who was a member. He asked me if I would like to become a member and I said, “Well, I don't know. What goes on there?. “What are the advantages? Well, there really aren't any. And what goes on there? Well, nothing really.” So that was a a full statement of Library society at that time. It was snoozing quietly. It was digging into its funds. It had a, had, had about $5,000,000 in endowment and it was using up maybe $300,000 of a year of that to keep going, just quietly snoozing and burning up its endowment. Then Steve Gates came around, was able to persuade Anne Cleveland to become head and things started changing unbelievably. Those two were great combination and they both just fed on each other's enthusiasm and and very hard work. Steven's death was a great loss to the Library Society. To Anne as her friend and mentor. To Laura, his wife. To so many facets of Charleston and to his friends. The growth in Charleston Library Society is really entirely due to, and I shouldn't say entirely, but predominantly due to Anne and early Steve before his death. The capital campaign and the building's restoration and visible manifestations of what they did. In their extraordinary growth and the impact of those two on the Library Society and on Charleston. Well, that pretty well wraps it up for me. We moved from 23 Tradd St. to Bishop Gadsden in 1918, 2018. My wife and I are enjoying living there. Well, we all, we really miss being on Tradd St. Charleston, where we could walk around and see so many of our friends just within a few blocks. Do, I'll have wonderful walks every day, but it was time. And so there we are.

00:19:45 Lisa Hayes

Well, thank you. That was a really nice description of, of your life and of Charleston and your time. I really appreciate you writing that up for us. Can I ask you a couple of other questions? So do you remember the Library Society from when you were a child? Like, would you ever come to the library when you were a little boy? Your, your parents weren't members here?

00:20:15 Richard Lilly

No, my parents were not. To the best of my knowledge. Now I, it didn't play a role in my early years at all.

00:20:30 Lisa Hayes

Very, a quiet place until you learned about it from your brother-in-law. And then even then you didn't want to join, which is which is really a fun, funny story. Tell me about, so I've spoken with Jenks Gibbs who I think is a little bit younger than you. Jenks Gibbs, do you, do you know him?

00:20:54 Richard Lilly

Only slightly.

00:20:54 Lisa Hayes

A little bit. So he told us a funny story about being part of the Savage St. gang, and I wondered if you had been, if your neighborhood group of friends, did you all have a rival gang or were you part of anything similar to that when you were a little boy?

00:21:12 Richard Lilly

And what was his group called? We were very close knit, just, but geographically. But it was not a, not an exclusive thing at all. And we, as we became teenagers, we played with Rufus Barkley and well, a whole group that played at Moultrie Playground. It was just a geographic split. Peter McGee. Oh, Archie Baker. They were a wonderful group. And there was, there was no feeling of dislike at all. We, we all liked each other. It was just a geographic split. I would have to say the ones I mentioned in their group were infinitely better athletes than we were.

00:22:29 Lisa Hayes

Well, and and you mentioned the grocery store. Was that like a corner grocery store where you could get things every single day?

00:22:37 Richard Lilly

Yes, and it was a, it was a large grocery store. It had a wonderful candy cabinet, probably 5 or 6 feet wide and maybe two or three feet deep with a great array of candies. I remember you could get 5 hersheys kisses for a penny. You could take in a a nickel and really have a field day.

00:23:24 Lisa Hayes

Would you take the streetcar? Did you walk to that and then ride that anywhere?

00:23:29 Richard Lilly

No, the street cars went out about 1938. And the buses were substituted. At first the buses ran on electricity with overhead lines and then later became, had their own engines. No. The bicycle was my my sole--

00:23:58 Lisa Hayes

Were you allowed to ride as far as you wanted? Like, could you go to Magnolia Cemetery on your bike? Would your parents let you do that? All the way up there?

00:24:08 Richard Lilly

The cemetery didn't attract me but but.

00:24:11 Lisa Hayes

That's the landmark I can think of.

00:24:13 Richard Lilly

But I could have gone there easily and anywhere we wanted to go, we did. And gasoline rationing went off when I was 15 and so that was a blessing to the, all of us who were teenagers. We could get the family car and go to the beach.

00:24:38 Lisa Hayes

And you would, if you had gone to Sullivan's, I guess you would have taken that really old, the Pearl, Pearlman Bridge. Is that what it was called?

00:24:46 Richard Lilly

Yes, yes, we yes, we took the Old Cooper River bridge. We thought was just normal, although when a large truck was coming towards you, you really paid attention and stayed over your side. I had a friend, a girl who, she's still alive. When she went over the old Cooper River bridge, she said the Lords Prayer 3 1/2 times.

00:25:31 Lisa Hayes

And when you got to Sullivans, or when you got to the the edge to, sorry. When you were in Mount Pleasant trying to get to Sullivans was the bridge there or would you have to do some kind of a ferry or?

00:25:45 Richard Lilly

There was a bridge there. Yeah, and we would go to the home of some friend who would have some bath houses underneath. We'd rarely went up to anybody's house. We just used the bath houses underneath and then went out on the beaches and leave.

00:26:11 Lisa Hayes

Do you remember some of those names of folks? I know, let me think. Was, did Dubose Heyward have a house out there in Sullivan's? I know he's, he would have been a lot older, but do you know some of those family names from Sullivans when you were growing up?

00:26:31 Richard Lilly

Well none who are still there. The reason I volunteered for this today was that I thought about the people I grew up with, and even the men who I, and I extended relationships as a teenager. And I could not think of anyone who was still alive. So I thought, well, I should volunteer because they won't have many representatives from that time period.

00:27:16 Lisa Hayes

Well Mr. McGee, you mentioned Peter McGee. He, I know he's, he did an oral history interview with the Historic Charleston Foundation and you doing this. Do you, do you think the other folks that you mentioned? They're basically not around anymore? The other, the playmates that you mentioned?

00:27:37 Richard Lilly

Yes, yes, none of them are.

00:27:38 Lisa Hayes

Yeah, none of them.

00:27:41 Richard Lilly

Ohh, Peter is the only one and I'm glad Peter did that because Peter has got a fabulous background and knowledge of Charleston and is such a wonderful person.

00:27:57 Lisa Hayes

His memory? Yep, Yep.

00:28:00 Richard Lilly

But Peter is less well now, I'm sorry to say. Three years ago, I was in a luncheon club. We went to the Yacht Club 9 of us every second Thursday for lunch. Only my brother and I are still around of that nine. So as as we've hit the 90s, we've lost a lot of friends.

00:28:38 Lisa Hayes

Well, so your brother, does your brother live here? Still in Charleston? Do you see him often?

00:28:44 Richard Lilly

Ohh yes, he lives at Bishop Gaston, so I see him all the time. He's 97.

00:28:52 Lisa Hayes

He's older than you. Well, how did you meet your wife? You said you met at Harvard. Was she in school there? Or was she living there?

00:29:02 Richard Lilly

She had just finished Connecticut College for women, and her home was in Bath, Maine, so Bath seemed like it would be a little quiet for the winter. So she and a friend got a an apartment in Cambridge. And a friend was coming from Chicago. And at that time, the middle days of September, there were lots and lots of students coming from Minneapolis, St. Paul, Chicago, other Western cities to the east for school, and it was heavily concentrated in mid-September. While she was on that train, one of those trains. And it was sort of a rolling house party on wheels. And everybody was going up and down the aisles saying, where are you going to school, where you're going to live? She ran into the person who was to to become my roommate for first year in the dormitory. They found that they were only going to be living maybe three blocks apart, so she invited him around for a drink. And then later called and said if you've got a roommate, bring him. That's how we met. Blind date.

00:30:39 Lisa Hayes

Well, and I wanted to ask about your service, did you, was that during the Korean War?

00:30:43 Richard Lilly

Yes, it was. Went in in September of ‘51 and got out and. About the 1st of September of ‘54. And was on two destroyers, the Sigourney 643, D 643 and. It was a, you know, for a 22 year old, it was wonderful. We got to travel a lot. We went to Europe a couple of times. Then when we went to Korea, we came back the long way, so we went completely around the world, stopped in many ports. Uh, you know. It was, it was fun and interesting. Hard work when you would see you got if you were lucky you got five hours of sleep.

00:31:52 Lisa Hayes

Well, thank you for your service.

00:31:53 Richard Lilly

I was the beneficiary of it. Never got shot at. We got to Korea six days after the shooting stopped.

00:32:06 Lisa Hayes

Your mom and dad were happy.

00:32:07 Richard Lilly

That's good timing.

00:32:10 Lisa Hayes

Were you an officer since you had been to Davidson already? Do I have that right?

00:32:14 Richard Lilly

Yes, yes, I was an officer starting off as an anti submarine, more officer and communications officer and then Operations Officer.

00:32:27 Lisa Hayes

And, and you went to law school, did you, when you were in law school, did you know that you wanted to practice sort of corporate law? Is that, is that what you did?

00:32:35 Richard Lilly

No, I did not want to and I went to law school knowing I did not want to. But that so much was happening that affected business by government, and especially by the administrative agencies, the alphabet agencies. My professors at Wharton wasn't kept saying, “Well, this is going to be affected such that you better see your lawyer on this.” And I thought well. It would be helpful to know more a lot more about that. And it did benefit me. I, for 2/3 of my career with Exxon, I had a loan department reporting to me. And it helped me to understand what they were saying and sometimes how hard to believe them.

00:33:42 Lisa Hayes

And you retired after 35 years. Did you think you might want another career? I know you had already been in...

00:33:50 Richard Lilly

No. I didn't want another career. I mean, working for a different company or something or consulting. No, that was not my objective. I really wanted to manage my own things better and when you're working for a large company, you work hard, 55 hours a week or more, and wanted some more time to enjoy life.

00:34:29 Lisa Hayes

Well and, and the boards that you were on, the Conservation, Conservation League, the Coastal Conservation League and the Historic Charleston Foundation, and then the Library Society, I would guess that those might take up a good amount of time if you wanted them to.

00:34:47 Richard Lilly

They they did. I was active on some of the committees, particularly finance and investment and such. And so they do take some time and it was very enjoyable and a wonderful way to meet people and their, their fine organizations and the boards of them were just chock full of interesting and and fine people.

00:35:16 Lisa Hayes

Did you know Steve Gates for a long time before you were on the board with him? Had you been friends for a long time?

00:35:22 Richard Lilly

I had known him since he and Laura moved here. I don't remember how many years that was in between.

00:35:38 Lisa Hayes

And some of the financial challenges that we had at the Library Society when you came on board. Did you feel like those were like, surmountable, or were, was there ever a fear that the library really couldn't come back?

00:35:54 Richard Lilly

No, I think we felt it could.

00:35:56 Lisa Hayes

You thought it would.

00:35:57 Richard Lilly

You know, it had so much going for it and it has this fabulous building. Potential, enormous potential. We felt we just needed to get it in gear and offer, offer people sound reasons for becoming members and becoming active in it, and that we could get good contributions if we got real interest in the organization. And the contributions came along quite reasonably. Within a year or so, I think it was break even, which you know was very comforting. From then on, it just prospered.

00:36:58 Lisa Hayes

And, and do you attribute that, I know you do to to Anne and to Steve and to the other board members? Was it programming that got people to want to join again or or the?

00:37:08 Richard Lilly

It it was Anne’s programming and the different things offered here, the talks, the music the pointing out the, the fabulous collection that the Library Society has. And as people joined, they were happy to contribute.

00:37:33 Lisa Hayes

Although I know I never knew Steve Gates, but I know he had a love for history and for the collection. As you say, the manuscript collection. So do you feel like? One of his priorities was getting the word out about the manuscript collection in particular? Do you remember that about that time?

00:37:53 Richard Lilly

Well, I I think that was, but I wouldn't say. Well, I think his breadth of interest was great and he was interested in every, every item and, and strengthening the, not just the finances, but strengthening the ability to do things, adding to the personnel, improving the salaries of the personnel which were too low. Improving their retirement arrangements, which were just unreasonably poor. So it was a very broad interest of both Steve and the board.

00:38:58 Lisa Hayes

Well, and I am the beneficiary of your hard work because I...

00:39:03 Richard Lilly

Well, I was just one contributor. There were, you know, other people on the board contributed, but it was Steve and Anne that I want to throw the spotlight on.

00:39:22 Lisa Hayes

Well, thank you. Well, let's see. Is there anything else that you would like to share today about the...

00:39:40 Richard Lilly

No, I think I've probably worn out any listener.

00:39:46 Lisa Hayes

Not me, not me. I would love to hear more stories, but I think we have... Let's see what time it is. This is, it's been great to talk to you. It really has.