Vincent Elsworth Saunders - Early Days

Letter to Ann Camille - 4/5/2001

From the Saunders Family History Book

I was born in Chicago at 6608 Eberhart Ave. on Dec. 30, 1916. The owners  of the two-apartment house were the Ricter Family (Germans) Mr. Richter was imprisoned because of world war I german sympathies. I remember him as a nice old carpenter who lost the use of one arm. The Richters lived on the first floor, and we lived on the second floor. The doctor thar delivered me was Dr. Lawrence Blanchet, a creole... a home delivery.

The community of Woodlawn had perhaps several dozen colored people of mixed ancestry, I think the area was built to accompany the popularity of the area during the Columbia Exhibition of 1893.  It was a lower middle class workers neighborhood-chiefly Irish, German and later Polish.

At the James McCosh Elementary school, located at 65th and Champlain, there were only two colored kids in kindergarten class in 1922. By 1930, there were only 2 white boys in the eigth grade graduation class due to the exodus of white people in an effort to avoid mixing with black people and accecelerated throgh the general use of automobiles.

The Al-Vin Dasant was the last of several dance halls that were operated by a partnership of Vincent Saunders and Alfonso Young. the Al-Vin was operated under lease from the Royal Circle of Friends, Dr. L.K. Williams president, it was located on the NE corner of 51st and Michigan. The property had been a Greek Temple, and previously housed various meeting rooms and stores.

The Al-Vin Dance Hall was run on Mondays and Friday nights from approximately from about 1926 to 1930.  The stock market crash and the economic depression impacted the business. Even the Savoy ballroom, At 47th and King drive had to close because they couldn"t pay their electric bill. The Al-Vin hall location later became a kind of gambling joint. Before the Alvin Dasant there had been Dreamland, The Vincennes Hotel, and Warick Hall. The Warick Hall was located on 47th Street at about Forrestville.

During the days of its operation, my mother (Mamie Holiday) sold tickets and other relatives operated the check room for coats and hats... The use of Marijuana made it hazardous to conduct social dancing , after the close of the Al-Vin Hall, my father  Vincent Sr., just provided Claude Barnett with graphic artist services on an occasional basis for income. 

I recall that one of the jobs he got was the paste-up of a promotional press booklet for Mr. Barnett's wife, Etta Moten Barnett, she was a singer of note; and had sung "My Forgotten Man" in the MGM film production of Gold Diggers of 1933.   My own association with Claude Barnett was an unsuccesful attempt to sell the Associated Negro Press as to a medium to reach the Afro-American market.... as a special market.  As a young man with family problems I could not pursue the goal with enough diligence.  The time was in the late 1940's and early 1950's I was offering public relations- not  advertising services. 

The other addresses where we lived were 6639 Rhodes Ave, until 1929; 6745 Langley Ave, until 1932; 6725 Evans Ave, until 1944; 43rd and Forrestville (briefly after World War II; 9335 Forest Ave about 1945 until 1950; and we lived at 5525 Lafayette when you were born , then 9718 Indiana, When I married Mitzie on Crystal Ave Elgin, Ill and then moved to lake meadows where valerie was a baby, thereafter in 1152 W. 95th Place and in 1966 we moved to Richton Park Ill and finally to Dalton, Mn in 1985.  Whew! Although it does not seem like it, I have lived here longer than any other place.

I was baptized at Holy Cross Church in Chicago as a baby.  It was chiefly an Irish catholic church; and by the age of 12 yrs I became unaware that I was an unwanted outsider.  I was confirmed in the catholic church in the Black St. Elizabeth Church parish by Cardinal Mundelien but I really have no enthusiam for churchgoing.  I was  pressured by my mother to attend. By the time I was 14, my reading in the Kimbark branch of Chicago library led me to question the benefit of any religion in my life. I had discovered that people of Christian and Islamic religion were slaves & slaveholders of peoples of other faiths.

During my marriage to Doris, I briefly considered the Unitarian faith. Doris and I attended the Untarian services at the Abraham Lincoln Center on 39th & Langley, we were married by the Pastor, Unitarians were not an organized religious group engaged in slave exploitation, and seemed more tolerant. As I recall, Ann you were blessed at a service at the Unitarian church, Your God parents were Esther Semper , God mother, and John Johnson, God father. They both did a fine job in your behalf.

That's it!

Love   Daddy  Vincent