Humans of The Swarthmorean: Thaddeus Adams

Photo: Rachel Pastan

One of nine surviving children, Thaddeus Adams grew up on Bowdoin Avenue in the Historically Black Neighborhood of Swarthmore in the 1940s and 1950s. He now lives in Wallingford.

Most of the homes were clapboard around here, or asbestos shingles. Our original house was asbestos shingle, and then it was stucco later on. My brother and I helped my dad take asbestos shingles off.

Everyone had a porch, and they would yell to you, “Come up and sit and talk with me!” And that was great. Adults took an interest in you, they’d ask you what you were going to do and whatnot, and they would give you pointers about life. What they knew. They would tell you how tough they had it. And you knew they had it tough. They worked hard. I mean, men seemed like they were always in their work clothes. Only time I saw them without was on a Sunday. 

In those days, on Sundays, you went to church in the morning, you went in the afternoon, and you went in the evening. Funerals were held at night. Burials was the next morning. If someone died, we had to go on our way to school into the house and pay our respects. Naturally, being kids, you were afraid of dead bodies. You’re real young. And your parents are telling you to go see the dead body sitting in the house, in the coffin, on your way to school. And you’re scared to death, but you did it. We’d see a wreath on a door, and we knew someone had died.

This community, most of the people came from Maryland: Georgetown or Chestertown. We’d have an exchange once a year with churches down there, and we loved taking the trip. When it was their turn to come here, they’d come to our service and share a meal. The church was, naturally, the center of all activities. 

We all had to work. Everybody had gardens here, big gardens. My grandfather, he had grape vines. He had purple grapes and white grapes. When I came in from school, I had to help my grandfather weed the garden before I could play. Most times we played right in front of the house on our street. The girls played hopscotch, double Dutch, jump-rope. Trying to get the boys to notice them. Our house was the center of the activity because we had so many kids.

When you came down the street, a lot of times you could hear the baseball games going on, the Phillies game. Very few people had televisions, so the radios were going. Most of the people around here were followers of the Dodgers or the Giants, because the Dodgers had Jackie Robinson, and the Giants had Willie Mays. 

You didn’t realize prejudice because you didn’t experience it. But when I went back to school on Mondays, I’d hear kids talking about dances at the Women’s Club in Swarthmore. You knew you weren’t invited, but you didn’t feel bad. You didn’t feel left out. You might think, well, I wonder why they didn’t call me, or something like that. That’s it. I was never threatened. 

Oh, we looked forward to snow days. That was a chance for us to earn some money. The boys, we’d shovel snow or whatnot. In the summer, we hoped to be able to cut some lawns. But basically, we didn’t know we were poor until we left the neighborhood and went to the other side.

In this neighborhood, they all looked out for each other’s kids, no matter what. Everybody’s child was your child. Someone was always looking out for you. And if you didn’t help a woman carry a package into the house, they would say, “We saw your son outside playing and he wouldn’t help.” And you got scolded because that’s the way we grew up. But it was a great way to live.

It was kind of like fantasyland, growing up in a little town like this.