A Washington Weekend: Family, Photos, and Old Family Homes

In my last post, I mentioned that I needed to plan a trip back down to Washington, DC to return some family history materials that had been loaned to me for digitization. Well, last weekend, we made it happen!

And who do I mean by “we?” Well, it wasn’t just me and the cousins I’d hung out with on my last visit (Barney, Shelia, and LaVerne) – it turned into a bit of a family affair. Not only did my mom come down with me, but my Aunt Sandra joined us, driving down from NY to Philly and then completing the ride with us. 

My mom and my aunt, on a bench in a park by their old stomping grounds in DC.

 

In the Maryland suburbs of DC, we were met not only by the three cousins from before, but by a couple of their kids and a grandkid, plus another cousin, and a few more cousins on the phone. Family time, indeed!

Now, did we take any photos of our time together? Ha! We were all far too in the moment. Definitely an oversight!

So, what did we do? Ate, of course – curry chicken and potatoes, cabbage, Jamaican beef patties, rum cake, and more. Shared stories, for sure – there’s nothing better than seeing folks lose their minds with laughter over childhood (and adult!) memories. And – meeting one of my goals for the trip – identified the folks in a bunch of photographs that I had just scanned!

Check out this backyard photo. Do I know everyone in it now? Yeah, I do!

L-R: Pennie Baldwin (a Cummings descendant), James Allen (father of Cousin Barney, who shared this photo and many others with me), my great-aunt Lila (Cooper) Reeves, her husband Ennis Lee Reeves, and Joseph Cooper, Lila's brother.

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We also realized that the cousin whose house we were at had one of the family newsletters that isn’t a part of the collection I had taken with me to scan back at home. And it’s not just any issue – it’s the very first one! I photographed it, and will get scan at a later date.

The very first edition of ACD Family News. I've blurred out personal info for the sake of privacy. Courtesy of Cousin Shelia Brown.

That said, I brought another set of photos back with me to Philadelphia to scan, so the work continues!

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But that’s not all we did in DC. Every now and then someone in our family will decide we want to take a look at the old Cooper family homes in Eastern Market. They were purchased by my great-grandparents Noah Cooper and Nancy (Thomas) Cooper in the 1940s, about a decade after they moved north from Georgia during the Great Migration. Not only did they and their children live in those buildings, so did other members of the family, including Noah's niece Eunice Lee Davis, who finished her education in DC. (Her daughters are two of my genealogy co-conspirators!) A variety of boarders called these spaces home, as well.

The buildings are no longer in the family, but they are full of memories – even I remember spending time as a kid in one of them, by then my (great-, or technically, grand-) Aunt Lila’s house. So, we visit them, every now and then. And, often, we end up having lovely conversations with either the owners or neighbors. It was no different this time.

Here's 515 7^th Street SE:

My Aunt Lila and Uncle Reed (aka Ennis Lee Reeves) lived here when I was a kid. My mom, aunt and I spent some time in front of the building, just noting all the ways it – and the street - had changed or stayed the same, and admiring how cute it is(!), then took a walk around the block to see what else had changed. As we were walking back toward the car, we noticed a couple had stopped to admire the house, and I – in a sharing mood, lol – approached them. We ended up having a great long conversation, and it turns out that their daughters are my neighbors here in Philly, and my mom knows one of the midwives who helped deliver their children. What a small world!

Here are 152 and 154 D Street SE:

154 is where Noah and Nancy lived, and my mom, her siblings, and cousins have lots of memories of time spent here and of walking to and fro between here and Aunt Lila’s place. Both Noah and Nancy passed before I was born, so I just live vicariously through the memories of others here. 

But there’s something else special about this photo. That’s because 152 is where my grandfather Louis Shepherd and his mother Katherine lived as boarders in 1940. Two years later, he and Elnora Cooper, one of Noah and Nancy’s daughters at 154, applied for a marriage license. In 1944, they applied again and were married. In 1945, their first child was born. They ultimately had 5 kids, including my mom, and were married for over 20 years before my grandmother passed away. I never knew her, but for me, these two houses, sitting side by side, represent her almost as much as the photographs I have of her do.

Here we chatted with a lovely across-the-street neighbor who has lived on the block for decades. She remembers when the neighborhood looked different, when Black families weren't a rarity. She remembers - as my mom and aunt do - when the street was dug up to build the subway below. It seemed a bit crazy to buy a house on that street in the midst of that chaos, but she did and said she doesn't regret it. We also met a young woman connected to the current owners of 154, and I got to show her a picture of my grandfather standing in front of it.

My grandfather, Louis Shepherd, in front of 154 D Street SE.

I actually wish I'd had this next photo at my fingertips. Take a look and then scroll back up, and you'll see exactly where my grandfather is sitting!

Actually, it turns out I have a TON of photos taken in front of 154 in the 1940s. This may need to be a separate blog post!

Speaking of which, several years ago, I wrote a blog post about the different family homes in DC. If you want to read more, check it out here.

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We also drove past one of the family churches, Friendship Baptist Church, in Southwest DC.

 We don't know if anyone in the family still attends. But, funny enough, we drove past on Sunday morning, while service was still in session. If we had gone inside, we might have been related - even if distantly - to someone we met!

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This was a super quick trip down to Washington, DC. We arrived Saturday evening and left Sunday evening, so we may have spent just over 24 hours in the area. But what a lovely trip it was. We hung out with family, ate good food, enjoyed beautiful weather, and connected with our family history - and even with strangers who had some small piece of connection to it as well. I'm so glad we did it and look forward to doing it again - after all, now I have a photo album to return!

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Do you have a story to share about any of the houses in this post? Family photos you want me to see? Please drop a note below, or reach out to one of the cousins mentioned in this post - they all know how to reach me!