Dionne Thomas-Carmicheal is a lifelong Fairfax resident and community activist. Her connection to the community runs deep. Dionne attended school at the historic Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, the first African American parish in the Diocese of Cleveland located in the heart of Fairfax. Her father Eddie, who was a Fairfax business owner, instilled in her the importance of “having something for yourself,” referring to entrepreneurial independence. He owned and operated two businesses, a trucking company and a bar & restaurant. The lounge opened in the 1940s, then known as The Thomas Tavern. Now owned by Dionne, the lounge is still in operation, serving the community today. It is now known as Josephine’s Lounge, named in honor of Dionne’s mother.
Dionne, a business owner, is a founding member of the Fairfax Business Association, and the African American Cultural Garden. She also serves on the Black Studies Advisory Board of Cleveland State University. Dionne enjoys connecting with the community and meeting new people. She believes that learning should be continuous– she says it’s what keeps life exciting! As a docent at Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, she has had the pleasure of welcoming guests and Hall of Fame inductees from all over the world. Dionne loves her community and is passionate about sharing the rich history of her neighborhood.
My grandfather was in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study back in the day. He was on my father’s side. His name was Jesse Thomas. We all lived in the same house. Then he went back and forth to Tuskegee because we still had family there, and even today, we still do.
We had everything we needed. We had grocery stores and butchers. Across the street was Bill Bryant’s Stop and Shop grocery store. If you wanted something from the grocery store, your mother would tell you to go have Mr. Bryant cube you some steaks. And then he would bring up half a cow on his shoulder. I can see him slam it on the big butcher block, chop it with the big chopper, then run it through this machine [a meat tenderizer] that would put the holes in it. Then they’d wrap it up in paper and give it to you. No bags, they’d just give it to you like that, and you’d just trot off.
There was also another grocery store, Mr. and Mrs. Chapman’s store, and fruits and vegetables would line Central and 79th. They had a scale, and sometimes when he got busy, I would go and weigh up the fruits and vegetables. So, that’s two grocery stores within 100 feet of each other.
Everybody had gardens. Everyone had backyards and the backyards had something in them – they weren’t just cute, they were utilitarian – they had to serve some function. You either had some chickens back there or you grew vegetables, like peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. And of course, our parents hunted, so there was always squirrel, rabbit, pheasant, and deer.
Everybody knew everybody on the street. They didn’t get in your business, but your business would get back to your house before you could get back to your house. If you misbehaved, you would get a whooping. And it wasn’t just an isolated whooping – the sisters would get involved. Our mother would call Nanny, Aunt Easter, Aunt Ossie … you just never lived it down. It was like, how much punishment do you have to endure? And I mean, I was a good kid!
Our whole family lived at the corner of E. 79th and Central. We lived upstairs on the second floor, and we rented out the third floor. My grandfather, my parents, and me and my brothers and sisters all lived there. My sister got married out of there, I got married out of there, my brother got married out of there. We never lived anywhere else. There were two storefronts. There was the bar and there was a unit next to it; it was a cleaner and then it was a pool hall. Back in the day, directly across the street was the Black Panther party, that was one of their headquarters.
When we came home from school, we would have to go through the bar to go upstairs. There was no lingering and no listening. If they were talking about something they didn’t think you needed to hear, they would stop talking, even if you didn’t know what they were talking about. So, if things got really hot and heavy, we’d go down the back steps and stand at the door to see what was going on. Most of the time there was nothing, but it was just the idea. You knew you could not come into the bar and hang and listen and get into adults’ conversations. It’s so much fun to think about now. How come I couldn’t be taking notes then?
You didn’t need a car. This is what made it wonderful. You could take the bus and in less than 20 minutes, you’d be downtown. You could go anywhere. Our playgrounds were usually in churches. Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, where I went to school, had a playground. You guys would say, “Meet you at the rec center” … well, there was no rec center at the time. We played basketball or whatever in the church parking lot or in the church playground.
There were a lot of factories in the neighborhood. There were several breweries between E. 79th St. and E. 105th St. But Blacks weren’t always allowed to work there. There was the Ohio Buckeye Garment Company, which we called the overall factory, and there were always Blacks who worked there. But there were no Blacks at the Reliable Steel Company, which was also in the neighborhood. There were a lot of minority-owned businesses and a number of Black owned banks. Cleveland Trust was around the corner on E. 79th St., but you couldn’t get a loan there.
Most of the time, when I was growing up, the mother worked in the home and not outside of the home, and the fathers were laborers. We didn’t have bankers or doctors, or there were only a few. I never knew I was poor. Did anyone tell me I was poor? I didn’t know. I didn’t know I was middle-class, either. You had enough to eat, you had clothes, your daily needs were taken care of. You usually had a vacation once a year because we would always go back down south. Y’all tell me I was poor? OK! I didn’t know that till I was in college. I never heard that word.
Our church was founded because the other churches did not want us to come there. I mean, they gave us a hard time, the Catholic churches. As a matter of fact, the priest would tell people, “You need to go to the church down the street.” People were trying to go to St. Agnes, and they sent them up to Blessed Sacrament. Katharine Drexel founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Negroes and Indians. We’re the first Black Catholic church in Cleveland. She later became a nun and a saint. She was from a wealthy family, a philanthropist, you know, that kind of thing.”
