ORAL HISTORY PT 2:
David Mitchell As Milkman, Baseball Pitcher, Cook

David Mitchell today (13 years after his remarks transcribed here). Photo courtesy Marion Naar

David Mitchell today (13 years after his remarks transcribed here). Photo courtesy Marion Naar

March 31, 2014

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Cape Charles Historical Society has for more than a decade been recording oral histories of the area’s earlier days.  A grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities enabled 15 interviews to be transcribed, and the Historical Society has made this one available for readers of the Wave.  All the transcriptions may be read at the Cape Charles Museum.)

David Mitchell speaks April 12, 2001

PART 2

It didn’t last long before Mr. Gladstone got a car and started delivering milk in a car.  And we put milk on all the ferries that ran here in town.  I remember there was the Princess Anne, the Pocahontas, the DelMarva.  Finally, they got the Northampton, the Accomac, and the Old Pointe Comfort, and the Elisha Lee.  Anyway, we used to put milk on those ferries when they were running in town, especially the Princess Anne, Pocahontas and DelMarva.

I had a scary time once when I went on there to put some milk on one of them.  I didn’t have much time to go up to put the milk up in the kitchen (I always had to carry it to the kitchen).  On the Pocahontas, of course, they had a big dance floor there in the middle of the boat.  You’d go up there and people would be dancing and I’m going through with two carries of milk, zigzagging trying to get to the kitchen.  And the boat blew the horn to leave and I couldn’t get off!  I ran down the steps and the boat was about 10 feet away, the guy grabbed me because I was coming so fast I guess I would have run overboard if he hadn’t grabbed me to stop me.  And they just ribbed me all the way back.  Told me I had to wash the dishes, had to paint the deck.  They just told me everything.  I was scared as I could be.  But, anyway, I went over and came back.  That was the only time that it ever happened.  I found out all they were doing was needling me, giving me a hard time.

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I remember when the ferries first started docking down where the Seabreeze Apartments are, that’s where they first started, and then they moved up here to downtown.  And traffic would build up, the parking lot would fill up and would line up all around town back out to where Meatland is.  My uncle had a shop up on Jefferson Avenue and he sold cold drinks, cigarettes, coffee cakes, and pies and stuff.  I used to get a little box and go out there with drinks and Nabs and peanuts and stuff like that.  And the people out there they would buy a cup of ice, just waiting in those lines for hours to get on those ferries.

And I think everybody that had any kind of business got out there and sold something to the people waiting in line for the ferry.  Sometimes it was several hours waiting.  Of course, that’s the reason that they moved down to Kiptopeke was to have a shorter trip across and more boats.  But they still couldn’t keep up with the traffic, because the cars would start building up down there and run up the hill up past the motel a lot of times.

I worked for Mr. Gladstone until he went out of business which was in 1948.  What happened, the milk had to be pasteurized and he only had raw milk.  He’d just get it from the cow, cool it down, bottle it, deliver it.  And I’ve been drinking milk every day from then until this day.  I still drink a glass of milk a day.  They say that raw milk will kill you — well I should have been dead a long time ago because I have been drinking it!

We used to take it up to Nassawadox.  I know some of you know Mr. Teagle Whitehead; he had a dairy up in Nassawadox.  And he had the machinery to pasteurize the milk.  So we had to carry it up to Nassawadox, get it pasteurized, bring it back down here and bottle it and then deliver it.  And so finally, Mr. Gladstone had to go out of business.  Which was in 1948.

I didn’t have any work to do at that time.  I started going out in the woods.  Mr. James Davis, he had a taxi service here.  He had a truck also that he worked with and we were going out in the woods cutting pulpwood.  And I did that for one winter, which was in 1948, and I cut some and I helped to haul some.

I have a twin brother.  I have four brothers and four sisters.  But my twin brother, two sisters, and I came here somewhere around the same time, but one sister lived with another aunt.  My other sister and my twin brother lived with my aunt and Uncle Jesse.  My twin went away in 1948 to play some semi-pro baseball.  He was a shortstop and second baseman; he played those two positions.

In 1949 when I was out of work he told me, why don’t I come over and try for the team.  It was the Norfolk Newport News Royals and it was a semi-pro baseball team that played in the National League ballparks.  My brother told me, why don’t you go over and try out for the team, you don’t have a job so you don’t have anything to lose.

And he was right.  So I told him I would and I went over there and I made it.  I was a pitcher.  So we played from Jacksonville, Florida, to Hartford, Connecticut.  I’ve played baseball in Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds, and in BC Stadium in the National League Parks.  I only played just one year.  I won some games and I lost some games, but that was one of the greatest thrills that I ever had in my life.  I was traveling and playing baseball and I loved both!  I would pay them to let me go and let me play ball and travel!

In 1950 the ferries moved down to Kiptopeke and I got a job down there.  I was a custodian at first and then they put me waiting on the counter.  They had a small building there, I remember the lot, before the big building was complete.  Then we went into the big building.  I was custodian there and then I began to work the counter also up there.

I had a kind of good and a kind of bad experience with Mr. Kirwin Forrest — I know you remember him.  He was my boss.  I was working with a lady who was in charge at night and we would serve breakfast but it was only a little small grill you worked on behind the counter, because they closed the kitchen up during the night.  And it was fine if you had one or two people come in who wanted a little something, eggs or bacon or something like that.  But one morning, just before it was time for us to get off, a busload of people came in and everyone wanted breakfast.  So the lady told me, “Dave, if you cook the breakfast, I’ll take the orders and serve.”  I said, “I can’t do it, you see that little grill, if I put the bacon on there and the eggs on there, one will over run the other, it’s too small, I can’t do it.”

“Well, I’ll have to tell Mr. Forrest.”  I said, “I understand.”  She told him when he came in that morning.  He got a little upset.  “Well, David, if you can’t do the work, you have to go home.”  I said, well, I was doing the best I could and I told him, furthermore, “There are men working at Little Creek, doing the same job that I’m doing; they’re getting paid to be cooks.  I’m supposed to be working behind the counter and you’re making me a cook and a counter person on this small grill, but I can go home.”  And I left.  It was just about time to leave anyway.  So about two hours after getting home the phone rang and it was Mr. Forrest.  “I checked on what you said about the men at Little Creek getting paid and you were right.  You don’t have to do any more cooking.”  So I said fine and I went on waiting on the counter as I had done before.

About two or three weeks later, they told me to go into the kitchen and cook and that was my job.  They didn’t ask if I could cook, they said go and cook!  So, it was mainly breakfast and that’s what I did.  But I had to set up the table for Oliver Joynes — he had a little shop down on the corner; he was a cook down there then.  I had to set up the table for him when he came to get ready to fix the dinner and the meals for the rest of the day.  I was given the job as cook, my pay was raised by $20, and I didn’t have to wait on the counter, so it came out good for me.

This concludes Part 2. CLICK for Part 1.

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Comments

2 Responses to “ORAL HISTORY PT 2:
David Mitchell As Milkman, Baseball Pitcher, Cook”

  1. Larry Beckett on April 2nd, 2014 2:11 am

    Again Mr. Mitchell, thank you your account of the history of our Beloved Cape Charles. You were and are a inspiration to many of my generation who grew up in Cape Charles. And continues to be!

  2. Mr. Melvin W. Williams, Jr CWO USCG (Ret) on April 3rd, 2014 8:29 pm

    I remember Mr. David Mitchell, he was the milkman. But if my memory is correct I think he also was in the military as a sailor. He and Mr. Charles “Charlie” Evans were the only two Afro-Americans in the town of Cape Charles that were sailors. Mr. Evans (now deceased) I believe was in the Coast Guard as I was when I graduated from high school (class of ’63) retiring after 27 years of service. My admiration for Mr. Mitchell’s baseball career inspired me to become the catcher for our softball team at Cape Charles Elementary. Reading his statement about his experiences with the ferries brought back memories of my dad and other black men who worked on them and the things that they had to endure to support their families. As a young boy “Lightning Son” I was allowed to be in the midst of them, listening, learning and hustling change from passengers passing through. A while back when visiting the town that I grew up in, I again had the chance to meet and talk with now Deacon Mitchell at Cape Charles First Baptist Church. My wife and I attended the church where I was baptized and joined as a young boy. I found that his manner of humbleness has not changed. He’s a true icon for the community.