Jewell Chambers: A Whole Lotta Something

E456 Jewell Chambers was raised in rural Mississippi. A playwright and musician, you’ve probably also heard of her famous siblings, The Chambers Brothers (“The Time Has Come Today”) and perhaps the family gospel band, The Chambers Family Singers. She shares stories from her childhood and nearly a century on the planet. For more information and […]

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here.
Thanks for listening to another episode
of Hey, Human podcast.
This is episode 456,
and my guest is Jewel Chambers.
Jewel was raised in rural Mississippi, and you've
probably heard of her famous siblings, the Chambers
Brothers. They had a huge hit, The Time

(00:28):
Has Come Today,
and maybe you've heard of the family gospel
band,
the Chambers Family Choir.
They have music throughout the family for certain.
I was introduced to her through Bob Zaw,
who has been on this show,
and
he told me about Jewel and said you
have to to talk to her. Her life

(00:49):
story is incredible.
And she's very kind and brought me into
the house, and we sat down in her
living room and had this conversation.
So I'm really
excited for you to hear it. And she
shares stories from her childhood
and nearly a century on the planet.
Check out heyhumanpodcast.com
for links and to learn more about my

(01:10):
guests in the show. Check out susanruth.com
to learn more about me and my other
artistic endeavors, including coming to see The First,
my short film.
The next festivals that it will be playing,
Seattle Film Festival, Chicago Horror Film Festival,
and
a few more.
It's gonna be at Shorts Corner and Cannes.

(01:31):
And,
yeah, all all those things are on susanruth.com,
so definitely check that out. You can find
me on social media under susanruthism,
and my music is on Spotify, Apple Music,
Amazon Music, wherever you get your music. It's
probably on there. Rate, review, and subscribe to
Hey Human Podcast on Apple or wherever you

(01:51):
are listening to your podcast.
And thank you for listening. Be well, be
kind,
be love.
Here we go.
Joel Chambers, welcome to Hey Human.
Thank you. Thank you for having me in
your home. Thank you for being here. Absolutely.
I like to start these conversations
with taking all the way back to the
beginning of life and your childhood. Tell me

(02:14):
about where you grew up and what childhood
was like.
Well,
my earliest
memories
let me let me start here.
It was 10 of us siblings.
And I was the first girl born.
And my mom was sickly,
and she didn't think she would make it.

(02:38):
And, I mean, from a little girl about
I remember, I guess, about six years old,
she told me that
she didn't think she would live, you know,
to see her children get grown.
And she wanted me
she didn't want us separated.
She wanted to make sure that we stayed
together.
And so she taught me,

(02:58):
you know, how to really become a woman.
I got married at 15.
I mean, I'm jumping way ahead, but
that's the type of upbringing,
you know, that that I had.
Of course,
my being six years old, the family had
not grown
as, you know, to be a set of
10.
The one memory that stands out in my

(03:20):
mind as a little girl and my mama
being so sickly all the time,
we had gone to,
my grandmother's
grandmother's house,
and
our mode of traveling was mule and wagon.
And, anyway, we got ready to come home
and and my sister

(03:41):
let me let me back up and tell
you how the order
that of children, you know, that my mom
had.
Three boys, two girls, three boys, two girls.
And other words so we were at we
were at grandma's house and,
mama was not feeling well and it was
time to go.
And my sister Bonnie, she wanted to, you

(04:03):
know, she wanted we both wanted to stay.
But mama said, no. You have to go
because I don't feel good.
And so I was upset, of course. We
got home, and mama kept getting sicker and
sicker at you know, the closer we got
home.
And
daddy helped her out of the wagon
when we got home because she had to

(04:25):
urinate. And I was helping him, you know.
And then as I was holding her arm,
I felt it felt like an egg
went down her arm and passed my hand
and she just went limp and I thought
she had died.
I took off running
and screaming and saying my mom is my
mom is dead, my mom is dead.

(04:47):
In the area that that we lived in,
we were the only blacks
in that area. Mama was she was,
well loved by everyone.
The, man's
property that we lived on,
he drove a truck
that hauled bill bills of cotton to the
gin and stuff.
Well, I'm running down this road about three

(05:09):
country miles, if you know what country miles
are.
And I'm running. I'm just screaming. No. I
don't have no mother. My mother's dead. My
mother's dead.
And so the the ladies that was
close by and I'm passing their houses
and I didn't know it at the time,
but they just took off. I think one
lady, she she was milking her cow and,

(05:31):
because we were in the country, of course,
you know.
She was milking her cow. She set her
her bucket down
and they all gathered at mama's house.
And come to find out my mama was
not dead.
So the man that the place that we
lived on, he got in his truck and
he overtook me. And he told me, he

(05:54):
said, your mom your mother's not dead. And
I said, yes. She is. Yes. She is.
So he persuaded me to get in a
truck, and he took me back home.
But and the doctor said she had had
a nervous breakdown.
But, anyway, I was glad that I that
I was there with her. Well, I was
about six years old, and I was born
in '34.
I'm 91 now. You said it was four

(06:15):
boys first, and then you came along? She
had us the order she had us had
three boys Three boys first. And two girls
Okay. Okay. Three boys
and two girls. So you were And I'm
the first
born girl. So you're the fourth oldest.
Yes. Yes.
Yeah. That took me a minute also
to do that kind of math.
And what city are we in at this

(06:37):
point? Let's see. I think that it was
called Forest, Mississippi.
Okay. Because later on, we moved to another
area. It was called Carthage, Mississippi. I feel
like it wasn't uncommon in at least, especially
in those days, to
have multiple children.
That was pretty much normal. Right? Well, yeah.
I guess so. Yeah. Yeah.

(06:58):
Was your family very tight and and close?
Yes. Very tight. We were very poor, very
poor.
And but mama always she always told us,
she said, you you you children may not
have what other children have, but always remember
you have each other.
And there was a lot of love in
the family.

(07:20):
And that's why she wanted
if anything should happen to her if she
passed away, she did not want us separated,
you know, because usually,
when there's a large family or if there
are any children at all and the parents
die, you know, they they people take them
and, you know, and raise them up. But
she didn't want that to happen. She wanted
us to always be together.

(07:42):
Yeah. And we have always been a very
close knit family. It's only six of us
now. We've lost,
four brothers.
So but all of the sisters are still
here and two brothers.
And
when we when we get together, it's just
like we can see each other today
and hug and go on. And tomorrow, we

(08:05):
see each other. We still hug and go
on. You know, it's just
it's just always been a close knit family.
When you get together with each other, is
it like you're little again?
What we usually do, we just reminisce.
Yeah.
We just have a lot of fun,
just talking about
old times and the things that happened

(08:27):
and how, you know, how we survived and
and,
when my dad was living. And we used
to talk about
things that happened, and
it would upset him because it was not
pleasant,
you know. And he was my dad was
he was uneducated,
so he was he was really a poor
provider.

(08:47):
And so we had some stories, you know,
to tell.
And we were but it was fun because
we we like I say, we survived. You
know? But for him to hear it, it
upset him. And so we had to stop
when we would get to all get together.
We had to stop talking about
things, you know. Sure. You know. So Were

(09:08):
you expected as the first girl to
be
a surrogate mom, especially if your mom was
unwell?
Well, I didn't realize, you know, at the
time, I didn't like the idea that I
had to do everything like that.
And I learned to cook when I was,
like, six years old.

(09:30):
I remember,
standing on a wooden box,
you know, to be up at this at
the counter.
I would prepare the food, but my mom
would always put the seasoning in. I I
didn't know how to do that. But it's
just what she instilled,
you know, in in me. You're she always
say, you're the oldest girl. You're the oldest
girl. You know? So you have to you

(09:52):
have to take care of,
you know. And she told my siblings, she
says,
Jewel is going to
if something she always used that term, if
something happens to me. She would never say
if I die. She just say, if something
happens to me and I'm no longer with
you all,
Jewel is to take over, and you all
better mind her.

(10:13):
So one of my brothers right now, he
calls me sister mom. Mhmm. Lester, you know,
he calls me sister mom. We always lived
on a farm.
My dad sharecropped. He was a really, really
good farmer.
I mean, whatever
whatever seed he planted,
it it just flourished.
I mean, he was he was a farmer

(10:34):
from his heart. You know, he grew the
biggest, I mean,
humongous watermelons, and he would always save the
seed from,
you know
and we he did sugarcane.
His sugarcane was the tallest.
Peanuts,
just a bunch, just a humongous amount of

(10:54):
peanuts on a vine.
He was just a farmer.
And everywhere,
everywhere they lived,
and, you know, which was a lot of
places, he always left fruit trees.
I always planted a fruit tree.
He and my mom got married.
My mom, her mom did not want her
when she was born.

(11:16):
She was, you know, born out of wedlock,
and so she always mistreated my mom a
lot really, really bad.
In the area that they lived in, you
know, the man that that we figured raped
her, you know,
she mama would never talk about it. She
would never talk about it.
So the the message that we got came

(11:37):
from hearsay. You know? But he lived this
her dad lived in the in the same
area
that my grandmother lived in. And as mama
grew up, she was just, like, alienated because
grandma Pearlie, her name was Pearlie, she was
very mean to my mom as the story
goes, and this is what mama told us.

(11:59):
And And it was your mother who was
raped or your grandmother was raped? My grandmother.
Okay. And my mother. Okay.
Incest.
Mhmm. Other words, my oldest bro my my
oldest brother
is also her brother. You know? Yeah. Incest.
How they met,
well, after she had her first son,

(12:20):
Major,
she I guess, I think when that happens,
it it releases some kind of demonic
thing into children, you know. And they and
then, you know, so she became a little
promiscuous.
And so she was pregnant with her second
son. She was seven months pregnant. I think
it's trauma, not demons. I think it's just

(12:41):
absolute trauma,
you know? Well, I it's bad. Yeah. It's
a very bad situation.
But but, anyway, she was seven months pregnant
with the second son.
And
my grandma had put her out and she
was at somebody's house. And my dad, who
was thirty years older than my mom,

(13:02):
knew the people that she was living with,
and he had come to visit. Well, in
the
meantime okay. He's thirty years older than my
mom. Mhmm. My mom was born,
1910.
He was born 1880.
He was visiting there and my mom, she
said she was washing the dishes or something.
And he was sitting there at the table

(13:23):
just looking at her. And she was said
she said to herself,
why this old man keep looking at me?
You know, just keep looking at me. Well,
he had had two wives previous.
Both had died. So he had two boys
by the first one and a girl by
the second marriage.
And so he's looking for

(13:45):
a woman
to raise his children.
And he's watching my mom, she says,
and and so he, you know, and he's
thinking
she'd make a good mother for my children
because I don't know. Just something about the
way she carried herself.
And so
that's how they met.

(14:05):
Three days after
after they met, they got married. Three days.
Your mom probably thought, here's somebody that at
least I'll be able to have a roof
over my head and I'll be able to
eat and survival.
Yes. That's exactly what she felt
because she'd been like an outcast all of
her life.

(14:25):
You know, so she feels
well, he, you know, he he
can I show you a picture of my
dad? Sure.
Absolutely.
Well, this is just like one shot of
him here. That's my mom.
Aw. That's so Uh-huh. And this is a
book that I had started making long time
ago that I never got it finished. There's

(14:45):
all of us together here. Oh, wow.
What humans can endure. I know. That's, that's
my,
my brother, her and her brother.
Did he have any difficulties having
been the result of incest?
I don't think so.
I've never heard of any incidents. And these
are just part of his offspring. He had
four children.
Incidents. And these are just part of his

(15:06):
offspring. He had four children.
My dad, he, you know, he came out
he came in at the tail end of
slavery.
Mhmm. You know? So he had no education.
It didn't so education didn't mean anything to
him. Well, sharecropping
was basically
slavery still. But he was a good father.

(15:26):
He never he as, you know, he was
with us and
that's important.
He he was he never left us.
Now, mama said he left one time. And
he,
and he got down the road a ways.
And he thought, I can't leave her. And
he came back and he never left again.
And, you know, so,

(15:48):
you know, just having a father
around, even if he's not a good provider,
it's just good to have a father. He
was not mean.
I never heard him and mama Arga. They
never had
and and I'm sure she he gave her
plenty of reasons, you know, because he used
to pull us out of school

(16:09):
to, go and work in, you know, in
the field for other people.
And especially after, you know, we got all
got big enough to work.
And, you know, and the joy of having
a big family when when things were rationed,
you know, like they had this little Oh,
the rationing during World War II. Ration. Yeah.
Yeah.

(16:29):
And they issued some kind of books with
little coupons or something in it. Mhmm.
Well, he never was able to like, for
I think sugar,
they
sugar,
you had to have those coupons to get
sugar. And he had a whole bunch.
And he used to trade them off, you
know, to because he wasn't able to buy

(16:51):
sugar, you know, so
it was a plus for him, you know.
So and and these are some of the
things that we would laugh and talk about
when we would get together and, they would
just irritate him and stuff.
And
and, you know, like like I said, you
know, he'd pull us out of the out
of the out of school and until mama,

(17:12):
would just say she called him mister Chambers.
And he called her dear.
That was I never heard him call her
anything but dear. Her name was Victoria.
And
and because of his age,
she called him mister Chambers,
always mister Chambers.

(17:32):
He he he was just he was precious.
Food, you know, like sometimes food was not
available in our house,
and just a little bit of food, but
my mom was able to,
a little bit of nothing and make a
whole lot of something out of it. We
remember one time she'd had like a cup,

(17:52):
she would take one cup of peas, you
know, dried peas
and make a whole big old pot of
peas and
we'd wad a lot of liquor, pot liquor,
we called it, you know, and make cornbread.
And that's what we would eat.
And these are the things that we would
laugh about, you know, when we get together.
There were times when there was no food.

(18:13):
And there was one time it was during
season where watermelons
were in season.
And my mom didn't like watermelon.
And we worried about that.
And because we worried what was she was
what was she gonna eat and stuff. It
was no problem for us because we love
watermelon.
But, you know, but,
you know, we we never held it against

(18:34):
him
for not being a good provider
because, I guess, because of the love that,
you know, that we had for him.
Because he he never
you know, like, if he gave us if
he chastised one of us,
you know, his this was his spanking.
It's over. You know? But my mom,
she would get a switch and go,

(18:56):
you gonna do that again? You know? I
mean and she would just go, oh.
But her weapons were terrible, you know? I
don't I don't ever remember getting one
because I was always, you know, you know,
I was just raised to it's kinda like
being charged type thing. So
she was such a sweetheart. Everybody loved her.

(19:18):
She raised us up with,
I guess, I call them sayings.
It would be like,
for stealing, if it's not yours, don't take
it.
If you make your bed hard, you're the
one have to lay in it. A cow
needs his tail to fan flies with more
than one time.
Don't burn the bridge that takes you across

(19:40):
because you might need that bridge to get
back a little. You know? And every little
saying that she had had a meaning.
You know, dad had a few. You know,
his was always the golden rule, do unto
others as you would have them do unto
you.
And that's how we lived. You know, that's,
you know, that was
our way of, of living.

(20:02):
Did they have conversations with the kids
about,
obviously, you were living in segregated South,
how
how do parents
prepare kids for something like that? How did
black parents prepare black children in that era?
And, I mean even today, obviously, those conversations
have to be made. How did was that
dealt with in the family? And also

(20:24):
with the specter of World War II and
what was going on, how did how did
the kids
How did you all deal with all of
that?
It it was not easy. We have never
known prejudice. Never.
Even in the South, we were just raised
that people are people.
And as the old saying go, we were

(20:45):
raised to stay in our place.
What does that mean? It means that
if, you know, if if they wanna be
called mister whoever I'm miss,
we did it.
And that was just part of living.
We used to have to walk to school,
and there there was one house that we

(21:05):
used to pass.
And it had had children, and they were
always they would be waiting for us,
you know, so they could taunt us and
call us the n word and stuff.
And we just, you know, they never
they never harmed us, but we just ignored
it. That's we were just taught to what
dad had a saying is is he says,

(21:28):
when it comes to fighting, it's better to
say,
yonder he goes than here he lies.
That's one of the words.
And he says, it doesn't make you a
coward,
but you use common sense. But he did
also tell us, don't
let somebody pass the first lick because

(21:49):
you may not get a chance to pass
the second lick. But we just always we
avoided
fights
always with not only with the white children,
but also the black children.
We just always liked peace.
They liked peace in the family.
Other words, you know, at that time, you
know, like if we went into an establishment,

(22:11):
the restroom was colored only.
Well, we didn't try
to go into the white room.
That's called staying in your place.
You do you do
you do the way you what's expected of
you to do,
and
they like you for it. They, you
know we daddy was he was had a

(22:33):
lot of respect
for,
you know, from white people.
I don't remember the story, but
but he told it. He didn't take nothing.
Other words,
he was short-tempered,
but he stayed in his place. But if
anybody riled him up, I don't care what

(22:54):
color you were. My dad was part Indian.
I don't care if you riled him up.
He was a force to deal with. And
so there was a story that he had
somebody
had gotten in his face with something,
whatever, and he had struck
a white person.

(23:14):
And of course, they came for him
and he,
you know, made sure that,
I was told that we were all safe
in the house,
but he got his shotgun.
So when they rode, when they pulled up
on their horses or whatever to get him,
he didn't run.
He just told me, he said, okay,

(23:35):
You got you came for me, but one
of one of you guys gonna die.
And nobody wanted to die.
But what happened,
he gained the respect
of people in you know? And so no
they always called him uncle George.
Nobody
never messed with him after that.

(23:58):
He's he stood his ground. He got the
first lick in. He got the yep. He
did. He let them know he was not
afraid to die. But he said, But what
are you what what are you going to
die with me? And when it comes to
that, nobody wants to die. They not ready
to die.
But but, anyway, as so as we grew,
we grew up and, you know, and it

(24:19):
got to be when it got to be
all 10 of us and everything.
We always sang.
Just, I mean,
my mom,
she was,
she traveled around with like a community choir
or something like that.
Look, they sang the songs using the do,

(24:40):
re, mi notes. They did, you know, me,
do, me, do, do, la, sa, do, la,
sa, you know. They that's how they, you
know, would sing the songs. And they would
do it in the in the note form,
and then they would do it in the
word form, you know.
So she my mom had a really good
voice. Daddy could sing too, but he didn't
he didn't like singing as much as mama

(25:01):
did. But we we used to sing.
We would come out of the field,
and we would wash our feet
from the you know, you you of course,
you work with no shoes on.
And we would, you know, draw up a
they call it a foot tub, where we
washed our feet before we went to bed.
But we would just sing at night. We

(25:22):
would just sing and sing. And and the
only music that we had was the radio.
And we used to listen to the Grand
Old Opera.
And we'd learn all of those songs, you
know, low and lonely, sad and blue,
you know, just those kind of, you are
my sunshine.
And we would sing. And I guess mama

(25:43):
taught us how to harmonize,
but we all have an ear
for notes, you know, like Perfect pitch. Perfect
pitch.
And
I mean and right now,
to hear somebody off pitch, it's like, you
know, you got a picture on the wall
and that picture's, like, crooked. Well, that's the
same feeling

(26:04):
we get when we hear somebody singing and
they're not on right on that perfect, you
know. It's just it's God given to, you
know.
And
we used to sing and we used to
at night.
And, I remember being we were told by
some people that, could hear us singing
that it sounded like angels

(26:25):
because the harmony was so perfect.
And it and it at night, it traveled.
The sound traveled, you know, over the treetops
or where you know? Really, that's how my
brothers
became the Chambers Brothers,
be well, because
they had that perfect harmony.

(26:46):
And love went with it, you know, just
love for people. And
they wrote a lot of songs and stuff.
But
but that it that's how it all started.
We left after we left,
Mississippi
and we came to California. The whole family?
Not altogether.
My brother Douglas
was the first to leave

(27:08):
because,
our other brothers,
the two that, you know, that dad had
by the other wife,
well, they especially one of them, his name
was Matthew. He stayed in touch with us
all the time when we even when we
were there in Mississippi. And every once in
a while, we would see him coming.
And he came to California first.

(27:29):
And then after he came to California,
then Douglas,
we called him Doug, he, Doug, came.
And then,
I got married at 15, and I had
one son.
And my husband,
he came to California.
How did you meet him?
My husband?
Well,

(27:50):
we were just kids together. Mind you, I
was only 15 when I got married. Baby.
But I didn't feel 15. I felt grown
because of You've been raising up children. Yeah.
Yeah. And,
we went to school together.
He liked me. He was a, you know,
he was a nice boy. That's

(28:12):
how we phrase it. He was a nice
boy. In other words,
you know, he he was just a nice
boy. He was not trying to,
you know but anyway,
I know what you're saying.
And anyway, I couldn't stay in school because,

(28:35):
I had had gotten to the eighth grade.
I couldn't go to high school
because they just were not my parents were
not they could not afford for me to
go to high school there in the South.
Are you a depraved, go to high school?
Well, you gotta have clothing.
Oh, I see.
And that peer pressure has

(28:56):
has always been there and I guess will
always still be there. And if
you don't have clothes to wear,
you know, you you can't go.
As we as we was growing up, it's
it's children. The only clothes that we got
were hand me downs. And they came from
white people. They love mom and daddy enough

(29:16):
that
they, you know, there I remember there was
some lady.
We used to look up and we'd see
the wagon coming and it would be her.
And she would have a whole lot of
clothing.
I remember one time, she came in the
bunch of clothing that she brought us. There
was a red coat
and it ended up fitting me.

(29:38):
Well, I was the darkest skin in the
family. Everybody else was a shade lighter than
me.
You know how black people are. We got
all different shades of color and stuff. Well,
I was the darkest one.
I got teased by daddy used to tell
me, he said,
Blacker the berry, sweeter the juice. That was
his saying, you know. But anyway,

(29:58):
I ended up with that red coat
and did I get teased.
Aw. I was I thought it looked amazing
on you. Well, it probably did, but
well, anyway, I I had a yellow coat
and all my friends made fun of me,
so they called me big bird.
Yeah. Well, I you know, they tease Kids
are gonna be mean no matter what. Yep.

(30:19):
Kids kids are gonna be they tease me,
you know, because
of the darkness of my skin.
They related the red coat to a monkey.
You know, like, you know, like, you know,
monkey and, you know anyway.
And I hated that coat, but it was
so cold.
It was so cold down there, and the
coat was really thick, nice winter coat, but

(30:42):
it kept me warm. And I just I
had to endure the, the TB and Ts
about it. But They were just jealous. Jealous.
Probably jealous. A warm coat and they Yeah.
And you look good. But I getting back
to that's that's how I met my husband.
I graduated, like,
twice from the eighth grade and,
and then we got married.

(31:03):
How old was he? He was six years
older than me. When I was 15, he
was like 21.
And he had a he didn't like farming.
He had a good job.
I was a virgin when I married him.
And he was just he was a really
not really nice guy.
We had our first child. I was 16
when,

(31:24):
you know,
I made 15 on the January 9,
and we got married on the March
26.
I had my first son
September eleventh
of nineteen fifty.
So, you know, we
we, you know, we we didn't get pregnant

(31:44):
right away. I gave birth to him at
home.
And,
that was during the time when women had
babies. You know, for some reason, they thought
you should stay on the bed for three
days.
Anyway,
but that's how I met him. He was
good. But he came to California,
got a job washing dishes, and then he

(32:06):
sent for me. And Ray, my our son
was named Ray. He said for us. And
we came to California,
you know. And then
after we came to California and, you know,
and we joined him,
my brother Doug
is the one that, you know, was instrumental
in getting him

(32:26):
from the farm, you know, maybe from
the South,
and brought him to California.
And, he got a job as a dishwasher,
as I said. He saved enough money. And
so he had me and Ray come. We
came
and and Major and his wife. We all
came together.
You referred to Ray as was. Is he

(32:48):
still with us? No. Oh, I'm sorry. No.
Three years ago, he was in no, it's
been about yeah, about three years ago,
I had moved back to Louis I had
moved to Louisiana
after my after my mom died. And he
got kind of sick and stuff. And
so he came there to live with me

(33:08):
there in Louisiana. And,
I found him I found him in the
garage. He was just sitting there asleep.
That's hard, you know. That was a hard
road hole.
But, I'm so sorry. Yeah. He probably knew
he was gonna
go. He was 70 years old. He was
born in 1950.

(33:29):
He was, like two years old
when we left Mississippi and we came. And
we, like I said, we got a house.
We got a big house and then
we got the rest of them out, you
know, piece by piece. Not everybody came at
the same time.
My sister, Bonnie, she
was married to a guy in,

(33:52):
George.
You know, I was next to George in
birth and,
George had gone into the service. Everybody that
was left at the,
at the farm was Willie, Lester,
Joseph,
Vera, and Lucinda.
It was five of them still with mom
and daddy at the on the farm. They
were kids.
You know, they were really young when I

(34:14):
left. George wanted to get them out get
them away from Mississippi
in the farm life. Because one of my
brothers, Willie, he's like, was like my daddy,
short-tempered.
And so he got in trouble with the
landowner.
Mama realized
that he was gonna get hurt,
probably killed if they didn't get him out

(34:35):
of there. So she told daddy, you know,
mister Chambers, we're gonna have to get
these children away from here before something terrible
happens.
And, because the landowner,
he, you know, he
did brute force to Willie. He, you know,
he threatened to hurt him. And Willie
took the,

(34:57):
apart from the plow.
Other other words, I forget what it's called
now.
I can't think of it. But anyway,
he was gonna hit Willie and Willie got
this thing from
he took it from the
it's the thing that connects the mule to
the plow.
It goes between the plow and the horse,

(35:18):
the mule. We use mules. And that's what
Willie got that and dared him to hit
him.
He dared, you know, the landowner to hit
him.
And
of course, but you don't do that. You
got it. He was out of his place.
You know?
So mama, you know, mama told daddy, you
know, you got to we don't have to

(35:40):
get him out of here.
And,
so,
we didn't have a telephone or anything. In
fact, we didn't even have electricity
when I left there.
Single tree.
That thing is called a single tree. I
don't know why they call it a single
tree,
But because it's a little it's a thing
about that long
and it has A couple feet?

(36:01):
Yeah. And it has some rings
that you hook Oh, yes. The horse there
and then those then you hook it to
the ply also. Yeah. Yeah. You probably do
some damage with that. Oh, yes. Yeah.
Yes. But but anyway, because it's part male
and part wood, but that's what Willie got
to. I mean, smart. Oh, yeah. So
they made arrangements.

(36:23):
My husband and Bonnie's husband
drove down there, you know,
to to pick him up from Mississippi. The,
landowner's name was Doug Doug Collier. Douglas Collier,
but we call him mister Doug. Where he
lived,
had to pass by his house, you know,
to get to our house, which was,
where mama's because I was already in California.

(36:45):
Had to pass their house to, you know,
his house
to get to mama's house.
And,
you know, that in the South like that,
everybody knows
what's going on. Anybody suspicious come in, you
know, eyes are on them and stuff.
When the car came in
and

(37:05):
mister Doug saw a California
tag on it, you know. So he came
down to the house just, you know,
and see what was going on. Anyway, he's
see, he made the statement. He said, You
didn't come to get my n word. You
know, he he you didn't come, you know,
and they told him, No. No. Well, they
had planned
to

(37:25):
stay a few days and rest up and
go back.
But after he came down
and was inquiring,
you know,
mama, she always had a lot of wisdom.
And she said, You know what?
Y'all will have to get out of here
as fast as you can.
So she
fried some chicken and made food, you know,

(37:48):
and,
so that,
that very that very same night that they
came in that day, they packed up the
car
and
took out
the, you know, the children.
It was five of them. So the car
was packed. She gave put quilts and stuff
in the car and stuff, so

(38:09):
they left out. And, so what they did
Mr. Doug lived kind of like up on
a hill.
And so mama's house was like down, you
know. And so what they did, they put
the small kids in, which was Vera and
Lucinda, those are my other two sisters.
And
they pushed that car

(38:31):
without starting the motor.
And they pushed that car up that hill,
past Mr. Doug's house,
and they would did it very quietly.
They'd wait I think it was around midnight,
they knew he would be asleep.
And then they started their car down the
hill, and they jumped in.

(38:52):
And they didn't start that motor until they
got
beyond, you know, and they got on the
road.
And they were scared. They were so scared
because they didn't know if they were going
to be followed and what. But
when he discovered that they were gone, you
know,
it was nothing he could do.
Because
daddy was old.

(39:13):
They were doing new farm work.
It It was just nothing that he could
do. Later on, before they left out, you
know, he told he told mama, he says,
if you get them back, you know, tell
them I got a tractor, you know, like
a John Deere. They wouldn't have to do
it. We wouldn't have to farm by mule.
Because, see, they were

(39:33):
we were this is how we were raised.
What a mom was saying was, in honest
days,
work
for an honest days pay.
In other words,
don't, you know, work, you know, work. Don't
just get out there, and they call it
ratting on the job, you
know, pretending you're working and you're not. So
we were raised

(39:56):
to give a good day's work for our
pay.
And he knew they were good. They were
really good at farming. And,
so, but mama, you know, he took, he,
this is what he said to mama, you
know, you know, tell them I could tell,
you know, if they'll come back, I got
a, I got a tractor. So she just
told him, oh, mister Doug, she said, you

(40:18):
know, I'm sorry, but if you you have
to drive the tractor yourself because they're not
coming back. That's how they got up. They
got away.
Do you know anything about their journey across
the country? Because I imagine
that could have moments of being tenuous
in those in that era. They made it.
They still they just still stayed in their

(40:39):
place.
They when they stopped for gas,
you know, they
they got their gas and they, you know
because I don't know what their trip was
like because, you know, I I you know,
just hearing what they said that Yeah.
But,
they got away
safe.
So now you're all in California for the

(41:01):
most part, except for your parents.
And is the music becoming more important? Is
are y'all performing out more? Or how's that
going? When my brothers were in Mississippi,
they had what they call a quartet. They
used to sing at churches and stuff.
So after they got out here, they couldn't
go they really couldn't go to school because,

(41:23):
they were so far behind
not having gone to school enough in Mississippi.
And,
you know, and their knowledge and comprehension was
so poor
until they and at their age,
they got teased.
And so they all dropped out of school.
And after they formed the, you know,

(41:45):
the group, what they call themselves, they were
looking for a name after they got here,
you know, to call themselves.
And they couldn't find a name. So they
said, Well, we were Chambers, so we'll just
be the Chambers Brothers.
That's how it got started,
with them being, you know,
the group as the Chambers Brothers.

(42:05):
And then
later on,
because we all did sing and we were
a large family,
and I was impressed
to start a family Chambers Family.
We call ourselves the Chambers Family Singers.
And so
we got organized
and,
and we sang a lot of different places

(42:26):
because
our group included the brothers, you know.
By this time, well, they were, you know,
already had made a good name for themselves.
And so,
you know, I I feel like a kind
of ride on their coattails, you know, would
be great, which it was. And,
I even wrote a play. It was called
And Then One Day We Stepped Out. It

(42:47):
that it was the story of, you know,
how they got out
by pushing the car and stuff. I wrote
it and produced it. We played it at,
Will She Bell Theater, which it turned out
really nice. You know?
In fact, I I brought a copy of
it out. I said I was gonna give
it to you. I had it taped and
everything. Oh, look at that.

(43:09):
I wanna read something to you. This is
something I like to write,
and I do poems.
And
so this came to me and I you
know, to write it, and I wrote it.
I call it Reflection.
I said, George and Victoria Chambers.
When daddy met mama, he already had three
children

(43:29):
by two previous wives.
Three days after they met, they were married.
Mama became wife number three.
They were married August tenth.
Mama was born 1910.
From 1927
to 1948,
she gave birth to 10 children.

(43:50):
The uniqueness of birth,
Major Douglas and George, three boys,
two girls,
Jewel and Bonnie.
Three years between
third boy,
which was George,
and first girl, which was me.
Three more boys and two girls,
Vera and Lucinda,

(44:11):
were born.
Four years between
Willie, the last two girls born, the twenty
fourth and the twenty sixth.
Daddy passed
02/26/1978.
'1 day after mama's birthday,
mama passed February 24,

(44:32):
'1 day before her birthday.
Three days.
Daddy
was buried March.
Mama, March.
'3 days.
Daddy was buried six days after his death.
Mama was buried six days after her death.
Daddy passed 1978,
'30 years. Mama passed 2,008.

(44:55):
They both passed on a Sunday evening.
Daddy was 30 years older than mama. According
to their death certificates,
daddy
passed at 02:41,
PM,
mama at 05:35PM.
If she had
not passed and waited, if she lived or

(45:15):
waited six minutes longer,
it would have been exactly three hours between
their deaths.
Thirty years later,
the fee for daddy's death certificate was $3
They both died at age 97.
Had mama lived to be 100,
which is what she wanted to do,

(45:36):
this uniqueness would have not occurred.
I feel that mama was so tuned into
God and daddy.
It had to be this way.
Only God could do this. And this gives
me peace and closure.
You know So today today is the day
that she passed away.
Today is the twenty fifth. The twenty fourth.

(45:57):
Sure is. Yeah.
That's interesting that you're
talking about the history and
it sure is.
What was it like raising your children here?
You have just the one son who passed.
Did you have other children here? Yes. I
have, I had three sons and a daughter.
I had four children. Yeah. Uh-huh. So I

(46:18):
lost my Jerry was my youngest son
and he was
interesting,
to say the least.
He got into everything that he could.
But, you know,
he,
well, the circumstances
about his birth, I'm a,
I was telling you, you know, about my

(46:39):
husband coming and,
ahead of me and got a job as
a dishwasher.
At this job, he it was at a
rest at a restaurant in Leimert Park.
There was a guy working there
with him.
He became a friend of the family.
And
me being so naive

(47:00):
and, you know, like I said, I I
was a virgin when I got married.
After,
you know, coming to our house and stuff,
well, I I didn't know it then, but
he was grooming me. I don't I didn't
know all of this until, you know, I've
gotten older and
I'm familiar with terms and things.
He had a niece

(47:20):
named Virgimay,
and he hooked
Virgil May up with
my husband, who was named Arthur Lee.
Well, Arthur Lee was just about as naive
as I, you know, was.
And he had, you know, got He established
this relationship
with, between my husband and his niece.

(47:40):
But all, all the time he, you know,
he had his eye on me.
So he's grooming me. He became very, very,
you know, close to us in our family
and everything.
My husband,
Arthur Lee, he was almost like my dad,
a very poor provider.
I

(48:01):
hated that.
And so as time went on, you know,
well, my dad got real sick one time
and we all had to go home, you
know, because they thought he was gonna die.
And we all, all of us went back
to Mississippi, you know, hopefully he wouldn't die,
which he didn't at that time. This guy
was named Booker, Booker Langford.
And he was really good to me. He

(48:23):
said that, you know, he gave me a
big donation and he said they took it
up on the job.
I'm pretty sure they didn't. But he did
so many good
things.
And by this time,
you know, and I became aware of the
relationship
between
my husband and his niece.
So when he made his move,

(48:43):
he done groomed me, you know. And that's
how Jerry came about.
My brothers, you know, they knew about it
and everything and and they loved my husband.
And they and so they kind of took
it out on Jerry,
you know.
Like Jerry, you know, it was not Jerry's
fault that,
you know. Was it nonconsensual

(49:04):
sex? It was consensual sex. Okay. And,
I felt that I owed it to him
because he had been, you know, so good.
Because there were times when, you know, I
didn't have food and he provided food,
all of this. It took him years,
but he but he he was successful. He
had his eye on the prize and he

(49:25):
he won.
My
brothers, they took it out on you know,
they
didn't like the guy. They didn't like Booker.
So they took it out on Jerry. You
know, they used to thump his head and
all that kind of stuff, and they mistreated
him. And so it made him,
other words,
I guess, just messed with his,

(49:47):
he had an inferior
complex.
And so he used to just get into
trouble,
trouble, trouble.
And he gave me a lot of trouble.
And then he,
you know, as he, you know, grew up
and,
and I explained to him what happened because
he, you know,

(50:08):
he was upset
with his dad because,
he thought it, you know, it was forced
and everything. But I explained everything to him.
And he, you know, once he
became aware of what how the relationship
went and everything,
And then as he went to school and
stuff, and
he learned music,

(50:28):
after he was able
to get rid of the drug problem, he's
a mama's boy. It's hard for him to
forgive himself
for what he put me through. And I
tell him all the time, you know, don't,
you know but it's just hard for him,
you know, to forgive himself. So that's where
he he's at right now. He's he's a
good singer.
He plays

(50:49):
really good bass guitar.
Are all the descendants
part of the choir or part of the
singers, or is it just still the main
part of the family that does it?
We we sang for many years.
Mama, you know, mama was with us. Daddy
passed on. A couple of nieces, they kept
it going.

(51:10):
But then eventually,
you know,
it it just kind of folded up.
And so the kids now, nobody nobody's interested.
When we first started out, it was like
40 something.
We had 40 something people in the choir.
The youngest was like three.
And my mom, she was in her eighties.

(51:31):
We sang at the Hollywood Bowl
Under there was, it was called Five Musical
Families, and our family was chosen.
So there was like a Chinese, a Russian,
a black. It was five. It was, I
forgot,
maybe Indian.
But it was five musical families and that's
how we sang, you know, got an opportunity

(51:53):
to perform there at the Hollywood Bowl. We
made pictures and stuff.
It's been really interesting. And
I used to sew
and
I made outfits
for
everybody.
I made shirts for the men and dresses
for the women.
And our first appearance, we stepped out and

(52:14):
it looked so pretty because everybody had on
the same identical thing.
The men had on black suits with blue
shirts and we had on the blue dresses.
We did a big event at,
Trade Tech. You know, are you familiar with
Trade Tech?
It's a college.
Anyway, we did
a big event there, and I made lavender

(52:35):
dresses for
everybody.
And,
the men had on
burgundy.
Not lavender, burgundy.
And the men had on burgundy black suits
and burgundy shirts and just, you know, we
went in style, you know. I learned to
sew when I was real little
to also,
because my mama sewed. She used to make

(52:56):
quilts
by hand, you know, when we were kids
and stuff,
coming up. And if somebody complained about being
cold,
sleeping cold, my mom would,
she never threw away anything.
She made our dresses
from
flower

(53:16):
sacks.
You know, used to be able to buy
flower in a 25 pound bag.
And so daddy, you know, when he would
go shopping and whatever pattern he
got, she would, you know, next time it
was time to buy flour, she would have
him to pick up that same
another sack with that same so she could

(53:37):
make
mine and Bonnie's dresses.
Mhmm. And we could we could describe to
her
what
how, you know, a dress that we wanted
made, and she could make it.
And,
so that passed on to me. But I
couldn't I I I I sew by pattern.
But,
That's an interesting part of history is that

(53:58):
the flower companies made their sacks with designs
and things because they knew that people were
making clothing from them. Yes.
Thank God, you know, because
we they weren't able to buy
yardage,
you know. I've seen some of the clothing
from that time,
on display. It's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

(54:19):
I I lived through those times. Yeah. Looking
back on your life,
what do you think is
one of the most profound
moments for you?
Really, really, really profound
is once my brothers became famous,
and
they would be on the road and

(54:42):
and get when they would come home,
invite people and fix big meals
and just feed people.
Now, that's something my grandmother did.
As mean as she was,
once a year for her husband, for my
grandfather,
she would do this,

(55:03):
second Sunday in August thing
where people would just come and bring food
and just feed people.
And
that's
to me, that stands out.
We still do it. Bob's been invited to
one of our gatherings.
You know, we just like to do that.
That's It's

(55:24):
a lasting
impression
in our lives where we
just like to
have people come together.
No fighting, no cursing, no fussing, no
violence. Just come together and just
enjoy.
No
plan for unless we plan to have some

(55:47):
entertainment or whatever.
But just come together, you know, and we
would just pick anything
to
create that,
you know, to create that event. Yeah.
Yeah. So
we did it was for my ninetieth for
my ninetieth birthday,
We here, we did a big thing in
the backyard back there.

(56:08):
And,
a lot of people a lot of people
came.
We sang, you know, just because always when
we get together, we always sang.
That that's profiled
too. Anytime we would get together, we would
always sing. It's really, really funny.
Because,
my mom, you know, and

(56:28):
we we okay. This is how it would
start. We start
off singing gospel.
And then,
you know, and then the music would, you
know,
then we'd go into rock and roll or
whatever and
do that. And we'd dance. And my mom
wouldn't even get up on the floor and,
you know, in her little way of dancing,
she would do her little step and stuff,

(56:50):
but we would always end up
just doing the gospel. Those are the two
things that stands out in my life that
we, you know, we still do. Some of
your memories around the civil rights movement and
doctor King and Malcolm X.
I am not politically
motivated.
I just I've never gotten involved with politics.

(57:13):
How come?
I think it's perhaps because
not being educated
enough to
realize, you know, what's going on. Mhmm. I
just never I just I never
followed it, you know.
What about the wars, Vietnam and Korea? I

(57:34):
I hate it. Yeah. I hate it, you
know, because Gerald went into service. He's I
think he served, like, eighteen months.
In Korea?
Yes. Yeah. Mhmm.
I I don't
talk politics.
I'm just not politically inclined.
Never have been.
And at my age, I never will be.

(57:55):
You know?
Do you vote? No.
I used to because mama
I mean,
if probably if mama was still living, I
would vote because she was,
you know, my mom really, really she loved
voting.
Why why do you think you don't do
it anymore?
Because I think it's

(58:17):
I don't know.
The politicians are
I don't know.
I just don't I think it's
it's rigged.
That's how I feel about it. I haven't
I haven't voted.
In fact, here, I'm not even registered now.
I didn't vote in Louisiana.

(58:38):
I lived there from 02/2009
to 02/22.
I mean, 2022,
I came back here.
I'm not embarrassed to say it because I
just, you know, I don't talk about it.
Yeah. What are your plans for the next
ten years?
Just in life?

(58:59):
Well, I'll I'll tell you like I told
my,
cardiologist when I left Louisiana
and my health got, you know, bad and
I said,
I'm going to California
to live,
and not die.
I'm gonna I'm gonna live until I die.

(59:21):
So for the next ten years, I'm just
gonna try to,
well, I want to be 105.
My mom wanted to be 100,
and I'm going for 105.
So
I, you know, that's a little bit more
than ten years.
But,

(59:41):
well, I'm 91 now, so
I'm on my way to the hundred.
So I'm just trying to make it day
by day. I still drive.
My hobby,
is word game.
I like I play words with friends
and I win almost all of my games.

(01:00:05):
I used to play Scrabble, and this is
so close to Scrabble.
So So it keeps my mind, you know.
And when I'm driving,
will I know I know the points,
you know, like what each,
alphabet,
I know the points. You know, like m
is four points and
j is 10 points and x is eight

(01:00:26):
points.
And, you know,
so when I drive,
I play this game with license plates.
I, I'm always trying to get 40 points.
So what I do, I really I add
up the points, you know.
I add the numbers and I know what
the what the alphabets.
I know what I know the points. So

(01:00:47):
I I that's what I do. So it
keeps me, you know, it keeps my mind,
you know. It seems like a good good
way to keep the mind active. Yeah. For
sure. If I'm driving daily, that's what I
do. Yeah. And every once in a while,
I find cars that had that their their
the alphabets and the numbers go past 40,
sometimes 42, 40 three,

(01:01:07):
you know.
But the most popular number is 39.
For the next ten years, I'm just gonna
take it day by day. I mean, I
think that's a good attitude. Thank you so
much for your time and for your storytelling.
Yep. Thank you for
listening. Absolutely. It's a I could go on
and on and on and on and on

(01:01:29):
because when I came you know, when I
when I left Louisiana,
you know, I I left with the vision
to take care of my brother, Joe.
He passed August,
this past August. He had a problem with
drugs and stuff. You know, his health got
really bad. I hung in there with him,
was able to,
you know, for him to get a good

(01:01:50):
burial. I got all that taken care of
for him. With him gone,
my sister, this bunny, you know, she's two
years younger than I am,
and her health is bad.
So right now, I'm, you know,
I'm kind of
I always have a mission.
And we're getting ready to move from here.

(01:02:10):
So when after we, you know, get moved
from here and I get settled in, I'll
probably be spending a lot of nights with
her.
She's alone. Her husband had to be, put
into a a facility because he has Alzheimer's.
So she's alone. She, you know, she'll make
89 the March 3.
You know, so I keep myself busy. Yeah.

(01:02:33):
Get busy living or get busy dying. Yeah.
Right? And I I prefer living. Yeah.
There's a scripture in the Bible, Proverbs, I
think it's 1821
says,
Death and life is in the power of
the tongue.
So I speak life to my life, not
death.
And so
when I you know, there are times when

(01:02:53):
I don't know if I'll wake up the
next morning. So I I said, Beau, I
will live and not die to declare the
works of the Lord. I wake up the
next
Lord. So Seems like a good,
partnership.
Yeah. It is. It is. So Thank you,
Jewel.
Thank you for listening, everybody.
Bye.

(01:03:17):
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Thanks. Bye.