Verna Hall
Verna Hall lives in the house where she was born in 1932.
The wood structure, constructed by Rev. J.H. Floyd is the second oldest house in Newtown. Built off the ground, the 84-year house is deteriorating. Its floorboards are rotting from years of rain and wind. Her father, Leo Purdy was assisting the police as a peace officer when he was killed in the line of duty while making an arrest on 8th Street in Overtown.
Sarah Ware, her mother cooked for John Ringling North, the nephew of circus magnate John Ringling. Hall was “boarded out” and lived on Links Avenue from age four to 10 because her mother was a live-in maid. Boarding the children of domestic workers was a way aging residents supplemented their incomes.
“There was nothing to do. When you were boarded out with families, it was usually older people that had grown kids that moved away from home. You played outside because the agreement was that there was a roof over my head with kind people. They kept me clean and fed. There wasn’t that much interaction because they were already old and there was no way to entertain a small child.”
Hall lives near the Robert L. Taylor Community Complex. She watched as the barracks building was moved to the property from the airport army base. It once served as the USO building where African American soldiers socialized. “I met the young man that I married at the Robert Taylor location. I danced in that building. We had community activities in that building also. It was during the time the “String of Pearls” was one of the instrumental tunes aired on the radio. They’d play those songs and we would go there and we would dance.”
