Minnie Lincoln

Minnie Zank (1921-2015) was born at home in Philadelphia and moved with her parents to 216 Stamper Street when she was about four. Her mother had emigrated from Poland and her father from Russia; they met at a boarding house in Society Hill. Minnie met her husband, Howard Lincoln, at a USO at Ninth and Clinton Streets. Minnie describes the house at 216 Stamper Street (and the utilities it had and did not have) – where she lived with her parents, her aunt, and her five siblings – as “a little two-story house with the shutters and a nice big yard.” She talks about the many businesses and other establishments in the neighborhood and the interactions she had with them: the farmers market at the Headhouse; the “chicken coops” at Front and Pine and on Fourth Street, where you could buy fresh chickens; the places where she, her parents, and her siblings worked; the firehouse and a paper factory across the street; Abbotts Dairies ice cream factory; the neighborhood bakeries; the movie houses and clothing stores on South Street. The latter part of the interview demonstrates the pros and cons of having two narrators participating. Minnie is joined by her niece, Patsy Stevenson, providing the opportunity for Patsy to jog Minnie’s memory, but also raising topics of disagreement. They discuss the neighborhood doctors, Sunday school, summer camp, the Salvation Army, and the locations of Horn and Hardart’s on Market and Chestnut Streets. Minnie describes her experiences working at Cherrydale Farms and Whitman’s Chocolates. She and Patsy discuss what an excellent cook Minnie’s mother was; the Jewish undertakers on Pine Street; the woman who ran an employment agency and got jobs for women to clean offices; the women who got the jobs; and the ferries to New Jersey. Then they start naming all the people who lived on Pine Street between Second and Sixth Streets, and also those who lived on Stamper Street. Minnie deeply resented the neighborhood being called a slum. She says they may have been poor; but they had jobs, and they kept their houses, streets, and sidewalks clean. She observes, “But at that time, neighbors were neighbors. Like on Stamper Street, if somebody got laid off or was sick or something, all the neighbors got together. They paid your rent. Who made a pot of soup? Who brought a loaf of bread? Who brought this? Who brought that? And you were taken care of. Neighbors were neighbors then.”

Transcript

DS:      This is an interview with someone who I call Aunt Min, but I think her real name is Minnie Lincoln, and the date is August 29, 2005.

[Tape is turned off, then on again]

DS:      Min, give me your full name.

ML:     Minnie Estelle Lincoln.

DS:      M-i-n-n-i-e?

[Side two of the tape] [End of Interview] Read Full Transcript

© 2005 Project Philadelphia 19106™. All rights reserved.

About the Interview

Interviewer
Dorothy Stevens
Transcriber
Cynthia J. Eiseman
Interview Location
341 Garret Street
Interview Date
August 29, 2005 and September 12, 2005
Interviewee
Lincoln, Minnie
Narrator Type
Lifelong Resident
Oral History Sources