Patricia Borns|pborns@newsleader.com
STAUNTON — Quietly last week at City Hall, something unusual happened during a work session whose main agenda was to discuss backyard hens.
Ophie Kier, the only black councilman or supervisor within 1,007 square miles, made a stand.
A question arose, placed by him on the agenda, of reopening the swimming pool at MontgomeryHall.
Five years ago the pool was closed because of "lack of use … and the high cost of keeping it open," according to meeting minutes taken in 2010. It was only supposed to be closed for a year while staff conducted a study to see if something – a splash park feature, perhaps – could attract more visitors.
But one year turned to five. With disuse, the pool fell into disrepair — $50,000 worth, according to a recent estimate obtained by Parks and Recreation director Chris Tuttle.
Now the question was before the council: to renovate the pool and bathhouse for a total of $120,000, or replace it with an estimated $275,000 spray ground.
"That pool is a symbol of the Jim Crow era, and almost every symbol of it is disappearing," Kier said. "I may be only one vote, but I can't allow any more of that history to disappear."
PRIDE OF MEMORY AND PLACE
For Mayor Carolyn Dull, Montgomery Hall "was my park growing up. My momma raised us right, I guess. We always went there to swim."
As a white child in a black facility, Dull wasn't too concerned with segregation. But as an adult, "I almost don't like the idea of that pool, because it keeps feeling separate to me," she said. "I want us to be all one community."
Kier responded: "You talk about separateness. It was separate. This is a part of history that keeps getting swept under the rug."
The park Dull and Kier enjoyed as children are the grounds of the former John Howe Peyton plantation, purchased by the city in 1946 so blacks could have a playground of their own.
It was a time across the country of the slogan "separate but equal." In reality, nothing was equal about the city's policy of giving the property to the back community to run and maintain at its own expense.
Which they did.
Kier told his fellow council members how he walked with his friends across the Gypsy Hill golf course to get to Montgomery Hall.
"The park was always filled with church picnics and club events," he said. "It had a juke box. Weekend dances. Swings, seesaws and merry-go-rounds." Most of this was bought and all of it cared for not by the city, but by his parents' generation.
Once a year, on Labor Day, blacks were allowed to swim at Gypsy Hill, Kier recalled in an interview. "The next day, the pool was drained so whites wouldn't swim in the same water," he said.
Then in 1948 a white woman, Elizabeth Gay Catlett, left $10,000 in her will "for the benefit of the colored people of Staunton." Catlett's sister Amy decided the money should be used to build the Montgomery Hall Park pool.
Kier became one of its lifeguards.
"I think it's unjust for future generations not to know Mr. Crow," Kier told the council. "There's no way we can ever be a people together if we're only preserving one side of history."
A LITTLE BLACK BOOK
Almost all that remains of this chapter in the park's history are memories, and a frail black ledger kept at Augusta County Historical Society in an anonymous manila envelope marked "Account number 2008.0019, Object .0001."
The ledger's former keeper, 87-year-old Helen Becks, was Montgomery Hall Park's former secretary and a friend of Kier's parents.
The Becks and the Kiers lived on B Street. "Ophie's father was a fighter. In his quiet way, Ophie is, too," Becks said.
In her day, black residents formed social clubs to raise funds for activities. "I could have named 15 of them just in the Staunton area," Becks said. "Cards was a popular one. The men had their clubs. The black employees of Western State Hospital had a club."
Her park committee played the same role for Montgomery Hall. Becks' ledger records park events ranging from Girl Scout benefits to a concert of the Virginia Union University 75-voice choir. As buses arrived from across the state –the park was one of only two with amenities black Virginians could use back then – young Stauntonians expanded their network of friends.
So Montgomery Hall became a pillar of the community. With its constant activities and events, park visitation was constant and high.
For the year 1966, Becks' ledger recorded $292.73 in total receipts and $172.24 total spent.
Today the city uses Gypsy Hill Park for most social extravaganzas, which are heavily marketed, and Montgomery Hall for education, spokeswoman Ruth Jones said.
Even when the pool was open, hundreds of kids from the summer camp held there were taken to Gypsy Hill to swim, Kier recalls.
Not surprisingly, receipts and visitation have dropped off.
According to a city parks and recreation report, the operating cost to re-open Montgomery Hall's pool with three lifeguards would be about $16,500. Materials for the pool would cost another $5,000. For the park's lower number of visitors, the splash ground option with only one attendant would cost less, the report suggests.
The report also acknowledges neither the Montgomery Hall or Gypsy Hill Park pools have ever paid for themselves.
"It's a pattern of taking away things that mean something to the community, and apathy on the part of citizens." said Becks. "The pool has been closed for how many years? Open it. Give it a chance."
A CITY-WIDE SURVEY
At the work session, councilman Jim Harrington assured Kier, "At no time was the discussion intending that the splash park be a choice between it and the pool. It was an attempt to think about what people would enjoy the most."
To that end, Dull suggested a survey to find out what the community wants — a splash park or a pool. Council member Curren seconded the survey as "a brilliant idea." All council members except Kier agreed.
They also agreed it would be ideal to do both, fix the pool and add a splash feature, as was done at Gypsy Hill. Gauging public preference was framed as a "just in case the budget doesn't allow it" measure.
Later, Kier said, "I don't like the survey at all because it could be skewed."
Besides the problem of the black community's minority voice — less than 13 percent of the total population — "There are people who don't know where Montgomery Hall is, who've never driven in that direction or know its history," the councilman said.
He vowed if it came to a survey, he'd take it door to door to make sure households that don't use the Internet have a say.
PRESERVATION QUESTION UNANSWERED
Individually, all council members but one who didn't respond to a News Leader phone call said they favored preserving black history,
"The black community of Staunton helped change Staunton to what it is today, so we need to be respectful of that history," councilwoman Andrea Oakes said. "Opening the pool to me is the first step."
Curren said, "When folks in the African American community comment on the history here, there's a lot I don't know. My first response is to want to hear what they have to say. Then to think about it."
Walter Obenschain is not only Kier's fellow council member, he's also a former classmate and friend. That Kier had been a Montgomery Hall lifeguard was news to him.
"There's nothing wrong with having a pool in another neighborhood," Obenschain said. "A splash pool would attract more people to it."
But what if the survey comes back in favor of a splash park?
Council members called it an evolving conversation. Nothing is on the table to preserve the pool's or the park's history at this time.
DECAYING WITH TIME
City manager Steve Owen assured council members they have plenty of time to consider the question of the pool, since any repair work would not be completed until the summer of 2016.
Meanwhile, the lining of the pool is believed to be cracking. The pumps haven't been used for years. The water has filled with debris. If the pool were located in one of Staunton's historic districts, it might be considered a code violation under demolition by neglect.
Jane Gray Avery, whose history of Montgomery Hall is expected in November, described the pool as "inoperable and an eyesore ever since I set foot on the property four years ago."
A Richmond-based researcher and writer, Avery first became interested in the site because of its former planter-owner John Howe Peyton. But the further she dug into it, the more interested she became in the site's African-American history.
"The property has very important ties to slavery," said Avery, who knows of burials on the property extending outside the park's bounds. "It has a Civil War history. In fact, its history predates the Revolutionary War."
Because of this history, the city has begun archaeological work as part of an application for a National Register historic designation for the park.
Results would be "several years away," spokeswoman Jones said.
Avery, who would like to use proceeds from her book to help restore the pool, said she was "baffled" by the pool situation.
"You don't nominate a property for the National Register with a broken down pool on it," the author said.
EXPERTS WEIGH IN
Elizabeth Kostelny, chief executive officer of Preservation Virginia, sees many historic African-American properties in her agency's endangered sites program that have come under threat of demolition by neglect or outright demolition.
"Preserving their history is an ongoing challenge because the sites have been under-recognized. They haven't received the standard designations they might deserve," Kostelny said.
Michael Allen, a National Park Service community partnership specialist, had to deal with a problem orders of magnitude greater when he brought together the pieces of the Gullah Geechee Corridor.
The Corridor set out to identify and preserve artifacts from Wilmington, NC to Jacksonville, FL – the region where rice was once cultivated by West African slaves. Of 49 heritage areas managed by the NPS, it's the only one dedicated to America's link to Africa.
When literal preservation isn't possible, Allen has helped communities use "memory tools" ranging from interpretive displays to public discussions.
"You can do that," Allen said. "The question is: Is the city willing to honor the history of that spot?"
