PCHT Oral History-Sisters Delois Harrod Johnson and Phyllis Harrod Dawkins
Introduction
Oral history interview at Linden, home of the Calvert County Historical Socierty, 12 April 2024. Left to right: recordist and interviewer Kirsti Uunila, organizer and interviewer Darlene Harrod, and interviewees Phyllis Dawkins and Delois Johnson.
On April 12, 2024, team members Darlene Harrod and Kirsti Uunila interviewed the sisters Delois Harrod Johnson, 72, and Phyllis Harrod Dawkins, 70, who spent much of their childhood at their grandparents’ farm on Scientists Cliffs Road, a short distance south of Parkers Creek. Also participating in the interview were Shirley Knight, Saroja Raman, and Carl Fleischhauer.
This page includes highlights transcribed from the interview.
Life on Grandparents' Farm
In the 1950s and 1960s, parents George, Sr., and Helen Mae Wallace Harrod and their children, including Johnson and Dawkins, lived with grandfather John Cephas Wallace and grandmother Hattie Commodore Wallace on the Wallace’s 81-acre farm, bought in 1926. Dawkins remembered her grandfather working in the fields and orchard and her grandmother working in the house. Dawkins said, “He had . . . a vast [amount of] land. He stayed out for long, long hours. So, he would hook the plow to the horse, and would be plowing the field.”
“And while he [grandfather] did that [farming], my grandmother would be in [the] house. And they made sure that, you know, at lunchtime my grandfather would come in,” Dawkins said. “My grandmother just had a knack for [baking]. They didn’t measure anything. So, we never knew how much they actually put in. However they did it, it turned out [fine].”
John Cephas Wallace in his twenties. He was 42 years old when he bought the farm that Dawkins and Johnson describe in the interview. Family photograph, courtesy Delois Johnson.
The children enjoyed their grandparents’ farm. Dawkins said although they were told not to eat the green apples because “they weren’t ripe yet,” they did anyway and got stomach aches. They were also told not to disturb the watermelons, but they still sneaked into the patch. “So, we’d get chastised for that, but it didn’t matter,” she said. “To the right of the patch, my grandfather had a beehive. Yeah, he made his honey.”
John Cephas and Hattie Commodore Wallace, circa 1960. Family photograph, courtesy Delois Johnson.
Raising Tobacco
Phyllis Dawkins recalled working tobacco as a child, doing modest chores suitable for her age. “Yeah, kid things,” she said. “It taught us. And kids nowadays have no idea, . . . the, the history or the love that we shared as growing up as a big family on the farm. . . . And as the tobacco grew [and was ready to harvest], we’d drop the sticks. I wasn’t one to spear [the stalks for hanging] ’cause I didn’t know how to do that. So, I was the one that dropped sticks.” Delois Johnson mentioned that she liked working outdoors and helped with planting and stripping tobacco.
Phyllis Dawkins
Connection to Brown's Church
Delois Johnson
Like most Black families near Parkers Creek in the mid-20th century, the Wallaces, Commodores, and Harrods attended Brown’s United Methodist Church on Parkers Creek Road. (Before the 1968 merger of Methodist denominations, the church was called Brown’s Methodist Episcopal Church.) Johnson said, “Our grandmother and grandfather, and our parents too. I mean everybody went. That was the church.” There are references in the historical record to a church near Parkers Creek as early as 1877. An 1884 deed names the trustees for the “Methodist Episcopal Church . . . for Parkers Creek,” suggesting that the name Brown’s came later, perhaps when the still-standing chapel was constructed, a building that served as a community center as well as a site for worship for many decades.
In the 1950s, however, attendance dwindled, and Brown’s finally closed in 1972. No doubt there were many reasons for this change but, in our interview, Delois Johnson pinpointed one important influence: the arrival of a charismatic minister who established the Greater Bible Way Church on Sixes Road, a short distance to the west.
Bishop Henry H. Brown came to Calvert County from the “mother” Bible Way Church in Washington, D.C. His message and ministerial style, together with an exciting form of gospel music, drew several families away from Brown’s Church. One of Bible Way’s founding trustees was Dawkins and Johnson’s uncle, Winsco “Dickie” Wallace.
The sisters are still active members of Bible Way. “Methodist religion is different from Pentecostal,” Johnson said. “They call it Holiness, Apostolic. I mean, the message is what drew people from the Methodist faith to the Pentecostal. But all of our grandfathers, grandmothers, you know, my great-grandparents, aunts, and uncles are buried at Brown’s Church.”
While Johnson and Dawkins were sharing their stories, they were also dealing with sadness from a recent loss. Their mother, Helen Mae, had passed away just six months earlier. They praised her hard work and determination. The sisters were extremely happy that she had kept her home on Scientists Cliffs Road. The sisters are determined to do everything within their power to hold onto the property and to keep it in good condition for the next generation.
Land Ownership
Johnson and Dawkins also recalled their elders’ decisions to sell parts of the land over the years, the most recent of which was the 1993 sale of 49 acres to the ACLT. “And when I look back now,” Johnson said, reflecting on the sales, “because we’re the old people now, but we were still old enough to have tried to convince them. . . . If we had been involved, possibly we could still have that property. That’s right.”
Memories at Warriors Rest
Happier memories, however, predominated in the interview. As youngsters, the sisters and their siblings enjoyed playing and swimming at the beach at Warrior’s Rest. Dr. Page Jett owned the property at the time, and he let the children have fun in the water. Johnson commented, “All the boys could swim, not one girl could swim.” Dawkins chimed in, saying, “Tell them why.” With a big smile, Johnson said, “Why? Because we would go to the Bay and the boys would take us and throw us down in the water, so we became fearful of the water and never learned to swim. . . . That was a lot of girls that grew up in the neighborhood and none of us can swim, not to this day, (laughs), we can’t swim.”
Johnson said it has been at least 50 years since their last visit to Warrior’s Rest, now owned by the State of Maryland Department of Natural Resources and managed by ACLT. ACLT staff and volunteers are arranging a September visit by the sisters and other relatives, a return to their childhood playground on the Bay. And there will be an opportunity to visit their great-grandparent’s homeplace, owned by members of the Commodore family from 1898 until 1947, when it was bought and incorporated into Warrior’s Rest.
Conclusion
The interview ended on an upbeat note. Johnson said, “I wouldn’t trade my life, you know, all of the things I had to deal with all my life. I love saying this, over my seventy-two years, I wouldn’t, really, I wouldn’t trade it — I wouldn’t trade anything. . . . we had all — we were happy. Our parents taught us well. I mean, if we strayed it’s not because they didn’t teach us the right way, because they did.”
And we respond in kind, wishing Delois Harrod Johnson and Phyllis Harrod Dawkins a perfect day for the visit to Warrior’s Rest — sunny, memorable, joyous, and special. We thank you for letting us interview you and share your words with a wider audience!
We also invite anyone who would like to be interviewed to call Darlene Harrod; leave a message at the ACLT office: 410-414-3400.
Oral history interview at Linden, home of the Calvert County Historical Socierty, 12 April 2024. Seated: interviewees Phyllis Dawkins and Delois Johnson. Standing: interviewers Carl Fleischhauer, Kirsti Uunila, organizer Darlene Harrod, interviewers Shirley Knight and Saroja Raman.
Segments of Oral History Video
Postscript
Visit to Warrior's Rest, 29 November 2024, ACLT arranged for Delois and Phyllis, and several other members of the extended family, to visit Warrior’s Rest over the Thanksgiving weekend in 2024. They were accompanied by Heritage Trail researchers Darlene Harrod and Carl Fleischhauer. The property is owned by the State of Maryland Department of Natural Resources and offers limited access to visitors.
The group visited the beach, site of Delois and Phyllis’s recollection of how the boys in the family acted up and prevented them from learning to swim. The group also visited a former Commodore family home on the property. During this stop, the Heritage Trail team learned that the house had once been the home of Willis Commodore, one of William and Suddie Commodore’s sons, and determined the actual location for the senior Commodore’s former home. This new information permitted the Heritage Trail team to correct errors in the webpage devoted to the William H. and Suddie Commodore family.
On the beach at Warrior’s Rest: Cleo Parker, Kailyn Hutchins, Karen Gross, Darlene Harrod, Phyllis Dawkins, Delois Johnson, and Annie Mae Gross.
At the former Willis Commodore house: Darlene Harrod, Karen Gross, Phyllis Dawkins, Annie Mae Gross, Delois Johnson, and Kailyn Hutchins.
