Black History month article features Tom Wall
Thomas G. Wall, a former Bellefontaine resident who recently turned 90, offered thoughts about growing up as a man of color for a Black History Month article featured in the Sidney Daily News.
He grew up in Piqua and now resides in Sidney. His time in Bellefontaine was spent working as a barber at the former Air Force Base and in a downtown shop. He raised a family here, including a daughter, Cassie Hassel.
His father and grandfather also worked as barbers. It was during his barbering career when he earned the nickname “Tom Cat” because of meowing to keep young boys happy in the barber chair.
|
Thomas Wall, right, of Sidney, a former Bellefontaine resident, poses next to a portrait of his father painted by Mr. Wall’s daughter, Cassie Hassel of Bellefontaine. (PHOTO | WALL FAMILY) |
Mr. Wall recalls being unable to go to the YMCA in Piqua with his classmates for physical education class when the Piqua Central High School gymnasium roof leaked.
“I was not allowed in the Y,” he was quoted as saying.
He also was not permitted to deliver newspapers for the Piqua Daily Call as a child.
“We don’t have ‘colored’ paper boys,” he said he was told. Kroger in Piqua also turned him away for a job, but after his days as a barber ended, he got a job at Kroger and worked as a clerk in the seafood department until he retired 20 years ago.
He was among those who established a black American Legion post that was active until the early 1980s.
In the intervening years, he saw some changes and he documented what he had observed and learned (and was learning) throughout his life in a bound collection of “thoughts, words and deeds” containing family history.
“God made us all alike,” he was quoted as saying in the Sidney newspaper. “Two front teeth — everybody has them. What He told us to do with those teeth: smile. A smile is the answer to everything.”