2018-19 Guide To Yellow Springs

54 the Guide to YelLow Springs y 2018 - 1 9 Y e l l ow S p r i n g s N ews y  still vibrant, still victorettes y • Photo by Audrey Hackett • SUBMITTED PHOTO Six members of the Victorettes held hands and sang at Central Chapel A.M.E. Church in September of 2017, capping off a well-attended reunion. From left are Phyllis Jackson, Dorothy Allen, Marie Payton (who died earlier in 2018), Dorothy Boyce, Betty Ford and Isabel Newman. All were members of the singing and service group founded by Boyce in 1944 and active until 1946, with friendships that have lasted a lifetime. By Audrey Hackett We are the Victorettes of Yellow Springs. We want you to know us and hear us sing for the Army, the Navy and the Marines. —Victorette song, 1944 In the spring of 1944, Allied troops in Europe were preparing for D-Day. Battles were being fought throughout the Pacific. And in Yellow Springs, with husbands and brothers and friends away at war, a group of young African-American women came together under the leadership and musical direction of Dorothy Boyce. They called themselves “The Victorettes,” and for longevity in Yellow Springs. Many of the names are among the village’s oldest fami- lies, some with roots back to the Conway Colony, a group of freed slaves who settled here in 1863. Victorettes’ founder Dorothy Boyce was a recent Wilberforce University graduate and young married woman in 1944. Her husband, Lyonel, was away at war, stationed in Guam. Back home in Yellow Springs and living with her parents, Boyce sought to bring together other young women in their late teens and 20s. An early history of the group, likely writ- ten by Boyce herself, states the Victorettes’ founding purpose was to raise funds for and render services to Central Chapel. (Some members belonged to the A.M.E. church, others to First Baptist.) In its first year, the group performed “enthusiasti - cally received” musical programs such as the Spring Musicale and Summer Concert series, and staged a play called “I Want a Nurse,” deemed a “hilarious success.” The young women performed not just in Yellow Springs, but also traveled to churches and colleges throughout the area. Their audi- ences were primarily, though not exclu- sively, African-American, according to Isabel Newman, who wrote a chapter on the Victorettes for the “Black in YS” Encyclo - pedia. When Eleanor Roosevelt came to Antioch College in the summer of 1944, the Victorettes sang for her. Reunions such as the one in 2017 have been going on for decades. When it was time to sing, everyone moved into the chapel, and Boyce, an accomplished pianist, made her way to the grand piano. Her memory has been worn down by dementia, but she hasn’t forgotten how to play. “When she gets on the piano, it all comes back to her,” Sharon Perry said. As Boyce launched into the Victorettes’ own special song — “We are the Victorettes of Yellow Springs ...” — her five dear friends lined up in the front of the chapel, and sang together one more time. 1 two years they put on vocal concerts and plays, organized youth dances and picnics, sent cards and letters to local servicemen stationed overseas and undertook service projects within their church and community. “It gave us purpose,” Phyllis Jackson said in an interview. “And it gave us a reason to be happy,” she added, recalling the difficul - ties of the war years, with loved ones far from home. Busy in the community or singing in their signature “V for Victory” formation wearing formal evening gowns, the Victorettes made their mark on Yellow Springs, and on each other. The young women grew up together in the village, and some were related by blood. Their shared experiences as Victor- ettes deepened those bonds, making them friends for life. The strength of their ties and the mesh of family and friends was in joyous evi- dence in September 2017, at the Victor- ettes’ annual reunion. Around 50 people gathered at Central Chapel A.M.E. Church to celebrate the surviving Victorettes, remember those who’d passed away and share memories of earlier times in Yellow Springs. One by one the Victorettes were intro - duced: Dorothy Perry Boyce, Dorothy Mundy Allen, Betty Cordell Ford, Phyllis Lawson Jackson, Isabel Adams Newman, Marie Adams Payton (who died earlier in 2018), all in their 80s or 90s. Surviving but not in attendance were Anna Hull John - son and Mary Hull Bowers. The women’s maiden and married names are testaments to the group’s close family ties — and The original members of the Victorettes in a photo dated circa 1944. Front row, from left: Geneva Gudgel, Dorothy Allen, Maxine Jones, Dorothy Boyce, Naomi McKee, Marie Payton and Phyllis Jackson. Back row, from left: Anna Johnson, Nellie Hughey, Betty Ford, Barbara Davis, Charlotte Jordan, Clara Jane Berry and Isabel Newman. facebook.com/YellowSpringsScienceCastle cleverclue@gmail.com Amy Magnus * 767-2167 * • • innovative playful nurturing since 2014 the village serving makerspace science café and A pop up e a lt s prin ien s s e s w o ll e y More than Ice Cream! WWW.CORNERCONE.NET 101S.Walnut St. • 937-319-1788