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Photo of Oscar Overstreet in the Army at Fort Eustis sitting on a car.
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A portrait of the identified members of the Board of Trustees of St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church. From front left to right are Brothers Harper, Barrier, and White. In the back row from left to right are Brothers Bellnavis, Benton, and Ward. All are dressed in their formal church attire and posed on the steps in front of the exterior front doors of the church.
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A select Board of Deacon members from St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church pose for a photo. The bottom text reads, "BOARD OF DEACONS, PICTURED LEFT TO RIGHT: Deacons Byas. Gilmore. Howard. Jackson. Thomas. Ward, NOT PICTURED: Deacons Bell. Bennett. Benson. Cash. Mann. and White."
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Pastor Percy Jackson poses for a portrait inside St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church. He is wearing a red clergy robe and holding a bible in hand. "The fourth and current pastor, Percy Harper, started his Pastorate at St. Mark’s Missionary Baptist Church as interim pastor in
July of 1987 when Pastor Williams passed away and was voted in as full pastor in April 1988" (Valley Truck Farms Scrapbook, 2019.)
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Group photo of smiling churchgoers in their Sunday attire seated in the pews inside St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church. Deacons sitting in the front include far left Andrew Swanson and Mr. Etherly who lived on Norman Road (3rd from left). Ola McDowell is visible 4th row from the back on the right.
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A candid photo depicting Pastor Freeman Williams and his wife Mrs. Lucille Williams, dressed in formal attire and seated at a table.
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This photo represents the Valley Recreation Center, supported by federal funds during the Great Depression. In 1944 as St. Mark's Missionary Baptist outgrew its original sanctuary and began reconstruction, it met in this building from 1944-1946.
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During a church service, Donald Jackson and other churchgoers congregate at St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church. Churchgoers stand in the pews, likely participating in a service activity.
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Group photo featuring smiling adult choir members from St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church with Pastor Harper. The choir members are all dressed in their choir robes and are posed together in front of the exterior doors of the church building. Choir members include Right to Left front: Pastor Percy Harper, Agnolia Davis, Pauline Thomas, Erma Lee Golden, Darnell Ford, Vincent Jones, Patrice Wiliams, Trenice Williams, Delaney Jones, Walter Ford, unknown, David Hassen. Second row: Martha White, Mrs Marsh, Maggie Barrier, Eugenia Moore, Mrs. Carolyn Mann, Emma Macbeth. Second row and bacj unckydes frin keft ti rught: Sister Moltonh, Jeanette Howard, Sabina Benson, Pat Mann, Dolores Hassel, Sister Jeanette Ruffin, Rosa Lee Jackson, John Moore, Dudley White, Gerson Watkins. The back reads, "Hooks Photo 1215 West 11th Street San Bernardino"
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In front of the imposing exterior of St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church, a group portrait captures Pastor Harper front far right in a light grey suit with smiling church members in their formal church attire. Congregation members include L to R in front: Serena Marshall. Beatrice Wilcots, Pauline Thomas, Jessie Douglas, Juliette Smith, Pastor Harper. In back L to R roughly Delany Jones, Rev Llewelyn, Lonnie Barrier, Charles Howard, Elvis Brown, Lindsey Lynch, Bill Jackson, Eugene Thomas, Bessie Shoulders, Sister Barrier. Middle roughly Lucinda Harper, Rosalee Jackson, Martha White, Audrey Armstead, Dennis Hackett, Jeanette Morris Howard, Sister Lynch. The back reads, "Hooks Photo 1215 West 11th Street San Bernardino. Date Nov '91"
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Formal portrait of congregation members from St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church, with men in suits and women in Sunday best and hats probably from late 1940s. We do not yet have identification for individual congregation members. On Back: C.W. McLaughlin 943 No Riverside Ave Rialto California
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View from behind the podiums looking onto the congregation of St. Mark's Missionary Baptist Church during a service. Churchgoers are seated in the pews listening to the sermon. The back reads, "Calvin Wesley Wilcox Free Lance Photographer 1749 Magnolia Turner 9-4664 San Bernardino, California"
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World Wide Guild Group, a women's missionary group, standing in a line for a photo in front of the exterior of the first St. Mark's Baptist Church building. Imogene McMurray is 4th from the right. Other members as yet unidentified. The inscription on the bottom of the image reads "World Wide Guild Group, St. Mark Baptist Church, Edw. Streeter Photo." The back reads "Edward D Streeter Photo 4361 Grove Ave. Riverside Calif. Tel 4949"
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Siblings Edmund Dale Greene and Greta Greene Mixon describe growing up in the Valley Truck Farms. Their family moved following their grandfather who retired from Bethlehem Steel, and many of their extended family settled on Norman Road. They share stories of a tightly knit community, where kids had freedom to roam the neighborhood, and play and hunt in the Santa Ana wash. Roads weren’t paved and there weren’t a lot of recreation facilities, but they describe how kids played at Mill School and after it closed, how parents organized to get Mill School turned into a recreation center. They reflect fondly the community where everyone knew each other and shared the work and produce from their small farms, where people ran small businesses out of their homes, and older neighbors became close friends and mentors to neighborhood children. They share stories of growing up in St. Mark’s Missionary Baptist Church, and describe how development of the warehouses has made the neighborhood unrecognizable. They end by saying the Valley should be remembered as a great place to be raised.
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Darlo Murray’s great grandmother, Ola McDowell, moved to the Valley and settled in a home on Norman Road. Murray says that she raised her 13 children in the area and opened a restaurant with his grandfather called McDowell’s cafe. He fondly remembers his great grandmother’s family reunions, her amazing spaghetti, and her large garden of cabbage, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, and more, which Murray’s family used for groceries. Murray says he was the last person to live in his great grandmother’s property around the year 2000 before it was sold, and he remarks on the changes he saw in the community over time. Murray moved around a lot as a kid, but remembers coming back to the community to see no kids playing in the streets and less local businesses, like there once were. He ends by saying that the Valley was the hub of the Black community in San Bernardino, and reminisces on church barbecues and events growing up where his cool pastor would show off basketball skills.
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Pauline Aciero discusses growing up in the Valley and attending Saint Mark’s church for 40 years. Her dad had moved to California from Mississippi in 1940 when he was 14 years old, following his brother. Her family later moved from Barstow into a house in the Valley on Waterman Avenue when she was just 2 years old. She says that her dad tore down a gas station to build their, which was still standing at the time she was interviewed. She reminisces about the produce and animals that people would grow and raise in the Valley, and how nice the people in the community were. Aciero discusses being drawn to Saint Mark’s by its friendly people, including pastor Freeman Williams, who she says was great. Her son attended Mill School, although she did not. Now living three and a half miles from the church and still attending it, Aciero says she has seen a great deal of change and many properties being sold in San Bernardino. She thinks the Valley should be remembered for the way community members shared with and trusted in one another.
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George Overstreet describes being born in Los Angeles, but moving to the Valley Truck Farms in the 1940s. Overstreet says that the Valley was better for his family than L.A., since his dad could buy property. His family opened a small cafe in the business development they built on the corner of Central and Waterman which he says became a space for the community to hang out. His grandmother ran the cafe, and he estimates that the business lasted for about a decade. At the time of the interview, Overstreet still lived in the Valley Truck Farms, and describes his experience of living through the community’s changes. He mentions witnessing more and more cement buildings being constructed, and houses being sold, and less and less people coming to visit him. He describes his porch as a once lively gathering place, but many of his friends had passed away in recent years. He ends by saying that the Valley Truck Farms was a good place to grow up, where neighbors were united in community.
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The Valley Truck Farms Scrapbook was edited by Alice Eby Hall and Roger Hall, completing a project begun by Valley resident Herbert Sims, to document the rich history of the Valley Truck Farms community. The Halls, who were from a rural white community went to school with Sims and many other Valley residents in the late 40s and early 50s at Sturgis Junior High School where they became friends. Alice and Roger Hall began helping Herbert Sims on the Valley Truck Farms book in the early 2000s after Roger Hall retired. There are chapters, photos and maps documenting the early history of the community, the causes of its recent transformation, the history of water, community churches, and schools in the Valley, including selected pictures of Valley residents who went to Mill school, Sturgis junior high school and San bernardino high school in the 1950s. The last half of the scrapbook features stories written by families of the Valley Truck Farms as well as compiled lists of families that lived on different streets in the Valley including the following families Saville, Bland, Jackson, the McDowell and McDaniels, Polee, McMurray, Green, Overstreet, Lockert, Harris, Harper, Curran, and Davis. The book juxtaposes images of the past and present to show the displacement of the rural community and traces some of the causes of the transformations that have hit the Valley over the last 50 years.
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A photo of Grace Greene and Mayor Halcomb walking away from the ribbon cutting ceremony at the opening of the Valley Truck Farms Recreation Center that the community campaigned to open at the old Mill School in the 1970s.
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A black and white photo of Grace & Eddie Green with children. Left to right Rosetta, Eddie, Grace, Wanda, Edmund & Greta. They lived at 1015 Foisy around the corner from grandparents, and uncles who lived on Norman Road.
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A photo of a Wanda Greene in Grace Green's kitchen on Foisy. Has the description "Snap Shots, Inc. A subsidiary of Realist inc" at the top and "duo snap shots" at the bottom.
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In Grace Greene's backyard, with Wanda (left), Rosie (middle) and Greta (right).
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A black and white photo of Uncle Herbert Green, Grace Greene & son Travis Greene in front of home at 9411 Foisy, now 1015 Foisy, located at Valley Truck Farms.
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A black and white photograph of a dune buggy car that Eddie Greene built and his kids enjoyed driving in the Valley in the 1960s. At some point it crashed into a ditch and was damaged, but before that they had fun driving around the dirt roads and the wash in this vehicle. Though they were kids, growing up in farm country, driving young was normal and there was no police presence. With the description "Sep 64" for the date September 1964.
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Signmund Greene smiling for the camera in Grace Greene's backyard on Foisy.