Welcome to a free reading from Washington History: Magazine of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. We hope this essay will help you fill idle hours and provide food for thought and discussion. Mother’s Day was this past weekend. It led us to thinking about some of the tributes to admirable mothers that we’ve published in Washington History. One of the more surprising and heartfelt is the memoir of Bobbie Liegus and how she and her two sisters grew up lacking resources—but not love—on Q Street NW. Please enjoy “A Georgetown Childhood in Mid-Century,” vol. 8, no. 2 (fall/ winter, 1996-97), © Historical Society of Washington, D.C. Access via JSTOR* to the entire run of Washington History and its predecessor, Records of the Columbia Historical Society, is a benefit of membership in the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. at the Membership Plus level. Copies of this and many other back issues of Washington History magazine are available for browsing and purchase online through the DC History Center Store: https://dchistory.z2systems.com/np/clients/dchistory/giftstore.jsp ABOUT THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, D.C. The Historical Society of Washington, D.C., is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), community-supported educational and research organization that collects, interprets, and shares the history of our nation's capital in order to promote a sense of identity, place and pride in our city and preserve its heritage for future generations. Founded in 1894, the Historical Society serves a diverse audience through collections, public programs, exhibitions, and publications. It welcomes visitors to its new home, the DC History Center, on the second floor of the historic Carnegie Library. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the DC History Center is currently closed. The Historical Society staff is working remotely to keep you connected to D.C. history. We are eager to welcome you back once the danger has passed. * JSTOR is an online resource that digitizes scholarly research. Academic institutions typically provide organizational access to all of JSTOR’s holdings through their libraries. The Historical Society Membership Plus conveys access to our publications only. May 12, 2020 Anna Liegus Habercom, a top-ranked duckpin bowler, releases the ball during a record-smashing game, c. 1953. Her daughter, author Bobbie Liegus, remembers the pride she felt in her mother's bowling prowess. Bowling was one of the very few indulgences that Anna Habercom of George- town, who lived just above the poverty line as a single parent of three young girls, allowed herself. Courtesy, Washingtoniana Division, D.C. Public Library, © Washington Post Co. 22 PRIMARY VOICES A Georgetown Childhood In Mid-Century by Bobbie Leigus The following account of a Georgetown childhood Walter of Liegus was in the Army and served the late 1940s and early 1950s is written primarily during World War I. He died before I was from the point of view of the author as a child. Bob- born, and I didn't know my grandmother bie Liegus originally drafted this memoir as an exer- cise in creative writing and as a tribute untilto her I was an adult because she and my mother, Anna Liegus Habercom, who died at mother age 60 were not close. in 1979.- Ed. My mother and her sister had been shuf- fled between children's homes and foster first heard it when I was out of school care throughout their early childhood. and had just started working: native These orphanages sheltered children who Washingtonians are rare. I didn't real- had no other place to live, regardless of ize it when I was growing up, because whether or not their parents were alive. everyone I knew was from Washington. IAccording to my aunt, the last children's think even rarer is that I'm a native of home they lived in burned down, so one of Georgetown. And rarer still, so was the my women who volunteered there asked mother. I am a second-generation Wash- her sister to take in Mary and Anna. The ingtonian, born in George Washington sister reluctantly agreed to keep them tem- University Hospital, then located onporarily. H Thus, they came to Georgetown Street, N.W. My mother was born around in 1924 to live with a Mrs. Jenkins, Columbia Hospital for Women, at 24th the and woman they called "Nanny," in the L streets, N.W., where it is located today. gray frame house at 3240 Q Street, the Anna Liegus Habercom, my mother, same was house in which my mother grew up proud of the fact that she had been born and inwhere I later spent the majority of my Washington and raised in Georgetown. childhood. Temporary turned to perma- Her mother and father had come from nent, and Nanny raised the girls until they Lithuania in the early part of the twentieth were grown. Mother always told me that century and had separated when Nanny my loved me very much, but I was so mother and her sister, Mary, were youngvery when Nanny died, I don't remem- young. My grandmother Mary Liegus ber was much about her. I do remember the a cook at the White House during chickensthe in her chicken yard. Coolidge Administration. My grandfather My early years, from 1941 to 1946, were spent in housing projects in Southeast Washington - Lily Ponds and Bellevue. Notes begin on page 91. My father, Guy Habercom, was a sailor 23 Washington History, Fall/ Winter 1996-97 mixture of the very poor and the very wealthy, and although they existed side by side, they were in reality many miles apart. to the 1950 Census, of the Georgetown,According 226 1,663had no private occupied dwellings in bath and 135 had no running water. Our house at 3240 Q Street was one of these, and we also had no electricity. George- town's population had a white majority that year, with only 116 dwellings occu- pied by non-whites. The average monthly rent was $72.13, and the average value of a house $23,105. In comparison, the average values of houses in other affluent neigh- borhoods were $52,242 in Kalorama, $36,137 in Cleveland Park, and $27,671 in Spring Valley. Georgetown at this time was continuing Bobbie, Susan, and Alana Habercom pose for a change that had begun in the 1930s when an Easter portrait in 1951. Despite their white New Dealers discovered its close-in, home's lack of electricity and plumbing, Anna modest houses (mostly occupied by Habercom 's daughters were always well African Americans).1 Because the houses turned out. Courtesy, the author. varied in size from narrow rowhouses to mansions, Georgetown housed all races stationed at the Navy Yard. He was even- and classes. An article published in the tually sent to the South Pacific, and my Christian Science Monitor in 1948 captures mother, pregnant with my youngest sister, the state of change that year. Headlined Susan, took us to Hagerstown, Maryland, "Georgetown 'Charm' Balloons Realty to stay with my father's sister. After the Prices," the reporter wrote that "many live war, my parents soon divorced, and in next door to their maids or cooks, and 1946 my mother returned to Georgetown some actually occupy the houses in which to the house where she grew up to raise the servants formerly lived."2 her three little girls alone. My father had My family was in the poor category. left the family, remarried, and did not con- Besides my mother, the family consisted of tribute in any way to our childhood. Yet my two younger sisters, Alana and Susan, my mother never criticized him to us. She many cats, and me. Where her lifestyle said that their problems were between was concerned, my mother was a genera- them, and that he loved us very much. We tion ahead of her time, although not by reached our own conclusions later in life. choice. She was a single parent in a time of And, as a result of my mother's loving two-parentand "Ozzie and Harriet" families, forgiving nature, my sisters and I aresupporting three small girls on her salary friendly with our father today and feel alone. no She worked as a secretary at Liberty bitterness toward him. Mutual Insurance Company, located then Whenever I tell people I grew up in at Dupont Circle. Her salary was approxi- Georgetown, they assume that I was born mately $40 a week. We were never on wel- into money. Nothing could be further from fare. She was always in debt and worried the truth. In those days, Georgetown was oftena about money, but she always 24 A Georgetown Childhood remained cheerful and never burdened us with her sorrows. I remember at the age of ten traveling by bus across the Potomac to Rosslyn to take loan payments to the pawn shops there for Mother. I did learn later in life that my Aunt Mary had helped her out financially many times. Despite the poverty, Mother saw to it that we had things that other children had. Among them were tap-dancing lessons taught by Miriam Sellers at her home on Dent Place for 50 cents a class. Mother also let us join the Brownies and Girl Scouts, although I'm sure even the small costs involved stretched her meager finances. Although Mother's life revolved around her three daughters, she did have a life of her own. She loved to bowl and competed a couple evenings a week while one of the neighborhood teenagers babysat for us. I loved watching her get ready to go out, because she always smelled so sweet and looked so shiny in her freshly pressed bowling blouse and skirt.