The Erma Hayman house in Boise’s historic River District stands as a tribute to an early African American resident of Boise. Erma and her husband bought this home in the only neighborhood allowed to them in 1948. It was a working class enclave of immigrants: Basque, Japanese, Russian, Bulgarian and Hawaiian families. Erma lived here till she died in 2009 at the age of 102.
The recently renovated house is a focal point for Boise’s Department Arts and History. While on a tour of the house and neighborhood, I flashed back to my first year as a letter carrier in Boise. The first time I was assigned to deliver to this neighborhood I was tense as I walked down the street in my postal shorts stopping at each tired bungalow. The lawns were worn, a few surrounded by rickety picket fences in need of paint. Black men congregated on chairs in front of random porches, smoking, drinking beer, and shooting the breeze. After delivering this route a few times, I chastised myself. There was absolutely nothing to fear from these guys who had surely experienced horrendous hard times. The shirtless white construction workers, whose wolf whistles followed me down the street could have learned a lot from the friendly River Street gents. Most of these homes are gone now, replaced by upscale apartment complexes. This bittersweet memory sparked another one.
When I was in the third grade I joined the Brownies. I’d looked forward to this for a long time, mainly because of Girl Scout Camp, which sounded like a fabulous way to legally escape home for a bit. The activities we did at Brownie meetings were sorely disappointing. I didn’t much appreciate arts and crafts: making paper turkeys for Thanksgiving, paper and popcorn strings for the Christmas tree, knots gave me a headache and still do—besides we did that stuff in school.
The next disappointment was discovering that camp for Brownies did not involve camping. It was a day camp. We had little tents to take naps in, and brought pocket knives and bars of soap from home to transform into animal shapes—something to annoy my mother who thought soap was for washing not carving. We practiced making the obligatory campfire. But this was not camping as I had imagined it. I craved ghost stories under the stars.
Paired in twosomes, we were expected to watch out for and help each other, to nap together in our assigned tent, and work together on whatever other rinky-dink activities the scout leaders dreamed up. Here I make another grave confession. I was paired with the only little black girl (V) in the troop and this was profoundly disappointing to me. On the heels of disappointment came rightful shame of over disappointment. I sensed that this was wrong.
This was one of my earliest reckonings with hard self-examination. I think/hope I behaved graciously to V. She was a kind and sweet girl. I was fascinated by the contrast in color between the inside and the outside of her hands. But at camp I had hoped to step up from my grade school ranking as an outsider, a weirdo, a goof. But here we were, the two camp outsiders—doppelgängers. I would gain no measure of status from my association with my black partner and I knew it. This knowledge also made me profoundly sad, sad for both of us. It was the first time that I crawled out of my own self pity, to consider what V endured every single moment of her life. If I kept my mouth shut and hid out in the background, I could escape notice. But she, with her beautiful mahogany skin, could never hide her outsider status. What would it be like to spend a day in her skin, I wondered?
Erma Hayman, despite job and wage discrimination, worked hard doing anything she could: catering, sewing, mending, and designing window displays for a local clothing store. She tended her neighbors, bringing food and warm hugs when tragedy struck. In retirement, she provided safe haven for latch key children, worked with Central District Health to improve nutrition for seniors, and advocated for her newly formed neighborhood association. What anger, what hurts did she repress to rise to the leadership exemplar she is remembered for? And what became of V?
I will go to my deathbed ashamed of my presumptions about people who looked differently than me. Until that day I will continue to fight prejudices and biases that lurk in a deep down, dark place in my soul.