The Chickasha Media Mistreated My Grandfather Sipuel.....

Some will label me as being on the attack.... verbally direct... in calling the 1946 newspaper article strictly racist..... prejudicial against a prominent Negro who owned a car....

I wondered how much a car cost back in 1945-46??

What Things Cost in 1945:
Car: $1,250
Gasoline: 21 cents/gal
House: $10,000
Bread: 9 cents/loaf
Milk: 62 cents/gal
Postage Stamp: 3 cents
Stock Market: 152
Average Annual Salary: $2,900
Minimum Wage: 40 cents per hour

 

 

 

Dad Sipuel and Big Mama did indeed buy/own a car, along with two houses.  Their first home property in Chickasha, OK was -- on the other side of the railroad tracks..... where a majority of Negroes lived.

 

 

The home-place that I know of.... was 601 N First Street, and 605 N First Street.

 

I may now be able to estimate my grandparents net worth..... possible Average Annual Salary was $2900 yr ---  noting that my Big Mama never worked.... the only work available to black women of the early 1910-1940's was daywork... cleaning the homes of whites as a maid.   

 

The story is told that the one time Belle Sipuel did not to work for a white woman... the woman was being as nice as she knew how...(to a colored woman) and was calling her Belle.... do this and do that.   Big Mama abhorred being called by her first name by whites --- she was Ms Sipuel....  thus telling her so.   Shockingly....  :)    that was Big Mama's one and only day of work!!!