TRANSCRIPT

AS - Ada Summers, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer

LR: How... Tell me about what you're doing here and what the church...

AS: What am I not doing...

LR: ...and how long you've been doing it, and...

AS: I've been involved with the church all my life.

LR: Same church all the time?

AS: Yeah. Yep, hmhm. When I moved to the Falls, then I went to Niagara Falls church [reference is to Nathaniel Dett Memorial Chapel] - Norval Johnson used to be our Sunday School teacher and stuff - then we moved back it was right back. But I was busy 'cause I raised a family over the years doing things, but, um,... yeah, we called her Aunt Norval. But anyways, uh, I've always been here - I got told, you know, dinners and things you need help call me if I'm available I'll be there, so... I have crawled out of here 12, 1 o'clock, in the morning with Mrs [June, Harry's wife] Harper, and the whole... Helen Smith, the whole bunch of them, you know, preparing for dinners and things. But, uh, now I'm the chief cook, bottlewasher, jack-of-all-trades. I do the heavy cleaning, Margo [(Bell) Leslie] comes in does the lighter 'cause Margo just doesn't have the... healthwise she can't do it. Um, I do the cleaning; I'm the head cook with all the others under me; I'm the church Treasurer; I'm the church "mouthpiece." Uh... like... I don't do anything on my own. I take everything to the minister and the trustees; but I'm the 1 that's available. I'm the 1 gets the phone calls - the same with the rental of that place - I get the calls, I set up the appointments and then if it's someone we think that we want to rent to then I have them meet with the minister and trustees, that kind of thing. So, no 1 can say I'm running the church, per se, but I'm overseeing. And, um... I have been referred to as 'the mouth' by a couple of the members because they said something; I said 'I know I'm the mouth, but...' Now; so now it's a standing joke. Yeah...

LR: You have tours come in to the [church]...

AS: We have tours. I do the tours; Margo comes in and does the... we have the sale tables down here, Margo does all that. We try to always have 2 of us here - 1 for upstairs and 1 down.

LR: Can you... Can you tell me a little bit about why the people come here on the tour and what it is that you tell them.

AS: Well, because we're a National Historic [Site] and it's... when they come through they're mainly coming through for Black history tours. And... by the time they get through all the different sites, I don't go into the overall history I go into our history 'cause this is what they're coming... they're coming to hear about Harriet Tubman because this is the church that Harriet Tubman brought the fugitive slaves to - the church that was built by those slaves - and this is the church she attended. And her house was just across the street here. So people want to hear this; they want to know this. Um... I've had people come in and just think '...the feeling here - I get such a feeling...' when they walk into the chapel. Or another... we had a 1 lady, 'Oh my God! This is just like our church in Philadelphia!' Well, we are African Methodist Episcopal - that's what it started out as. We still are; but after slavery was abolished, we went under the British rule, but this is built on the design of BME [meaning AME] Churches throughout the States. So, so they... they're interested in that, they're interested in, um, sitting in the old pew... the original pews because they're in the balcony. Knowing that they're walking on the original plank board floors and they can actually see them - walk on them in the balcony - or touch them - some of them reach down and touch them. Um... Just to know they are walking the halls, the floors that Harriet walked. You know. And then, of course, they... they wanna go and they take pictures of where her house was, and you know, so that's the... the basic reason why and we're the last stop on the Underground Railroad, so, um, it's quite intriguing. Yeah.