When the Depression came, and they reduced their staffs, then my cousin became the chauffer-butler for the same family. And my father [Arthur Davidson] worked in a, in the Lawrence Club, the private club and then later became a skilled laborer in one of the mills and--because by this time he had bought his home, reared his family, and didn't want to uproot them to, to move. And Depression was on, but those rich families lived very, very well. And of course they networked with other rich families from Ohio, from Cleveland, Ohio, from Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania]. One family had a square block for their two homes, and they gave that, their homes to the city of New Castle [Pennsylvania], and now they are the arts and cultural center. And I went up some years ago to, to a mu--to see an art show there. They had a ballroom. They, they just had everything. They had about an acre of land where they had a gar--a full-time gardener who grew their vegetables, their flowers. But there were, there were a number of families like that. But the town--oh, and then the Italian people over the years got educated and came into the ascendency and became politically savvy, so there was an Italian mayor at least 30, 40 years ago. But the Jewish population had shrunk. They used to have two synagogues; they only have one. And for many years my optometrist was a Jewish man originally from New York who, who was also a personal friend, and, and I see him when I go home. And they, their, their two sons have, have left because there's not much to keep them there. And New Castle has actually become a bedroom community for Pittsburgh, which is just 50 miles away. The highways are very good. You can tool down the highway in, in an hour. And Pittsburgh is thriving. And Pittsburgh, which used to be steel and mill--the mills and everything--is now high tech. Education is the hu--biggest employer, and then the hospitals, and then technology. Those are the three main industries, so a lot of the people from New Castle, many of them, commute to, to, to Pittsburgh to work.$$Now, when, when you were a little girl growing up in New Castle, was there--was the black community separate? Was it a separate black community, or were people scattered around, and, and were, were, were the steel mills close by? Could you smell the mills and all--$$No, no, no, we, we didn't live near the mills. They--you had to--'cause my mother [Lela Mauney Davidson] would drive the men to, to, to work. No, we didn't live near them. Some people did, some who would come up from, from Alabama and Georgia. But the black people lived--there was a heavier concentration in First Ward and, and the Sixth Ward, but they were--there were some families who were scattered about on the south side and the east side, and even a few on the north side, which was the posh section of the city. I go back now and they live anywhere they got the money, you know.$$So did your family live near the family that your, that, that, that, that, that your father worked for, or did you (simultaneous)--$$We lived, we lived about a mile away, and we lived on the, on the same street. We all knew each other. We had fun growing up. It was a mixed neighborhood. I grew up in a neighborhood of African Americans, Italian Protestants, and Irish Catholic. And we were all friendly, and we were in and out of each other's homes. And the Italian family across the street, if my mother was sick, Mrs. Perilla (ph.) would, would make Italian soup and spaghetti and bring over to us. And she baked bread in an outdoor oven, and it smelled heavenly. And the Irish Catholic family who lived down the street took her--they had the same doctor, country doctor, and they would drive to--we were very, very friendly. So we, we--and that was true with the, with all of my--all of us who lived on, on, on the street, on the hill. We were just about five doors from the church too, so we spent Sundays in church.$So we're wrapping up the trip to Mexico.$$Yeah.$$All right, so what happened--what was the highlight in the trip to Mexico you think?$$Oh, getting to see the Mexican artists. You know, when, when John [Hewitt] and I married in 1949 we got some money as wedding presents, and we honeymooned here in New York. And remember I told you we had a faculty suite, so we went to the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and in Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania], to the Carnegie. And we brought good prints, and we took them back to Atlanta [Georgia], had them framed, and hung them in our suite. We wanted it decorated as, as, as cozy and as nice as possible. But we were always on the same wavelength as far as art was concerned. And the paintings that we bought, we bought Orozco's "Zapatistas". And we bought a Picasso still life, and a Brach still life, and (unclear)--(unclear). But I like the Mexican paintings. And in Mexico, I got to see in, in Cuernavaca, the murals that Diego Rivera had done-- was very privileged because our experi--agricultural experimental station for the Rockefeller foundation was at Chapingo, which was a little suburb from Mexico City. And in the chapel at Chapingo, Orozco had done beautiful, beautiful murals. And this is off the tourist beat, so I had--was privileged to see those. But everywhere I went I saw wonderful paintings. And then this journalist-lawyer friend of Langston Hughes introduced me to some of his friends. And one of them was--depending on to whom you talked, she was either the greatest patron of the arts or the greatest courtesan in Mexico City. Her father had been a general under Pancho Villa in the Mexican Revolution. And she was married to one of Manuel's classmates, another lawyer, who was much younger than she. And they lived in El Pedregal, which was a very rich, very lovely section of Mexico City. And Manuel took me out to her home, and she was living in the little cottage while the big house was being built. And then a couple of years later I went back and it was--she had been sculpted and painted by every one of the famous painters in Mexico City by Tamayo, by Siqueiros, by Orozco, by all of them. And all of these paintings were there, so I said to her, I said, do you mind? She said oh, Vivian, this is just a small house. There are only two bedrooms. But what a house. The guest house was their library. So I said do you mind if I take pictures? She said oh, take all you want. So I said, (unclear) where are you going to leave your paintings? She left them to the Mexican government (unclear), and the books, she left to the library in Oaxaca. But her name was Maria Asunsolo [Dolores del Rio]. So that was one of the highlights of--a really true highlight of my Mexican experience. And she was very close friends to Nelson Rockefeller and his first wife [Mary Rockefeller]. And--but she thought that because I worked at Rockefeller Foundation that, that maybe I was one of them, ha--had news for her (laughter). But she had a lovely, lovely place in El Pedregal. What else did I like in Mexico? I liked--this is 1958. This is a Spanish country, and women do not go about alone, okay. But I had to eat, so I made it a habit to take my main meal of the day in a Mexican restaurant. And Manuel wanted to improve his English, and I wanted to learn a little bit of cocktail Spanish. So he would come and accompany me most times to a restaurant with his dictionary, and we would sit there and eat, you know. So I ate in all the really good restaurants. I was living in the Zona Rosa. Then occasionally friends would be visiting in Mexico, and I would have dinner out with them. Other times, I just stayed at the, at the hotel, 'cause I was just a block or two from the, from the office. But I, I had a wonderful time. I appreciated Mexican culture, mainly Mexican art, loved it.
