Wineka column: A jump-start for Dixonville

Pemberton

631 Mowery Lane in the East End.

Stafford I. Pemberton has one of those names that sounds like royalty.

Retired from the U.S. Army Reserve, Pemberton rose to the rank of colonel, so he has that lofty title.

But after the king-size donation he made recently to the Dixonville Cemetery Committee, maybe we should call him "Lord" Pemberton.

Salisbury historian Betty Dan Spencer recalls the New Year's Eve telephone conversation she had with Col. Pemberton, who lives in Washington, D.C.

Pemberton grew up Salisbury's East End, which included the Dixonville neighborhood.

He had met Spencer at last year's Dixonville Cemetery ceremony — in a manner, the cemetery's rebirth — and he wanted to know what progress had been made toward establishment of a monument on the site.

"Well, we need money," Spencer told him.

"What would you need to get started?"

"Five thousand dollars," she answered.

"I'll send you a check."

Pemberton was good to his word. The check has arrived, leading the city to establish a Dixonville account for future donations toward the monument recognizing the first city-owned cemetery for African Americans. The city bought the land for the cemetery in 1874, but burials probably occurred there before that date.

Spencer spent five years researching who might be buried in the cemetery, which had been sorely neglected over the years within its urban renewal setting.

She relied on death certificates, census mortality schedules, newspaper obituaries, what few tombstones still existed and records from the Noble & Kelsey and Mitchell & Fair funeral homes. It's an ongoing process, but Spencer has confirmed scores of names and burials so far.

"When I grew up there, there was nothing," recalls Pemberton, born in 1920. "I walked across there every day, and there was nothing that depicted that it was a cemetery."

So that's a reason he wants some kind of monument. Spencer's research shows that Pemberton has at least six close relatives buried in Dixonville Cemetery, including a brother, half-brothers and half-sisters.

"I want it to be known to the entire city that the cemetery exists," Pemberton says.

Pemberton's gift has proved to be a jump-start. Spencer says she has received an additional $4,000 in pledges toward a Dixonville monument.

The Dixonville Cemetery Committee is considering where a monument might go on the site before drawing up some parameters and seeking proposals from artists. (See accompanying story.)

Pemberton's father, William, who is buried in Oakdale Cemetery, was married three times, and Stafford Pemberton was a son of his third wife, Arminta.

They lived in a small, wood-framed house at 631 Mowery Lane in the East End. It wasn't really in what people considered Dixonville, Pemberton says, but it was close.

Pemberton attended Lincoln Grammar School, then J.C. Price High School. He describes himself as "a studious little rascal," who either was studying or delivering products for his mother in the East End.

Arminta sold soap, hair, medicinal and food products. His father worked for the city water works department before moving to a job at Spencer Shops.

The East End may have had a reputation for being the other side of the tracks, but Pemberton never considered his family poor. His father put food on the table and clothing on the backs of every family member, he says.

Pemberton has stayed up until 2 and 3 several mornings, reading the text and treasuring the photographs in Spencer's book, "Remembering Dixonville and East End."

He recalls all the streets, the neighboring houses, the school, the ice plant, the railroad tracks, churches and stores, such as Clark's Smoke Shop and Bennett's Grocery.

The studious Pemberton was first in his class in elementary and high school. He was offered an academic scholarship to attend Knoxville (Tenn.) College, but to save money attended Livingstone College instead.

He graduated from Livingstone as a 20-year-old in 1941 after majoring in French and mathematics.

During the summers while a student at Livingstone, Pemberton worked civil service jobs in Washington and, by the time he graduated, had a post office position waiting for him in the nation's capital.

After World War II started, Pemberton went to work for a U.S. Navy department in Alexandria, Va., based on the results of a civil service exam. The Army then drafted him in January 1943. Within eight months, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

The rest of the war, Pemberton and his fellow black officers battled the obstacles inherent in a segregated military. "I was a little disappointed there for awhile," he says. "Black officers were not allowed to command white enlisted personnel."

Pemberton graduated in anti-aircraft artillery and eventually went overseas to fight, but never in an integrated unit. He left active duty in 1946 but continued with the Army Reserve for 37 years, rising in the ranks. He was up for brigadier general when he retired.

Meanwhile, on the civilian side of life, Pemberton returned to Washington and worked as a window clerk for the post office for 12 years before deciding to join his wife, Naomi, as a teacher. He earned a master's degree in secondary education and did some post-graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

In the late 1950s, he started a long career in Baltimore city schools as a math teacher. He retired from both the Army Reserve and teaching in 1980 at age 60.

In retirement, Pemberton plays golf regularly and has learned the alto saxophone. He and Naomi also traveled a lot until her death in March 2004, a day before her 83rd birthday.

A native of Atlanta, Naomi also was a graduate of Livingstone College, where she met Pemberton.

For 70 years, since his days at Livingstone, Pemberton has belonged to the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, which held its first Stafford Pemberton Golf Tournament last year in Washington to raise scholarship funds for college-bound students.

Pemberton still keeps up with Salisbury through friends and his frequent trips back to Livingstone College homecomings.

He'll be 90 in June. A fitting birthday gift for Lord Pemberton would be progress on the Dixonville monument.

Click here for related story.