Anna Hargons Reminisces about the Greenbush and South Madison: Growing Up with South Madison (Part 2 of 2)
Ms. Anna Hargons at her home on Ridgewood Way in South Madison
by Jonathan Gramling
For almost too many years to count, on a daily basis, one could see Ms. Anna Hargons — who was born Anna Banks — walking steadily down Ridgewood Way in South Madison enroute to the bus stop or to do some shopping. At 97-years-old, Hargons had to give up her walking routine relatively recently. And perhaps it’s her walking routine that contributed to her longevity.
Hargons grew up in The Bush and was able to walk almost everywhere she had to go. When someone bought the house they were living in on W. Washington Ave., they moved to the country in South Madison on Baird Street in the late 1930s. It was a time when people still had cattle and chickens there.
“I went to school with Doris Penn,” Hargons recalled. “The Penns lived right there coming up on this side. They were in the country. I was still in the city. And I remember when Mr. Penn played ball all the time at Penn Park. It wasn’t Penn Park then, but he gave it to the city and it was named Penn Park. He had a business, on W. Washington Ave. I remember him having a cow that he kept for his daughter. He had all girls.”
And Hargons moved to Baird Street when The Great Depression was still going on.
“We ate whatever we had to eat,” Hargons said. “We weren’t fussy about what we were eating. No one really seemed to disagree with one another. I’m sure there was some kind of friction, but everyone was nice and trying to help you. I remember growing up and someone would knock on the back door. You would go to it and it was people who were jumping on the railroad cars coming from the South. They asked if we could give them something to eat and if there was something that they could do for you like chopping wood. I remember that when I was 8-9-years old. And the railroad was busy to me. Trains were coming constantly up and down the tracks.”
Hargons learned about responsibility and the merits of being frugal at an early age.
“I learned to do a lot of things coming up,” Hargons said. “When I was nine-years-old, my dad woke me up and said, ‘I put some money under the pillow. You go pay the light and gas bill.’ It was my turn to learn to do something. My dad worked at Oscar Mayer and he used to leave at 6:30 in the morning. I got up and walked to save that nickle or dime to put in my pocket.”
While all of the kids went to elementary school together, some social divisions emerged during the high school years.
“At that time, Franklin went up to fifth grade and then they added another building and then it went up to eighth grade, which is still there,” Hargons said. “And then we went to Central. Some kids like the Penn girl went to a school the university had. The university had a private high school. A lot of the kids in my classes had fathers who were lawyers or what have you and they went to that. It was a private school. I remember the parents dropping their kids off and they would climb the steps to go to that school.”
At Central High, which was where the Madison College Downtown building was off of State Street, the African American students were in a minority.
“Al Dockey and Addrena Squires went to school with me,” Hargons recalled. “At that time, if there were 100 students at Central High, maybe eight were Black students.”
While Hargons would walk to Park Street and then take the bus to Central High, her brothers would walk there, cutting through properties and walking along the railroad tracks. One day, Hargons decided to follow them.
“We would cross the bridge,” Hargons said. “At that time, no one had fences, so we had our little cutways. I would follow my brother going to school to Madison Central. And they didn’t go the way I was going, catching the bus on Park Street. But they went over the bridge and trains ran constantly when I was growing up. And so I followed them one day. All of a sudden, I was on the bridge and I panicked. I froze and I couldn’t move. And they kept saying, ‘Hurry’ because the train was getting ready to come. They looked back and saw me and I couldn’t move. They grabbed me by the arms and went running. I don’t even know if my feet hit the ground. When it got to the beach, they let me go and kept going.”
Her older brother went off to fight in World War II before he had finished high school.
“My brother came back from being drafted and they registered him to go back to high school to get his diploma because he didn’t finish school,” Hargons said. “But the principal changed that to keep the young kids away from the older navy men. I would see some of my friends with them. So his diploma was given to him. He didn’t have to go back to school. He tickled me when he told me. I didn’t know that.”
After Hargons graduated from Central High, she joined the workforce.
“I helped take care of my dad when he died because he raised us by himself, 5-6 kids. And then when I was 20-21-years-old, I met somebody and got married. I met him through a friend who went to school with him. He was visiting her and that’s how I met him. And we moved to Chicago where I stayed for a while. But I never liked the big city.”
Hargons worked in food service while she lived in Chicago. And when she got tired of the big city life — and her husband — Hargons worked for Child Development, Inc. for a while, helping to prepare the food for the children.
And when she moved back to Madison, she made the move to her present house on Ridgewood Way.
“They had sold the family home, so I had a down payment for a house,” Hargons said. “That helped open the door. Evidently the state had come in and condemned some of the houses and they bought the houses.”
Hargons also was able to get a full-time job with the WI Department of Revenue.
“I was 64-65-years-old when I retired from Revenue,” Hargons said. “Right after I retired, I went back to work in January and they were getting ready to move into the new building. I would leave here at 6:15 a.m. to catch the 6:30 a.m. bus to be at work by 7:30 a.m. because I had to transfer. But I quit just before they moved. We had a young lead worker and he did the wrong thing when I had just come back from vacation. And I said, ‘I’m going to think about it.’ I went home, called him back and told him, ‘Write me up.’ I was going to retire anyway. I figured once I moved to the new building and stayed there for a little while, then I would retire because I was in my 60s.”
While Hargons attributes living to be 97-years-old to people getting along with each other, it was probably also due to her lifestyle. She automatically got her exercise in every day.
“I never owned a car myself,” Hargons said. “I loved walking. I would walk from here downtown. I walked constantly. I walked so much and looked along the way. I was walking and looking, walking and looking. I walked from here and walked down Park Street. I walked to Popeyes. I can’t walk a block now and I miss it. I tried one time to learn how to drive. And I was the only person on the whole street. No one had cars. The fella who was trying to teach me when I was 15-16-years-old and I couldn’t learn and he gave up. I’m the only one in the family who can’t drive. Even my children learned to drive at an early age. I love walking.”
Ms. Anna Hargons was in a unique place to witness Madison history. And especially from when South Madison was in the country to where it is now, Hargons grew up with South Madison, experiencing every stage of its development.