Former Negro Slave Reaches Age of
Seventy-Five; Prefers to Shine Shoes Awhile Rather than Retire.
Most folks
are ready to lay aside their tasks three-quarters of a century, but Jim Coombs
spent his 75th birthday recently shining shoes at the Northern hotel
stand in Billings, where his dusky smile and agile memory have welcomed friends
and strangers for 18 years.
He could
retire and live in comfort. “I saved my money,: he confided on the eve of his
anniversary. “But I don’t know what to do with myself.”
His
appearance belies his age. He looks to be no more than 50, does this jovial
colored man. But he was born a slave, the property of Harrison Priest of the
“Hannibal, Mo., Priests, shu!”
The date of
his advent was April ?, 1859. “Uncle Jim” is a great hand for giving dates and
days. Off-hand, he can recollect dates that to the average mortal would be
obscured by time.
He was only
six years old when the Civil war ended, but he recalls folks on the Priest
plantation telling of how his uncle and Wash Winters ran away and got across
the Mississippi ahead of the “patrollers.” These gentry were employed to detect
and capture runaway slaves.
After the
war the uncle living in Chicago sent for his mother, his sister, who was “Uncle
Jim’s” mother, and the boy.
As a boy he
used to go to church with his mother on Sunday nights and with his uncanny
memory for dates, he recalls that they were attending a service when Mrs.
O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern and started the great Chicago fire.
“We had to
cross the old Twelfth street bridge to get home,” he recollects. “Before we
could get there the fire was hot enough to almost scorch our clothes.
He has a
wealth of memories from his years as a Pullman porter. There was the time, for
instance, that he met a party of railroad officials at Chicago after the
Northern Pacific’s “golden spike” ceremony. On the next track was the special
car of President Arthur with Postmaster General James and Secretary of War
Robert Lincoln aboard.
And the time
he came downtown to take his car out of Washington and heard newsboys shouting
the news of President Garfield’s assassination. That was July, 1881. The
reporter later verified Uncle Jims memory by referring to a history.
“I walked over to the railroad station and
there I saw the spot where Garfield was shot,” he adds. “They’s a star set in
the tile floor now, so everybody can see where the president died.”
A great lover of travel, was Uncle Jim in
his younger days. “Going to ??? wild,” he explains. He finally got tired of
being a porter and found a job in a Seattle hotel. That was 34 years and 4
months ago. He worked at the coast hostelry until he came to Billings 18 years
and 4 months ago, almost to the day.
Not counting polishes he applied while
aboard Pullmans, Uncle Jim estimates he has shined119,000 pairs of shoes. He’s
practically an expert at the profession.
And he’s on the job every morning unless his
miseries get him down. Until he was 63 he didn’t miss a day’s work. Then he was
sick and lost five month’s time.
“But when I’m well they don’t have to wonder
whether ol’ Jim’s on the job,” he declares. “They know I’m there. If I don’t
show up I’m generally gone a spell because I’m sick.”
He has two “kids,” both girls, 52 and 50.
The younger one’s birthday helps his memory.
“They’s just 35 days between her birthday
and mines and its 35 days from then to my wedding anniversary. That’s be 53
years agone this May.”
Shining
shoes has given him a definite philosophy and he goes about his tasks “happy
because I’ve always had plenty to ear and wear and always had a job.
[p. 6] [Wolf
Point Herald 20 Apr 1934]
