James Clay Stovall

He was a great Black man and we all miss him

by Rejoyce Moss

My father's name was James Clay Stovall and he lived in the Dimond for years. You could always find him sitting outside of Lucky, (Now Farmers Joe's) talking to anyone that would talk to him.

We called him the Mayor of the Dimond District. He was a kind and genial man who was born somewhere in Kentucky. I say that because on most of our birth certificates he was born in different places. He was a cook on the train from Kentucky to Indiana and was a self-taught man.

He worked any job that would help him take care of his kids. We knew he took a lot of stuff off people, but he never let us know about it, so we grew up with out prejudice. My sister Frances had to make him except his SS check because he thought that was the government giving him something. I never knew him to take a day off from work. Because of my Daddy and Mama, we are survivors. They did not leave us a house or lots of money, but they gave us much more. We are still here and standing on our own two feet!

He worked at the old California Hotel here in Oakland, and he retired from there, but they could not find anyone that could do the job, so they hired him back. Daddy did not want to retire because he said that "to retire is to expire."

We called him "Cannonball" for reasons we never knew, but I think that it was because he fathered 22 kids by Della Pearl, our Mother.

He was so proud that he never had to ask our government for anything to raise his kids. He did it all by himself. He was our biggest fan and you could always find him outside our dressing room door. For years I did not know that he could not read, and I was told that his sisters taught him to write his name. If you talked to him, you would not know. His father was a cook as well as a Buffalo Soldier. My father could blow a jug and make it sound like a bass. For you who do not know what that means, it was a one gallon wine bottle put on your shoulder and blown though the side of the top of the bottle. My Mother would play the guitar and boy could she play! He was a great Black man and we all miss him.

His name was James Clay Stovall, aka "Cannonball."