Reverend Elizabeth Ann Nichols Welch (Betty Welch), Kaitlyn Greenidge

Description

Elizabeth Welch was born in Brooklyn in 1937. She grew up on Halsey Street and Stuyvesant Avenue. She was raised by a group of close-knit relatives who lived nearby: she recalls that her grandparents lived only a few blocks away from her home, on Bainbridge Street between Reed and Patchen. When she was about two, Elizabeth reports that she was sent to Pre-kindergarten in one of the housing projects in the neighborhood. She thinks this was because the project was all-white, and wanted to have a black student in one of their daycare classes: she recalls that she was the only African-American student in the class. She recalls that her closest friends growing up were Jewish. She recalls celebrating the Jewish holidays with them in this interview. Her parents allowed her to attend a variety of churches and places of worship to decide what her religious background would be. Elizabeth became involved in Weeksville in her work as a community activist. Her daughter, Sharon, was a student at PS 243 and Elizabeth was a member of the PTA Sharon had originally been a student at PS 9. During a teacher’s strike, Betty had fought to keep the school open and was worried that her daughter would be retaliated against when school resumed. So she enrolled Sharon at PS 243, which was farther from her home. She recalls that Jim Hurley made a presentation about Weeksville to a group of parents and teachers at the school, and that she became intrigued...

Record Contributed By

Weeksville Heritage Center