Social Life
In West Augustine, daily life of the different generations consisted of a multitude of different and exciting things. Children, teens, and young adults all had different ways of spending their free time. In comparison to the younger generations today, the children of West Augustine chose to spend a lot of their time outside, as phones, video games, and endless television shows weren’t around. They spent a lot of their time playing games, making homemade toys, hanging out with their friends, etc. In a personal account from a West Augustine resident, Betty Stirrup remembered, “We’d play hopscotch, marbles, different things like that.” A lot of the children would also participate in plays at school, go to ball games, and roller skate around town. Children during her time had a bit more leniency with their free time as they weren’t needed around the house and school as often as the older kids and young adults. Although segregation was the law, many of our oral histories report that the children of West Augustine, whether they were white or black, were tolerant of one another. Louis Nester, for example, recalls black and white children playing sports and games together at Wolfe Field, a recreational area for the West Augustine community.
As these kids began getting older, the ways they chose to spend their free time began to change. Betty Stirrup and Bernice Harper remember going to the Castillo de San Marcos and taking pictures. There was a restaurant called The Iceberg where a lot of the high schoolers would go to hangout and get milkshakes. Going to the beach was also an extremely common use of their free time. “Everybody in town, practically, that could get transportation to go to the beach went to the beach,” said Harper.
Segregation also played a role in what young adults in West Augustine could and could not do. Because the majority of West Augustine was African American, many of the residents faced segregation head on. Beverly Trotman who had lived in the town her whole life talks about how segregation affected her free time. At the movie theater, African Americans would have to sit up top in the balcony, as the white people sat below. She recalled that having situations like this didn’t stop them from having a good time, and that they would even make a joke out of the situation by pouring their drinks on the people below. The Peppermint Lounge was another popular place in West Augustine where teens were able to go after school for refreshments, music, and entertainment.