Children see their parents’ friends through the eyes of children. My earliest memories of Bob Reavis are of a slight man, of medium height, with salt and pepper hair, skin darker than my parents, warm eyes, and a radiant smile whenever he first caught sight of me. “Hello, there, sweetheart! How are you today?” And a roll of Life Savers magically appeared, with one for me.
Many of my parents’ friends were warm to us children, but Bob Reavis had an unconditional depth of affection that stands out, over half a century later. Other childhood memories include Bob’s bringing a box of Tom Swift books for my brother, who in fourth grade had not yet mastered reading. (And looking back now, as an adult, where on earth did he find so many Tom Swift books? And how did he know my brother well enough to choose them, rather than sports or war?) My brother quickly became an avid reader.
Occasionally I went with my mother to Mrs. Reavis’s florist shop, and Bob would show me through the greenhouses: warm, earthy scents, tropical colors, a garden even in winter. Her shop had a small gift area, and I fell in love with a paste tiara there. She solemnly set it aside at my request, and somehow my nine year old self saved and scrimped enough to go back and pay for it in full, still my treasure decades later.
In 1959 this warm, caring family friend took on a new dimension for us. Bob Reavis had worked for the post office for thirty years when the rank of postmaster for our small town fell vacant. My father, the Republican chairman of our town’s 67 Republicans (they sometimes ran protest candidates when the 2,000 Democrats got egregiously nepotic or incompetent), had the responsibility to nominate a new postmaster. He knew of Bob’s long service and good reputation in the the town, of Bob’s college degree, and the choice seemed obvious.
And so Bob, or I should say now with his new office, Mr. Robert Reavis, became the first black postmaster in New York. As part of our family lore, it was important to my father that he nominated him on merit; he was clearly the best candidate and clearly deserved it. It was unusual enough though to merit three paragraphs in Jet:
as well as other newspapers:
Bob’s formal appointment merited a photograph in the New York Age newspaper:
Caption: Jan. 2, 1960
ACTING POSTMASTER Robert Reavis, of Piermont, N. Y. receives his certificate of appointment from Joseph A. Clarke, Staff Assistant to the Postmaster General, at ceremonies held recently. Reavis is believed to be the first Negro to be named a postmaster In New York State. Looking on at the ceremony are William H. Bartlet, assistant to the Regional Operational Director, New York Region, Mrs. Reavis, and Edwin Doulin, Postal Service, Field Service Officer. The New York Age
Discovering the archives of the
New York Age gave me a new window onto Bob’s life. Many of the entries were social events that newspapers of that day would record: attendance at a silver wedding anniversary, the funeral of a young boy who died, where Mrs. Reavis sang a solo. A few were more personal: “Robert Reavis is mourning the death of his father who died on Saturday in Henderson, N. C. Mr. Reavis had reached the age of 73 years.” Some were more cheerful:
A shooting contest was conducted by Robert Reavis on Thanksgiving morning at the Memorial Park and the prize was a lovely turkey. Of about twenty contestants, Walter C Blount, Sr., was the winner with the Rev. W. A. Johnson in very hot pursuit Some of the sharpshooters were either thinking too much of their dinners for the afternoon or felt sorry for the poor defenseless targets for not a bullet from some guns pierced the cardboards. Since it afforded such clean, wholesome sport and amusement it has been rumored that another may be held Christmas. (1932)
One charming incident delighted me, as it so captured Bob’s resilient and kindly character. It must have charmed many, to make it into the United Press:
A much more detailed account in the Middletown Times makes clearer what happened, and is an even more vivid snapshot:
A personal landmark also made it into the New York Age in 1934:
NYACK. N. Y. - Mr. and Mrs. Robert Reavis of Burd street celebrated their fifth or wooden wedding anniversary on Thursday evening in true style with a splendid reception at their home. Those who were present to congratulate the couple upon their very successful years of matrimony were: Mr. and Mrs. F. D. Rogers, Mr. and Mrs. William Smith and son, Mr. and Mrs. F. Clarke, Mr. and Mrs. R. Rhodes. Mrs. A. Randall, Mrs. S. Whjte, Mrs. B. Gregory, Mr. and Mr. and Mrs. E. Robinson, Mrs. R. Rucker, and Mrs. Teena Smith. Mrs. Reavis is the organist of Pilgrim Baptist Church while her husband is one of the local postmen.
Bob served as postmaster for two years and retired in 1962. He had been fifty-eight when he began to serve. I don’t know why he retired so soon. Perhaps it was his wife’s health, which had been dodgy. Perhaps it was simply that he qualified for a federal pension, and retiring freed him to give more time to the greenhouses, which he loved. They continued the florist business at least until 1972, when they provided the flowers for my (first) wedding.
One consequence of Bob’s short term as postmaster was that local Democrats never bought flowers again from his wife’s shop. The Memorial Day displays, the Fourth of July and Veteran’s day flowers, the table settings at Democratic social events - all of these came from a florist in the next town after Bob’s appointment.
The Reavises lived a neighborhood called the Mine Hole, after an old mine shaft that had a sweet spring and may have provided mill stones for a local miller in the nineteenth century. The Mine Hole was a tourist attraction back then:
The research for this diary has confirmed something my mother told me long ago, that there were African-American families whose histories in the town went back before the American Revolution. Indeed, the first permanent settlement in 1684, a group of fifteen families from New Amsterdam, included two families, DeVries and Emmanuel, who were black.
Bob died Dec.1, 1975. The next issue of the town newsletter honored him so:
Thank you, Bob. Thank you for a radiant smile that warmed my small heart, thank you for saving my brother from illiteracy when no one else could, thank you for your many, many years of service. You did indeed make many flowers bloom.