I rode through Aberdeen Gardens two or three times while I was in Newport News. “By Negroes, for Negroes” reads the historical marker near the school. Boxy, red-brick houses counterposed in neat lines along streets named for community heroes. My grandfather John C. Allen Jr. was a drywall supervisor during their construction in the late 1930s. Though he disdained the building standards, he briefly moved his family into one of the duplexes when my mother was three weeks old. Semi-furnished. A chicken coop out back. A vegetable garden. By 1940, the family was gone, into the two-story house on 35th Street that my grandmother called home until she died. There’s a rose alongside the porch that still blooms where my grandfather planted it, and he passed in 1948. This house is the most constant edifice of the whole of my life. My Gibraltar. Upstairs, my grandmother slept in the double bed that they brought with them from Aberdeen, along with a squat chest and a nightstand. Solid oak in a simple Shaker style. “Not a drawer sags to this day,” she told me, marveling. She pulled one precariously far out. “Look at that.” I gently tested its solidity. I laughed.
Above, John C. Allen (third from right) and his drywall crew at Aberdeen Gardens, circa 1937, and floor plan of Aberdeen Gardens home.
Scuffalong: Genealogy. 
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For more re Aberdeen Gardens, see: http://www.dailypress.com/features/history/dp-nws-hampton-university-150-aberdeen-20180327-story.html
Interesting that he saw it as poor construction. Those homes are still standing, to this day, and are very sturdy/solidly-built! Next time you’re through the area, maybe you can visit the museum (which is one of the homes) to actually experience the inside of one of the buildings that your grandfather likely helped build. 🙂
Renate
His opinion, I think, was colored by the fact that his own construction business sank during the Depression. Aberdeen houses were not built the way he built private housing — drywall vs. plaster, for example. I’ve never visited the museum and will make it a point to do so next time I’m in Hampton.
Let me know when you come! 🙂
Renate
Will do!
P.S. I was there the 24th for my mom’s 80th birthday dinner, but didn’t have to do much more than ride through the East End. Passed my great-grandparents’ house on Marshall Avenue and met the current owner though!
I just took another look at the photo, and that doesn’t look anything like the homes in the original Aberdeen Gardens. Now, I’m going to have to go and ride over there to see if I can figure out where this might have been! 🙂
(I wonder if maybe that could have been their construction office or something?)
Renate
That’s not a house behind them. It’s an office, and I imagine it was taken down when the project was completed.
Yep.. that’s what I thought. 🙂 I guess because the caption said “at Aberdeen Gardens”, I read it to imply that it was one of the houses. My bad! 🙂
Renate