The Last Trolley Stop: Memories of Poverty, Bigotry, and Religiosity in Washington, D.C. and Rural Kentucky during the Great Depression

This is one book that I didn't like to finish - I was ready for more! It is filled with colorful stories and enlightening descriptions from the 1930's and onward - stories which reveal how life really was in that period of time. Since I have ties to that part of Maryland and to Kentucky, I could easily relate to it all. I highly recommend it!

I enjoyed tis book because I went to school in Takoma Park and it sparked good old memories arould the Sligo Creek area that will be forever happy occasions. The Takoma Park area is much the way it was 50 years aga and the Sear and Roebuck houses are still there. A lovely visit to days gomne by.

An incredible journey thorugh an epoch long gone. Beautifully written, engaging througout, and thoroughtly enjoyable. I recommend this to anyone who likes history and a good tale.

Great read. Just met the author a couple of weeks ago - a good book by a good man

Loved it....leaves you wanting to know "more" about this time period and the people who lived through it.

Heber is a grand story-teller. Here are some of his stories for our time, too.Let's call the first story "March to the Capitol":In his youth, around 1940, Heber and his older brother occasionally walked 6 miles from their home in Takoma Park to the U.S. Capitol. They considered the Capitol their "playground," wandering through the Capitol building, even into the House and Senate galleries. There was little security--perhaps a guard at the entrance door, perhaps not, or on duty but inattentive. After all, this was "the people's building"; the government couldn't keep them out. "The capital was blissfully unafraid of terrorist attacks." Quite a contrast to the assault on the Capitol by protesters in January 2021 and the heavily barricaded and guarded presidential inauguration several weeks later.Second, a story about Confederate symbols--"Play 'Dixie' for Me":In Civil War days Heber's great grandpa was a Confederate soldier. At the war's end he returned home to Tennessee and set up a blacksmith shop. Later, when Union forces also demobilized, a large unit marched through Tennessee on the way home to Illinois. An Army wagon wheel broke near the blacksmith shop. An officer demanded that the blacksmith repair the wheel. The blacksmith replied, "I will, if you play 'Dixie'". The Union marching band played the song, the wheel was repaired, and the Army marched on. Heber continued, "This wasn't the first Yankee band to play Dixie. A day or two after Lee surrendered at Appomattox in April of 1865, people were celebrating the Union victory in front of the White House. Abraham Lincoln came out, gave a short [reconciliatory] talk and ended by saying, 'Now let the band play Dixie.'"Call the last story "Heber awakens to Racism":Heber tells about touring the South by bus in the 1940's. In Mississippi he got on an almost-full, segregated bus, Whites in front and Blacks in back. A White man got on and took a seat int the empty middle row. Later, a Black lady got on and also took a seat in the middle row on the opposite side of the bus from the White man. Thebus-driver hit the brakes, marched back, yelled at the Black lady, ordering her to sit in the back with the Blacks. She had to get up and go back and sit on a crowded bench, even though the middle row was almost empty. Heber wrote, "I had grown up accepting the way [B]lacks had to live and were treated because this was just the way things were, but for the first time in my life I thought, 'This is not right!'"Ranking this book, all 22 earlier reviews gave 5 stars, the highest grade. I enthusiastically join them.Chuck Rees

Excellent book. Well written, with considered reflection on the era and the locale.

The Last Trolley Stop is a personal history and memoir of a time in the not-too-distant past, but a past that is elusive for those who did not live it. Heber Bouland's Depression-era childhood memories of Washington, DC and Kentucky are indelibly etched through vivid imagery, sly humor, personal revelation, and social commentary. (Full disclosure: I helped to edit the book) If you've lived in and around Washington, DC, or more specifically, Takoma Park, you'll appreciate the references to local buildings, shops, streets, and locations, some of which may still be found. But it's the gradual awareness of the author of the tensions and disparities of our society that is so revealing and touching. This is personal history at its best by someone who lived through the times and in the locations. Bouland has a keen eye for the social disjunctions (the black children, some riddled with rickets, limping to a run-down school) and tensions in a society that was changing, sometimes not for the better. The humor that runs through the narrative is intimate, self-deprecating, and even illuminating at times. If you love local history then The Last Trolley Stop (a reference to Takoma Park which was the end of the line for people escaping the Washington, DC summer heat) is a book to treasure.