DANIEL AMBROSE JR.

Daniel Ambrose, Jr., 90, a past Secretary of Government and past Commissioner of Property of Procurement, both of which were served in the United States Virgin Islands, was in Mannford this past weekend visiting with family and friends.

The occasion was to celebrate his 90th birthday on Monday with his family, one of which was Mannford resident, Thelma DeNye, whose birthday was Friday, September 5. Ambrose, whose home is in the island of St. Thomas, a group of islands which lies to the east of Puerto Rico, stopped first in Memphis prior to his Mannford visit.

Ambrose was born in 1896 in Pickens, Mississippi, Holmes County. He recalled there being no real racial problems back then, as there were no whites around. Holmes County had practically all-black towns. In spite of this, when Ambrose's father, Daniel Ambrose, Sr. was appointed the new postmaster by Theodore Roosevelt, following completion of some tests, white rebelled.

When it came time for his father to be inagurated, night riders and the Klu Klux Klan made a blockage in front of the post office; they asked him to resign, which he did, and no further harm came to his family.

In those days, black children were only able to go to school up to the eighth grade. For six months of the year they went to school, then worked for three months in the fields, and then spent the final three months in the classroom again.

Ambrose's family was a large one, with 5 brothers and 3 sisters. His father was a school teacher in the public school and later became principal of the high school. "He taught me -- I was one of his pupils," Ambrose said.

After his high school graduation, Ambrose's father paid the initial fee for him to attend college. Ambrose worked at odd jobs around the campus at Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, for .3 to .7 cents per hour, and put himself the rest of the way through. Alcorn A & M was, at that time, a trade school for blacks.

Following his graduation from Alcorn A & M in 1918, he then went to Howard University Law School in Washington, where he graduated in 1924. He took his examination for the bar in West Virginia. He made Huntington, West Virginia his home and practiced law there and in Charleston, West Virginia, which was about 40 miles away.

During the 1948 Truman Vs. Dewey presidential convention, which Ambrose attended, the Governor of West Virginia could not be located during roll call. "I was there as his alternative. I voted for Truman in his place," said Ambrose.

Dur to recommendations made by former U.S. Congressman Bill Dawson (D-Ill.), the vice-president of the National Democratic Committee, and his own state congressman from West Virginia, President Truman appointed Ambrose of Secretary of Government of the United States Virgin Islands.

In 1950, he went to the Islands, and since, has seen many changes. It expanded to a colony of about 32,000 to its present figures of over 100,000. Government changed to a sovereignty from the U.S. government in 1970, giving them the right to elect their Governor as opposed to having the United States President appoint one.

With an economy based on sugar cane in the 1950's, the Puerto Ricans came, stayed on the islands, and cultivated the crops.

"It's (the Islands) are run like the States," said Ambrose. "They did not have a strong financial set up. The Virgin Islands is approximately 72 million dollars in debt. The current fiscal year ends September 30. They hadn't yet passed a budget for the current fiscal year when I left in August," he added.

Ambrose is now "semi-retired." He practices law in St. Thomas and "keeps as busy as he wants to be."

While at Howard University he was a member of the Students Army Training Corps (SATC) and is a World War 1 veteran.

He's come a long way, and says he'd "do it again, but maybe a little differently."

One of Ambrose's sisters, Isabel Lee, was the first black woman to serve on the city school board in Indianola.