Annie and her husband, Andy, moved to Capitol Hill in 1971, where they remained except for brief stays in Iran and Chicago until his death in 2020. Annie spent most of her career teaching pre-K at Capitol Hill Day School. Besides being an educator, Annie was a well-respected actress who appeared with many of the DC theaters. She first translated her love of Shakespeare by creating Macbeth for the eighth-grade class at her children’s school, St Peters. Based on that success, she did a Shakespeare play every year with the seventh and eighth graders at Capitol Hill Day School.. She then expanded her workshops on Shakespeare to the public schools on Capitol Hill until she retired. Her next step was starting a company called Shakespeare for the Young, using puppets to create interactive Shakespeare plays for the young audience. Her company performed at libraries, schools and the National Theatre.
Because of these two passions, teaching and acting, Annie Houston transformed the cultural environment for young people in the District of Columbia.
Interview with Annie Houston
Interview Date: October 4, 2025
Interviewer: Randy Norton
Transcriber: Betsy Barnett
Editor: Fynnette Eaton
This interview transcript is the property of the Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project.
Not to be reproduced without permission.
START OF INTERVIEW
NORTON: This is Randy Norton. I am interviewing Annie Houston. It’s October 4, 2025. We’re at the home of Maygene Daniels, 816 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington D. C. Good afternoon.
HOUSTON: Good afternoon, Randy.
NORTON: All right. Let me just start from the beginning. Where were you born?
HOUSTON: I was born in a little tiny town. It was then called Mandeville, on the island of Jamaica.
NORTON: And how did your parents happen to be in Jamaica?
HOUSTON: My father was a missionary and a minister and head of a school there.
NORTON: How long were you in Jamaica?
HOUSTON: I was there for eight years.
NORTON: Okay. So, you remember it then.
HOUSTON: Oh, yes. It’s …
NORTON: What do you remember about …
HOUSTON: … where my heart and soul is actually.
NORTON: Really. And why is that?
HOUSTON: It’s the land. My mother was sick after my sister was born and she really didn’t recover. So, I was three at the time and she wasn’t really around much.
NORTON: This would be your mother.
HOUSTON: My mother.
NORTON: Okay,
HOUSTON: And it was the land that raised me. And, in fact, when I went back, when I was 50, for the first time, my cousin’s stepsister took Andy [interviewee’s husband] and me around in her car. And I would say, “Oh, that’s where that was and, oh, that’s where that was.” And she said, [in a slight accent] “Annie, darling, how do you know that?” And I said, “I can tell by the shape of the land.” And she would say “You’re right.” I mean, the land really was so powerful.
NORTON: Interesting.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: I’ve been there once.
HOUSTON: Oh, yeah?
NORTON: And it’s a very striking place, but …
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: …I’m not sure, you know, a week vacation gives you quite the same sense.
HOUSTON: Yeah. Well, it depends where you were. Right.
NORTON: Yes, yes.
HOUSTON: Where were you?
NORTON: Ocho Rios.
HOUSTON: Ocho Rios. Yeah. Mandeville is south, in the middle.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Almost on the southern coast.
NORTON: Okay. All right. All right, well, then, you started school, then, in Jamaica.
HOUSTON: I did. My mom, who knew things weren’t quite right, begged this little school to take me. And, in fact, I boarded there when I was—I don’t know—five, six, and seven.
NORTON: Really? And was this …
HOUSTON: Eight.
NORTON: … local school? I mean, was it right there?
HOUSTON: Oh, yeah. Little, tiny school. It was run by these—I called them old ladies. They were probably in their 50s or 60s. [Both laugh.]
NORTON: Right.
HOUSTON: And they had had a school for high school girls, but they stopped that. And they took in young kids. And, so, all of us were under the age of —there may have been some ten-year-olds. But, all of us, we were really quite young.
NORTON: And you said your mother felt things weren’t quite right or something like that. What did you mean by that?
HOUSTON: Yeah. Well, you know, she actually had a mental breakdown. She had postpartum depression and nobody knew …
NORTON: This would be after your sister or …?
HOUSTON: Yeah, after my sister. No one knew how to treat it. No one knew what it was about. And, so, that’s what I mean by that.
NORTON: When you went to this little school, were all the other kids local kids?
HOUSTON: It was really tiny. There were maybe five of them. No, more than that. There were maybe eight of them. Eight to 12.
NORTON: Eight to 12 other students?
HOUSTON: Other students. And two of them I knew from my neighborhood, which means a little house up on a hill. And I’d look across the gully and there was their house up on a hill. And I would want to go visit them but nobody was going to drive me over there. And there was a family of kids from Syria. Which was interesting.
NORTON: Do you know what brought them there? I mean, to Jamaica.
HOUSTON: No, I don’t. But, you know, Jamaica has an Indian population, has a German population. You know, there were these pockets.
NORTON: Right. And when you say “Indian,” that means India Indians.
HOUSTON: India. India.
NORTON: Yes. Okay.
HOUSTON: Yeah. There were no black kids there.
NORTON: Really?
HOUSTON: No.
NORTON: Interesting.
HOUSTON: No, there weren’t. I think they were all—you know. I mean, it was a colonial place, Jamaica, settled by the Brits.
NORTON: When would that have been? Was it still …
HOUSTON: I think it was in ’53 that it got its independence from Britain.
NORTON: Okay. So it was still colonial when you were there? Or not quite?
HOUSTON: Oh, yeah. Because I was born in ’47.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: So, six years …
NORTON: And who was in your father’s congregation? I mean …
HOUSTON: That’s a good question. I don’t know. He traveled around to different churches, so I know he had some black congregations. But I didn’t go to church with him.
NORTON: I see. All right, how long did you go in school there?
HOUSTON: Until I was eight,
NORTON: Okay. And, then, what brought you all back to—well, did you come back to the United States? Or where did you go next?
HOUSTON: Briefly to the United States. My mother decided she was just going to get well despite the doctors, who had been experimenting with drugs on her. So it kind of prolonged everything. It wasn’t good. And, oh, God, I’m getting into my history.
NORTON: Well, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.
HOUSTON: No, no, no. It’s okay. I share it with people. I don’t mind it, but it’s complicated. When my mother got ill, her best friend was a midwife who was 15 years older and the midwife said “Come live with us for a little bit.” She did for a while before she went up to Boston to a hospital. And this midwife and her husband, who had never wanted kids, took care of my sister, who was really little. My sister was a beauty. She was striking when she was younger. And, they fell in love with her and my mother wasn’t getting better. I don’t know what made them decide to move to England, but they did. With my sister.
NORTON: This is the midwife and her husband [who] moved to England with your sister. And how old were you?
HOUSTON: They were Jamaicans. They were white Jamaicans.
NORTON: I see. But were they back in the States when your sister was living with them? Or this was still in Jamaica.
HOUSTON: No, no. This was Jamaica. So, when I left Jamaica, shortly after that—no. When [they] moved to England, when she was three. It’s interesting. I have never, sort of, thought of this. In any case, they moved to England. And, so, when my mother got well or, you know, decided she was going to be well, she took my brother and me to England to get my sister. And the idea was that she would slowly be weaned back into our family. But they said no. And, so, there was a court case, two court cases fought.
NORTON: And in England.
HOUSTON: In England.
NORTON: So, how old were you when you all went back to England with the idea of recovering your sister?
HOUSTON: When I went to England, I was still eight.
NORTON: Okay. You say you were just very briefly in the United States, then you went straight to England.
HOUSTON: Yeah,
NORTON: How long did you stay in England?
HOUSTON: For four years.
NORTON: And what happened in the case?
HOUSTON: My parents lost the first one. And my mother begged my father to fight again. He was in the States making a living and going to Boston University to get his theological degree. And they won the second case. And [that] started my sister’s problems, right? She was ripped away from a family that …
NORTON: That she’d been with for …
HOUSTON: That she’d been with for six years.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Six years. Formative years.
NORTON: And, then, at that point did you come back to the States? Or was that …
HOUSTON: No, we stayed. My mother loved England and she loved being there and we were happy and we didn’t want to come to the States. My father applied to go to Saint Andrews, which back then … Saint Andrews University in Scotland, now Americans go, Europeans go. But back then, not very many people outside of Scotland went. And he wanted to further his degree and go there, but he wasn’t accepted. And we’d all—you know, we were in schools, we were going to move to Scotland, we were all very excited about it. But that didn’t happen. So, then, we came back to the States.
NORTON: And how old were you when you came back to the States?
HOUSTON: I was 12.
NORTON: Okay. And, then, what happened next?
HOUSTON: I cried when I saw the Statue of Liberty.
NORTON: Aww.
HOUSTON: Because I didn’t want to be here. [Both laugh.] I’m sorry.
NORTON: It was not the right reason for crying, right. I know. Understood, understood. Okay.
HOUSTON: And, in fact, my brother went—he had a really hard time. He was 13 ? and my parents sent him back to England to boarding school because he had a hard time adjusting.
NORTON: He was then a year and a half older than you, right?
HOUSTON: Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah.
NORTON: Okay. Did your sister come back with you?
HOUSTON: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
NORTON: So, then, where did you all go?
HOUSTON: We lived outside of Providence. And my father had a church. And he went to Brown University, instead of Saint Andrews. Got his degree there. My mother, who had always wanted to go to college … In fact, when she was 16, she wanted to go to Radcliffe because she had a cousin at Harvard. She lived in Kansas. And her mother said no. So, she didn’t get her dream fulfilled. But now that she was in Providence, she thought, “Oh, I can start out.” And, so, she went to Pembroke. Brown was divided into Pembroke for women.
NORTON: And Brown.
HOUSTON: And, so, she went all through and got her Ph.D almost. Except she didn’t write her thesis.
NORTON: All right. And what were you doing when all this was going on? As a kid.
HOUSTON: As a kid. Growing up in New England. Both my parents were really into good education and the schools in Rhode Island were not great. So they sent us to a private school. You know, we got scholarships because my father didn’t make money.
NORTON: Where was it? Which school was it?
HOUSTON: It was in Providence.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: It was Mary C. Wheeler School.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And my sister and I went there. I don’t have fond memories.
NORTON: Why not?
HOUSTON: It was very foreign and very …
NORTON: Foreign to you.
HOUSTON: To me. Yes. Very foreign to me. You know, there were kids who were very wealthy. I wasn’t. I was, you know, poor, by their standards.
NORTON: Sure.
HOUSTON: So, I never felt at home. I never felt at home at that school. I got a good education, mind you. Very good.
NORTON: Did you graduate from there?
HOUSTON: Graduated from there. And I chose my college for a terrible reason. But I chose to go to a place that had an abroad program so I could get back to Europe, mid-sophomore to mid-junior year. [Both laugh.] And it was Hollins. That’s Hollins University.
NORTON: Outside of Roanoke.
HOUSTON: Yeah. Outside of Roanoke.You know it?
NORTON: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I went to the University of Virginia so I knew Hollins.
HOUSTON: Oh, that’s a great place. That was a very good place. Yeah.
NORTON: So, you went four years to Hollins?
HOUSTON: Yeah. Went four and one was spent in France. Best year of my whole life ... [Laughs.]
NORTON: So, I’m getting the sense that you don’t have, you know, real warm, fuzzy feelings about Hollins, but what do you remember about it?
HOUSTON: Well, I loved the land. It reminded me of Jamaica. It was so beautiful. I just fell in love. I love Virginia. And I am thrilled that Maxwell [interviewee’s son] and Erin have this place which has the most incredible view. And I find it a very spiritual place.
NORTON: Oh, great.
HOUSTON: And I love, I love being there.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Any time I can go there when they’re not having, you know, a retreat, when Erin’s not doing a retreat, I try. It works out to be about twice a year.
NORTON: And Erin’s your daughter-in-law, right?
HOUSTON: My daughter-in-law.
NORTON: And Maxwell’s your son, just for the record. Okay, go ahead.
HOUSTON: Yeah. And they had a theater program, which I joined, because I was very much into theater starting, well, way back in England. I fell in love with Shakespeare. He was my first playwright that I fell in love with. I fell in love with his stories from Charles and Mary Lamb’s stories. I’d read that he was a playwright and, so, the first story I fell in love with was As You Like It. And I said to my mother in England, “I am going to write a play. I am going to write As You Like It into a play, because I’ve read he’d made plays.” And she said, “Honey, let me give you his plays. You don’t have to write it out.” So, she did. That was my first full …
NORTON: [Laughing.] It’s been done, right?
HOUSTON: Right. He did a good job. Trust me. But, you know, from then on, I was a huge Shakespeare fan. My school in Providence, Mary C. Wheeler School, had a theater program that was run by … Argo. I’ve forgotten his first name. But he was an actor at the playhouse, very good playhouse in Providence.
NORTON: His last name was Argo then.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. And I loved him and his wife. And, so, you know, I did some scenes from Romeo and Juliet and I was in plays and I was in the ensemble. I played the violin, which people would make fun of. [Laughs.] So, Hollins, you know, I auditioned for plays and got great roles almost right away, which was fabulous.
NORTON: Good, good.
HOUSTON: And, then, when we went to Paris … So I met Andy’s sister at this college and she …
NORTON: At Hollins.
HOUSTON: At Hollins. She became my best friend. And I remember she showed me a picture of her brother and I thought, “Wow, he looks like a romantic soul.” He was standing in front of Chambord, the bottle of wine, and reading a book. [Both laughing.}
NORTON: Ah, that’s great. So, how long was it before you met him?
HOUSTON: We met each other twice during college. Once was in New York, when Mimi and I were about to board the ship to go across the Atlantic to this, you know, to our …
NORTON: Exchange program?
HOUSTON: … year abroad. And he remembers me, I don’t remember him. My violin had just been stolen out of my car, so I was pretty upset. It was just this wonderful violin my mom had found in Paris for me when I was 12. And I loved it and I even thought at one point of going to a conservatory. I had an incredible teacher in Providence. He was actually a policeman. But he was a wonderful violin teacher and so encouraging and I grew a lot that year. And, then, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t go back to him. In any case … The other time was in Amsterdam. Andy was flying—he was, you know, like, six and a half years older—he was flying to Iran to be in the Peace Corps. And he was stopping over in Amsterdam and his sister and I hitchhiked to Amsterdam so we could see him.
NORTON: So, his sister knew he was going to be there.
HOUSTON: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s why we went.
NORTON: And you were still in your, you know, year abroad program.
HOUSTON: Program. Yeah, yeah. So, we went up just, you know, for like a long weekend. And I remember him, he doesn’t remember me. [Interviewer laughs.] So, we didn’t meet until after college. About a year after college.
NORTON: All right. Where was he going at the time?
HOUSTON: He was going to Iran in the Peace Corps.
NORTON: Okay. So, he’d already graduated.
HOUSTON: He had already graduated and trying to avoid the draft. He was old enough to have gotten out of it, but he just wanted to be sure he wasn’t going to get drafted. It was Viet Nam, heavy time.
NORTON: Ah, yes. Yes. And how long was he in Iran?
HOUSTON: He was there for two years. Peace Corps.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And, then, he moved back here. He had bought a white camel in Iran––I could go on about camel stories, but this is not about him, I am going to write down one day—and wanted to ride it across the Sahara and get on a boat and arrive in New York and ride home to Connecticut on his camel. [Laughs.]
NORTON: On his camel?
HOUSTON: Well, it was a great dream. In any case, he came back here and we met … Let’s see, two years … I was out of college for a year when I met him and he was going out with somebody. So, we didn’t get together, but we were attracted to one another for sure.
NORTON: So, each one of you actually remembers the other on this visit, right?
HOUSTON: Yes, on this one. Yeah.
NORTON: All right.
HOUSTON: He was a big jokester and he kept me laughing and it was …
NORTON: So, where was this that you met, I mean …?
HOUSTON: At my sister-in-law’s apartment. [Laughs.]
NORTON: Okay, okay. All right.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. And, so, I had gone to Atlanta, Georgia, for a year after college actually.
NORTON: And what were you doing there?
HOUSTON: Well, I went down because I had done a film my senior year with, actually, a history professor who had connected down there with a man, Tullio Petrucci, who had a film company. And he was an artist. And this history professor and I made a film, you know, of no particular note. But this was before I came back and met Andy in New York. And the guy and I sort of hooked up, unfortunately.
NORTON: The filmmaker?
HOUSTON: Yeah, the filmmaker.
NORTON: Yeah. Okay.
HOUSTON: The artist. Yeah. But it wasn’t a positive thing at all.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: It was, you know … Then I moved back, moved back from Atlanta. Didn’t like Atlanta. I found it ... Back then, if you looked different, you were going to be … People would talk to me on the bus. White people. “Why do you look the way you do? Why is your hair curly and long?” You know, just really nasty.
NORTON: So, what was it that made you look different back then? Probably nothing that people would notice today, but …
HOUSTON: Well, just they didn’t like—I wasn’t the groomed Southern girl.
NORTON: Uh huh. Okay.
HOUSTON: You know. And I had friends who would be chased and fearing for their lives.
NORTON: Interesting.
HOUSTON: Yeah. No, it was not a good time, late ’60s in Atlanta, Georgia.
NORTON: So, this was late ‘60s?
HOUSTON: Yeah. ’69, ’70.
NORTON: Okay. So, you were there for, you said, about a year or so.
HOUSTON: Not even, yeah.
NORTON: Okay. And, then, were you …
HOUSTON: And, then, I moved back to Providence and became a high school teacher. I taught English and French in a small high school, private high school.
NORTON: Okay. And how long did you do that?
HOUSTON: I did that for a good year and, then, Andy and I—we had met. I think the school started to fail, as well. And Andy and I had met and we decided … He was living in New York and he did not like being in New York, ironically.
NORTON: Yeah.
HOUSTON: [Both laugh,] Not that I love it. But I’m there for a different reason. And he moved to the Hill. You know, he said, “Will you come with me to the Hill?” And, so, we moved to Capitol Hill.
NORTON: So, which is when?
HOUSTON: In ’71. September ’71. We first lived across town with some friends, but then he wanted to move to the Hill because he had a very good friend who was his professor at Yale, David Calleo—I don’t know if you know him—who started the SAIS program at Johns Hopkins.
NORTON: Okay. What’s SAIS?
HOUSTON: School of International Study. [School of Advanced International Studies.]
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: He started the international program there. And he [Andy] loved David and David was truly a mentor. He was about five years older than him. And he lived on Sixth and A.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And lived there until he died, which was fairly recently, and his wife, I think, is selling the house now. That was her intention when I last talked to her. And he had another very close friend who was an architect that he had gone to architecture school with and that was Robert Bell. I don’t know if you remember.
NORTON: Bob Bell, yes.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. So, that’s why we moved to the Hill. It was because of those two people.
NORTON: Were the Bells living on Kentucky at that time?
HOUSTON: Yeah. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, that’s why we moved to the Hill. And, then, we went to Iran. We bought a house on the Hill on Walter Street and Andy wanted to make the chimneys like minarets. So, he made them very, very tall. [Laughs.]
NORTON: So, he extended the chimneys. Is that the deal? Yeah, okay.
HOUSTON: He did. Now, when we came back from Iran—I’m digressing—but when we came back from Iran, they weren’t there. They had been … No, no, no. No, I’m sorry. When we came back from Iran, we finished the renovation and finished, I guess, making them as tall as we wanted. Two minarets. And, then, I guess we must have sold the house, because, when we came back from Iran, he couldn’t get any work here. It was the recession.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: We lived in Iran for almost two years. We were supposed to go there for three months.
NORTON: And what was he doing over there?
HOUSTON: He was an architect there. In Tehran.
NORTON: Working for who?
HOUSTON: Working for—oh, God. A Chicago firm.
NORTON: Okay, well, what was he doing?
HOUSTON: He was designing. He designed Iranzamin, which was a high school. He designed a palace for one of the princesses. He designed, you know, different things like that. He was doing really interesting design.
NORTON: Now, had you all gotten married before you went to Iran?
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. We did.
NORTON: What did you do in Iran?
HOUSTON: Well, we were only going to be there for three months. So I decided I’d always wanted to weave. So Andy helped me build just an upright loom. It took a while to just do that because, you know, we had to figure out where to get the wood and how to do it and blah-blah-blah.
NORTON: And all that was done over there, over in Iran.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. In Iran. Yeah. And, so, I did a weaving. It was interesting, not very good. But it taught me a lot. And, then, I started to work for a daycare center. We kept getting extended, our time was. So, it was sort of hard to get a job. I mean, Andy was already in his job.
NORTON: And he would get extended then, but you couldn’t …
HOUSTON: But I couldn’t really look for something. But I did work at this little daycare center for a while. And when we came back to the States, I bought them, you know, equipment and took it back with me. But it wasn’t successful because, you know, they lived in an authoritarian government.
NORTON: Right. This was the Shah still.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And not much has changed, in a sense, in that people are imprisoned, just the way they were under the Shah, and beaten, and, you know, all of that. And, so, the classrooms were run in a very authoritarian way. And they did not understand me when I said, “We need to give the children some agency and make choices. And you should have a choice time and let them decide what they want to do in the classroom.” It was beyond them. So …
NORTON: I mean, that was a little, you know, radical for the United States at that time. I’m sure it was for there.
HOUSTON: [Laughs.] Probably. I was training, when I was here in the States before we went to Iran, I was training at the oldest nursery school in the country, which was called National Child Research Center.
NORTON: Which is where?
HOUSTON: It is, and still is today, up in Woodley Park.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: No, not Woodley Park. What’s the one right above that? [Interviewer laughs while interviewee thinks.] Oh …
NORTON: It’s okay.
HOUSTON: It’s off of Connecticut Avenue on Highland Avenue. [3209 Highland Park NW.] The principal wasn’t terrific, but she certainly understood really good education for young children. And it was a school that was set up for people to observe. There are observational booths, so you could observe what was going on in the classroom and learn from it. And teachers were trained really well. [Material removed at interviewee’s request.] And I tried to get a high school job down here. No one would hire me. I applied to 50 different places. No, more than that. I mean, I sent out letter after letter. So, a friend said, “Well, why don’t you … “ The friend’s children were going here. Aand she said, “Well, why don’t you just volunteer there?” So, I did and I loved it. And I think in the back of my head I’d always felt … My study when I went to get my MAT {Masters in Teaching} was in attachment theory. I was always affected by what happened to my sister. She was attached to this couple and my mother was told by a British psychiatrist make a clean cut. They can’t see her anymore. Which was not my mother’s intention, at all. In the beginning, she wanted to slowly wean my sister. And she did connect with them before we left England, or connected with Ningy, the woman. And corresponded …
NORTON: What was the name, I’m sorry, you said.
HOUSTON: My sister called her Ningy. Her name was Mervis.
NORTON: N-I-N-G-Y, maybe?
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: So I think I was very attracted to early childhood because of that, because of, you know, feeling very … I could tell my sister was having a hard time in high school even. I don’t know if you knew stories on the Hill about my sister. She lived here.
NORTON: I mean, I met your sister, but …
HOUSTON: Yeah. You know, she was homeless on the Hill for a while.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: She had a rough life, really rough. In any case, the director of the school said, “I’ll hire you. You seem to work really well with kids. I’ll hire you, but you have to get your MAT [Masters of Teaching].” So, I went to Trinity [now Trinity Washington University] to get my MAT.
NORTON: And this is which school? I just keep my …
HOUSTON: Trinity.
NORTON: Yeah. But, also, you were teaching at?
HOUSTON: Oh, National Child Research Center it’s called.
NORTON: Okay, okay.
HOUSTON: It’s got a, you know, ridiculous name. But it was set up, I think in the 30s, maybe—I’d have to check that—as a research center for early childhood, which was pretty radical for its time.
NORTON: Hence, the observation stations and all that kind of stuff. So.
HOUSTON: Yeah. Right, right, right, right.
NORTON: So, all right, just in terms of chronology again, this is what, you know, after you came back to …
HOUSTON: No. All right. So, it was split up. So, before I went to Iran, I started.
NORTON: All right.
HOUSTON: And, when I came back from Iran … You know, we moved over there. And it was only going to be for three months, but ... And, when I came back from Iran … Oh, no, I’m sorry. No. I’m getting this all wrong.
NORTON: It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.
HOUSTON: I was taking, you know, secretarial jobs, like at the …
NORTON: Temporary kind of stuff?
HOUSTON: Yeah. Psychiatric Institute I had one. Which was fascinating. They were doing handwriting …
NORTON: Analysis?
HOUSTON: Analyzing handwriting of prisoners, prisoners of war. It was very interesting, actually. And then I couldn’t stand it anymore and I started to volunteer at the school.
NORTON: At the National …
HOUSTON: At the National Child Research Center. I think that was the chronology. Then we went to Iran and, when I came back, I was told that I would be hired there but I’d have to get my MAT.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: So, I applied to Trinity College and started my MAT. And Andy couldn’t find work. And his—Perkins&Will, that was the name of his firm.
NORTON: Perkins and what?
HOUSTON: Will.
NORTON: W-I-L-L?
HOUSTON: Yeah..
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Perkins&Will. So, they said, “Well, you have a job out in Chicago. You’ll always have a job with us.” Because they loved his work. And, so, we commuted.
NORTON: Whew—Both of you commuted or did just he?
HOUSTON: Well, it was mainly me, because it was easy, you know—I was living with the Bells. And I would commute on weekends out to Chicago, probably two or three weekends a month.
NORTON: Wow. And what period are we talking about now?
HOUSTON: All right. This is ’75, ’76.’77, something like that.
NORTON: And you were still at that time living on Walter Street or … ?
HOUSTON: No. We sold that house.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: I guess there was a period of time when Andy didn’t have work. So, he finished the house and we sold it. We actually bought a house in Chicago, which we started to renovate by, minimally, pulling out old carpet and sanding the floors.
NORTON: Right.
HOUSTON: And we sold it for a $10,000 gain …
NORTON: Good.
HOUSTON: … three months later. Because he got a job back in DC and we always wanted to move back. And we moved back to the Hill.
NORTON: Okay. And what job did he get in DC?
HOUSTON: He got a job with … Oh, what’s the name of it? A small firm. It’s terrible I don’t remember the name.
NORTON: It’s fine.[Metcalf and Associates].
HOUSTON: It doesn’t come to me.
NORTON: That’s not real important in the great scheme of things. So, you came back here when?
HOUSTON: This is a good exercise. [Laughs.] ’77. No, maybe … Yes, ’77.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: We came back in ’77.
NORTON: Now, in terms of your career, had you gotten your Master’s at Trinity yet?
HOUSTON: Yeah. And I was working at National Child Research Center.
NORTON: Okay, okay.
HOUSTON: And, then, when we came back, I applied to Capitol Hill Day School. It was in this split … Well, when we both moved back to Capitol Hill. we were living above the tile store. Do you remember the tile store [Ademas Tile Shop] that was [at 721] Eighth Street [SE]?
NORTON: On Eighth Street? I sort of remember it. Yes, yes.
HOUSTON: Great couple there. I loved that couple [Don and Barbara Thomas.]
NORTON: Yes. I can’t remember who it was, but yeah.
HOUSTON: And we lived in this wonderful apartment. It was all open and it was really fun. We loved that place, before we bought our own home. But I applied for a job at Capitol Hill Day School when they were still split. They were in Christ Church and the Lutheran church. [Lutheran Church of the Reformation.] And I taught in the Lutheran church, because I taught early childhood, and Sue Dranitzke—Do you know the Dranitzkes?
NORTON: Some, yes.
HOUSTON: Some. Sue hired me.
NORTON: And you were at early childhood at that point. And, then, what happened after that?
HOUSTON: Well, then, I got pregnant with Maxwell. So, I asked a friend—I don’t know if you know these people, but Sue had introduced me to a woman named Gerry Seedyke, who ran a little center, a co-op, and I taught there one summer. I taught slightly older children a whole unit called Whales and Water. And it was really great to teach. And, so, I knew Gerry was looking for a job and I said, “Gerry, maybe you could take over my job because I am pregnant and I am going to leave mid-year.” I taught there for a year and a half.
NORTON: This is in the National Children’s Research …
HOUSTON: No, now we’re at Capitol Hill Day School.
NORTON: I’m sorry. All right. Okay. All right. [Laughs.] That’s okay.
HOUSTON: I moved around a lot.
NORTON: No, it’s my job to try to keep it straight. So, go ahead.
HOUSTON: So, I’m now at Capitol Hill Day School. Taught there for a year, got pregnant, and, so, taught until February. And Maxwell was born in March.
NORTON: Of ?
HOUSTON: Of ’79. Had you moved to Independence Avenue by then or …?
HOUSTON: By then, we had moved, yes. We had sold two houses by then. [Both laugh.] And …
NORTON: The one on Walter Street and the one in Chicago.
HOUSTON: The one in Chicago.
NORTON: Okay. All right.
HOUSTON: Which had an interesting name, because it kind of echoed here. I’ve forgotten now what the name was but … And we had bought the house on Independence Avenue and Andy started his architectural gutting and, you know, tinkering and all of that.
NORTON: Which he certainly did. And added on in the back and all.
HOUSTON: Added on in the back. And I remember him building the kitchen. He did this beautiful woodworking job in the kitchen, you know, dovetailing wood, different colored woods.
NORTON: Yeah. So, Maxwell was born in March of ’79 and you have now left your job at the Day School.
HOUSTON: Day School, yeah.
NORTON: And what are you doing?
HOUSTON: Taking care of him, and then, when he was three, we moved. Oh, you know, we had neighbors on the side of us that were … You weren’t privy to this, but they were difficult neighbors.
NORTON: Well, since we were on the other side, then you were all the buffers, I guess.
HOUSTON: Yeah. All right. So we would wake up at night to people screaming and yelling at each other, hearing people throwing up. And one time Andy looked out the window and saw people with guns aiming at each other. He called the police, and the police … All they wanted to know was what kind of guns. And Andy said [Loudly] “I don’t know guns. Just get over here!” [Interviewer laughs.] And, meanwhile, we had put in—to block the noise—we had put in a channeled wall. Do you know what that is? So, you have a wall, right? But, then, you put metal strips down it and, then, you put another wall. And that blocks the sound. And that was great.
NORTON: So, it had a little air barrier in between. Yeah.
HOUSTON: Yes, exactly. But, when the gun thing happened, we said, “Uh-uh. We’re not going to raise our kid here.”
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: I mean, I guess they sold somewhat after that, because I know that house changed. But we bought on East Capitol Street.
NORTON: Okay. And when was that?
HOUSTON: Maxwell was three, so it was …
NORTON: Jeez. It seems like you were there longer. But …
HOUSTON: ’82. Maybe he was four by the time we moved.
NORTON: Well, you know how memory is.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: Okay. All right. Where did you move to on East Capitol?
HOUSTON: 649 East Capitol Street, right near the Baileses.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Two doors down. I guess they hadn’t moved there quite yet. But we moved there and Mari [Annie’s daughter] was born there.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: I had home births for both my children with midwives. It was legal back then. I don’t know if it still is.
NORTON: And you certainly had a, you know, sort of family tradition of at least knowing midwives and that sort of thing.
HOUSTON: Yes, exactly. Exactly. I remember I talked to her [Mervis/Ningy] and said Maxwell was breech. I must have called her on the phone, because we didn’t go to England.
NORTON: Oh, breech is a little scary. Yeah.
HOUSTON: Yeah. And I said, “They’re telling me that I can’t have a home birth.” And she said, “Annie, darling, if I were there, I would just—I would know what to do. I delivered so many breech births in Jamaica.” She said, “I would turn that baby.” So, I just did some research and found out that if you lay on an ironing board upside down and did that religiously twice a day at least that the baby would turn. And it did.
NORTON: Wow.
HOUSTON: I did not want to have a hospital birth. I just had read too much about, you know, hospital births and babies being pulled out with forceps and all of that.
NORTON: Right. All right. Before I move on here from Independence to East Capitol, what else, other than your unpleasant neighbors, what else do you remember about the neighborhood when you moved in there. I guess you lived there for about three years or so.
HOUSTON: Three or four years, yeah.
NORTON: Three or four years, yeah.
HOUSTON: I remember Andy and Maxwell doing a “picking up the trash” walk. So, they would go up and down the street and they would pick up trash. I don’t think it has to be done anymore because people …
NORTON: Well, it’s a lot more gentrified, let’s just say, than it used to be.
HOUSTON: Yeah. Yeah. And I find that’s what I do in New York, is I pick up the trash. And our neighborhood has improved because I have done it. I think people notice. Oh, this looks good. But it’s a constant. Go away for a month ...
NORTON: And probably that way on Independence, too.
HOUSTON: Right. So, I remember that. I remember the friends I had on the Hill which were, you know, that I met. That I still have. And I remember Andy building that jungle gym out back.
NORTON: Oh, right.
HOUSTON: Which was so fun. Kids would come over and play on it.
NORTON: Yeah, yeah. Because you had a nice, as did we, a nice, big yard for Capitol Hill. Yeah.
HOUSTON: No, we did. Yeah. Wish I hadn’t put those pebbles there, but ...
NORTON: [Laughs.] Anyway.
HOUSTON: I remember Maxwell went to a little, tiny school. And it was a little day care center on Mass[achusetts] Ave. in the church. I’ve forgotten the name of it. I decided he couldn’t be in my school because it was too hard, you know, to teach my own kid, little kid.
NORTON: Yeah. So, had you gone back to teaching by then?
HOUSTON: Well, I had started a little school called The Children’s School.
NORTON: Oh, okay. And where was that?
HOUSTON: It was in my house.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And I had four or five, five children, five or six children. When we moved to East Capitol Street, I continued it, you know, continued with kids. I don’t know if you knew Betsy Barnett. Her kid …
NORTON: Oh, sure. Yeah.
HOUSTON: … went there. Barbara Barnett, who’s now Haley, went there.
NORTON: Betsy may transcribe this interview, so ...
HOUSTON: [Laughs.]
NORTON: She’s one of the best transcribers, so, yes.
HOUSTON: Oh, I love Betsy. I’ve loved her from the moment I met her. And I met her the first time I was at the Day School.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: There was a second time at the Day School and I taught Barbara the second time at the Day School. I missed teaching their daughter.
NORTON: Well, it was Whitney, but ...
HOUSTON: Whitney, Whitney. I knew it was a “W”.
NORTON: Yeah.
HOUSTON: I was going to say Walter, and I said, no, that’s her husband. But I fell in love with Betsy. What a wonderful soul she is.
NORTON: All right. So, you moved to East Capitol and you were still …
HOUSTON: So, I had a little school.
NORTON: … doing your little school. Okay. And how far did the school go? I mean, how old were the kids?
HOUSTON: Oh, they were little. They were like three.
NORTON: Oh, okay.
HOUSTON: They may have even been two and three when I had Maxwell. No, I think I started it when he was two. Because Andy said, “You need to get back to work.” Not that I made any money at the school. My God.
NORTON: I’m sure you didn’t. [Both laugh.] And was this the school that you didn’t think Maxwell should be in because you were his mom?
HOUSTON: Yeah. So, I sent him to another school.
NORTON: Okay, okay. [Both laugh.]
HOUSTON: So, of course, we were paying money for that. But, in any case … [Both laugh.] And he didn’t want to move, actually. I remember when the moving day came and I went to collect him and he was hiding. He did not want to move to East Capitol Street. He loved being where he was.
NORTON: Well, it was a neat place.
HOUSTON: It was. And he had a great neighborhood.
NORTON: That’s right.
HOUSTON: A neighbor to play. He loved Jackson [Randy Norton’s son].
NORTON: Yeah. He did.
HOUSTON: “Jackson!” [Interviewer laughs.] We still talk about that.
NORTON: Oh, well, that’s cool. That’s very nice. Okay. So, you moved and continued your school.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: What do you remember about the East Capitol Street neighborhood when you first moved there?
HOUSTON: Well, making friends with Joel and Pearl [Bailes]. Pearl was already at the Day School and Joel had his incredible band. And he asked me to—I played second fiddle with him, with his band. And I remember doing that with him and it was just wonderful.
NORTON: And, of course, both of them are quite characters. Oh, yes, they’re wonderful people. [See their interview on this website.]
HOUSTON: Oh, they are fabulous. And their son now plays with them. I saw …
NORTON: Yes.
HOUSTON: … them up in Takoma Park. I said, “Oh, my God, we’ve got to go.” So, my co-grandmother and I took the kids and off we went to see them play at a little restaurant.
NORTON: Okay. All right.
HOUSTON: Yeah. I remember, you know, again, a very strong neighborhood with, you know, kids from the neighborhood that my children would play with. And I guess when Mari was three—no, she was older. No, when she was three, I had a school, too.
NORTON: Same school or was it …?
HOUSTON: No, you know what—take that back. Because I was trying to think where did I have the school at Independence Avenue and I must have had it in the back room. I think I didn’t start the school until we were at …
NORTON: East Capitol?
HOUSTON: … East Capitol. Because we had a basement and I created a school space in the basement. Sorry.
NORTON: That’s all right. That’s okay.
HOUSTON: For faulty memory. God, wouldn’t you hate to testify?
NORTON: Well, but, see, this isn’t …
HOUSTON: In a court case? [Laughs.]
NORTON: As one of my old senior partners would say when he was just telling stories, he’d say, “I’m not under oath.” [Interviewee laughs.] And you aren’t either. So, it’s okay.
HOUSTON: No. I know, but, you know, your memory is not a great accurate tool.
NORTON: No, but it’s helpful.
HOUSTON: Somewhat accurate.
NORTON: It’s helpful to hear it, so.
HOUSTON: It’s interesting to hear this. So, I started the school there and I kicked my daughter out. And I, you know, I wish I hadn’t, but I had one child in the school, who will remain anonymous, who was not an easy kid. And she and Mari would just get into it. Mari wasn’t going to put up with her. And they would pull each other’s hair. And I thought, “I can’t teach school like this.” And I felt awful. I didn’t want to kick out the child, so I sent Mari to St. Peter’s.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: In pre-k. When she was four.
NORTON: I guess it was a little …
HOUSTON: And she has probably never forgiven me since. [Both laugh.] “Mom, you chose [the other child] over me?”
NORTON: Well, to some extent it is easier to kick your own kid out than somebody else’s.
HOUSTON: Yeah. I just felt it was …
NORTON: Oh, man. [Laughs.]
HOUSTON: In any case. She had a good year.
NORTON: Now, how old was Maxwell when Mari was born?
HOUSTON: He was five and a half. So, that can give you some gauge. Yeah.
NORTON: So, she would have been what, ’84? Something like that?
HOUSTON: Yeah, she was.
NORTON: All right. Okay. So, you’re still doing your school. Or, you actually have started your school over at the …
HOUSTON: Started the school when she was three.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: So, when she was four, she went to St. Peter’s. And, then, I had the school one more year and realized, you know, it wasn’t profitable. I was not charging people very much at all. And it was time for me to go back to teaching and being hired as a teacher.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: I think the Day School didn’t have any positions open, because I tried them first. Yeah, that was it. And, so, then, I applied to public school and I got a job teaching kindergarten at Lafayette School, way up north.
NORTON: Yeah. In Northwest, yeah.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. So, it was quite a commute.
NORTON: How long did you teach up there?
HOUSTON: I taught there for one year. I loved the public school early childhood department. I felt they were right on. They knew what they were doing. They had good practice. They were great with young children, you know. Because part of joining a school system is that you are monitored for a year. So, they would come in and we would talk and they would say, “Good, we like what you’re doing.” So, I knew that they knew what they were doing. I’d already gotten my Master’s. The principal—oh, my God. She was quite something and she had no idea what she was doing. And the other early childhood teachers, I mean, I would hear … It was an open setting, so there were four classrooms, all adjacent, with no walls.
NORTON: Oh, gosh, that …
HOUSTON: So, you would hear what everybody was doing. And, you know, not that that matters, but when you hear somebody going “Stay within the lines, stay within the lines,” you’d go, “What the hell are you teaching?” [Both laugh.]
NORTON: But you just thought that, right as is?
HOUSTON: Yes. But I went to the principal because they wanted me to do—I’m really a rebel at heart.
NORTON: I sort of noticed that.
HOUSTON: [Laughs.] When they wanted me to do this program, which I thought was great for the older kids in the classroom … Now, you know, it was January to December, that was how it was set up for the year. So, I had one little boy who was a December birthday. And it was a computer program, a reading computer program. You had to follow the computer and do what the computer told you. And it was, I think, something like twice a week we would go. And he was just in agony. And some other kids were, too. The older kids loved it and it was good for them. So, I went to her and I said, “Could just the older kids go to this program? It’s not good for the little kids. It makes them very anxious.”
NORTON: And when you’re talking about the little kids, these are the guys that were like the later fall birthdays and that sort of thing.
HOUSTON: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. August through December.
NORTON: Yeah. Okay.
HOUSTON: Yeah. And she would hear none of it. And, I thought, “I just can’t work with this. It’s too rigid.” And, I mean, you know, the school was great. I loved the kids. I loved the parents. I had a great rapport with my parents and kids. But I tried again at the Day School. And they had an opening.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And, I don’t know who my champion was there, but, in any case, somebody said, “Oh, yeah, hire Annie.” And I adored the Day School. I found Cemmy Peterson was an amazing head of school and I loved the teachers that taught there, the community. And, I mean, I don’t know what it’s like now, but at the time I felt it was a really progressive school. And that’s what I wanted.
NORTON: Okay. And, now, where was Maxwell going to school during all this?
HOUSTON: All right, so. [Laughs.] My kids’ education, on the other hand—Maxwell was going to St. Peter’s. We wanted to send him to public school, but I just … Where did your kids go? Did they go to public school?
NORTON: Yeah. They went to Peabody and Watkins and, then, Stuart-Hobson, and, then, Wilson.
HOUSTON: Yeah. Yeah. And I think Watson became—Peabody and Watson. Who was that wonderful woman?
NORTON: Frances Slaughter?
HOUSTON: Oh, yeah. There was Frances Slaughter, but there was also … She and her family, they had two girls and a boy. Oh, God, I should remember her. They went to St. Peter’s, so I knew them from there. They lived on Kentucky Avenue. And she was a huge champion for getting things done at Watkins.
NORTON: That wasn’t Cathy Pfeiffer, was it?
HOUSTON: Yes, Cathy Pfeiffer. God, how could I have forgotten her name.
NORTON: Right.
HOUSTON: Just an amazing woman …
NORTON: Yes. A force of nature, so to speak.
HOUSTON: Yes, she was. She was. And I used to wish that I had sent my kids, because we talked about, you know, the pros and cons of sending them to public school. And we really wanted to. But, instead, we sent them to St. [Peter’s] and we were involved with the St. Peter’s communities at that time. And Andy continued to be, all through his life. I pulled away from the Catholic Church because of what was happening with kids and I will always be a champion of kids first. That’s my mode of operating.
NORTON: So, how long did Maxwell and Mari continue at …?
HOUSTON: All right. So, Maxwell went until fifth grade, through fifth grade.
NORTON: At St. Peter’s. Okay.
HOUSTON: At St. Peter’s. And there were some great years, some good teachers. There were some, mmm, iffy years. And, then, we decided to send him to St. Anselm’s for sixth grade.
NORTON: Okay. That’s a way up Northeast.
HOUSTON: Yeah. Northeast. Andy would drive him there. And that turned out, that was fine for the first half of the year and, then, Maxwell got sick. He would get bronchial stuff every winter. Thank God he’s grown out of it, although he got COVID really badly. And he got sick in January and was out for three weeks. And, so, when he went back to St. Anselm’s, he was bullied by his best friend. And the best friend had turned the entire class against him and said, “Don’t speak to him.” The best friend was very jealous of Maxwell. Maxwell had gotten a lead in the play. Maxwell was starting a band as a sixth grader. And he was horrible. And we went to the school and complained and we said, “You punished this kid for blowing up the mulch pile with a cherry bomb. Would you please have a word with him that he is not to bully. He is bullying our kid.” Maxwell wouldn’t want to go to school. And they wouldn’t do anything about it. So, we pulled him out and in seventh grade he went to the Day School.
NORTON: Okay. He went through the Day School and then where did he go?
HOUSTON: Georgetown Day School.
NORTON: Okay. Georgetown Day. Okay. And how about Mari?
HOUSTON: Actually, Maxwell wanted to go to … What’s the name of the school that’s the arts school?
NORTON: Duke Ellington?
HOUSTON: Duke Ellington. He wanted to go to Duke Ellington and we went there and looked and it was a wonderful atmosphere. Because he’s very musical. But he revisited and he was in eighth grade. We visited a class in tenth grade and we could tell that the academic education was not good. And, so, he was too bright for that, you know. So, we said uh-uh. So, Mari, then, she was at St. Peter’s. And, in sixth grade, when Maxwell was a sixth grader, Sister Marie Helene … She would come home and tell us stories about Sister Marie, crying. “Sister Marie Helene ripped up my paper because I colored my apples green instead of red.” And I thought “What?” So I went in and had a talk with Sister Marie. “Oh, I’m so sorry. No, I didn’t know it would upset her.” Then I started talking with parents there. You know, because I was working, it was hard to be there and talk with parents.
NORTON: And you were at this time at the Day School.
HOUSTON: No, at this time I was up at Lafayette when Mari was six.
NORTON: Oh, right, right. Go ahead.
HOUSTON: So, you know, I started talking to parents and they would say, “Oh, yeah. Sister Marie Helene, she did ...” I started talking to Maxwell. I said, “Maxwell, did you have a hard time with Sister Marie Helene?” “Oh, yes, Mom. She would just take that ruler and smack our hands really hard.” I said, “What? Why didn’t you ever tell me?” “Oh, Mom.” But Mari was complaining about it. Thank God. And I kept going back to them. I went to the head of the school, who was totally ineffectual. And she said, “Oh, this is the first I’ve heard about it.” Then, I’d hear from parents, no, it wasn’t the first she’d heard about it. They’d been in there, blah-blah-blah. So, I pulled her out mid-year.
NORTON: And where did she go?
HOUSTON: She went to Andy’s office. [Interviewer laughs.] And would play with his models.
NORTON: Architectural models, yeah.
HOUSTON: And she was interested in architecture, actually. Much more so than Maxwell. And,then, the next year, she went to the Day School. But she was in first grade, because they didn’t have a place for her … No, she was in kindergarten because they didn’t have a place for her in first grade. Was that it? Yeah. Something like that.
NORTON: And, then, when she …
HOUSTON: And, then, she continued. And, then, she got into her grade.
NORTON: And, then, where did she go for high school?
HOUSTON: She also went to Georgetown Day School.
NORTON: Okay, okay. All right. Well, now, going back to you at Capitol Hill Day—I tell you what. Let’s do this. Let’s take a quick break if you don’t mind.
HOUSTON: Absolutely not.
NORTON: All right. So, pause.
[Break in recording]
NORTON: All right, we’re back on the record. We were just about to talk again about your time teaching at the Day School. So, what years did you teach, I mean, what kids did you teach?
HOUSTON: I taught pre-k, four- and five-year-olds, for—I’m trying to think of dates. I’m really bad with dates.
NORTON: Well, a ball park is good enough.
HOUSTON: Well, I think I taught at the Day School for a long time. Twenty years? Twenty-five years? But just before I started at the Day School, when Mari was four, I discovered acting. And I took a class with Ed Gero, Fran Dorn, and, oh, what was the other one? Great guy, the comedian. In any case … [Floyd King]
NORTON: Uh, I bet I know. [Laughs.] I can’t remember his name. I can picture him.
HOUSTON: Terrible that I can’t remember him. He was so fun. In any case, I’d taken Mari to a puppet show and they had done—no, it wasn’t a puppet show. Acting show. But they had done some Shakespeare and I just went “Aaahhh”. And it revived my love of acting and of Shakespeare and I thought, “I want to study this.” I had given up acting when I was in Paris. I’d sort of taken a class. We had observed an acting class and were blown away by the kids. But I thought, you know, unless you’re really good, it’s going to be hard. And I just didn’t trust myself to be able …
NORTON: This would have been your year abroad at Hollins.
HOUSTON: Year abroad.
NORTON: In Paris, okay. Sorry.
HOUSTON: So, when I came back to Hollins, I was going to do a theater major. But, when I came back to Hollins, I thought, “Okay, I’m just going to do English major.” So, I’d given it up. But, then, I started this acting class and I was just passionate about it. So, I’d done a couple of shows—no, maybe one or two—and my kids would say, “We want you home.” So I would not do anything acting for a year. But I did, when my children were at St. Peter’s, I did ask if I could do Macbeth with the eighth grade. And we performed Macbeth. I edited it down.
NORTON: So, this would be the eighth graders at St. Peter’s.
HOUSTON: At St. Peter’s.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Is that right? Do they go to eighth or do they go to sixth? Whatever that top class was.
NORTON: I think they go to eighth, but I’m not sure.
HOUSTON: I think they do. I think they do, too. In any case, so, when I was at Capitol Hill Day School, I went to Cemmy Peterson and said, “You know, I’d really love to do—I did this at St. Peter’s, a Shakespeare play. And I would love to do a Shakespeare play every year with the eighth grade.” And she said, “Well, let me think about it.” And she came back to me a couple of days later and she said, “I would like you to start a drama program with sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.” And I went “Okay!” [Laughs.]
NORTON: So, you were teaching Pre-k at the same time and …
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: So, three, or it could have been two, afternoons a week and back-to-back with some classes, I did theater with those three grades. And then it was cut back to just seventh and eighth grade. And that was wonderful. And I loved that just as much as I loved teaching pre-k. For the seventh graders, I had them do scenes around a theme. So, maybe the theme was betrayal. And I would pick out scenes from different Shakespeare plays about betrayal and we would thread them into a play. And we would perform it at the Folger [Shakespeare Library], at their festival.
NORTON: Now, which festival is that? Is it the one that they had for the students and stuff …
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: … to come in and do it?
HOUSTON: For the students. Yeah.
NORTON: How did you first get involved in that?
HOUSTON: Well, when I was acting, I acted at the Folger several times. I think I’ve acted there maybe four times altogether. So, I sort of got to know … Cam Magee, in fact, is one of my dearest friends. She was Mistress of the Revels and, when they had a theater troupe to go around into schools, she was one of those people. And I always thought, “Ah, that’s the job to have.” And I knew Peggy from that.
NORTON: That’s Peggy O’Brien.
HOUSTON: Peggy O’Brien. And Michael Tolaydo was a director of, you know, …
NORTON: One of your shows?
HOUSTON: … one of my shows. So, I sort of knew that community. So, when [laughs] Cemmy said start the program, our first show was Midsummer Night’s Dream. And the kids said to me, “Well, where are we going to perform it?” And I said, “Well, you know, some church stage.”. And they said to me, “No, we want to perform at the Folger.” [Interviewer laughs.] I said, “In your dreams. This is a professional theater. You know. But I’ll ask. I’ll get back to you.” So, I wrote Peggy and said, “You know, I’d really like to perform on a Monday evening when you’re off, when the theater is dark. And have my kids perform for their parents.” And she said, “Well, let me think about it.” And, then, she got back to me and said okay. And it was such a great experience. I mean, the parents loved it, the kids were ecstatic. And, I thought, I really would love to continue this. And, then, I thought, this should be shared with public school kids. So, I knew Sarah …
NORTON: Sarah Hill [a teacher at Stuart Hobson Middle School].
HOUSTON: … Hill. And, how did I know her? I’ve forgotten how I’d met Sarah. But, in any case, I said, “Sarah, would you be interested in joining me? We’ll do workshops. I’ll plan these workshops. We’ll have four workshops a year and we’ll have professionals come in and teach those workshops. And we’ll work on the same play and we’ll present them to each other.” And she was so game. She said, “I am not a theater person, Annie.” But her kids got better and better as she felt more and more comfortable with that role every year. And that was a great collaboration. I loved that collaboration. And, then, she couldn’t do it anymore. So, I had to drop Stuart-Hobson, but, meanwhile, I had met someone at Washington Shakespeare Company who was a Board member. And he told me about his daughter who ran––now I’m going to forget the name. It’s a charter program that’s out of Texas. Was out of Texas. I don’t know if it still exists. KIPP. KIPP [Public Schools, a national network of public charter schools].
NORTON: Okay, I think that’s right. Yeah.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: And they had some charter schools here, I think.
HOUSTON: Yeah. And so I contacted her and, then, she hooked me up with a KIPP person. And, then, we did shows with the KIPP students.
NORTON: This was after Sarah could no longer …
HOUSTON: Sarah couldn’t do it anymore. You know, I’ve forgotten whether it was because she retired or because the school couldn’t do it or what the reason was. I think it was because she retired and they didn’t have a substitute who was willing.
NORTON: Well, Peggy O’Brien [see her interview on this website] was very high on that, by the way. She was very high on you.
HOUSTON: Oh.
NORTON: Because she remembered, you know, how neat that program was.
HOUSTON: That was so wonderful. It was great and it was great to have those kids connect with one another.
NORTON: Right. And she said that having the different parents having to see the other kids and that sort of thing …
HOUSTON: Yeah. Right. And, then, you know, Peggy left for a little bit. Right.
NORTON: Right. She did.
HOUSTON: And the person who—I’ve been trying to think of her name and I cannot remember her name. And, then, she got cancer and died sadly. But fabulous lady. And I just waved my wand to get more and more excited and bring more and more things in to teach the kids. I had brought in lighting and was teaching kids how to do lighting. And, also, music on stage. And she came to me after we presented the show with the KIPP students …
NORTON: And this was at the Folger.
HOUSTON: This was at the Folger. Oh, yeah. We’d haul it all in. And she said, “Annie, stop it. It’s a case of the haves and the have nots. And you have. Don’t do this anymore.” And I got what she was saying. Unless I was going to help raise money and help teach the other kids how to do this, it wasn’t fair. Because it was sort of showing them up. I mean, that was an incredible show those kids did. It was The Tempest. They were unbelievable.
NORTON: So, there wasn’t somebody who was kind of like Sarah Hill who was, you know, doing the public school version.
HOUSTON: I didn’t have a relationship like that.
NORTON: Yeah. Okay.
HOUSTON: You know. The person would change every year. It was not ongoing …
NORTON: This is the KIPP person.
HOUSTON: The KIPP person. You know, they weren’t really committed the way Sarah was. They weren’t on the Hill anymore, you know. And, really, that Stuart-Hobson thing was just the best.
NORTON: Yeah.
HOUSTON: That was the ideal.
NORTON: So, after that happened, did you stop or did you …
HOUSTON: I didn’t stop doing the program. I think I did it a couple of more years until I retired. But I didn’t haul in lights and music and stuff that I really wanted to bring in. We just did straight theater shows.
NORTON: Okay, okay. And you were still teaching pre-k all this time, right?
HOUSTON: I was. I was really working a time-and-a-half. I was. I was working so hard. My kids were off in college. You know, I didn’t have the responsibilities at home.
NORTON: But you were also acting around this time, too.
HOUSTON: And I was acting around town. And it took a lot to put on a play, you know. It really did.
NORTON: Yes.
HOUSTON: And I would design the backdrops. I had some support from the art department, but not, you know, not wholly, and …
NORTON: But you would, I mean, in terms of the backdrops and stuff, you’d bring them over to the Folger, right?
HOUSTON: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.
NORTON: That was cool. And, so, you did this, what, four times a year? At least when you were doing it full …
HOUSTON: Oh, you mean the plays?
NORTON: Yeah.
HOUSTON: Oh, no. You could only do one play a year.
NORTON: I see.
HOUSTON: I mean, I only met with them, was it twice a week? Maybe twice a week.
NORTON: This is the theater kids at …
HOUSTON: Theater kids at the Day School.
NORTON: At the Day School.
HOUSTON: And that’s not enough time, you know. And one crazy time I had so many great acting kids that I did two shows. Oh, what’s the name of the dentist?
NORTON: Oh, Larry Bowers?
HOUSTON: Yes, Larry Bowers. And Larry Bowers’s son [Langley and Casey Bowers] and that class was unbelievable. And so, I decided everybody needed a great role. So I did two plays. I was insane. [Interviewer laughs.] In any case, but, no. One was enough, because I only had them twice to rehearse, twice a week.
NORTON: I see. Okay.
HOUSTON: And, then, I would do the seventh grade play, you know.
NORTON: Okay. And you were doing acting. And, of course, I didn’t bring my list of all the shows that you were in, but there were quite a few around this area.
HOUSTON: Yeah. You know, I was very fortunate. I acted in just about every theater possible. Well, I started off with Washington Shakespeare Company. That was really a wonderful company and it’s a …
NORTON: Where did they …
HOUSTON: They used to perform across the river in a big, old warehouse. And, then, they moved. I don’t know where.
NORTON: That was sort of just across the river, wasn’t it? In Alexandria.
HOUSTON: Yeah. It was. Yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah. And I loved that company. It was wonderful. I did a lot of shows there. And I got some fabulous roles. And, then, I also did a show at Studio that was wonderful, called Big Meal. A very unusual show where we had to learn how to talk over one another. But you had to time it like music. So, you had to listen very carefully to know when that word was said. Then you could start your speaking. That was …
NORTON: And, of course, it didn’t look like that’s what you were doing then.
HOUSTON: No, no. But the way people do, like we just did. Talk over one another.
NORTON: Hopefully, not too much. [Interviewee laughs.] But, anyway, yes.
HOUSTON: I know I do it all the time.
NORTON: Me, too.
HOUSTON: And, where else? Where else did I perform? Oh, just a lot of different places. And I was very, very fortunate. The Folger four times and I had some wonderful roles. And, then, Theater Alliance. I had an incredible relationship with Theater Alliance and also Anacostia Playhouse.
NORTON: So, did you do work with the Theater Alliance when they were still on H Street or did you …?
HOUSTON: I did one show on H Street.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And, then I did a couple of shows over on—what’s the name of that street?
NORTON: Well, it’s right off of Martin Luther King.
HOUSTON: Yeah. Right. That street. And got a Helen Hayes nomination for a show I did there.
NORTON: Wow.
HOUSTON: And the play got so many Helen Hayes nominations.
NORTON: What was the play?
HOUSTON: It was called Still Life with Rocket [performed at the Anacostia Playhouse at 2020 Shannon Place SE on 2017].
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: It was a devised piece. We worked on it for two years.
NORTON: So, you were part of the playwrights or you helped …
HOUSTON: Yeah. I mean, by that, I mean we would play the director, who was the playwright, as well. And I’m working with her now, again, in Brooklyn. She’s now up in Northampton, Massachusetts. She would have an idea and, then, she would throw out a scene and say, “Act out this scene.” And we would do that and, then, she’d decide, “Oh, I don’t think that’s going anywhere.” Or whatever. So that’s why it took that long.
NORTON: But you would, out of doing all that, you would actually finally devise a play that was written down.
HOUSTON: Yes. Yes. And she would write, you know. And you had to learn the script. One of them, you know, she had me—because my character had dementia—she had me saying some words over and over again. And it took about half an hour. I thought I was going to go crazy. Really, literally, to say words over and over again. I thought I was going to go crazy on stage.
NORTON: And you had to do this every night.
HOUSTON: Well, no, that was in rehearsal. Then, every night she built more words into the scene, so it wasn’t quite as crazy.
NORTON: I see.
HOUSTON: But I did have to repeat them. And you did feel nuts at the end. I mean it helped serve the purpose.
NORTON: I know you mentioned, you know, your relationship with Adele Robey over at the Theater Alliance.
HOUSTON: Oh, Adele. So, after I left the Day School … I decided it was time to retire [in 2010]. And I retired maybe sooner than I had wanted to. [Material removed at interviewee’s request.]
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Because my co-teacher kept getting pneumonia and I would be basically handling the classroom on my own. I mean, yes, I had substitutes for her, but that’s not the same as a co-teacher. And I had a lot of responsibility and I also had the play, you know, the seventh and eighth grade. And I was really getting burned out. And my co-teacher would come back, and “Why have you changed this?” And I said, “Because I needed to. It was too much for me not to have this here.” And we’re very good friends today. But it was a difficult period. So, I said to Andy, “Do you think I can just go on Social Security?” Because I think then you could do it at sixty- …
NORTON: Sixty-two, I think.
HOUSTON: Sixty-two. Yeah, now. Now, you’ve read what—oh, God.
NORTON: Right. I know.
HOUSTON: Don’t get me started. So, he said, “Yeah, that we can work this out.” And, so, I did. And that year I sort of helped out at another theater up in Silver Spring, just trying to market them.
NORTON: This is after you retired from the Day School.
HOUSTON: After I retired. But, then, I said, “What I really want to do is Shakespeare for children.” So, back to Shakespeare. And I started a company called Shakespeare for the Young. And I even got a van, found a van, and stored all the stuff in the van. And built all the puppets myself.
NORTON: So, these were puppets.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: Shakespeare puppets. Cool.
HOUSTON: I can show you pictures of them. And my thrust was to bring it to neighborhoods that didn’t experience things like this.
NORTON: Right.
HOUSTON: So, I did it through the libraries. I would get money from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. They would give me money so that I could have a company. I paid my company well. I didn’t pay myself, because, you know, I didn’t need to. And we would go into libraries, some schools, the National Theatre. I did it there twice, several times actually.
NORTON: Really? Downtown. Yeah.
HOUSTON: Yeah. I mean, you know, they’d hire you for a show or two. Also, Strathmore. We did a show up there. I’d do shows around town. And that was fantastic. And it was really appreciated by the kids. They loved it. It was very interactive.
NORTON: Well, how was it interactive? I mean, you had these puppets …?
HOUSTON: Because we would have the puppets and sometimes they were big, sometimes we wore them. Depending. I was inspired by a puppeteer I’d seen who had done some big—where you wore this puppet. But I—what was the question?
NORTON: How was it interactive?
HOUSTON: How was it interactive? So, I would write the plays, use Shakespeare’s words, get the team together, and, then, we would figure out what kinds of questions we wanted to ask throughout the play. “Well, do you think that’s a good idea, that Prospero should, you know, be so mean to Caliban?” Or whatever it was.
NORTON: [Laughs.] Maybe not.
HOUSTON: [Laughs.] So, the kids would, you know, they would respond. Or who would like to come and collect the wood onstage? Or who would like to help Puck and the fairies, you know, trick Bottom? Or whatever it was. You know, there were questions that we’d throw out. And sometimes it would just be an answer or sometimes they’d come up onstage to do a particular thing. So it was very interactive like that. Or play an instrument. I had this beautiful balafon, which Maxwell now has. It’s just an African …
NORTON: What’s a balafon?
HOUSTON: It’s an African wooden xylophone.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: It’s shaped like this and it has ...
NORTON: Which is sort of a curved thing you’ve described.
HOUSTON: … a fabulous sound. Yeah. And there’s one little boy. Oh, my God. He fell in love with that balafon. So, you know, one little girl called out, during As You Like It, when Rosalind is about to give her necklace to Orlando because they’re falling in love, “Don’t you give him that necklace!” [Both laugh.] I’ll never forget that. So, it was very interactive. So, then, COVID hit.
NORTON: Mmh.
HOUSTON: COVID hit. And I was working on another show—it would have been the fourth show, I think. And I was ... God, I had so many great ideas.
NORTON: It’s the fourth show for Shakespeare for the Young.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: Right. Yeah, okay. Go ahead.
HOUSTON: We did Midsummer Night’s Dream. We did As You Like It, set in Africa, because of the jungle. We did The Tempest. And this was going to be another Midsummer Night’s Dream, but different. And I was so inspired and had so many ideas and had carried them all out and we’d just started rehearsing.
NORTON: When COVID hit. Yeah.
HOUSTON: Everything was cancelled. Andy died.
NORTON: Yeah.
HOUSTON: And it was a hard time. Pfew.
NORTON: Yeah, I guess so.
HOUSTON: So, the library said, “Well, you could do it on Zoom.” I said, “No, I’m not doing it on Zoom.” So, I paid the actors really well to say goodbye, because I had to use up the money that I’d been given by DC Commission for the Arts.
NORTON: How many actors did you have working for you?
HOUSTON: Four.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Always four. Sometimes five different actors. Let’s see. Yeah. Always four, but there were five different actors that we hired. Six different actors that I hired. I remember the first time I said, “I really want to bring …” I had done a show with a guy [Gregory Ford]at Theater Alliance, sweetest man possible. And I knew he needed work, too, and that he would be good with kids. So, I remember [laughing] introducing the idea to my company of women, saying, “I really want to bring him into this.” “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know.” But I was determined. So I did bring him in and he was fabulous and he just added what we needed, you know. And, also, I wanted to inspire the boys who saw the show, that they could do this, too. It can’t just be a woman’s show. “I’m sorry. We’re going to do it with guys.” So, they gave in to me and were grateful because he was such a sweet man.
NORTON: Now, when you talk about the actors, I mean, were they puppeteers and actors or how did that work?
HOUSTON: No, they were actors.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: We had to learn. I would not say we were professional puppeteers. I went up to New York. My sister-in-law, who was big in the theater world in New York, still is. I mean, she ran the TDF [Theater Development Fund] educational program. Wendy Wasserstein came to her and said would you run this program and she’s the one who developed it. [The] Open Doors program that I tried to get theaters to do down here but was not successful. She said, “Annie, come to New York. I’ve booked you a session with this puppeteer and you’re going to learn from him.” And I went up and he was amazing. I learned a lot from him, you know. And I passed that knowledge on. But we were not trained puppeteers. But we were professional actors, all of us. They were people that I’d met in the theater world and had done shows with. And, so, you know, it worked out really well.
NORTON: So, how did it go? I mean, you said some of these puppets were quite big and you’d almost use them as a costume.
HOUSTON: I can show you pictures.
NORTON: Okay. But since we have to do this sort of describing it, let’s do the best we can.
HOUSTON: Okay. Well, the first group of puppets that I made and the last group which I never got to use … The first group of puppets, I thought, “What would appeal to children?” “Well, children like animals, stuffed animals. They like dolls. So, I’m going to make them doll size. And we’ll just, you know, manipulate their legs and arms.”
NORTON: And, when you did doll size, it was, like, maybe a couple of feet tall, something like that. Okay, go ahead.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, that was the first show and it worked very well. And, then, actors also played roles.
NORTON: As actors, right?
HOUSTON: Well, that was later, actually. For Midsummer Night’s Dream, we all had our puppet role that we played.
NORTON: This is the first one?
HOUSTON: Yeah, the first one. We dressed in black and we had our puppet play the role. The second one, I also doubled people as actors. So, Duke Senior, this man I’m mentioning, whose name is—God, the old brain. It’ll come to me. But I had him actually playing a real Duke. So, you know, it was kind of mixed, but it worked. It totally worked every time. And we would perform at the Folger open house, Shakespeare’s birthday. Peggy invited us to do that and that was wonderful. Yeah.
NORTON: And you would go around all over these places, including, I gather, Anacostia Playhouse.
HOUSTON: Oh, yeah. Oh, that was Adele. Adele said, “Why don’t you perform once a month?” And, so, she opened up her playhouse once a month on a Saturday. We would perform there for free. I mean, the point was to get kids from a neighborhood that would not normally see … We performed deep, you know, deep in Seventh and Eighth Wards. And Fifth, a little bit up north. My goal was to do every library. [Laughs.]
NORTON: In the city?
HOUSTON: In the city. And I was so close. I was so close. But that show. That was the COVID show. I never got to live that dream. And, then, the last show, there were small puppets and, then, the fairies wore masks. I was inspired by the American Indian Museum. I don’t know if you remember the masks that they have.
NORTON: Yeah, okay.
HOUSTON: I was inspired by those masks. I loved making masks. I really should become a mask maker. And I had them on sticks with long …
NORTON: The masks on sticks.
HOUSTON: … with long flowing cloth and that the fairies could be like this. Move in a …
NORTON: And you’re sort of swooping it back and forth. Yeah, okay.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then, when I got to New York, I thought, “Oh, I really miss my puppet company. I’m going to make a puppet show up here and it’s going to be on the environment.” Because New York’s not a Shakespeare town.
NORTON: Interesting.
HOUSTON: They’re doing more, but ... I mean, they have Shakespeare in the Park, which is a big thing. But they’re not really a Shakespeare town, not like DC.
NORTON: So, you moved up to New York when?
HOUSTON: So, after Andy died in March …
NORTON: Of ’21.
HOUSTON: No, ’20. Just as COVID hit, actually. He didn’t die of COVID. He died of cancer. But, just as COVID hit and everything was shut down. That summer I rented a house in north Maryland and had both sets of kids come with their families to the house and that’s when Mari said to me, “Mom, would you think about moving up to New York?” And, I went, uhhhhh.
NORTON: For the record, you were gasping. [Both laugh.] Okay.
HOUSTON: And, then, I thought about how Maxwell’s three kids had five grandparents that doted on them and loved them. And those kids are so close to their grandparents. Three of whom, all the men, have died now. But Erin’s mom and I are just best of friends. And, I thought, you know, hey don’t have that up there. Their other grandparents live in South Carolina and they see them twice a year, maybe for a long weekend. That’s not enough. And, I thought, Mari and Matt, I need to give them the help we gave {Maxwell’s children]. I mean, there was always a grandparent around, always, with those kids, always. And, in fact, during COVID, Mary Kay, my co-grandmother, and I taught school to them.
NORTON: This is you up in New York.
HOUSTON: No, no.
NORTON: Here.
HOUSTON: Here, during COVID. When I was still here.
NORTON: So, this would be Maxwell’s mother-in-law.
HOUSTON: Mother-in-law. Yeah. And she had been a teacher and we said, “Let’s teach school because this COVID thing is not working.” So. In any case that was the impetus to move and I am so glad I did. There are things I love about New York, which I don’t need to get into because we’re talking about Capitol Hill here. But one thing I love is the community up there, which is, because there are so many people, the park is just this hubbub of meeting up with people that you can’t even imagine.
NORTON: This would be Central Park?
HOUSTON: No, no, no. Just our local park.
NORTON: Oh, just any park. Right. Okay.
HOUSTON: Our local park. Which I think our local park is very special. I really do.
NORTON: What’s it called?
HOUSTON: It’s called McGolrick.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: After Monsignor McGolrick. It’s a Polish neighborhood.
NORTON: I see.
HOUSTON: Although that’s not a Polish name.
NORTON: Oh, well. [Both laugh.]
HOUSTON: It’s Irish, but oh, well. So, I wrote a play for the environment, about Mother Earth and a little boy and his grandfather, blah-blah-blah. And I got to the end of it and I thought, okay, now to make the puppets. And I thought, “Oh, my God, Annie Houston, how do you think you are possibly going to present this? You don’t have a van. I mean, you could pile things into your car, but it’s not a car city.”
NORTON: So, you didn’t have all the equipment you had down here.
HOUSTON: I didn’t have the equipment. I didn’t have the actors. I don’t have an acting community up there.
NORTON: Right.
HOUSTON: You know. And so that’s when I started to write my book. And I’ve written it.
NORTON: So, what’s the book like? I mean, and what’s it called, first?
HOUSTON: It’s called Mother Earth and Her Band of Children.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And it’s about Mother Earth being in distress because her world is suffering and she’s seeing it, because people want more and more and more. And she’s trying to tell them to stop, [to be stewards of our planet Earth]. There’s suffering, there are floods, there are, you know, all the things that are happening to the earth. And she tries to get them to stop, but they won’t. So she realizes that children have open hearts and she decides to go to each continent and meet a child to help her with a particular problem on that continent. So, she goes to North America and it’s poisons—pesticides, herbicides—that are killing birds, bees, and butterflies. And, you know, not that each problem is solved, but there are ways that she gives information about the problem and talks with the child. And there’s a promise of an action. And, then, in Europe, it’s fishing boats and the ghost nets that trap. And, in Africa, it’s the birds and, you know, the whole thing about migration and how that’s really suffering, because Africa and Europe and Asia are big migratory routes.
NORTON: Right.
HOUSTON: Yeah. And, then, Asia, it’s the rain forests. Oh, South America, I forgot South America is the maned wolves and its mammals. And, then, Australia, it’s the floods. And she has a child in each place. [It’s a collection of eight fables for children ages 8 to 13.]
NORTON: Cool.
HOUSTON: And [I’m working with IngramSparks]. So, that’s where I am.
NORTON: We’ll have to be on the lookout. All right. Well, before you left Capitol Hill, one of the things when I was talking to people about, you know, what I should talk to you about, was people said Halloween on East Capitol Street. [Interviewee laughs.] You all were big on that. Some people’s apparently kids still are quite impressed with what you all did. So, why don’t you go ahead and say what you all did.
HOUSTON: Okay. Well, it started at our 648 East Capitol Street house.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And it started because Andy adored Halloween. You know, back then the weather got pretty cold at Halloween.
NORTON: Right.
HOUSTON: But we happened to hit a nice warm spot, that was to come later, as it continues to be warm at Halloween now. And he rubbed himself with blood and was out scaring kids, jumping out of the bushes that were behind our house. [Laughing.] And one man came, “You need to stop that!” In any case, Andy adored Halloween. So, when we moved to East Capitol Street, he was in his element. And Maxwell, I guess, joined in. And, you know, I think it took a little while. It really was inspired by the people across the street from us who moved. They were directly across the street from us, had the same setup with a little porch on the third floor, that had, you know …
NORTON: Okay. This is directly across from you on East Capitol.
HOUSTON: On 907 East Capitol.
NORTON: Okay. All right.
HOUSTON: Now we’ve moved.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: And they used to do amazing window shows in their window. I guess you didn’t—your kids were older, so you probably …
NORTON: Yeah. No, we didn’t. Because when East Capitol got big on Halloween, we were sort of beyond that.
HOUSTON: You avoided it.
NORTON: Yes.
HOUSTON: It was packed.
NORTON: Well, that’s what we understand.
HOUSTON: You could not even get down the little path to our doorway. I finally had to put up stakes with, you know, “Do not cross this line,” because my plants were getting trampled. [Interviewer laughs.] But, yeah, Andy liked dropping skeletons on kids. And we said you cannot drop the plastic, you know, the bony plastic ones. You have to drop a blowup one. He wanted to rig it between the two houses and drop it on buses. I mean, Andy, who is, you know, I mean, he was …
NORTON: Right on the street.
HOUSTON: And we said, “Absolutely not. We’re not going to cause traffic jams.” [Laughs.] But he had the best time. And Maxwell would do a soundscape and I would give out candy at the door, dressed as [a witch].
NORTON: And I gather the soundscape was pretty elaborate.
HOUSTON: Oh, yeah.
NORTON: Yeah.
HOUSTON: Well, you know, Maxwell, he makes records. I mean he has a job job, because he has to support his family. But he makes records. And, so, he’s very good at creating this and creating sounds. So, he’d make soundscapes that were pretty dynamic. I don’t know what’s happened to all of that since. I don’t think …
NORTON: Well, and you all were, as I say, your house was somewhat well known. At least according to …
HOUSTON: Well, there were really three houses, I think, that were the most well known. Jane Nuland did a great job with her house. And, then, the one across the street and I’ve forgotten the names. But they moved away. And the new people didn’t really pick it up. And, then, the Deer House [712 East Capitol Street NE].
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: You know the house I mean?
NORTON: Well, I know they’ve got a deer statue out.
HOUSTON: They’ve got a deer. Right. And I had taught her child. They did amazing stuff. You could go back in there and you would enter Alice in Wonderland’s world. And Maxwell became interested in Halloween and he and Erin would do themes. So, one year they were the Alice in Wonderland theme. All the kids. Little Alexander was the Mad Hatter, all made up ….
NORTON: Alexander being your grandson.
HOUSTON: My grandson.
NORTON: Yes.
HOUSTON: So, yeah, we were definitely into Halloween. And I’ve continued it, actually, in New York. And I put out a big—it’s a big kind of ghost. I was inspired by somebody on East Capitol Street that had done one. So, I’ve done it. It’s pretty big, on bamboo poles. [Both laugh.]
NORTON: All right.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: Well, I’ve gone sort of through my list. But if there are any other sort of activities that you, you know, Capitol Hill activities, that you’d like to mention before we sign off.
HOUSTON: Well. Just that, you know, I know Andy was very involved with Eastern Market when they were talking about renovation and all. You know, I think the Hill was such an amazing neighborhood like that. It would pull you in in different ways.
NORTON: Yes.
HOUSTON: That was really fantastic.
NORTON: So, did he become involved before the fire or was it after the fire?
HOUSTON: Before. He was involved pretty early on and, then, something happened and it petered out for a while. And, then, I think the fire happened and, then, it got, you know, then people paid attention.
NORTON: Sort of necessity, had to. Yeah.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. Because they had to.
NORTON: So.
HOUSTON: Yeah. What other things on the Hill? Just, you know, it was just a beautiful neighborhood. I mean, I cannot say where I live is beautiful. It’s not, although I adore the park with these incredible trees. They’re London planetrees, sycamore trees, that just, you know, make these archways.
NORTON: This is your park there in Brooklyn.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. But it’s not a beautiful neighborhood.
NORTON: Yeah.
HOUSTON: There are a few streets with beautiful, old architecture that rival, you know. They’re a bit bigger, because everything in New York is bigger. But, generally speaking, I mean, this was such a great neighborhood. And I know Mari came back this spring. We came down together and she rented a house because she wanted to show her children the neighborhood, she grew up in.
NORTON: So, where did she rent a house?
HOUSTON: On Fourth Street, right next door—get this—right next door to the house that Andy and I had our first apartment in.
NORTON: Oh, okay.
HOUSTON: She didn’t even know. It [was] just happenstance.
NORTON: Oh, wow.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: So, that’s cool.
HOUSTON: So, she was really able to—not that she lived there—but she took them around.
NORTON: Well, it’s kind of neat that she felt, you know, compelled to …
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: … show her kids about, you know, this neighborhood.
HOUSTON: Yes. I think there’s something … You know, when she was in high school, she would always disappear on weekends. Go to the suburbs because she thought the Hill was crazy. Maxwell never felt that way. He would invite his friends into the Hill and their parents would come with guard dogs. [Laughs.]
NORTON: Well, at least they let them come sometimes. I mean, we all had friends that the parents said “Uh-uh.. We’re not letting you go down there.”
HOUSTON: I know. But I think it’s because it was … I don’t think it was because it was so crime ridden.
NORTON: No.
HOUSTON: It was because they were fearful of a different kind of person.
NORTON: Well, that may be. I don’t know.
HOUSTON: I really think that. What I’ve discovered in New York is that people co-exist. You would be surprised at how many different kinds of people there are all in one neighborhood in New York. Different languages spoken on the street. And, yet, people are very friendly.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: You know. So, that’s a lesson I’m learning up there. And, yeah. So, I guess that’s all I have to say. What an amazing neighborhood. Just an amazing neighborhood. And I miss it. I actually get very teary. I just went by our house, which is being sold again. But I think they do that, that couple. I think they move from house to house and sell it and make a profit. And, then, when they retire, they’ll probably settle down. Maybe. Who knows? They’re a very nice couple, I must say. I did meet them. But I’m sad that …
NORTON: Well, in terms of the neighborhood, I asked you about Independence Avenue. What about East Capitol Street? How did that change over the years that you lived there? If at all.
HOUSTON: Yeah, it did change some. There were people in the neighborhood of color and I don’t see them anymore.
NORTON: When you first moved in.
HOUSTON: When we first moved in. Now I don’t see them anymore. But there are different people. There are more Asian Indian …
NORTON: India Indians, yes.
HOUSTON: … and other, you know—I don’t want to say just Chinese. They could be Korean or Japanese. There’s more of that in the neighborhood. I think, for kids, it’s—Maxwell loved this neighborhood even though he was beaten up in this neighborhood. I don’t know about Jackson.
NORTON: Thomas.
HOUSTON: What?
NORTON: Thomas was.
HOUSTON: Thomas was. Maxwell was, too. I remember one time at the Day School I said, “We have to have somebody out here on the playground because some kid came up behind him with a stick and jammed him in the back of his head.” And he had had the skateboard stolen. And, you know, friends were beaten up.
NORTON: But he still liked it, liked the neighborhood.
HOUSTON: He loved it.
NORTON: Yeah.
HOUSTON: Maxwell is a very inclusive guy. He would never blame something, you know. He’d just blame it on kids seeing other kids that have something that they don’t have. You know. And have no ability to get.
NORTON: Yeah.
HOUSTON: He saw the bigger picture and that’s who he is.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Yeah, yeah. So, it has changed. I think the schools have changed enormously. Have they? I don’t know.
NORTON: Seems like it. They’re certainly more options for education now.
HOUSTON: Yeah. Yeah, right. I know Stephanie Deutsch––one of her sons moved away from the Hill sadly because they lived in a neighborhood where there was a lot of robbery. But they were close to H Street and I don’t know that area to speak, you know.
NORTON: But they were gung-ho public-school people, too, …
HOUSTON: Yes, they were.
NORTON: … which was sort of funny.
HOUSTON: Absolutely.
NORTON: I know, I know.
HOUSTON: So, now they’re doing public school up in … Where are they? Kensington? Or somewhere out there.
NORTON: Okay.
HOUSTON: Yeah. In Maryland. Yeah. I know. And I love the fact that I hear of kids who have moved back to this neighborhood. Yeah.
NORTON: Yeah. That’s neat.
HOUSTON: Now, where does Jackson live?
NORTON: He lives in far Northwest, almost Takoma Park but it’s in DC. So.
HOUSTON: Is it DC Takoma Park?
NORTON: DC Takoma, yeah.
HOUSTON: Yeah.
NORTON: So.
HOUSTON: I always thought that that’s where I would move because then I could continue to get grants and do my puppeteering.
NORTON: It’s a nice neighborhood.
HOUSTON: It’s a lovely neighborhood. I love it. I was walking by today thinking, “Oh, I could have lived in that tiny house. That would have been good.”
NORTON: All right. We’re now getting off though. [Laughs.] And we’ve started reminiscing. So, I’m going to give you one last, you know, chance and then we’ll sign off here. And thank you very much. It’s been fascinating.
HOUSTON: Oh, it’s great talking to you, Randy. Yeah.
NORTON: Yes. Okay.
END OF INTERVIEW
[Shortly after this interview, Annie Houston asked that the following paragraphs that she wrote be included with the interview:
In 2002 I taught theater with ITLP - International Theater and Literacy Program - in Tanzania for two weeks in 2005. A thoughtful and intelligent teenage girl student asked if I could support her through high school. High school is not free in Tanzania and girls can be married off so their families do not have the burden of supporting them. After I returned to the States, I continued to be troubled by the teenager's request. So Andy and I started the Houston Scholarship Fund to educate girls in Tanzania through a local Tanzanian organization called Jifundishe. Jifundishe had been started by a woman [Deb Kelly]
who worked briefly at Capitol Hill Day School and who had subsequently moved to Tanzania. The Capitol Hill community with its interconnected people and support has helped me establish the HSF. Nancy Lazear and Betsy Barnett generously assisted me every year when Andy and I would have an annual open house to sell African goods to raise money for educating young Tanzanian girls. They would help me set up and run the evening. Nancy Lazear also opened her home a few times to support me in this effort and has gone to Tanzania several times to help choose students for the scholarship. Bless those two selfless Capitol Hill women, Betsy and Nancy. Thanks to so many people in the Capitol Hill community who support the effort, the Houston Scholarship Fund has helped almost 200 Tanzanian girls get an education. Those are the ripple effects of Capitol Hill felt abroad.
Since Covid and my move to New York, I still raise money for The Houston Scholarship Fund but make my appeal via email. Memories of those early days are precious.]
Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project
Annie Houston Interview, October 4, 2025
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