Frances Jelks-Brown whose father, Osibee Jelks, was an umpire with the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball

Frances Jelks-Brown shares stories of her father, Osibee Jelks, who was among the first African American umpires in Major League Baseball. Among the places he worked was Hinchliffe Stadium, a Negro League stadium located within Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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MPS Episode 9: Frances Jelks-Brown

[intro music] Dave: Welcome to My Park Story, presented by the National Park Service. People form connections with their favorite national parks and programs, and this park-cast is a place to come together and share those stories. I’m your host, Dave Barak. Today's guest, Frances Jelks-Brown discusses Hinchliffe Stadium, one of the last standing Negro League Baseball stadiums in the country, where her father umpired.

[intro music fades out]  Dave (voiceover): What did the National Park Service and the National Pastime have in common you ask? Hinchliffe Stadium, located within Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park, is one of the last remaining stadiums used by the Negro Leagues. Completed in 1932, the stadium served as a Home Park to several teams in the league. Larry Doby, the first African American player in the American League, played there as well as other Hall of Farmers. After serving as a field for high school baseball, Hinchliffe Stadium closed in 1996. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004 and became a National Historic Landmark in 2013. These designations helped secure a historic tax credit as well as grants through the National Park Service totaling $1 million in funding. It officially reopened in 2023 and is currently the home of the New Jersey Jackals, a member of the Major League Baseball Partner League.

Dave: My guest today is Frances Jelks Brown, who has a family connection to Hinchliffe Stadium. Frances, hi. How are you?

Frances: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Dave: We're delighted to talk to you and to learn more about your family history and story and connection to this really special place. It's unique amongst features of national parks and we're eager to hear what your connection is.

Frances: My connection to Hinchliffe Stadium is just that. It's very unique. My father's name was Osibee Julian Jelks. My dad was a baseball umpire before I was born and, unfortunately, he is he's now deceased, and our connection to Hinchliffe is is that he was a Negro League umpire and and had many games there at Hinchliffe Stadium there in Paterson NJ. And then fast forward to present day my son, who is 15 years old, is a baseball player and so that is my special unique story which with Hinchliffe Stadium

Dave: He was an umpire with the Negro Leagues and he actually worked at Hinchliffe Stadium.

Frances: Yes he he did some some games there at Hinchliffe Stadium. He, my dad, was from Louisiana.

Dave: And being from Louisiana, do you know how he ended up in the northeast, in New Jersey?

Frances: So you may be on-seasson, like baseball now is on-season, in, the you know summer, the mid-spring to early-fall. While on off-season he would travel around, and so how he got to the northeast was, he was traveling and he met my mom. My mom, who also happens to be from Louisiana, he met in Elmira, NY when he was coming up there, and they met and they ended up getting married two years later. And he still continued in baseball traveling around the country and traveling outside the country to the DR, to Puerto Rico, to Hawaii, to so many different places. And, but that's how he met my mom in the northeast, and they decided to settle in the, northeast because that's where my mom was working primarily because she had also come from Louisiana.

Dave: So the fact that Hinchliffe stadium, which is only one part of your father's storied career, the fact that it has now been reopened, they're playing there again, which is