Woman ladles love to Philly's forlorn
PHILADELPHIA — Thirty years ago, when Ridge Avenue was in its heyday, Edna Williams was slinging her barbecue ribs and chicken to the hungry crowds at Candido's, her husband's bar and grill on the ground floor of the Mary Jane Hotel.
Today, the hotel is shuttered and that block of Ridge near 16th Street is dead, ravaged by decades of drugs and decay.
But Williams is still behind the same old Formica counter, standing on the same old black-and-white tiles, ladling out love among the ruins along with steaming bowls of homemade soup, peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and pie.
Her hungry crowds have changed from well-heeled to down at the heels. Her funding has changed from discretionary cash to the city's homelessness budget to the generosity of church groups and humane individuals.
But through it all, the woman with the steely determination behind the sweet smile has kept her mission alive: Feed the people.
Not just on Christmas or Thanksgiving. Every day.
Candido's bar is now a storage room for donated clothing, toiletries and canned goods that Williams gives to hundreds of homeless and near-homeless poor who walk through her open door, knowing they'll get what they need without being asked about drug use or personal history.
"We're a few blocks from Center City," Williams said on a recent chilly afternoon. "You'd never know it. This is a Third World country here."
The men she feeds and clothes wander up and down Ridge Avenue, many of them too enveloped in their addictions and mental illnesses to seek out a shelter or abide by its rules.
"The people who can't adjust in shelter systems, the people you see pushing a cart up and down the street — those are the ones we feed," Williams said.
She knows them by name and loves them. They trust her because she demands nothing except that they eat her sandwiches and hearty soups, wear the clothing she gives them, and survive to come back tomorrow.
Williams said she feeds hundreds of people lunch and dinner every day with the help of volunteers like Pat Moore, whom Williams rescued from homelessness 35 years and thousands of home-cooked meals ago.
Some of her regulars are as aware of the neighborhood's struggles as Williams is.
Across Ridge Avenue from the Mary Jane, a 73-year-old woman whom Williams has nurtured for three decades, painted "HELP! HELP! HELP!" in huge black letters on the crumbling brick front of the block's last surviving row house.
Williams, 68, admires the woman's spirit."She's out there every day," Williams said, "sweeping from 16th and Ridge to 17th and Ridge. Been doing that since the '70s. Eats no meat — only black-eyed peas, lima beans, sunflower seeds. Strong as a bull."James Byrd Sr., who has been stopping by the Mary Jane since 1986, finished his soup and told Williams he needed a winter coat.She found one in the donated-clothing pile. Byrd left happy, saying he'd be back for dinner."Jesus fed the people so I want to feed the people," Williams said. "People have been coming here for 30 years, knowing they can get a meal and some love and hear the Word. I love what I'm doing. I'm addicted to it.Williams started cooking at the Mary Jane in 1969, bought it in 1972, then watched the street slowly die as the drug trade replaced Acme, Today's Man, Kresge's five-and dime, the beauty parlor and Mr. Mac's tailor shop."It was smoking reefer back then," Williams said. "And drinking 40-ounce beers. Getting high in an abandoned house, then sitting out here, begging for beer money."Couldn't pay the electric or the gas bill. Didn't have heat. Drugs was breaking up families, making them homeless. No one knew how to get a handle on it. There was no 'go to meetings, get yourself clean, get a job skill, get a job, get low-income housing, get out of the system.' "In those '70s days of pervasive homelessness, the Mary Jane, which hadn't been a hotel in years, was sheltering 200 people a night, supported by city funds.Philadelphia's financial crisis in the '90s shrank its homelessness budget and ended the Mary Jane's days as a shelter, but not Williams' feeding of the poor.Driven by her Christian spirituality and the needs of people who depended on her, Williams kept her kitchen's door open and her pots of soup and beans-and-rice on the stove.Miraculously, she has been able to do that because churches and compassionate individuals stepped in when the city bowed out."Everybody wants to feed people on Christmas and Thanksgiving, but people have to eat every day," said Williams' niece, Jacquelyn Shephard."Ms. Williams is here 365 days a year, cooking, making sandwiches, feeding people.""Don't make me cry," Williams said, eyes filling with tears.Just then, a Ridge Avenue regular walked in — a tall, husky man who has been fighting his personal demons since he returned from the Vietnam War.He said he was hungry. So, instead of crying, Williams fed him.
