Washington in the 1930s (File)

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Well, I came here looking for a job, and this fella hired about six of us to go out and sell radios. . . . I'd go over to Third Avenue, and I'd have people stop me and say, "Hey, you the radio man? How about one of them radios?" I said, "Well, you got any money?" "Oh, I got $15." "Well, give me the $15 and next week when you get enough for the $35, I'll give you the radio." It was a [GE] battery set. . . . They played them night and day, and eventually the battery went dead, and they wouldn't make the payment. So that's when I quit and went into hotel work.

Blackstone Hotel (File)

Blackstone Hotel ~ 1933
Washington

A lot of nice people who lived there were retirees. It was during the Depression. Oh, lots of times I would loan them a dollar to go over to Sholl's, the cafeteria, to buy their lunch. They were so broke. They didn't have any jobs. I remember one fella had been a manager of a clothing store. [His] store had gone out of business. He came down one day with a full tuxedo, with suspenders, shirt studs, everything. He threw it across the desk, and he said, "Would you give me $5 for that?" I put it on. It fit perfect. Brand new. It didn't look like it had ever been worn. And I gave him $5 for it.

State Department, 1939 (File)

State Department ~ 1942
Washington

One day [my wife said,] "Why don't you apply to the Civil Service Commission?" So I was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, and I saw the office was open there, and I went in. The man interviewed me for 15 minutes. He said, "Well, why do you think you'd be a good investigator?" And I said, "Well, I'm used to talking to all kinds of people - ambassadors, congressmen, senators, everyone at the Mayflower [Hotel]." And he said, "I think that sounds all right." And about two weeks later, I got a notice to report for duty.

Gipsy Lineberry was born to a large family on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he learned about hard work at a young age. "If you could walk, why mother'd tie an apron around your neck and set you on your own stool to wash dishes," he said.

After Lineberry graduated from a one-room elementary school and a two-room high school, his parents offered him a choice: land or education. He chose the latter and, in 1925, enrolled in the University of Virginia as a general studies major.

After graduating in 1932, the excitement of city life lured Lineberry to Washington, where he found work as a roving radio salesman. But as the Depression worsened, many of Lineberry's customers stopped making their payments, so he decided to get a job as a cashier at the Blackstone Hotel.

In 1937, he got a job as a cashier at the Mayflower Hotel. Meeting celebrities, congressmen and the like made his five years at the hotel the most interesting of his life, he says. In 1939, Lineberry married Edna Hewlitt, and they had two sons, Robert and Richard.

One day in 1942, while Lineberry was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, he decided to interview for a position as a background investigator with the State Department. He worked at State for nearly 32 years.