2309 Lady Street
Former Schumpert Residence
Entrepreneurs abounded among Waverly’s Black residents, who created a parallel society to that of their white counterparts during the years of Jim Crow segregation. Frederick Benjamin Schumpert (1893-1974), who established the F.B. Schumpert Lumber Company in Irmo in the 1930s, and his wife, Bessie Barber Schumpert (died 1976), who joined the lumber business in the early 1940s and later served as its president for two years in the mid-1970s, exemplified the most successful of these business owners. Relocated to 4120 River Drive in 1939, F.B. Schumpert Lumber Company, one of the largest of its kind in South Carolina, manufactured framing materials for residential construction throughout the southeast and employed dozens. Outside of their lucrative business, the Schumperts supported causes and institutions important to Columbia’s Black community, including the Good Samaritan-Waverly Hospital, the United Negro College Fund, and the expansion of Columbia’s Black schools.
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Former Schumpert Residence, 2018. Historic Columbia collection
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Friends and family gather at the Schumpert home in 1950 to celebrate a birthday. Image courtesy Gloria Schumpert James
