R.41. Special Projects: Tobe : Visions of Childhood, Race, and Rural Life in Children s Literature

Transcription

1 This interview is part of the Southern Oral History Program collection at the University of North Carolina at Other interviews from this collection are available online through and in the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library. R.41. Special Projects: Tobe : Visions of Childhood, Race, and Rural Life in Children s Literature Interview R-0743 Margine C. Watson 14 August 2014 Transcript p.2

2 MARGINE WATSON INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Interviewee: Margine Watson Interviewer: Benjamin Filene Date: August 14, 2014 Location: Margine Watson s house, Greensboro, NC Length: Two recordings, one 20:22, one 49:32 (69:32 total) NOTES: Margine has a slow southern drawl that cracks when it goes too high. START OF FIRST RECORDING Benjamin Filene: Ok this can be very informal, but I appreciate you letting me record it so I don t have to scribble so many notes. I m Benjamin Filene and today is August 14, 2014 and I m at the home of, can you say your name? Margine Watson: Margine C. Watson. BF: Ok and that s M-a-r-g-i-n-e. MW: Correct. BF: And then Watson, W-a-t-s-o-n. MW: Correct.

3 right here. BF: Ok. So you were starting to tell me about the Goshen school. You said you grew up MW: Mm-hm [yes] BF: That your home place, was what just down the street? house. MW: No it was right behind my house, my old house, my grandmother s and daddy s BF: So we should say where we are. We re on Randleman Road, MW: Yes. BF: And what did your, you said it was your grandfather s, your grandparents? MW: Yes. That one right there. BF: Which one? MW: Over there. Way over there. BF: Behind to the left of the mantle? MW: He bought all of the property from the bridge down to that stoplight on both sides. My granddaddy all of that. BF: Wow. himself. MW: And we just think it was marvelous for a black man to accumulate all of that by

4 BF: What was his name? MW: Sam Headen. BF: Hitten? MW: Sam Headen owned all of this property on both sides of the street. BF: How do you spell Headen? MW: H-e-a-d-e-n. BF: Headen. How did he manage that, to own that do you think? MW: Well he worked in the coal mines in Virginia, West Virginia, during the winter and he saved his money and that s how he managed. And he had five children. I don t know how he-- well he was a smart man because he had accumulated quite a bit right before he married my grandmother. BF: So when are we talking about? Roughly what decade? MW: It was in the twenties. BF: Yeah that does strike me as unusual. MW: Uh-huh [yeah]. BF: The Herbins, 2:31 also owned a lot of their own land. MW: Uh-huh, they owned a lot of it too. BF: Yeah. So was your grandfather, did he farm the land?

5 MW: Yes, uh-huh. They raised cotton. And I m not sure whether they raised tobacco or not, but I know they raised cotton. BF: I thought that, in the Tobe book they had pictures of cotton, and Windy Garner told me that he didn t have cotton on the farms that he worked, that they had to go somewhere else for that. MW: Yeah we worked in tobacco. I worked in tobacco too. BF: You did? MW: Uh-huh [yes]. BF: But your grandfather had cotton. MW: Uh-huh and they might have had tobacco but I m not really sure. But I know that they had gardens and raised other food too. or? BF: Got it, huh. So in terms of, well this community, would you have called it Goshen, MW: It s Goshen. BF: Because there s also Tabor. MW: Mount Tabor? BF: Mount Tabor and--. MW: Red Hill.

6 BF: Red Hill. Where do you see the boundaries of those? Do you know? Do you have a--? MW: No I don t. BF: Yeah? Is Goshen kind of a term, a bigger term for all of them together? MW: Yes all of them came here to go to school. BF: Uh-huh [I see], to go to Goshen school. go to school. MW: Yeah, uh-huh. Red Hill, Mount Tabor, Goshen and Stony Hill came to Goshen to BF: Yeah. Red Hill, Stoney Hill, Mount Tabor, and what was the other one you said? there. MW: And, oh Red Hill, Mount Tabor, Climax; it s a little place called Climax down BF: What about Marktown? MW: Yeah Marktown, mm-hm. BF: So those are all separate, different communities. MW: They were all different communities but they came here to go to school. BF: Ok. MW: They all went to school here.

7 BF: And do you think the people from Mount Tabor would say they were from Goshen or would they say they re from Goshen? MW: Yeah they would say they were from Mount Tabor, but they would tell you that they attended school in Goshen. BF: Oh ok. So you, you were from Goshen. MW: Yes, right in this community [5:00]. BF: This is the center of it. MW: Uh-huh [yes]. BF: Ok. So what made Goshen stay together as a community? Was it the farming that everyone here farmed together and went to school together? MW: Yes and everyone kind of worked and kind of saved up money and bought their property and they owned, and we all had, you know, the people up the street they all had property. BF: So you re saying--. MW: And the Darnells too. BF: The Darnells? MW: Uh-huh [yes]. BF: Oh I haven t talked to them.

8 MW: Did you not talk to Martha Darnell? Martha, uh [pause]. BF: Maybe I did. MW: Martha, mm, I m having a senior moment. BF: That s ok [MW laughs]. MW: Yeah she s Martha Darnell. BF: Ok, I don t think I ve talked with her. What made the boundaries of these communities, what made Mount Tabor different from Marktown, different from Goshen. Were they clusters or were there dividing lines? MW: Clusters of houses. And most of them owned their own homes. grandfather--. BF: Do you think that was-- you were starting to say that it was unusual for your MW: Yes to accumulate all of these houses. own homes? BF: Do you think it was unusual for people to own, for African-Americans to own their MW: For blacks, yes. Mm-hm. And hold on to their property, that s-- and we are still holding onto it. We still own all of it. We built our houses and saved a lot of it. But I bought my property from my mother and my sister bought her property, the lady that lives in that split level house? She bought hers too from my mother. But you know we paid for what it was worth, but we paid for the properties.

9 BF: That s great. It seems like--. MW: And that man you see sitting right there on the wall, he s the man that owned the property. And that lady right there held onto the property because he died early. BF: Oh ok. It seems like Greensboro is kind of circled by these small communities. MW: Small communities? Yes. BF: Yeah because the other one that I ve worked with is Terra Cotta? MW: Yup, it is. BF: And not as many of them owned their homes because that was a company town. Some of them do, though. MW: Yeah most of them lived in the mill houses. BF: Yeah. MW: Yeah I taught quite a few of those too that came from over there. BF: Really? Where did you teach? MW: I taught at David Jones School on South Street. BF: What grades were you teaching? MW: I taught grades one through five, mainly first and third. BF: Because a lot of them went to Terra Cotta school, but you knew some of them that--.

10 MW: They did, well see yes, because later they came to Dudley, that s how I know them. We had to go to Dudley because we did not have a black--we had a white high school but we could not go to it. BF: Right. picture? MW: So we had to go to Dudley High, that school that you see right down there on that BF: Yeah, yeah. MW: Uh-huh [yup] that s Dudley High School. They bussed us in. You see we could not attend the white schools, but my children were able to attend the white schools. BF: So how much overlap was there between the families attending Goshen school and the families attending Goshen church? Were those the same groups or did they go to different churches? MW: Well most of them attended Goshen. BF: Church? MW: Mm-hm. Most. BF: So what was it like? Goshen School went through what grade? MW: Grades one through nine. BF: So then what was it like to go to Dudley after that? Was that a big transition? MW: Yes it was larger, mm-hm, more activities [10:00].

11 BF: Was it scary? MW: [in a skeptical high tone of voice] Yeah, you better get used to it. You were green. BF: Really? What do you mean you were green? fitted in. MW: You didn t know about the school. You had to learn. We just fit in. We went in and BF: Were you mostly as a kid playing with your friends right around here? MW: Yes. Right around here in the church. We would go and meet down at the church in the afternoon a lot of times. We would play baseball or just get together, down to the church. BF: I don t know how long ago it s been since you ve looked at the Tobe book. Did you look at the Tobe book at all? MW: Yes. BF: Did you see the book as a kid at all? MW: Yes. BF: What did you think of it? MW: I saw it, no not as a kid. I think I saw it in maybe high school or something. BF: Do you remember what you thought of it? MW: I thought it was great! I was proud to see us in a book, Goshen school and Goshen church in there. It made us proud.

12 BF: Did it look like--. MW: And we thought it was a beautiful work. We were proud of it. BF: Did it remind you of what you used to do as a kid or did it seem like they had made up different activities for the kids? Did it seem familiar like? MW: Yes. BF: Ok. So when did Goshen, when did that life begin to change? I don t know maybe it hasn t. Do you think it has? MW: Yes it changed because the county wanted to buy more property to build a school and they could not buy it, you know, no one would sell them anything. And so they moved to a place called Stoney Hill and that s where they built Rena Bullock school. And then people had to transfer to Rena Bullock, but see I had finished and I had gone to Dudley and gone to college all before that. They built that school when I was in college I think. BF: And so once that school opened, this school stopped being an elementary school? MW: Mm-hm [yes]. BF: About when was that do you think? MW: You got me. Probably in the 50s maybe. BF: Where did you go to college? MW: I went to Bennett College. BF: Oh great! Did you overlap with Ernestine there?

13 MW: Yes! She rode with me to school when our dad would take her. BF: So does that help you when the school closed? Was it while you were in college? MW: Does that help me what? BF: Does that help you maybe figure out when the school closed? MW: I think the school closed when I was in college in the 50s I think. BF: Ok. MW: I m not sure. I think that s when Rena Bullock--. BF: Well I guess I can look that up. Whenever Rena Bullock would be about when Goshen closed. MW: Yeah. BF: Ok. MW: I did my student teaching there and so did Ernestine too. BF: At that Rena Bullock? class. MW: Yeah we did our student teaching at the same time. Yeah we were in the same BF: That s neat. So once the school closed, how did the community change here? MW: Well, I don t now. I don t know if we went down to the church and played on the ball diamonds down there like we used to. I think people stopped doing that.

14 BF: So there were less gatherings. afternoon. MW: Yeah because we used to look forward to getting together down there in the BF: But the church was still going. haven t you? MW: Uh-huh [Yup]! And see we played around the ball diamond. You ve seen that BF: Around the church? MW: Yeah right around where the [15:00] cemetery is, right? BF: Ok. MW: That s the ball diamond. That s where they played ball. BF: So when there were fewer kids from the school, maybe there were less gatherings. MW: We had some very good baseball players. BF: Yeah, well Windy was a good player. MW: Uh-huh [yes]. BF: And Austin, Skip. MW: He went to major league! BF: Yeah.

15 MW: And my uncle, I can t leave him out Mr. Ed Ledwell, he was the first tapped to go. BF: Really? MW: Yes. Ledwell was the first run tap to go because he was like a home run king. But he and his aunt, I meant, he and his wife had just built a home and she kind of talked him out of going, he wouldn t go. BF: How do you spell Ledwell? MW: L-e-d-w-e-l-l. He was the first one tapped to go to the pros. BF: Wow. MW: But he didn t go because of his wife. She taught school too. BF: So what are the, when you look around now, what are the strengths and what are the challenges that the Goshen area faces here as a community. MW: Well we work together [long pause] and we don t in and out of each other s house a lot. We don t visit each other a lot. BF: Do you the younger people live in this area or live in town or did they move out? Where did they go? Where did your kids--? MW: My kids are in the city. BF: Do they come back? MW: And I have four daughters. Yes they do!

16 BF: Come back for church or do they go to different churches or--? MW: They come back to Goshen, they sure do. That s my house is all full of my ten Goshen, uh-huh. BF: That s great. Well this is really helpful. Is there anything--? MW: And they have all built homes where they are. BF: Is there anything I didn t ask you about about the community that you wanted to mention? I didn t ask you about your husband. MW: My husband is from Wilmington, North Carolina and he was deceased in 19--huh, when was it? Now I have another senior moment BF: What did he do here? MW: He was a mail carrier. He was a graduate of A&T State University. That s where we met. He was going to A&T and I was going to Bennett. BF: Sure. Ok. MW: And we met and fell in love. BF: That s great. Well is there anything that you wanted to mention about either the history or the community after? MW: Do I don t think so. BF: Well this is great.

17 MW: Well I told you that the family owns all the houses on (Fofactor, 19:09) Street. BF: Yeah you, your sister. MW: Mm-hm, and aunts and uncles. See it was our property, it was our dad s property. We just happened to get in on it, my sister and I. BF: Oh cause it went through, no it went through your family. lair. MW: Yeah it went to my granddaddy s children. They all own this property. The hidden BF: Ok so this is the form, I ve got two forms for you. This is about the conversation we ve just had and do you want me to say I can use the words but not the audio, is that right? Or you don t care? It s up to you. You can think about that. And I m going to go ahead and turn off the recorder. MW: I don t know what I want you to do. I don t want you to use my voice either [chuckles]. Use the words. BF: Use the words but not the voice. Ok? I m going to stop this now. END OF FIRST RECORDING [20:22] BEGINNING OF SECOND RECORDING

18 BF: Yeah that s a good idea to talk more about the school. How was the school divided? Was it one grade at a time or did they combine grades? MW: Mostly it was combination grades. I think we had five rooms. We had two classes-- well not in the first grade. We only had one class. First graders I know only had just one class. But the rest of them were in combinations because I was in the combination grade. BF: And when did you start going there? In the 40s? When were you born? MW: I was born in 29. BF: Ok. So you went in the 30s. So did you overlap with Windy Garner? think. MW: I think Windy was a little bit behind me. I was in school with his brother RC I BF: Oh yeah? MW: I think Windy is a little bit younger than me. BF: Yeah I think he s a little bit. I just talked to RC s, by phone, I talked to RC s kids in Texas and they sent me a picture of him. So did you know that this book was being made when you were in school? You said you heard about it. MW: I heard about it. And I remember them doing it. BF: You did? MW: Mm-hm [yes]. BF: How did you hear about them doing it?

19 MW: From word of mouth, you know, people talking. And then we eventually saw it. And this is what he wanted, what Tobe wanted, and this is how he got made, you know? BF: Well yeah but there s also a Hillsborough family, well not Hillsborough, but there was another family that lived next door to the author. But the photographs were here. MW: Where was that family from? BF: They lived in rural Hillsborough, I mean outside Hillsborough in Orange County. So the school, did you feel like were the teachers from here or were they from outside? Was it a community school in that way? MW: No they were from outside. We had one that was from Red Hill. Mrs. Mayfield was the only one that I remember. Most of them, you know, around in this area, they re from Goshen [pause]. Now I don t know what--now she might have not gone to Goshen school because each of these little communities had their own schools. BF: Well but you said that Goshen--. MW: They had a school in Red Hill. BF: I thought Goshen school drew from Red Hill. MW: They did, but in the beginning, I mean Red Hill had their own school. So all of these old communities, a lot of them had their own school. BF: But then did they combine them into Goshen? MW: Yeah.

20 BF: Ok. MW: And I think all of the communities wanted it in their community. Goshen was chosen but I don t know why, cause I know the people in Red Hill was dying for the school to be there. But I don t know why it was chosen to be here in Goshen. Don t ask me why, I never heard! But I knew they wanted it to be there. They pushed for it to be there. BF: Well it sounds like it did become important to the community. Huh. MW: Mm-hm [yes]. BF: So do you remember being conscious, did people resent that the schools [5:00/25:22] were segregated, that you weren t allowed to go to the white school? Or was it something that people took so much for granted that you couldn t question it? MW: I think we just took for granted it was a way of life. Well we wondered why, we wondered why [Pause] and we wondered why we couldn t get a high school here in Goshen. As a matter of fact when we were growing up, there was only two black high schools. One was at Sedalia and one high school-- was that Sedalia? I don t know where that other one was. BF: You mean before Dudley? of Sedalia? MW: Yeah. Now see they didn t have to come to, the people in Sedalia, have you heard BF: I ve heard of it but I didn t know they had their own school. MW: They had their own big school, high school, but I was stopped in the 9 th grade.

21 BF: So where is Sedalia? MW: It s on 70. BF: Oh where Charlotte Hawkins-Brown lives. MW: Yeah! I have a daughter that s teaching at Sedalia now, teaching kindergarten now. BF: Oh yeah? So that s a little bit away, yeah. MW: Yeah but she likes it right down there. She s right near Charlotte Hawkins home. BF: I have a student working down there. MW: You do? BF: At the museum, yeah. So you were here as an adult? MW: How did you spell my name? Is it M-a-r-g-i-n-e? BF: Yeah. MW: Oh. BF: Is that correct? MW: You have an r in it? BF: Yeah. MW: Oh I didn t know. I didn t see that. BF: Oh I m sorry. You were an adult here when the schools integrated, right?

22 MW: Yeah it was the 50s and 60s. 60s yeah, I was grown, had children. BF: Did you feel a sense of, I mean it s hard to generalize for something as big as that. I mean that was a long time coming in a lot of effort went into that. People also talk about a sense of, some sense of loss when the schools, when the African-American schools closed. MW: Mm-hm and reintegrated. BF: Yeah, how did you feel about that? MW: Well I wasn t really in it. BF: No but you were in the community, yeah. So you didn t feel it very directly. MW: Well it was equal. But [Pause]. BF: By the time your kids came along, though, they had missed the transition? It was already integrated? MW: It was already integrated. But sometimes it wasn t easy for them. BF: Yeah I m sure. MW: You know they had them slurs on them. Oh yeah. And they would have to get the white people straight. I had one daughter say she did too. BF: Really? What did she do? MW: Down straight she told him off, you know. BF: Wow that s pretty brave, yeah.

23 MW: If they said something she d say something back, there straight. BF: Well I m pleased to see this photo. Do you have other photos from the school or from the community? MW: I don t know that I do. BF: I know there weren t so many cameras back then. MW: I don t know that I do. BF: Where did you get this? MW: I bought it from, there was a guy who was an engineer in Washington, one of the fellows who printed t. BF: Oh really? So are you in here? MW: Yeah let me show you me here with the bow. BF: Oh! So you re in the second row with the bow toward the left. MW: And Ernestine is right here! BF: Oh yeah! Right next to you here to your left. Is Windy in here somewhere? MW: I don t think Windy was in here. His brother was in here, RC is in here somewhere. BF: You think [10:00/30:22] he was too young, Windy? MW: I don t think he was, he wasn t going to school in Goshen at that time I don t think. He wasn t old enough.

24 BF: He wasn t old enough, yeah. Ok. MW: And you d be surprised the students, a lot of the students on here did real well. BF: Oh really? MW: Mm-hm [yes]. BF: So you felt that you were well prepared then? MW: Mm-hm [yes]. BF: That s what other people have told me too. That s great. MW: Ernestine was prepared well, her sister, all. We were blessed. Her brother, all of us did well [pause]. We had a lot of students that finished college. BF: How do you explain that? I doubt your parents had gone to college right? MW: No they had not gone to college. We were the first in our families, you know. BF: So how did you get the motivation or you know, the--. MW: The stride to go to college? BF: Yeah. MW: Well, in the beginning I wanted to go. I wanted to better myself and I wanted to school. No in the beginning I wanted to be a secretary, and then I changed and I said, No I want to be a teacher. And that s what I strived for. BF: Well that s terrific. Well there were a lot of teachers. I m gonna copy--.

25 MW: Now right up under that, he had a place where the names are on there. Is there a strip on that table, on that dining room table? BF: Oh yeah! MW: Mm-hm [yup]. BF: Ah ha! Well let s connect this [laughs]. MW: Yeah you put it like that [pause]. And Margine Clap [chuckles]. -. BF: [laughs] Let me see. So you don t think it goes like this? Well course then you can t- MW: Well then you can t see the school. BF: Maybe I should scan it, well. MW: Do two of them? BF: Yeah. No I think, huh. MW: That s the way he did it. BF: He had it like this? MW: Uh-huh [yes]. BF: Ok. MW: Up under that one. I think he had it up under there.

26 BF: But then you can t see this part. MW: You can t see all the names on there. And this man is the principal and that s his wife, and these were the teachers. There were five teachers then. BF: Five teachers, ok. Did you know, I see the name Goins. Some of the Goinses, Fred Goins, some of them are connected to this book. MW: Fred Goffrey--yeah he was in the book! BF: Yeah. MW: Yeah. I mean Fred Goins. Mm-hm [yup]. BF: Are any of their kids around still? Or any of their descendents because I never talked to the Goins family. MW: I know his sister, I know one. Most of them are dead. BF: But there s a sister still around? MW: Yeah. BF: What s her name? MW: (Carla, 13:46) Verona BF: Let me write that down. MW: She married a cute one. BF: So how do you spell the last name?

27 MW: V-e-r-o-n-a I think. Verona. BF: B as in boy? MW: V, v as in Vic. BF: So V-e-r-o-n-a. MW: O-n-e or -o-n-a, Verona. I don t think I spelled it right but that s an idea. BF: All right. So she was a Goins. She was Fred s sister? MW: Yeah she went to school with me. BF: And she lives around here? MW: No. She doesn t live around here. She lives in Greensboro off Florent Street. BF: Oh. Well I should talk to her sometime. MW: Mm-hm [yes]. BF: Do you have a number for her? MW: No I don t, but I could maybe find it later. BF: Ok. MW: See Fred is dead. BF: I heard that yeah.

28 brother? MW: And Charles [15:00/35:22] was in that book too. Wasn t Charles in that book? His should have. BF: Charles Goins? I don t know. I realize I didn t bring my book with me [chuckles]. I MW: And I don t have my book handy. BF: Yeah. Sorry. MW: I think Charles was in that book. I think he was, I m not sure. And Roosevelt Herbert was in there, Ernestine s brother was in there. BF: Yeah I talked to him. I saw him in Delaware. MW: Oh you saw him in Delaware. BF: Yeah. All right, I m going to scan it now. MW: And see these boys in red, the Tarpley boys and Will. BF: Tarpley? Mm-hm. MW: The T-a-r-p-l-e-y, they own the property down below. Well it s about a half a block from here. They re on that property, the Tarpleys [long pause]. And then the Darnells, the Darnells own a lot of proprety off of Sharply Court. Shoffners. BF: Oh yeah? Well and then the (Shoffners, 16:25/36:47). I talked to some of the MW: Oh you did?

29 BF: I talked to Mary. MW: Mary Shoffner-Booker? BF: Uh-huh [yes] and Dora Gray. Mm-hm [yes]. MW: See they all did well. What did I tell you! We all did well. We are proud of us that we finished school and built a home and doing well. go? BF: Mm-hm [yeah]. All right. I m going to go scan it ok? Where did our list of names MW: Oh right here. BF: Ok. MW: Oh you going to scan it in here on that. BF: Yup. I m going to do one without the names and one with them [long pause while BF works the scanner]. MW: Now that fellow who is an engineer, he was the one that got those names. I don t know how he did it, but he fixed that part. BF: Well that s helpful. MW: He was an engineer, his brother was a pharmacist [long pause about a minute and a half long, scanning noises]. Yeah you asked that my parents went to school. I don t know if anybody around here s parents went to school. BF: Yeah I was wondering how you and Ernestine--.

30 MW: We were determined and we were going on. BF: How did you get that motivation? That idea? MW: I don t know. We just seemed to have gotten it from each other and just went on. BF: Yeah? That s nice. MW: As my daughter says, my name wasn t going to be Mud out in the school [BF laughs]. That was my baby daughter talking. BF: Oh yeah? MW: And she just has a four level house now. BF: Has what? MW: Has a four level house. BF: Oh really? Wow [long pause]. MW: [Coughs] She said [20:00/40:22], I m so sick of all this shark talk for dinner, these teachers talking about the students and what they re doing and blah blah blah. She says, I m sick of the shark talk. I m not going to be a teacher when I grow up! BF: [laughs] So what did she do? MW: Well she s into computers. She works at Wells Fargo and she s a manager. She has about twenty people that she hires and fires. And she calls them her team and she takes care of them. [Pause] And she doesn t have to go into Wells Fargo. She works from home. She goes to Charlotte maybe once a week.

31 BF: Oh [long pause]. MW: You asked me somebody s name. Who was it you asked me? Who is somebody s name was, last name was and I never could think of it. Can you remember? BF: Um--. MW: Because I don t [both laugh]. BF: I m sorry I don t either [long pause]. All right now I m going to do it again with the names under it. MW: [Yawns] Ok! [Long pause]. BF: Oh that s not going to fit. Let s see. something. MW: It might have been folded back. I think it was folded a little on the end or BF: Mm [oh] [long pause]. MW: You have a family? BF: Yeah I have two daughters. One is eighteen, she s about to go to college on Saturday. She s going to Carolina. And then I have another who is fifteen. She s in high school. MW: Where is she in school? BF: We live in Carrboro, next to Chapel Hill, so she s at Carrboro High School. MW: Yeah I know there. We come through there on the way back from the beach.

32 BF: Where do you go to the beach? MW: Carolina Beach. BF: Oh that s nice, yeah. MW: We have a home down there. BF: Oh really? We just went for the first time this summer to Kure Beach. MW: That s where my home is. BF: Oh is it? Oh that is beautiful. MW: Yup. That s where it is, on Kure Beach! BF: That s nice. MW: We used to be on Carolina Beach, but they (24:18) and we are just in Kure Beach [scanning noises]. They took us out of Carolina Beach so we re in Kure Beach. nice, but--. BF: Well I actually like Kure better. It seemed Carolina Beach was, well they re very MW: Carolina Beach is family oriented. BF: A little more calm. Yeah [laughs]. time? MW: That s what it is. Family oriented, uh-huh. And so you went to Kure Beach this BF: Yeah. We used to go to Topsail Beach [25:00/45:22].

33 MW: That s where my husband s family reunion was, in Topsail. BF: Yeah? That s a nice place too. MW: Yeah we just went there this summer too and then we went to Carolina Beach and stayed about twelve or fifteen days. BF: Oh wow. MW: [Pause] Well I don t have to pay any rent and it s paid for now, so I m blessed. BF: That s wonderful [long pause]. MW: Let me tell you what. We will go to the beach, like check in one afternoon, and the next afternoon, you know we ve stayed over night, you know, we would check out and come back home. We didn t have much money and that s how long we d stay. I said, I m getting tired of this. I said, We gotta find a place and buy a house, and that s what we did. Cause I got tired of going in one day and coming out the next day. So we would have one afternoon and one night and one morning and then we would check out that morning. BF: That s a lot of driving. MW: Yeah. Well back then that was all we could afford, you know? BF: Well no, that s a lot of driving for just a vacation. MW: Mm-hm [yeah]. It really wasn t a vacation, it was just for a weekend. We went down for a weekend. But my husband was a (26:51). BF: Right, yeah. Was he a letter carrier the whole time in his career?

34 MW: No, no, he moved up to be a manager. BF: Betty Jean said that she worked for the postal service also. MW: She did, mm-hm. She must have been a clerk in there I guess. I don t know where she was. And Betty Jean had all but seven children. BF: Really? MW: Oh. Did she not tell you? Yeah she has seven children. BF: Wow. MW: So she did well. BF: It s nice that she moved back here. MW: Mm [what]? BF: It s nice that she chose to move back. MW: Mm-hm [yes]. Yeah she came back home. I heard she has a nice home. I haven t seen it. Where is it? Do you remember? BF: I would say it s kind of near um, the Cone Mill, Northeast Greensboro, yeah. MW: Yeah I know where Cone Mill is. BF: I mean it s in that area. That s not quite right. MW: See they owned part of Greensboro, the Cone brothers.

35 BF: Yeah. MW: They own all the hospitals in there [long pause]. BF: Shoot, it didn t quite--. MW: Can t quite get the names on there? BF: Yeah not quite. I m going to try it again [long pause]. MW: How long have you been at UNC-G? BF: I ve been there eight years. This is my ninth year. MW: Where did you grow up before you came to UNC-G? BF: In Minnesota. Well mostly in Minnesota. I worked at the state history museum in St. Paul. MW: It s cold up there. Did you like it? BF: [chuckles] It was cold. I did like it. You get used to the weather, you buy a good coat, and [30:00/50:22] it s funny you know people just don t ever complain about it. You just get used to it. MW: They like it. BF: Yeah. MW: My baby daughter had to go up there all the time and she hated it. BF: Oh really? Yeah it d be tough to visit every once in a while.

36 MW: Yeah she would go for Wells Fargo to see some of her folk, you know. But she didn t like it, she didn t like it [long pause]. She didn t like St. Louis either. BF: St. Louis? night? MW: She had to go there too. She didn t like that. [long pause] Do you go home every BF: Yeah. I don t come here every single day. MW: Oh you don t have classes every day? BF: No not every day. I usually come, well, three or four days a week, yeah. MW: Mm-hm [ok]. And then you work from home too? BF: Yeah. MW: That makes it nice doesn t it? BF: It helps yeah. MW: My daughter likes it there. She and her husband both work at home. BF: Oh really? upstairs. MW: She has an office on one side and he s got an office on the other side of their BF: Oh yeah? That s a pretty good situation.

37 MW: Mm-hm [yeah]. Yeah they work right across from each other. And she was in Virginia first. She got a job offer in Greensboro paying her more money, and she moved back home. BF: Did you say how many kids you have? MW: Four daughters. BF: Oh yeah you did. What do the other ones do? MW: Well I have one that just retired from Duke Power. The oldest daughter. And then my middle child was a principal [doorbell goes off]. BF: Oh really? MW: Mm-hm [yes]. She was a teacher also. She ll typically talk about her students, heh. Like she was in the classroom first until she moved up, you know. She was a first grade teacher also, and then she went on and got her Masters and after a while she was offered a job as a principal [pause]. BF: Sorry this is taking so long. MW: Mm-hm. She goes herself sometimes when they can catch at home because she travels a lot [pause]. So you can t get it? BF: I think I got it now [very long pause]. So tell me the name of the person who wrote, the engineer who wrote all the names on here. MW: It was JC Tarpley.

38 BF: T-a-r-p--. MW: Yeah l-e-y. BF: Ok [35:00/55:22]. MW: Now I don t know where he got the picture. I got the picture from him. But he s the one that put those names under there. BF: Where does he live? MW: He lived in Maryland and he was an engineer but he passed. BF: Oh yeah you said that. MW: And I told you that his brother was a farmer, see, and he was in Maryland also. BF: Yeah, yeah [long pause]. MW: You say you got it? BF: I think so. I might have to do the other one one more time. MW: How did the picture come out? BF: I can show you in just a second. It came out well. MW: That s a good picture, whoever made it. That s a good picture of us back then, what, in 1937, 38. BF: So when you were in school, would they have had yearbooks?

39 MW: No sir. BF: Yeah. MW: They did when I went to high school yes. BF: Yeah at Dudley? MW: Yes, yes, at Dudley. But we didn t at Goshen. I don t think so. No. I don t think so [long pause, scanner noises]. Did Ernestine tell you I had that picture? BF: Yeah. MW: Mm-hm. I think I gave her one too. BF: Well she had a photocopy, but that wasn t clear enough. MW: Oh it wasn t? BF: Well I mean it was good, but it wasn t as good. MW: Yeah sure, I gave her one. That one might not be as clear as you wanted. BF: No it s pretty good, cause it s a photograph. Yours is a photograph print, you know? MW: Mm-hm [yes]. Yeah I guess that s what I gave her [long pause]. Your daughter said what she s going to major in, what she s interested in? don t know. BF: She s interested in public health, global health. She might do pre-med it seems like. I MW: Mm-hm [oh], that sounds good.

40 BF: I mean it sounds good, it sounds, it s a big commitment. But yeah. MW: And mom and dad are going to be out some money. BF: [laughs] Yeah, right. More what I mean is I hope she doesn t decide too early. I hope she allows herself to explore. MW: To go on? BF: Yeah. MW: Ok [40:00/60:22]. BF: Yeah. Explore in college. But she seems to know what she s doing. MW: Oh that s good, she has her head on. BF: Yeah. MW: My husband said, Well we ve taught them. And they know they better remember what they re taught. [long pause]. BF: The thing that I m having a hard time with is getting everything on the, it keeps cutting things off of it. MW: The names. BF: Yeah. But I think I got it [long pause]. Did you just have a birthday? MW: Mm-hm [yeah!]! Just had one! BF: Yeah? It looks like you got well treated.

41 MW: Mm. Hm [Yes]. Oh it was beautiful. My girls did that [pause]. All of the son in laws, all of the daughters, all of them helped. We had it in the backyard. And it was just family members. This time it was family. BF: Yeah? MW: I told them, I said I just want you and the grandchildren and the children; that s all I wanted. And so my children started inviting the oldest, you know, all these sides of the family. So they invited cousins. BF: I see. And that starts to get bigger. MW: Yeah it gets bigger. We had a reunion like that! BF: Well that s nice though [pause]. MW: They had to prepare a lot of food [long pause]. My children love Myrtle Beach. BF: Oh really? MW: Mm-hm [yes]. BF: I ve never been there. MW: You ve never been to Myrtle Beach? BF: Nope. MW: You are going to have to go to Myrtle Beach! There s a whole lot going on in Myrtle Beach. We go to Myrtle Beach every time we go to Carolina Beach.

42 BF: Oh really? MW: Mm-hm [yeah], every time we go down there to stay for [45:00/65:22] a while. We just fill a day and go to Myrtle Beach. You see we get on the ferry and we ride the ferry to Southport and we get off in Southport, and then we drive the rest of the way to Myrtle Beach. The ferry helps maybe about forty minutes, fifty minutes. You ve been on the ferries? BF: I don t know which ferry, but I was on one of the North Carolina ferries. MW: You know they put the cars and everything on there. BF: Mm-hm [yes]. MW: Yeah we went over to Southport and then we drive the rest of the way. And sometimes when it s too late, we have to drive a long way when we come back. BF: Oh if you miss the ferry? MW: Mm-hm. If it sail then that means we re too late, too long [scanner noises]. Cause we don t always spend the night when we go. We just go and come back. BF: Sounds like you re a good driving family. MW: Mm-hm. That s all we do. We just left Maryland. My grandson finished high school and now he s already in college. BF: Oh! MW: He got a scholarship to Hampton University in Virginia. BF: Oh really?

43 MW: Yeah. He got a full ride! Boy! BF: Man he s continuing the family tradition in education. MW: Mm-hm [yes]. BF: Ok. I think I m done. So. MW: I wasn t able to get a scholarship [long pause]. There weren t many scholarships when I was going to school. BF: Well it s great that you made it. MW: Mm-hm, it s great that I made it! Made it without the scholarship. BF: Ok so the forms that I filled out, where did I put them [pause, recorder static]. Ok. This one gives me permission to use the photo and scan it and maybe use it in an exhibit and maybe include it in the library archives. MW: That s fine. BF: And the credit line, I could say courtesy of Margine Watson? Did you want, you used your middle initial before. MW: Yes, Margine C. Watson. BF: C. Watson. Ok. So I ll give you a copy of this, but can you sign here? Right there. MW: Ok.

44 END OF ALL RECORDINGS [49:32/69:32] Transcribed by Hasan Bhatti,