Interview with Mary Moore Roberts

Transcription

1 Interview with Mary Moore Roberts August 2, 1993 Transcript of an Interview about Life in the Jim Crow South James City (N.C.) Interviewer: Rhonda Mawhood ID: btvnc06017 Interview Number: 717 SUGGESTED CITATION Interview with Mary Moore Roberts (btvnc06017), interviewed by Rhonda Mawhood, James City (N.C.), August 2, 1993, Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South Digital Collection, John Hope Franklin Research Center, Duke University Libraries. Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South An oral history project to record and preserve the living memory of African American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s. ORIGINAL PROJECT Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University ( ) COLLECTION LOCATION & RESEARCH ASSISTANCE John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library The materials in this collection are made available for use in research, teaching and private study. Texts and recordings from this collection may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior permission. When use is made of these texts and recordings, it is the responsibility of the user to obtain additional permissions as necessary and to observe the stated access policy, the laws of copyright and the educational fair use guidelines.

2 Interview with Mary Elizabeth Roberts James City, NC August 2, 1993 Interviewed by Rhonda Mawhood Unedited Transcript by Cathy Mann

3 Roberts: James City. That's what it's called. That's what it was and that's what it is now. The only thing they started calling it New Bern, you know. It's James City and always will be. That's where I was born and that's where I still live. It's called New Bern alright but it's James City right on to me. Mawhood: When you were a little girl nobody called it New Bern yet they called it James City? Roberts: James City. Mawhood: Was your family from James City? Roberts: Yes. Mawhood: Do you know how long your family has been around here, your grandparents? Roberts: Oh my goodness, that goes all the way back, so far back. All of them were born in James City. My mother, her mother. My mother is named Ada Moore but she married. She was a Keel before she got married.

4 Her husband was John Moore. Her mother was Ella Keel which went all the way back to a grandfather. Now he didn't fight in the war, great grandfather. He didn't fight in the war but he was born during that time. Just like wars now some go them and some, I mean. Mawhood: During the Civil War? Roberts: Civil? Mawhood: The war where the slaves were emancipated? Roberts: No, not that far back. Mawhood: The first world war, the great war? Roberts: I doubt that he was in slavery time. I'm talking about my great, great, great grandfather. He was very old. And then he had I think five daughters and one son. And he went away and stayed awhile and when he came back he took this one son and left his wife with the other girls and then they went away. But he gave them a good education.

5 Mawhood: This is your father's father? Roberts: No, this is my great, great grandfather. And when he did come back to James City he brought this son which was named James ( ) and he had given him a good education. He had musical education and he started a choir, the first choir in James City. Mawhood: Was it a choir for a church? Roberts: Yes, yes. Mawhood: Do you know which church it was? Roberts: Mt. Shiloh Church. And let's see now, do you want to know about the church first or the family? Mawhood: Yes ma'am, that would be fine. Which would you like to start with your family or the church? Do you want to continue talking about your family? Roberts: They will both tie in because I played for the church.

6 I played for my great aunt's, I was a very small girl. I had a talent for playing and I played for them, for the old people, even before I was old enough to join church. Mawhood: Was it the organ that you played? Roberts: Yeah, one of those organs you play with both feet. They don't make no more you know. They were old. And I was so small to sit on the seat I had to get on the end of the seat and play that organ with my tiptoes. (Laughter) But I did. They had patience with me. And then my mother sang in that choir and her aunts. My mother didn't have a sister, she just had aunts. She was like you, she was the only child. She sang in the choir. And she got married to my daddy. He was a Methodist which we were all Baptist. And they stayed together for awhile and then like men do right now they go but my mother had four girls to raise by herself. And I wouldn't like this to go on tape but it will go. I never went to school on a Monday. Mawhood: On a Monday? Why not on a Monday, ma'am?

7 Roberts: Because used to be a time didn't have all these daycares and people didn't have all these washing machines and so we black people over here had to go to New Bern to get those white people's clothes and bring them over here and wash them. So that's why. We were getting those clothes in on Monday and bringing them home and Mama would be there and she'd wash during the day so our school day started on Tuesday and we'd wash and iron and get those people their clothes back together. Mawhood: What the next day? Roberts: No, no. It would take us a whole week. It would be a lot of them, you know. Mawhood: I was wondering about that. Roberts: Different people, they didn't have washing machines over there in New Bern, those white people and that's how my mother raised us. Get the clothes there to her and then we'd go to school and she'd work on them days

8 and evenings we would still work on them and by the end of the week we'd have them all ready and then we could take them on back to the people. That was really the way we were raised by doing such work as that for the people in New Bern when they didn't have all these daycares and washing machines themselves and whatnot. So that's the way they had to take care of their ( ) you know but we were small then. It didn't take much money in those days like it does now. So that's as much as I can tell you about my family. That's the way we were raised. Mawhood: Do you remember your grandparents when you were growing up, Mrs. Roberts? Roberts: Yeah. Mawhood: What kinds of things did you do with your grandparents when you were a little girl? Roberts: My grandparents, now on my father's side they lived near the water. They were fishermen and I'm named after Elizabeth. She was named Elizabeth, always kept

9 me down there with her to help Mama out. That's when we were small before we got big enough to work. And they lived near the water and these people are talking about these floods but I can remember I was small, I was living with my grandparents, they were living near the water. Water was so high in their house until they had to take me and sit me up on an old timey thing you put your clothes. What do they call it? Mawhood: A wardrobe. Roberts: And they were sloshing around in the house just like ( ). The water was so high in that house they had to sit me up and they sloshing around the house. We've had storms, hurricanes. I've gone through all of that. Mawhood: What year were you born, Mrs. Roberts? Roberts: Mawhood: So do you remember the fire in 1922, ma'am, in New Bern?

10 Roberts: Oh yes, yes I do remember it. A lot of people lost their home in that fire. I think it started from somebody just burning trash in their yard or something like that and sparks flying here and there. Yes, I do remember because we went over there to see it. I've been here a long time. Mawhood: Did you have friends who lost their homes in the fire? Roberts: No, I didn't know anybody in New Bern, I didn't have any friends, no. That was over across the bridge. No, I didn't have any friends but just the same, you know, they were people. What friends I had lived in James City. Mawhood: Who were your friends in James City? Roberts: Oh my goodness, I had so many of them. There's one could tell you everything. They call him Joe Joe. He used to be the colored mayor over here. But I learned that he had to have a leg amputated. He had diabetes. That's just this week. Lord, he could tell you a

11 mess. He could go way back there. He studied up about the Civil War and everything but I don't know nothing about all that stuff. Mawhood: Did you go to school with him, this man Joe Joe? Roberts: I imagine I did. But we didn't have no buses you know, we had to walk. No matter how cold or what we had to walk. Our school, we'd cross over there some place. Yesterday they had a ( ) just out there where that school used to be, yesterday, Sunday out there. I didn't go because I don't go any place now. I reckon they call me semi-invalid or what. I'm not right down in the bed but I don't get out. As far as, I've probably covered my family because my mother and father separated and she raised us just like I told you how she raised us. Mawhood: And there were four of you girls? Roberts: Un-huh. Mawhood: Where were you in the order? Were you toward the

12 older children or younger? Roberts: I was next to the oldest and there was two younger ones. They're all dead now. I'm the only one living now. Yes, I was the second one. I was born in The other was born in In fact, I was about a year and nine months older. I mean she was about a year and nine months older. But they all died in the home and I just dread going there. Now I don't want to go but it's very hard. The doctor says you've got to have all around the clock attention and now that's one thing about me, I have a pinched nerve. Starts from here all over my body. Now it's going all over my body now. And if they say anything I told the doctor that I've outlived four or five doctors. (Laughter) And that's the truth. But this last doctor, when he retired, he's not dead, I said put on your, he was turning me over to another doctor which I'm going to right now. I said no (interruption) - so now it's spread all over my fingers and all. That's when I had to stop playing for the choir when my fingers got so stiff.

13 Mawhood: You played for the choir for a long time. Roberts: For a long, long time. (Interruption) Mawhood: So you played for the choir for a long time. Roberts: I imagine I was about twelve or thirteen, somewhere along there, when I started playing. Mawhood: How did you learn how to play the organ, Mrs. Roberts? Roberts: Just talent I guess. Mawhood: Just natural like that? Roberts: Yes. In the first place, that's the only beating I remember getting from school. Mawhood: What's that? Roberts: Teachers had gone over to, you know, to have a meeting like they do go now to have a meeting together and all the children got together and I got on the piano and I

14 was rattling away and they turned out quicker than we thought and they caught us. Mawhood: You weren't supposed to play the piano? Roberts: No. The piano was there for the musicians that was there. And for playing that piano, the things that they do now keeps them in school, we weren't allowed to do that. That was dancing. I can remember what my teacher told me. She was named Mrs. Foreman. She said don't do nothing, I'll never forget it, that you cannot ask God to help you to do. Do you get what she meant? Mawhood: Not to ask... Roberts: Not to dance because you wouldn't ask God to help you to dance. And I was jazzing that piano down and the others were just dancing all over. And I had to hold my hand out, I'd better not draw it back do I'd get two double ones and I was the only one because they said those other ones couldn't have been dancing if I hadn't been playing the piano. (Laughter)

15 Mawhood: Oh, no. Roberts: And when she got through with my hand I ( ). But I went back to our different room with my teacher. She said don't ever, now I'm going to repeat myself, is that alright? Don't never do nothing that you cannot ask God to help you do and you would not ask God to help you to dance. Mawhood: Why did she say that you wouldn't ask God to help you to dance? Roberts: Because God, He's a God, He don't go out for that kind of stuff. You are supposed to be a Christian. If you're a Christian in those days you didn't dance. And I believe if you're a Christian in these days you don't dance. But they're teaching dancing in school now. You know they do. But they didn't do it. So that was why. Mawhood: Did you dance anymore after that?

16 Roberts: You'd better bet that I didn't even touch that piano anymore. (Laughter) But I went playing for the church. My mama gave me a few lessons but I told her a story because I didn't want to do it. I wanted to keep on playing my kind of. I said Mama, I have to practice on a piano. I said we just got a organ. I said you can't practice on a organ and poor little creature, she believed me. So I didn't get a good musical education, just was talent, that's all. Mawhood: Natural, natural gift. Roberts: So I just played right on for the church from my early years on up until I got too old. My fingers got too stiff. Mawhood: What was your favorite kind of music, Mrs. Roberts? Roberts: We sang anthems, praise the Lord and all kinds of stuff, church songs. I don't know whether, maybe you're not a Christian, do you wouldn't know those. Are you a Christian, a church member I mean?

17 Mawhood: I'm not a church member, no. I know some of the songs. I do go to church sometimes. I do know some of the songs, not all of them. Which one is your favorite? Do you have a song that you like in particular, a hymn or an anthem that you like the best? Roberts: I don't have no favorite, "Amazing Grace," "Come by Here, oh Lord, Come by Here." So many I can't begin to name them. I just loved them all. I've got a stack of books packed back there when my granddaughter gets rid of them every once in awhile. This old organ, I've got it glued down because the children just love to play on it so much but I just want to keep it for keepsakes. I don't play it. But the little children around here they just love to bang it, bang it every time they get a chance so I glued it down just for keepsakes. And so a stack of books, I've got plenty of them. "Amazing Grace" is one good one that I like. I think that pageant, I think one of the ladies sang that piece. There are three verses. When I've been here ten thousand years I'll know it's time to sing God's praise than when I first began.

18 That's one of my favorites. I think lady in that pageant sang that for one of her talents. So I have plenty of them. All of them are nice. Mawhood: How far did you go in school, Mrs. Roberts? Roberts: (No vocal response.) Mawhood: Say that again. Roberts: I didn't want you to put it on tape. Why do you think I counted? (Laughter) Mawhood: Oh, I'm sorry. Roberts: That's okay. That's alright. Mawhood: I just wanted to ask you what you remember about school other than you told me the story of ( ). Roberts: Well, in those days they did not teach school like they teach it now because most times these children bring home written stuff on papers. What we used is

19 books, geography and like fourth grade books, second grade books, third grade books, fourth grade books. We had regular school books. We didn't have these papers that they have had to put answer there and answer there like that. We had the regular school books. A lot of people I hear say, not only black people, white people wish they would go back to the old way of learning. But what they call math we call arithmetic. I found out about that from the children. They do it a little different than what we did but we had the books to go by. After we did it in our head then the answers were in the back of the book and they test us. Mawhood: So you could check them. Roberts: See if it's right. It was just a big difference. Mawhood: And when you stopped going to school, Mrs. Roberts, then did you go to work? Roberts: Yeah.

20 Mawhood: What kind of work were you doing then, ma'am? Roberts: Housework cleaning white people's houses in New Bern. It was the only kind except in the summertime some old person would pick up a lot of us and take us down to Pamlico County working all the fields. They didn't have these machineries like they've got now. They'd have a horse drawn thing that turned. We'd get down there with our hands and dig those sweet potatoes. Picking cotton. Mawhood: That was hard work. Roberts: It was hard work but now you look on TV you see they've got machines that does all that kind of stuff. But we did it by hand. Tobacco, probably you've seen it on TV how they do tobacco. They used to put it in a barn to dry it out after they take it out of the field. That was for men to do but I've been up there hanging it right along with the men. Mawhood: Really?

21 Roberts: I was a man. (Laughter) Mawhood: So you did men's work sometimes? Roberts: I didn't have to do it. I just wanted to do it. I would do it. Go in the tobacco field, they had horse drawn trucks that the croppers would crop the tobacco leaves off, throw it in that truck and the men would bring it on up. That was for the men to do but I wasn't satisfied, I had to do some of it. Mawhood: Did a lot of women do that kind of work, the men's work? Roberts: No, no, didn't have to do that. The women would be up under the shelter putting it on the sticks to put it in there. Mawhood: Why did you want to do the men's work? Roberts: Fresh, I guess. I didn't have to do it. It wasn't my job but I wanted to do it and they let me do it. I had another friend that did it. She's dead long time

22 ago. She did the same thing. We just wanted to do men's work. Mawhood: Which work did you like better the work that women were doing or the work that men were doing? Roberts: I liked both. There's some work that a woman could not do that the men do but anything that I could do that was supposed to be men's work, I liked it. Mawhood: What were some of the things that women couldn't do that men would do? Roberts: Well, mostly the men would, just like I was telling you, they would hang it up in the barn. They would be in the field. Or carpentry work, I never known nothing about carpentry work. I always was afraid of carpentry work because I was afraid of hitting my finger. I couldn't drive a nail with my hand because I was afraid of hitting my hand. (Laughter) No, I never could do carpentry work. I had some friends that could do their own carpenter work, little things. They couldn't build a house I don't imagine. But

23 anything that needed fixing up around the house that a man was supposed to do they could do it themselves. Mawhood: Who showed them how to do it? Did anyone show them how to do it? Roberts: I imagine just looking at somebody else do it. See we had to do a lot of things. We wasn't taught to do everything. In the country in the old days you wasn't taught. You just looked and see and catch on and try. Don't go to school for that, college for that. Now I raised two, this one that lives here, this great granddaughter, I raised her mother. I gave her music lessons. Mawhood: This is your granddaughter you live with and her son? Roberts: Un-huh, yes. Mawhood: And you gave your granddaughter music lessons? Roberts: And she can't play doodly squat. I gave this one, these children's mother tried but they didn't take to

24 it and none of them can play nothing. I was trying to give them what I didn't get. I wanted them to learn music and go on up higher. But they wasn't interested. I guess it's talent like. Mawhood: You had a gift. Roberts: I guess that's what you call it. I remember my mother had a, we only had a fireplace. Do you know what a fireplace is? Mawhood: Fireplace, yes ma'am. Roberts: That's old timey. And in the winter time we'd be sitting around that fireplace and every time the wood would burn out my mother would say Baby, that's what they always called me, they call me that today. If somebody passed by here right now hi, Miss Baby and I would know they were talking to me. But my eyesight is so bad now. Baby, go get some wood. It would always be on the porch and put it in the fireplace. So one day I got tired of that thing. I went out mumbling. No one's calling me to put some wood in.

25 But I didn't never end it, you know why? One of those little blocks had, I was grumbling at her. You didn't grumble at your parents. When they tell you to do something you do it. So the other three was sitting around and she'd always call on me to go get the blocks of wood which was right out on the porch, I didn't have to go outdoors. And I never understood it until in my later years a preacher was in the pulpit preaching, real preacher in the pulpit. He said some of you don't understand that's got a mother and she always calls on you to do things for her. Said you know why. Said because she knows that you are always willing to do things the other children are not. So he opened my eyes then why Mama would always call on me and not the other three because I was always willing to do. But I just got mad about that. It was explained to me in my older years why she did it. I didn't know why. But it was because I was willing to do and I was willing to do anything. Mawhood: Was your mother still living when your eyes were open to this?

26 Roberts: Yes. Mawhood: She was? Roberts: No, no. She was dead then. Because that hasn't been too many years, I'd say about seven or eight and my mother died in No, that's been since then. But that was explained to me. He wasn't talking to me, I mean he was just saying it, you know, just talking. But then it came to me why she always called on me. I went away for awhile, went to New York. Mawhood: You did? Roberts: I got my mother up there. I got all my sisters up there. It was during Hoover, you hear them talk about Hoover time so hard up there, everything. People was hungry and almost as bad as you call the soup kitchen now and things like that. I was working for a family in New Bern and I told them I was going to New York. He said what! He said don't you know the people up there are starving, got nothing to eat. Why do you want to go up there. I said I don't know, I just want

27 to go. I said I've got some friends up there. I said I just want to go. So he said alright, if you want to go, go ahead. He said but if you don't get along alright, write me, I'll send you fare back home. That's what he told me. I was working for him, they had a little child I was helping. They were good people. Most all of the people I worked for in New Bern and I worked for quite a few because I'd move up a little or they'd move or something like that. If you need anything and don't get along, write me and I'll send you fare back home. But I got along alright. Mawhood: What did you do in New York? Roberts: Now that's the sad part about it, the people up there couldn't find jobs, couldn't do this. I went from one job to the other, one job to the other. Got me a job. One was, my friend that was already up there, he was a man, he took me around to different places and I got a job there while these people, they couldn't pay very much. You know, they understood and they helped me to get another job, those people I was working for

28 because they couldn't pay me much so they knew it wasn't enough so they found out some of their friends that could pay more and that's just the way I did. I wasn't out of a job one day. I always got one before I left that one and with the help of the people that I worked for because I believe I always gave good service and that made the people like me. Now you've got my whole life story now. Mawhood: What did you think of New York when you went up there? Roberts: I liked it. In fact, I loved it because after I saw New York and I thought I had about five years then something said to me and two other friends of mine who were up there, we wasn't raised like this, going to the Savoy Ballroom and all. Metropolitan Theater and all those places, said we wasn't raised like this. We were raised in a church. So we left that gang and joined church up there. I got in the choir up there. I sang in the choir up there. It's one of the biggest churches in New York now. Mawhood: Which church was that, ma'am?

29 Roberts: Cornerstone. Mawhood: Cornerstone Baptist? Roberts: Un-huh. Mawhood: So you had gone to places like the Savoy Ballroom and things like that? Roberts: Yeah. Mawhood: But then you decided that... Roberts: It wasn't for me. I wasn't raised that way. Yeah, "Cabaret", we used to see it. Now in my time they were right new then starting out. ( ) over all that stuff and Ella Fitzgerald, all that crowd, they were young people then. But some of them are still going good and strong. All except, there's one of them that's not so good, which is that? Is it Ella Fitzgerald or what they have to help on the stage now? But they were in their young primes then.

30 Mawhood: Did you enjoy going to their shows? Roberts: Yeah. I was seeing something I hadn't ever seen before. Sure, I did. I told you I went around for about five years. I only stayed up there about ten. And so my mother, she came back home. She didn't like it up there. She said I'll go back home and keep the old house together so you'll have some place to come if you want to. And that's what she did. But I started getting sick. That's when my nerves broke down on me because I was working days, taking up beauty. Sometimes I'd work all night long in the beauty salon. Mawhood: You were working at a beauty salon? Roberts: Un-huh. Mawhood: Where was that? Roberts: In New York in Brooklyn.

31 Mawhood: In Brooklyn? Roberts: Un-huh. Mawhood: Do remember the name of the beauty salon? Roberts: No. I should remember it because I worked there a long time. Mawhood: That was a long time ago. Roberts: Un-huh, I should remember it. But I remember the lady because you know it's just like now they go out here and get their hair done half priced. When they're teaching, you know, they let you bring somebody in to practice on. They wouldn't even have to pay nothing up there but here they have to pay half price. So that's when I was working days to the laundry and didn't even go home, stopped along and eat at some Chinese restaurant or somewhere, went right straight to the beauty and just work there sometimes all night long. Sometimes I'd meet my sister's husband coming out, especially on a holiday, going to work and I'm

32 just getting home from the beauty parlor where I'd been working all night. Mawhood: It wasn't Madam ( ) there in Brooklyn, was it? Roberts: No, I don't think so. I really don't think I could remember her name. Mawhood: That's fine. Did you take a beauty course? Roberts: I had to stop. That was what the doctor told me. Said you either have to give up one or the other. I'm working in the laundry days and coming straight home doing hair all night, you know, practicing, learning, learning the trade. And when I knew anything I was out, had fell out on the floor and snow on the ground. Nerves take you away. Did you know you fall out with nerves? I didn't know it. When I came to they was wiping, the girl that I was doing her hair, I didn't have sense enough to take one with short hair, I had one with great long hair and I'm supposed to roll this up so it will stay. But every time I rolled it up, it being so hard and heavy, the teacher said un-uh, that

33 will never do, it's got to stay up there. And so the girl said the first thing went down was the iron. We were using irons then, you know, curling irons. So she thought I had stooped down there to pick up the iron. But I was so long getting up they knew I fainted. So I had to give that up and I did some of that when I came home. Mawhood: So you gave up the beauty work and you kept doing the laundry? Roberts: Of course, because that's where the money was. Mawhood: The money was better, okay. Roberts: Yeah, that's where the money was coming from. The only money we got out of this and we had to pay for the beauty course too, you know. We'd get little tips from people that, you know, would tip us if we'd do their hair for nothing. Just practicing. Mawhood: What made you decide before your nerves gave out when you decided to go to beauty school, why did you decide

34 to go to beauty school? Roberts: Because I wanted to learn and they would teach you. It's good money in that stuff if you know it good. I came home and did pretty good with it. Didn't even know it but I did pretty good with it. (Laughter) It take as much to live here as it did in New York. Mawhood: So you came home and you worked as a beautician? Roberts: Un-huh. Mawhood: Where was that, ma'am? Roberts: In my home. I set up a little shop in my mother's house. Mawhood: You sat up a shop in your mother's house? Roberts: Un-huh. I brought all of my things that I worked with down here, little thing they put the hot iron in. Now they use different stuff to straighten your hair now. When I moved down here I worked at it. Then I worked

35 at Cherry Point. I always was crazy trying to do too much. Worked at Cherry Point for awhile. Mawhood: At the same time that you were doing beauty work here in your house? Roberts: Un-huh. Mawhood: What were you doing at Cherry Point? Roberts: Laundry. They had a laundry down there at that time. When Cherry Point first opened they had a laundromat down there and that's where I worked, at the laundry. They tell me they don't have one down there now. And I would come home from there and then I'd do my customers hair at night a little while and Saturdays. I was crazy about work. Mawhood: Sounds like it. Roberts: I'm paying for it now though. I don't know because plenty of my friends gone, didn't never have to work. So I shouldn't say that.

36 Mawhood: How did you get the job at Cherry Point? Roberts: Well, Cherry Point was just beginning, just starting out. We went down there and signed up. I mean everybody had to go down, you know, ( ) had to go down and sign up and then they'd look over it and then they would send for you or call. I had a friend who lived the other side of James City there and myself, we went together. We went down and signed up and before we could hardly get home they had called for us. So you couldn't even go inside. You had to get off and they had what they called ( ) or something that took you inside of the base then. The drivers would have to park outside. It doesn't look no ways like Cherry Point. I get lost when they ride me down there. It's beautiful down there now. We'd always try to make it to the post office to see them raise the flag. The band would play and raise the flag and that was a pretty sight to me seeing that being done. Eight o'clock. Mawhood: Why did you like that? Eight o'clock in the morning?

37 Roberts: Yeah, wouldn't you like it? The band is out there playing and they're raising the flag slowly. I loved it. I like things like that. Mawhood: And the band, it must have been pretty music. Roberts: Yeah, marine band. And then after they would get the flag up they would stop playing and go on wherever they were supposed to go and then that would give us time to get to work on time. Mawhood: What time did you start work? Roberts: About eight thirty. The flag would go up at eight o'clock and they'd stop the ( ) out there so we could see it and then go on to work. Mawhood: What time did you finish work at Cherry Point? Roberts: What you mean, in the day? Mawhood: In the day, un-huh.

38 Roberts: I think we knocked off at six o'clock. I believe it was six. Mawhood: How did you get home from Cherry Point? Roberts: Big buses, they had large buses and only that little narrow road out there. Didn't have this ( ). And each one would be trying to pass the other. That's was enough to break your nerves down because you'd be afraid you were going in together. You hear 'em talking about the old Cherry Point Road. Have you ever hear them say that word? Mawhood: Nobody told me about it being so narrow. Roberts: Well, that's it right out there. But they'd be up the ( ) road where one's going on one side of the road that way and the other one is coming this way. That would have been fine but this is just one little narrow road where they had one on one side coming, the other on on the other side coming and you're so afraid. Each one trying to pass the other one and the

39 other one trying to keep it from passing it. That was enough to break your nerves down even if they weren't already. Mawhood: Were there white people and black people on these buses from Cherry Point or just black people? Roberts: No, just black people. Most white people had their own cars. There were plenty of them worked down there but they had their own transportation. We had our own transportation. But in the laundry they both worked, you know, white and black. Mawhood: Together? Roberts: Yeah. Mawhood: Did they get along okay? Roberts: Sure, no problems. Mawhood: And then you'd come home and you'd do hair in the evenings and on weekends?

40 Roberts: Yes. Mawhood: How did you get your customers? How did they find you? Roberts: If I did her hair, oh, your hair looks good, who did it. Miss Baby. Mawhood: They'd call you Miss Baby? Roberts: They call me that right now. Mawhood: How come everybody kept calling you Miss Baby? Roberts: I don't know how they started it. They started it. That's all I ever knowed. Preacher in the pulpit one day, that's when the church was in James City, not over here, he was calling out names for some reason and he said Miss Baby Moore and people laughed. He said well, that's all I've ever called her. (Laughter) That's all I ever got to call her. And that was right funny because he really, I don't

41 suppose he even knew my name. All he knew was Baby. That's all they call me right now. Mawhood: Even the younger people, they call you Miss Baby? Roberts: The younger and the older. They had to put that Miss even they were older than I. They would put that Miss Baby. Very seldom anybody would say hello, Baby or something like that. That's just a nickname. Mawhood: Did you ever advertise your beauty shop anywhere? Roberts: No, I could do hair good and a lot of them didn't want to go nowhere else once I started it. Because some of them would have little short hair, couldn't help it. Once I started doing it, it would start growing. Mawhood: What did you do to it to make it grow? Roberts: Like I did the other hair and I guess that was some of the, I don't know. They wouldn't go nowhere either long as I did it. And even when I stopped some of them was trying to get me to do it but when you know

42 enough is enough, enough is enough. So I just don't do it. Mawhood: What kinds of things would you talk about with your customers? Roberts: We'd talk about anything. Everybody would talk about their next door neighbor, her neighbor, just conversation. You get good news in the beauty parlor. Don't you go to the beauty parlor? Mawhood: I do sometimes, un-huh. Roberts: (Laughter) You don't hear no gossip? Mawhood: Well, you know, I think it's a pretty good place to go for gossip. Did you and your customers gossip? Roberts: Of course we did. (Laughter) We gossiped. We'd say now don't you tell them I told you. If you tell them I told you! Sure, we gossiped. Mawhood: Did you ever talk about politics?

43 Roberts: No, we did not talk politics and I still don't know nothing about it. I love to read. My glasses, I've got to, I've had these so long I'm trying to get, I've got some of those big ones. You've seen these great big ones. I couldn't see out the bifocals and that's what I need to read by. And I still love to read. (End of Side A.) Side B Roberts:...wanted to raise. I said I do not open your letters and I do not. I said but if you ever leave them laying around I said I'm going to read them. And they know it and I would. I'll read anything. Mawhood: So you warned your children that you would read their letters? Roberts: Well, I never opened them but if they opened it and leave it laying around I would read it. Mawhood: Why would you read them?

44 Roberts: To see what was in them. Nosey. They shouldn't leave them there. Now I'll right on the telephone now when she don't want me to hear when she's talking, she'll take the telephone, we got it hanging onto a long string, we don't have, you know, the things that you put in, we just got a little, they take it and go in their room and shut the door to keep me from hearing. (Laughter) Mawhood: A long wire. Roberts: Because I'll jut my mouth in it. Sometimes when they stay go long will you please turn my granddaughter loose so I can use it. Somebody may want to call me. I'm ridiculous, always have been. Mawhood: Why do you say that, ma'am, that you're ridiculous? Roberts: Because I speak my mind. Some of her friends have asked her to bring them back, men friends. Said I want to talk with your grandmother again. Said I enjoy it. (Laughter) I talk right straight out to

45 them. Mawhood: You're not shy to talk about some things? Roberts: Oh, I don't go down there and talk about things like that. Sometimes they'll be kidding, can I take you out tonight. I said no, I don't want to go out with you. You want to go out there and get drunk and things like that. There really is some young people love to hear old people talk. Mawhood: You can learn a lot by listening to old people. Roberts: And some don't want to be bothered. Because sometimes I'm talking to my granddaughter that lives here, I think I'm talking to her but when I look around she's around here looking at TV with the children. I say oh well, she's gone, she didn't hear half of what I said. She just don't feel like being bothered with what I've got to say. Mawhood: Can I ask you, Mrs. Roberts, where you met your husband? You were married?

46 Roberts: He lived around here. He was shy, I can tell you that much. He was too shy to tell me himself that he liked me. He had to send one of my girlfriends to tell me. I noticed he was never fresh like some boys are and I didn't know he liked me because he never expressed it. But he sent my girlfriend to tell me that he liked me. I said not him, I said he don't even speak to me. So we got together like that. My mother kept us separated. She didn't want him to, because he was shy. The other boys would go and ask for my company. That's what they used to have to do. You didn't go to sit up in nobody's house with their daughter unless you asked permission. That's what they used to have to do. But he was too shy to do that. So my mother, he was no good, you know, just wanted to, so she forbidded me to see him for five long years. He had girlfriends there, there, here, there. So one night I was coming from work at six o'clock, it was dark and he saw me and he rolled up and caught me. Now I'm supposed to be engaged to another fellah but his mother wanted him to fix up their house before he got married so he'd have somewhere to bring his wife. So

47 that's what he was doing. But this old boyfriend, he came up to me. He said let's get married, said it's no use in courting. Said you're twenty-one now. And I was. And I had to call myself eloping. I told a lady down here that I worked for I said, because her parents didn't want her to marry the man she married, but he was a really successful, they didn't think he was going to be the success he was. But she said when I graduated, said I didn't run away, said I just walked out when I finished school and started teaching school, said I just walked out and married him. This was the woman I was working for. But he turned out to be a nice, he kept a kennel. But he got killed. But that nice house right down in there. Let's see what road, this road out here, you go all the way around that house that's sitting over there, he built it, I mean it was just nice and he ran a dog kennel down there. His daughters and everything. It was the first picture windows that I had seen. They were the first ones there and they're right there now. Mawhood: So you eloped with your own husband?

48 Roberts: At twenty-one. Mawhood: Twenty-one. What did you tell the man you were supposed to marry? Roberts: He just said let's get married, picked out the place. When my mother got home she went, ( ), she got home and see in a little place like this you can't keep nothing a secret. The ( ) that I was supposed to stand up with, she went and told somebody else about that. So Mama said where's your wedding dress, where are you going to get married, what, what, what! She began asking me questions. She wasn't going to try to block it this time. But I didn't know. I wasn't taking no chances. The only dresses I had was dresses that I was being bridesmaid for other friends. Mawhood: So where did you get married? Roberts: I got married to my sister-in-law's house. Mawhood: And who married you, who was the minister?

49 Roberts: His name, I'm sorry, he was ( ). It's somewhere around here but it would take me a long time to find it. It was done by a preacher and witnesses which you have to have when you have what you call a little house wedding. My mother was there. That was it. Went on to his mother's house and stayed there awhile until we came over on this side and fixed up one of my cousin's houses and that's where we lived. Mawhood: How long was it between the time that he said to you let's just get married and the time you married? Roberts: One week. Mawhood: One week. And the young man who you were supposed to marry, the man you were engaged to? Roberts: Honestly, it hurt him so bad when he heard it. He had a brother, he sent his brother over to see was it true and that brother, honestly, I believe he cried. He couldn't come himself. And he was really hurt. That's the truth. But I didn't want to wait no longer. I couldn't wait for that woman to fix up her

50 house. And I found out that that was really who I was supposed to marry anyway because that was where my love. But you really don't know your love. They call it puppy love or what kind of love is that they call it - infatuation. You think it's almost the same as love until it's put to the test. So that was really who I was supposed to love because this one faded away that I was engaged to. But the other one, after we got going, til death would part us we were right here. Mawhood: When was it that your husband passed on? Roberts: He died in, I'll tell you I can't remember good. I think it was fifty-three or fifty-five, about five or six years. Because he has leukemia and hung around a long time, not that he knew it until he went to the doctor that I go to, I mean the same place that I go to now. Why can't I think of when my husband died as good as I know it? Mawhood: About five or six years ago? Not too along ago then. Roberts: It hasn't been too long. I can go right now and get

51 it but my mind don't, it really isn't good. I think I told you that in the beginning. Mawhood: But you've told me so much. For somebody who doesn't have a good mind you've told me a lot. Roberts: Just like some people can remember far back but cannot remember the things that happened in the later years. Mawhood: Could you tell me your husband's name? Roberts: John Roberts. Mawhood: What did he do, what did he do for a living? Roberts: Worked the sawmill. Mawhood: How many children did you have together? Roberts: None. Mawhood: You didn't have children?

52 Roberts: All these are adopted. Mawhood: Really? How many children? Roberts: I adopted the mother and these are the offsprings from that. So that's just adoption right on. Mawhood: So you adopted one girl. Was she a member of your family? Roberts: Un-huh. Mawhood: Whose daughter was she? Roberts: She was my husband's wife's daughter. She wouldn't let her - my husband tried to get me not to adopt too and I found out she was right because his father, if you listen to your old people, this old lady said she wasn't going to let this girl fill her house with babies just like mine is overrun. There's three. How many has she got now - she got four, two there, two somewhere else and one died. So this old lady, she had sense. She wasn't going to let that girl fill her

53 house up with babies. Mawhood: And how old was this girl when you adopted her? Roberts: About three years old. I was too old to even adopt her. I couldn't really adopt her right then. I kept her awhile. After you keep them awhile then you can put in for adoption. Because I was in my forties then. So when we went to adopt her we got a lawyer because I told her I wasn't going to raise her child without some papers. I'll give them to you, I'll give them to you. She did. That was the only words she said. So it came time, we got our lawyer, we was supposed to meet down in the judge's chamber a certain time and she was down there before we got there. So they gave her a paper and told her to go off there and read it. That was the rules of the adoption. She had six months to change her mind even after we adopted. We fought like the devil. She tried to come in and take over before I even had the child. Mawhood: And who was the mother? I'm sorry I didn't catch that.

54 Roberts: No, I won't put her name in there. Mawhood: Okay, but was she relation to your husband? Roberts: By marriage. Mawhood: I see, she was his...? Roberts: The old lady married my husband's father. Mawhood: Okay. Roberts: That's how that came in and he told, no, don't you do it. And my husband told me the same thing. But this old lady was so pitiful and that little child was so pitiful. I don't want to go into all of that. I don't want that on paper. Mawhood: Could you just tell me her name, your adopted daughter's name? Roberts: No, I don't want to start up nothing because the only

55 way she comes here, she gets there and blows and they go out there to her because she's forbidden. Mawhood: Okay, then I won't, I don't want to get into that. Roberts: Don't want to start no rotten eggs stinking no more. Mawhood: That's fine. Roberts: She's known around here. Lord, have mercy. Mawhood: You were telling me about being in New York City. So that's before you were married? Roberts: Un-uh. Mawhood: It was after? Roberts: Un-huh. Mawhood: So you went with your husband? Roberts: No.

56 Mawhood: So you went by yourself to New York City and your husband stayed here? Roberts: Yeah. He hadn't quite settled down. He wanted to marry me and put me down for safe keeping. (Laughter) So he had his gang that he run around with, you know, and my friends were up there and I just went on up there to them. They got me up there, some of them. We fared good up there but the people up there wasn't doing so well. I didn't understand that. I still don't. What I read about the soup kitchen, they didn't have them then but I think they've got some here in New Bern now. Places where the women go when their husbands beat up on them. My husband never, he never did fight me because his mother said she'd kill him if he hit me. His mother, not mine. No, he never, but he was sweet like. That's all I can say about him. He just went on about his business. Mawhood: So when you came back from New York you came back here?

57 Roberts: Got back together. And we lived. I just don't know. Mawhood: Mrs. Roberts, I was wondering in New York when you moved there what did you think about, were relations between white people and black people different in New York from how they had been down here? Did you see a difference? Roberts: No. Mawhood: You didn't see a difference? Roberts: No, because I suppose the colored didn't go around them much no more than at work. They have a colored neighborhoods everywhere you go. Gates Avenue, Thousandth Avenue. Those places now where all this stuff is going on in, it wasn't there when I was there. I know the streets, I know of them, but everything has changed so. I'd go back and forwards to visit my sisters until they all came down here and I couldn't even find the place that I lived. They'd tear down just like they do around here. Some places I don't even know around here where they've tore down

58 and build up, tore down, build up. It's just different. Mawhood: When you came back to James City and you were working at Cherry Point and you had a beauty shop in your house is this the house you were living in? Roberts: No, no. Mawhood: Where were you living then? Roberts: A little further down. It's James City right on but it's down more. It's hard to tell you because you don't know nothing about around here. But it's a big church setting over there. Not this one here. Mawhood: Pilgrim's Chapel? Roberts: This is Pilgrim's Chapel but that's not my church. Mine is Mt. Shiloh which you could see if you would happen, when you're coming across the by-pass you look over there and you could see it. That was where I was living, down that way. But you can see Pilgrim's

59 Chapel right now right out the window there. But that wasn't my church. Mine was further up and Jones Chapel ( ) that they got barred off where they claim so many people are getting killed out there on the road which it wasn't true. They're getting killed everyday on these roads. But the ( ) has to go all the way around now to Jones Chapel up that road and then you turn up a little farther and my church is farther up.