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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Mildred Price Coy, April 26, 1976. Interview G-0020. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Coy never fits in at UNC-Chapel Hill

While Coy had felt very connected to her fellow students at the North Carolina College for Women, when she came to Chapel Hill, she felt very isolated and alone because of her gender and her economic situation.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Mildred Price Coy, April 26, 1976. Interview G-0020. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

MARY FREDERICKSON Then your last year you went to Chapel Hill. Why did you transfer?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
My father had died, and my mother moved to Chapel Hill. And my younger brother and Mary went to school there, and Teeny, and so that's the reason I left. Brans stayed on in Greensboro and finished, because she didn't have as good a background in various subjects they wanted at Chapel Hill, so they wouldn't let her in at Chapel Hill. So she went back to the Women's College and finished. MARY FREDERICKSON So you lived with your mother in Chapel Hill?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
Yes, she had a house there, and she took in some of the students for roomers. MARY FREDERICKSON Do you remember the way she felt about making the move, moving off the farm and coming to Chapel Hill? Was it a really difficult time for her?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
She was anxious to do anything to get something to eat. And I remember as we drove off in the old Ford—she and my brother Enoch and I, and maybe Wright was with us—she cried when she looked back. I didn't cry, but she did when she looked back at the house where she'd lived. But she made the best of it. She was glad to leave the farm. MARY FREDERICKSON Had you gone home very much during the years you were at Greensboro?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
We didn't go home very much. It wasn't very far, but we didn't go home much. We had to spend the summer there. MARY FREDERICKSON When you came to Chapel Hill to school, you said it was sort of difficult after having been at the Women's College. How were women regarded at Chapel Hill then?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
To tell you the truth, I was so innocent of how to get along with men. I had never been with men to that extent. And it looked to me as if all the pills in Chapel Hill liked me, but the ones that were smart and all the girls liked, they didn't pay much attention to me because I was just a country gal. But all these pills. . . . And then the boys we had rooming in the house, they teased me and they told me about these boys. They'd say they were on track, and they always guided their track running "so they'd run by this house just to see you." [Laughter] I remember that. But I didn't have a very good time there. I went to some of the dances and things like that, but I wasn't used to a lot of boys. I didn't have a very good time. And I didn't have any money; And I didn't have decent clothes. I just didn't have anything. My mother had no money, so I had to borrow some just to pay my way in the house and things like that. MARY FREDERICKSON Did you have any girlfriends at Chapel Hill? Were there many women in your classes?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
Yes, but I didn't have terribly much to do with them. They all belonged to sororities. I wasn't a member of a sorority. They had a sorority, all the girls. There weren't very many. And I didn't belong to it. They didn't ask me, and I couldn't have belonged to it anyway because it cost money. No, I didn't have any close friends there.