[TAPE 1, SIDE A]

ANGELA HORNSBY:

[My name is] Angela Hornsby and I'm speaking with Mrs. Margaret Kennedy Goodwin at her home in Durham, N.C. on September 26, 1997 and we're here to discuss her life as part of the Southern Oral History Program's Life Review Project.

And, um, Mrs. Goodwin I was wondering, though I 've basically said it, I was wondering if you could give me your full name?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Margaret Kennedy Goodwin

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And when and where were you born?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Clarkton, North Carolina, the 17th of October 1918.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Were you named after someone in your family?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I was named after both grandmothers. My maternal grandmother was Margaret Spaulding. My paternal grandmother was Katie Katherine Kennedy.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And I was wondering if you could tell me something about your grandparents. Who were they, what did they do?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

My grandparents on both sides were farmers. My maternal grandparents owned quite a bit of land in Columbus County, that's where Clarkton is. They farmed, they had 12 children. They fed their own children and sold some produce in the marketplace at Clarkton, but mostly they were self-sufficient. My paternal grandparents, my grandmother was a housewife strictly, she did not work outside the home. My paternal grandfather was a carpenter and a farmer. They had 14 children. [Laughter] And I was two years old when my maternal grandmother died. I remember her only vaguely, you know I remember she was a very stately woman and, since I was the only grandchild on either

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side for a good while I might have been a little bit spoiled. I can remember my maternal grandfather putting me in the buggy and taking me out on the field so I wouldn't be spanked for what I did.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Can you remember around what time this was?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

19, 1918, 1919, and 1920. My grandfather died in '22, maternal grandfather. My paternal grandparents lived in Georgia. My father was born in Andersonville, Georgia. And I did not get to see as much of them as I did the maternal grandparents. But I can remember sitting on grandpa Kennedy's lap. He didn't have much lap 'cause he was extremely fat. He was tall, he was six feet, eight inches tall but he must have weighed as I remember now, well over 300 pounds. But at that time it was the fashion of gentlemen to wear watch pox. See, a clip in one pocket and a clip in the other and a watch hanging down in the middle. And I used to love to play with grandpa's watch and he'd love to sit me on my— his lap and let me. [Laughter] My maternal grandmother was quite a housekeeper. She churned all the butter they ate, kept chickens, they had, of course, pigs on a farm, and swine and cattle, and I used to love to drink unpasteurized milk. It has a taste that's nothing like the milk you drink now. I just remember going down there and drinking milk, and being spoiled. There again, I was the only grandchild for a little while. For about five years, I was the only grandchild on either side. My father was the oldest boy. My mother was the youngest girl, but, all the other children lived far away so I got the majority of the spoiling.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, remember the last time we spoke you mentioned that one of your grandparents was of Irish ancestry?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes, my maternal grandmother, her mother was Irish. On the other side, we

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were pure African Americans because my great grandfather, paternal grandfather, was a slave. But my [pause] grandfather was a free man and my grandmother was a free woman.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, when and under what circumstances did you come to Durham?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

My father was in the Army when I was born and that's why I was born in Clarkton. And when he came home, they moved to Durham. He was working for the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company and the home office was here. Before he was there, we lived in Savannah, Georgia, but I don't remember anything of that. And they brought him here to the home office and in 1920, we moved to Durham.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

So you were two years old then?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes. So Durham is really my home. [Laughter]

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, um, where in Durham did you initially settle?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

We lived first on Piedmont Avenue which ran off of old Fayetteville Street. It's just, that area's just not there anymore. And, my father bought the house on Fayetteville Street we moved in which was a small house. Being the son of a carpenter he just added rooms as he— we needed them. And it eventually turned out to be a seventeen-room house. Um, as I say 1008 Fayetteville Street. Brick front, had a big front porch which I loved. I've always loved watching people. And, I was devastated when urban renewal came. I just didn't see why we had to move from our Fayetteville Street house. But we did, and this house was available.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Now, we talked about, a little bit about urban renewal which you, um, sort of cast as urban—

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Urban removal, right. It moved, it removed all evidence of, I guess about 17 black businesses.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Name some of those businesses for me. This was a known as Hayti—

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Right.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

The black business district.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Mmhmm.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

What are some of the various businesses that were there?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Mr. Ed Green's Grocery Store. The — [pause] I can remember the name of the — My memory is not doing, I haven't slept enough this morning. The Royal Lights of King David, which was an insurance company. Southern Fidelity Insurance Company, a cleaning establishment. I can't remember the name of it. Three black drugstores. Um, Dr. James, Dr. Sidney James owned the one closest to White Rock Baptist Church where we went to church. Mrs. Olivia Dyer Pearson had a drugstore between my house and Dr. James' drugstore. There were several grocery stores. A dry cleaning establishment, a home modernization, home improvement, all of these owned and run by blacks. A library, the beginning of the Stanford L. Warren library. It was just called the Durham Colored Library then. It started in White Rock Church and then they bought a building on the corner of Pettigrew and Fayetteville. [pause] Oh, a wonderful restaurant, the best food you ever ate in your life. And then there were houses, the better built houses in Durham were on, down Fayetteville Street during that time. An undertaking establishment on the corner of Fayetteville and Umstead. A large grocery store owned by Mr. Math [Matthew] Williams, who was the founder of the Williams — I don't know if you've heard of the Williams Family Circle?

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Sounds familiar.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

It's a large, they have a reunion somewhere every year. And it's one of the

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larger families of old Durham. Mr. Math owned the grocery store that is in the area now where Dr. Bass' office and the cleaning establishment and, something else occupies that land. [pause] Mr. Page's grocery store, its always been there. It's still there. It's still Page and Son. And in those days, if you didn't have the money you just put your name on a list. It's sort of like the credit establishment now, and paid him when you could. And that worked fine. I don't think he ever had more than two people who did not pay him back the money that was owed for his groceries. The Algonquin tennis club. That was where black youth from all over Durham had most of their recreation. There was a tennis court and inside a game room and a lady that stayed in the building that was the Algonquin rented rooms to traveling insurance men. People who, mostly came to meetings at the Mutual. Ms. Mary Newly, she was quite a lady. We, I, my sister, my brother and I would play tennis all day long in the summertime when school was out. Just come home to eat, and get some dry clothes on 'cause you sweated like mad. [Laughter]

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And again, it was just the three of you?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Just the three of us, my sister, my brother and I'm the oldest, my sister was in the middle and my brother is the youngest.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And your sister, um, is deceased?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes, she died in February 1985, yeah, 1985. 1995, my father died in '85. See I tell you, my memory is playing tricks on me this morning. [Laughter]

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And your father was 96 [when he died].

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes, and my mother was 94. They were some delightful people. They loved everybody. My father knew most of the people in Durham. Being an insurance man and a salesman at first, he'd go from house to house, he just worked his way up in the company.

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But, he knew most people in Durham and he kept up with their children, where they were and what they were doing. And he just had a general interest in people which is one reason he started the John Avery Boys Club to get boys off the street. 'Cause there was not nearly as much mischief on the street as there is now. 'Cause we never even heard of drugs and only old people, you know, drank alcohol over 30. [Laughter] But, what mischief there was to get into, boys will get into, so—The John Avery Boys Club was founded to help cope with that problem.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And what year was that? That he founded, or approximate?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Nobody has ever asked me that before? And, I was little, it must have been in the late 1920s, early 30s.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And he was involved in a lot of community activities. He founded the Durham chapter of the NAACP.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Right.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And served as treasurer of White Rock Baptist Church for a long time.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

And teacher of a Sunday School class there for 55 years!

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Incredible. But going back to what you cast as urban renewal, urban removal that you sort of started before. You mentioned all these businesses. It seemed before, um, the construction of the highway took most of that away, your neighborhood was really close knit.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes, and thriving businesses. Everybody knew everybody all the way up the street. Everybody knew everybody's children and helped to raise them. If you saw somebody's child you shouldn't, you spanked him on the spot and sent him home and momma spanked him again. I've gotten many spankings like that. Um, the businesses as I

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say were thriving businesses. The home modernization company that I mentioned was owned by a gentleman who lived three doors up from here. He built all these houses along this street and they kept them in good repair and, we were practically self-sufficient. In those days, black was black and white was white and never the twain should meet unless it was something that we couldn't raise or do for ourselves. [pause] Clothing and shoes were out of our range so we bought them uptown. We were not allowed to try them on. But we could buy them, try them on and if they didn't fit take them back but you had to stay on the rug with shoes. And the clothing could not have one speck in the lining.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

You couldn't try on the clothes in the store?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

No.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

But you could at home?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes, you could bring them home and, try them and if they fit you kept them. You paid for them before you brought them home, but you did get your money back if they didn't fit. Not, we didn't, we didn't realize that it was amazing because that was the way it had always been. Not just in Durham, everywhere in the South.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

There was no conception of having, um, a colored dressing room and a white dressing room?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Oh, no. No, no. Water fountains, black and white. And in the train station and in the bus station, there were colored waiting rooms and white waiting rooms. And until the youngsters came and changed all of that, we just accepted it as what was. It took a few bright minds to say it is, but why?

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, how many people lived in your home?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

On Fayetteville Street?

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Yes, um, besides — Were there any people that lived there besides, um, those in your immediate family?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

There was always somebody from, as we call it, from down the country, staying with us going to school. When one finished, another came. Oh, I have fond memories of maybe twenty, twenty-five people who came and stayed, went through school and then, you know, were gainfully employed and went on about their business. Relatives mostly, not always though. Uh, and that was the way it was with lots of homes in Durham. If you came from some where else, there was nowhere else to stay but a relative or friend. There was no hotels or motels open to us. No, well when the YMCA and the YWCA came along, though we've never had a black YMCA, but when the YWCA came along, that was a place where young ladies could stay. But that was, oh, well into the '30s before there was any Y [black] and it no longer exists. It was on Umstead Street. Looking back, you wonder why we didn't resent actions like that. I guess it was because we were making our own way and busy with that and not so much bothered about what somebody else was doing. That's the only explanation I can think of for it. And I remember how frightened most of us oldsters were when the youngsters started changing things. They went through some terrible times, spit, hit on and put in jail. But that was when the peace movement was coming along, don't fight back, just stand your ground. And it worked. The good Lord had us all in his hands and he took care of us. Some died, you know, the Alabama children and the lynchings and the outright murders, but most of us survived and it had to be God's will.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Now um, I know you're still very much involved with White Rock Baptist Church —

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Which your father joined shortly after coming to Durham.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes, the first Sunday after he came to Durham he joined White Rock Baptist Church.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

He didn't waste any time, did he.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Nope. Nope. His parents taught him to be in church somewhere.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

So, besides, you mentioned, um, sort of, keeping people from down the country. Um, your mother and father lived in the house, your brother and sister. Was that pretty much all—

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

That's the way.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, and um, we talked about this, but, to what organizations did family members belong to? Community organizations, you mentioned some of them.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

My mother and father belonged to the Volkamania Literary Club. That was a club that reviewed a book each meeting.

Spell Volkamenia.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

V-O-L-K-A-M-E-N-I-A

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

They belonged to, momma belonged to the Dorcas Club which was a group of women that sewed and made things and cooked things for indigent faimlies. We didn't even know what the word indigent meant. Everybody was indigent but some were more indigent than others. Uh, the Urban League, the business and professional chain. Of course, the church, and the [pause] PTA. Momma and Daddy were members of the PTA and I was a member of the PTA for I know six years and I had one child. I moved from school to school with her. Um —

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Do you know what Volkamenia, where is that derived from, what does it mean —?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

That's another question I never even thought of. But I'm going to look it up since you've asked me. And I'll call you and let you know. I don't have your telephone number. You must give it to me before you leave so I can call you with these little tidbits that I'm forgetting now. [Laughter] Um, both of them worked with the boys club, the John [Moses] Avery Boys Club. And now it's the John Avery Boys—and my mother fought for that Girls business [including Girls in the club's title] on that John Avery Boys and Girls Club. She said girls need training too, they need somewhere to go, safe and, you know, off the street with constructive programs for them to—

Oh, I'm so proud of the Boys Club now. We have a new director and they're learning computer skills, crafts, arts and crafts, um, remedial work for students who are behind in school. Good things beside the play activities that they have there— basketball team. They have the most delightful little choir. Oh, those little people can sing. They've really traveled around the city doing programs recently. And they sing, bless them, they are beautiful. This last year they got choir robes. They have a good parents organization at the Boys Club. I'm getting off the track, what was I talking about? The organizations that my mother and father belonged to. Bridge clubs. Momma and daddy were a member of, I can't even remember the name of it. Couples played bridge once a week, and—

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Was it in someone's home?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Always. They moved from home to home and they were excellent bridge players—until daddy had the stroke. I used to sit and watch them and wonder what was going on. And after I got grown I, you know, learned how to play bridge myself and knew

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what they were doing. But it was just magic to see them put down this card and this card and someone would say, ‘Oh, that's mine.’ [Laughter] Uh —.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

That's a pretty good list.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Uh huh.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

What do you think, sort of um, motivated them to be so active in the community as they were?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

The same thing that pushes me I guess, wanting to do something outside of the home, something that was wholesome and particularly my father. He was always looking for some way to stimulate the minds of, particularly young black people, to give them a sense of belonging and being somebody.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Now you mentioned before that, um, in talking about the John Avery Boys Club in trying to steer young people away from —Well then, you were saying that there wasn't really a problem with alcohol. Um —.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

No, it was just plain mischief then. You know, going around breaking out windows or stealing, or biting. Just the urge to bite, young men have the urge to bite still. But learning how to curb that, learning how to, you know, channel that energy into something constructive instead of just seeing who has the biggest muscles.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Now did your father, did he countenance drinking, I mean, within the family circle? Parties, that type of thing, was that something —.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

We'd have parties, but we never, it never ocurred to us. It just was not done in our home. And in most of the homes at that time. It just wasn't what interested us. My father said he drank one time and it made him so sick he never wanted—this was when he was a boy—he never wanted to this again. He never smoked, never chewed tobacco.

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[pause] Momma would drink a little wine, out, you know, at parties or social occassions. But neither of them were even remotely interested in the kind of drinking and smoking and drugs that go on now. You know, that are accepted as — I'm not talking about getting drunk and falling all over the place but just social drinking. I remember hearing them talk about the foolish things that people say and do when they're under the infuence of alcohol. And each of them espressing the desire to be in control of their own minds at all times. And it just wasn't what to do in our house. We ate well and, we always had enough clothes—we were poor, but we didn't know it. We always had enough to eat, we always had Sunday clothes and clothes to go to school and play clothes. They just moved down from Sunday school to, to uh, you know, dress clothes and to play clothes. And, since there were two girls, my brother got the best of the deal. There was nobody to hand him down [Laughter] clothes, but my sister and I wore each other's clothes. Mother was an excellent seamstress. She made most of our clothes until we got grown. She was a home ec graduate.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

From where?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

She went to Cheney, no, no to Scotia in Concord here in North Carolina first. Then she went to Cheney in Pennsylvania. Cheney College I guess it was then, and her major interest was in home economics. She's an excellent cook, excellent housekeeper, excellent seamstress. Daddy finished the seventh grade, but as I told you before, he was the most educated man I know. He was always reading and taking correspondence courses and adding to his store of information. Great historian. He loved history, read about where we came from and how America was formed and how the people who had made great sums of money had started making great sums of money. They worked hard for it. I listen

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to commentators now saying that we ought to tax the rich more than we tax the poor, but that's not right. Unless the rich are willing to give of their store, they earned it, they worked hard for it and I just don't believe in that. I guess that's why I'll never be rich. [Laughter]

ANGELA HORNSBY:

I think you mentioned before, um, that you lived, a lot of your relatives, other relatives who lived where you were. Is that right? What um, can you tell me about. Tell me the names of some other relatives close to you and what was the value of having them near to you?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I guess it's just the feeling of kinship and depending on each other, starting at the corner of the block we lived in. An uncle lived there first. [pause] Then next to their house was C.C. Spaulding's house. He was my mother's brother. We lived in the next house and across the street from us was my uncle Roy Spaulding. You turned the corner and my aunt, my daddy's sister, lived on Dupree.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Do you remember her name?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Mary Emma Clay, Mary Emma Kennedy Clay. She worked at Lincoln all of her — she was one of the ones that stayed with us and went through school and then she was the business manager of Lincoln Hospital for her entire working career. She retired from there.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

You also um, one of your uncles, another one of your uncles, Dr.[Aaron] Moore, did he also live there?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

That was my mot—he lived in the, two blocks up. But it was all near because everybody was just like family. You know, you knew everybody, and you'd stop up this house and talk awhile and move on up the street and talked awhile. Dr. —

ANGELA HORNSBY:

So your family was really an extended network of kin and was basically synonymous with the community?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

That's right. Uh, huh. Dr. Moore lived right next door to the old White Rock Baptist Church. So his church was a focal point for many meetings and classes and the Dorcas Club met there, and, so because he had a large, lovely house. Uh, anytime you wanted to have a get together you could, you know, go next door to Dr. Moore's house. And his wife, Ms. Cottie Moore, she was Cottie Dancy from Tarboro, North Carolina. The house was always open to anybody. There was no such thing as you have to call before you go there. You just dropped in and you were always welcome. Between Pettigrew Street and Umstead street, White Rock and St. Joseph were the two churches —White Rock was the Baptist Church and St. Joseph was the Methodist Church and all of our family belonged to one or the other. St. Joseph is where the Hayti Heritage Center is now. There again, well that's one good thing urban renewal did for us. The, uh, St. Joseph was declared a historical site and they built a beautiful business up there. It's an auditorium? for, you know, concerts, and a meeting place and a teaching place and they have an art museum, and a beautiful place for weddings. That's one gorgeous setting 'cause the wedding setting is right in front of that big, stained glass window.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

From what I understand they are continuing renovations.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes, uh, huh. In fact, the orange barrels are out right now, on that corner. [Laughter]

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, I was wondering if you could give me a sense of what you were like as a child and what do you feel others' perceptions of you were when you were young?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Timid. I was a very shy person as a child. My sister was completely outgoing

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and I was the direct opposite and we hung out together and made a great combination.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And your sister's name was?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Charlotte Kennedy Sloan. Uh, I read a whole lot. I loved reading and working crossword puzzles and word search games and we played tennis. And my brother taught me how to dance. I was inquisitive, but shy. I wanted to know what made things tick. I guess that's why I went into chemistry as a major in school. I wanted to make people tick. What they were thinking and what made them act like they did. I've always been interested in that. And for the chemistry part, what they were made up inside. [Laughter] I have always been church oriented, 'cause from the time I can remember, when the church door opened Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy and their three children walked in to Sunday school, church, Baptist Young People's Union in the afternoon and we had church service at night then, again. So a lot of my growing up was done in church. Wednesday prayer meeting, uh, they weren't called committees then. Groups that met during the week to, not only study the Bible, but do good things in the community. So that — I don't even remember when we first started going to church. I just know that all my life I've been a church person. And it has stuck. I still feel uncomfortable on Sunday morning if I'm not in somebody's church. Wherever I am, I try to find the nearest church and get in. I've sung in the choir since I was about, oh, eight years old I guess. We didn't have different choirs then, it was just the choir. I have [pause] I taught a Sunday class for a while, but, when I went away to school I sort of got away from that. When I came back I was interested in [pause] the noon day prayer group, the sewing circle, the, the sick and shut-in committee, we visited a lot of sick people and do things like cleaning up the kitchen, or sweepng up the house, or writing letters or braiding hair or cutting fingernails or whatever is necessary

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for a shut-in person. Uh, that has now involved, evolved into—we have a senior adult ministry, a middle adult ministry, a youth ministry and now the tiny tots are catching on and they do what they can toward the ministry of the church. We have an afterschool tutoring program, really for anybody, but largely for the students who are not quite keeping up with the school program. And all of them are moving forward now, we have a new pastor now, he's been there for two years and he's really a great organizer, and—You can't call it organizing, he just suggests this path and that path and there's always some group that's interested in what he's suggesting. He's excellent that way.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

What has, um, your intense, um, religious activism, what has that meant to you? What does it mean? How does it sustain you?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

It has always given me strength to lean on. I know God is around me all the time. I'm not afraid in any situation. Even when I was working at Lincoln, I did not drive then and I lived three blocks from the hospital. I was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Walking down the street at night — I think about it now and shiver — but walking down the street from my house to the hospital posed no problem for me. It's just the way you learned to live. I could go to the hospital, do whatever I had to, do whatever service I had to perform, go back home, sleep a couple of hours, and get up and come back to work again. Not fearful, and you meet some strange people, especially in emergency rooms late at night who are frightened themselves, scared of what's happening to them, don't know what you're going to do to them, and that belief in God, that nurturing from the church gave me the — I don't know what you call it — the knack of dealing with people, soothing their fears so that I could get on with what I needed to be doing. You cannot work on a frightened person. You cannot tell somebody who is frightened and

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belligerent to hold his breath and expect him to do it. So you have to do that calming first and, there the church stood me in great stead 'cause the belief that God was with me all the time and was not going to let anything happen to me. To get that over to the patients I was working with was a great boon, it, it was a—I don't believe I can explain it—it was just a way of life.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And you spent a large part of your life working at Lincoln, teaching—

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Oh, and it was of inestimable value to me right after my husband died in World War II. I was just stricken. Just, you know, just, I'm 23 years old and suddenly I'm a widow. And, if I had not had the church and Lincoln Hospital to sort of hold the pieces together, I don't know where I'd be now. I was devastated.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And you had Marsha—.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yeah, to raise, mmhmm.

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Mrs. Goodwin, we were talking about, um, your husband. And I wondered if you could tell me when and where you met.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

We were classmates in Talladega College at Talladega, Alabama. And I think I knew the moment I put, laid eyes on him that that was the one for me. Fortunately, I was the one for him too. It doesn't always work out that way, but we were sweethearts all the way through school. And he was from New York City and I was from Durham, so we burned up a lot of telephone money. And, finally, I went to work in Norfork, Virginia, that

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was my first job away from home when I finished the training for medical technology. And, he asked me to marry him, said we were wasting time trying to get enough together to, you know, to start up a family and, and build a house and we were burning it up telephone wise and travel wise. So, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. He came to Durham, and asked for my hand in marriage, and we were married two years after we finished Talladega.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And you were 21, were you 21 when you were married? And how old was he?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

He was six years older than I, he was 27. He had had to earn the money to send himself through school. His parents had died early and—he was wonderful. We just hit it off almost immediately. He was called to the Army a year and a half after we were married. Marsha was born while he was in the Army. And he got to see her three times before he died.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

What were those times?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Just furloughs, you know, uh huh, weekends. And he'd sit her on his lap—she looked just like him. Still does. He'd sit her on his lap and talk to her and she'd giggle at him. I was just so grateful that she got to see him. We didn't know that he was going to die, but she does not remember him at all. But I've kept his picture in front of her and in her life.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

At one point, you lived in Washington?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Right, we went to Washington right after we married because he was working for the government there in Washington and—

ANGELA HORNSBY:

What did he do?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

He worked at the, in the Census department and he was the manager of

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whatever they called it, his unit in the Census department. After I'd been there for a while, I worked for a short while in the Commerce department, but we only lived together for a year and a half and then he went to the Army and I came home.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

How did you like living in Washington, D.C.?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Scared to death. Green out of the country, got lost everytime I walked a block away from my house. I realize now that Washington is a wonderful place to live, but, you know, he's at work, I know nobody in Washington and, it was just such a big place and I had come from such a little place I never quite adjusted. The people were always in a hurry, hurry, hurry to get everywhere or nowhere. They drank breakfast, dinner and supper, in all stratas and all—. You know, everything we went to they asked you was, ‘Can I give you a drink?’ And I didn't drink, so I just didn't fit in that society. I did not live there long enough to, you know, to get used to it and be amalgamated into that style of living, so.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Where did you live while you were in Washington, D.C.? Did you have a —?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

We had a beautiful apartment, yes, on the northeast side of Washington. Not much furniture, but we had a beautiful apartment. And I washed clothes three times a day just to have something to do before I went to work. I worked in the commerce department in the printing shop. But I washed clothes, my little apartment was immaculate all the time because when I finished cleaning it once I just started all over again. In Washington, people next door, you know, they were not as friendly as people here. You didn't know your next door neighbor. I'd go down the street smiling at folks and speaking and Lewis would say, ‘Honey, they're not used to that.’ [Laughter] 'Cause nobody spoke back. But, finally before I left, my immediate neighbors were speaking and smiling back at me and I

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wondered what would happen if it had taken, you know, if it had caught on and moved all through the city. But that's just not the city way, still isn't.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

So then your husband was called into the Army like you mentioned, and he went on to fight in the war —?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

And he never came back. Oh, I was devastated when the telegram came and said—oh I was devastated. I don't even remember those first three months.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

You don't even remember what the telegram said? I wanted to ask you how were you notified?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Just by telegram. My mother and father came immediately into my rescuing, packed me up and took me home. But I don't remember those first three months at home. I just, I remember the devastation but that's all. I never want to feel like that again. And I haven't, ever. Even when my mother and father died, and I was here when both of them died. I uh, that's a feeling that you never want to have. He was such a peaceful person, and for them to draft them into an Army to fight somebody.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Them being the government?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Uh, huh. The selective service system drafted, you had to go whether you wanted to or not. You had no choice. I was unhappy with them for quite a while but gradually that wore off and I understood that's just the way things have to be.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

That's what I was wondering, do you still feel, um, any type of resentment towards the government?

No, no, no that melted. There again, the church and the community just surrounded me and — By that time, I was working up at Lincoln. I had worked for Lincoln before I was married and when I came home I came back to work for them. And,

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the church, the community and total absorption in work. It must have been some two or three years though before I was not mad at Uncle Sam. And I get, you know how those little brochures come, 'Support disabled veterans' or 'The Gold Star Mothers' or — [Phone ringing] [Recorder is turned off and then back on.]

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Okay, Mrs. Goodwin, again we're on the subject of your husband and you mentioned how your work at Lincoln and the church and your family held you together during that time. And I was curious that you mentioned that you worked at Lincoln before you got married. Did you plan on, um, leaving your career at Lincoln if the events in World War II hadn't happened? Would you have been a working mom?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I had no plans. This was all happenstance, the whole, that whole part of my life. I had not planned to work at Lincoln. The lady that was there left to get married and just left. No—

ANGELA HORNSBY:

When was that?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

In 1938.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

So, you just, did you just come out of?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Talladega. And I was going to be a research chemist. I had my trunk, everything at Woodsole, Massachusetts ready to go and do research chemistry. And it just happened that — it just didn't happen — God directed it, that Olivia Clover left and they said come hold the department together until we can find somebody. And it was just like a rabbit in the briar patch. It was just what I wanted. I just loved it. I loved the work, I loved working with people. And, it was just what I needed at that time.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, did you, let's see, growing up, did you get a sense that it was okay for women to work outside the home, or was there an understanding that once you got married

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you were supposed to stay home?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I don't think I had any conscious thoughts about that at all. It was not the, you know, the norm for women to work outside the home, but it was during the period that it was beginning to change. And you see, I had the North Carolina Mutual as an example. Most of their employees were women.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

What did they do?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Secretarial work, statisticians. One lady was a business manager. Women were sort of coming into their own, not, not entirely, but breaking out of the shell of home, and the kitchen, and raising the kids. You did both. And most trained, most college trained women did both well. You budgeted your time, you made sure that, you know, life was not all just work. If you had a home and a husband you made time to make both work. I know after Lewis died and I was working, I had to constantly make time to be with my child, to let her know that she was loved and that certain things were acceptable and certain things were not. You know, training her in the way that I would like her to, to be raised with consideration for other people. 'Cause she was an only child too for a long time. And my mother and father and her aunts and uncles tried their best to spoil her, [Laughter] which was good because she had no father figure in the house. And, as I look back on it, everything that has happened to me has been fortuitous. It's enriched my life in ways I might not have chosen, but it has made my outlook on life good.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

So there was no conflict in your mind of sort of what role you were to play as a woman. Either as a career woman or either as strictly a housewife?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I wasn't considering it as a career. It was just something I had to do to put food on my child's table. It was not something I would have chosen.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

What would you have chosen?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I would have chosen to stay at home, and cook and clean and, uh, and work outside the home as an avocation, but home would have been my choice simply because I was raised in that atmosphere. My mother worked at the Mutual until the day she got married and never set foot in there again. My sister worked there, again, at the Mutual and the day she got married was the last day—both of them happened to have married wonderful men who took care of them, who brought their money home, who invested and left them comfortable enough not to ever have to work again. I was not quite in that position, but as I say, everything that happened— I came back here to live with my parents, I had no house rent to pay, I took care of my needs and Marsha's needs and I was comfortable in that my mother was here to take care of her [Marsha], to spoil her all she wanted to during the day and then turn her over to me in the evening. And it worked out well for me. I do believe there is a master plan and, that was my part of it. I never had aspirations to, [pause] to be as you say, a career woman. Even though I was trained in chemistry, work would always have been avocation, not vocation for me.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, if we can just go back to your childhood for a second, I remember when we were talking before you mentioned about how at an early age— you mentioned that your mom was an accomplished seamstress, she made articles for the children and she passed down those skills and other skills at an early age. If you could talk about that.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

From the time I was 12 years old, I knew how to make my own clothes. I knew how to keep them in repair, which was very important because we didn't have a whole lot. I knew how to cook, to buy, to save, not to waste in the kitchen. By the time I went off to college, I could do hems for girls, sew on buttons, alter clothing, for those that did not

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know how to do it, and, I guess I was just raised as a housewife. It was not something I looked down on. I've always thought being at home and raising your children is one of the greatest things you can do. Even though I was not granted that privilege at the time. I think we would not have nearly as much misery among young people. The thought of a child committing suicide because he or she did not know where to turn is just horrible to me. And, if more mothers had been allowed to stay in the home and not scratch so hard just to make a living, just, you know. It takes two families now, two members of the family to keep one house going.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And that's not even enough now.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Right, uh huh, uh huh. I really think it has added to the dilemma of kids on the streets selling drugs, of picking a fight just for the sake of picking a fight. Gangs. It's because they just don't have no where else to turn. And as I said, the thought of a child committing suicide because he thought that was the only way out is just horrible to me. Everytime I hear it I cringe.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

So, um, as a child then, what were your aspirations? What did you want to do with your life when you were a child?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Grow up, be a grown person and, contribute something to, you know, the world. Make a reason for my having lived in the world, you know, given the privilege of living in the world. I wanted to be an asset to the community, whatever way, whatever road I took. I wanted to. [pause] Now they say, are you a part of the problem or a part of the solution? I was not conscious of that then but I always wanted to be a part of the solution.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

You mentioned, um, I know when we spoke before of some influential figures

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in your life. And of course your parents were a large part of that.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

My parents, my pastor Rev. Miles Mark Fisher.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Explain what his influence on you was, the Rev. Fisher.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

The dependence on God mostly. He was a frail gentleman. Even before he had polio, he was frail and athletic, you know. Energetic, but not large of stature. But to see him out there with the boys at the, what we call the church house which was his community center. Now they call them community centers. Coaching a basketball team or a tennis team or a pingpoing team or a football team — we didn't have much of a football team then — but many young people in Durham, boys and girls, have gotten a foundation right there in that church house to go and do for somebody. I got it at home, I got it at church, I got it even working up at Lincoln. Mr. Rich, who was the director of Lincoln, was not a loud, he was a soft-spoken man. But he was always going around to different companies, foundations, to get the money to keep Lincoln going. Not only to provide help for sick people, but to provide educational and career opportunities for young black people because they weren't a whole lot. You were a teacher, a nurse or a secretary and that was about the limit, for, particularly women, black women, then.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

All the more interesting that you decided to uh, you had this great interest in chemistry.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Mmhmm, I don't know, yes, I do know where that came from. I had a wonderful chemistry teacher in high school and I always wanted to be like her. [pause] It, I guess that was just built into my growing up. When Christmas time came, I always got a chemistry set, to put together, to see what happened.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Who gave you a chemistry set?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Mom and Daddy. They knew my interest was, lay in the sciences and —

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And they nurtured that?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Sure, Mmhmm. I did get dolls every now and then but I was much more interested in the chemistry set. And my child, I guess the influence spilled over on her because every doll she ever got she opened up to see what was inside of it. [Laughter] She operated on the dolls. I remember when talking dolls, walking and talking dolls were first invented. [Laughter] I saved my hard-earned money to buy my child a walking, talking doll. And she played with it for a few days, but 'bout three days later she came and said this is what makes it talk. She had operated on the doll. And I couldn't scold her or spank her because, that was my interest too. I wanted to know what made the doll work. I wouldn't have dared to open it up. [Laughter] But growing up introverted. As I say, and I read a lot. And the biological sciences, chemistry and physics and, and anatomy, biology —.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

These are all subjects you studied —

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

And mathematics. I had a keen interest in math, I guess, from the other side, from the Mutual side though, I never wanted to work at the Mutual. I worked up there for a week and I knew that was not for me.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

When did you work there?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

The first year, the summer of the first year after college.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And what did you do there, for that week?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Filing, and typing and sitting a lot. Just sitting in one spot was not for me. And they sat all day long.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

The secretaries?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

The secretaries and the, get up to go to the filing cabinet but sit and — Oh, no,

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that was not for me.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

So you only did that for—

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

One week. Yes, but we agreed, it was a mutual agreement that that was not for me.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

But you said, you mentioned that you also had a mathematical interest and you also got that from North Carolina Mutual?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I guess a little. My, my father was almost a genius, mathematical genius. Numbers were a great thing to him. He, he was a statistician beyond measure, honey. And a little of that, you know, had to rub off on me 'cause I hung out with him a lot. I'd sit down at the desk and watch him do it, what he was doing. As I said, he was the treasurer of White Rock for 45 years, I know, and did everything by hand, you know. Meticulous figures. His sums always came out right. So it must be in the genes somewhere.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Did your brother and sister also share this love of science, an interesting curiousity of how things worked?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Business. Both of them, business. Charlotte went to Talladega and Boston U. and she came home and worked at the Mutual, I guess for five years before she got married. And my brother always had a keen interest in business and still does. He's been retired, oh, 10, 10 years I guess. But he still wants to know what's happening with the bottom line. [pause] Bless his heart, I hope he's comfortable right now.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

I wondered to see if I could sort of back track a little again, focusing on the childhood and just trying to get an assessment of what, if any, affect, did the Depression have on your family and the community, the black community in Durham?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I'm sure it had a great impression on the family but I didn't know we were in a

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depression. As I say, we were loved and knew it. Whatever we had, we shared. We were never hungry, we were never cold, always had a roof over our head. And since going through my father's papers after he died, I realize that he took out a loan almost every year of his life and was always paying back a loan somewhere. But they took good care of us so that we didn't know we were almost in dire circumstances, hand to mouth. And I appreciate them even more now knowing what they went through to raise us and never bringing it up. It was never a topic of conversation. We were taught to take care of what we had, to save, to be thrifty, to, to appreciate what we had because there was always somebody worse off than you were. To share what you had, that was a great part of my growing up. If you get 50 cents allowance, you put five cents of that in church and you save five cents, always. That, that, is even now, when I get my pensions checks and my social security checks, the first part of it goes into the bank. And I don't have to do that now, my child would take care of me in a hot minute, but it's just what has been, has grown up in me as a child and on through.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, do you feel like you're more like your father or mother, or a combination of the two?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

My temperament is like my father's. My push, my drive to do things is like my mother. I guess I'm a good combination of the both of them. Momma was a little pepper pot. She was always up, at, doing something. Always up and at 'em. In the neighborhood, in the house, we were—Friday, Saturdays were cleaning days. Gardening, we always had a garden. And she was the one that did that.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

What did you grow in the garden?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Tomatoes, beans, peppers, corn, you know, stuff to eat. And she always had

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roses. Along the fence outside now, I have roses just because she had beautiful roses. She always liked to dig in the dirt, even when she was 90, 91, 92. And she always had the energy to do it. She never reached the point where she had to lie in bed a day for anything. I said if she had had to—my father was an invalid for six years. And he accepted it gracefully, never complained. If she had had to be an invalid, we'd have had to chain her to the bed. [Laughter] She simply could not have. And there again, the good Lord arranges his program like he wants to. She lived until the minute she died. Moving, always on the move, always on the go. The day before she died, she and my sister had been over in Chapel Hill in the shopping center walking all over the shopping center. [pause]

They were very much alike, the two of them. [pause] And I grew up with both sides so I guess I sort of melded the two of them. I still, inside, feel shy, but the profession I had and the work I do in the church pushes me to come out of myself a little bit. Come, you know, to—I don't know how to explain that. I still feel like a very private person inside, but the need to express myself and the need to, to let His light shine through me so that somebody, somewhere sees what I'm doing and gets a spark to move on. I never really put that into words before.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Now you mentioned in high school you had a teacher who cultivated your love of science and it manifested itself in chemistry.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Yes, Susie Owens. Oh, she was wonderful.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Now, you attended Hillside High School in Durham.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

That was all the school there was. High school, grammar school, any school. That was it.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Mmhmm.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

It went from the first to the eleventh grade.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

You were a pretty intelligent student, though. Did you skip a grade, 'cause you were in college at 15.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

They skipped me two grades. If I had to do it over again I would have stayed in those two grades even though I would have been, maybe bored, because I had, you know, all the material. But, when I went to college at 15 I was out of place completely. You know, I was still bobby socks and pigtails in a world where ladies were concerned about the latest fashion, and, I quickly gathered enough to know how to meld in and not stand out, but all the way through college, even though my academic mind kept up very well, my, I was a little girl for a long time in college. [Laughter]

ANGELA HORNSBY:

What was, during that time, some of the accepted fields black women particularly were expected to go into? Domestic science for one, were there other fields?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Well, if you made it out into the world, nursing was a great one. Nursing, lots of people have come through Lincoln's nursing school. It was one of the only black nursing schools in the country. And as I say, secretarial work. The Mutual work furnished career opportunities and job opportunities for thousands of young women.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Now, sort of, leaving college with that understanding that there were certain niches that black women were expected to fulfill, you —

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I was a rebel.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Exactly —

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I was going into —

ANGELA HORNSBY:

You wanted to be a doctor, right?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

I did. I was going into research chemistry which was unheard of for a woman,

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but I was going. I had the inside push even though I didn't have the ‘Now I am brash enough to go anywhere I want to, say anything I want to.’ But then, I had just that urge inside my head and heart, there again, to find out what made diseases and what cured diseases. Particularly, what cured diseases. Uh, infantile paralysis was a stumper for a long time. It crippled, many, many people. Polio, smallpox, tubercolosis. Oh, tuberculosis. We always had two rooms in the hospital. And always there was a tuberculosis patient that we were trying to cure. And as fast as one was out, another one was in. These things have been wiped out now, but I wanted to be a part of the agent that found out why it happened and what made it go away. And even when I went to work up there and went into that position, I was still finding out what was inside of people, the fluids, the body fluids and what they did, the organs in the body and how they functioned. How this one different from this one. What made this bone grow this way in some people and another way in some others. Furnishing information to the doctors so they can know how far from standard this person was and what to do to bring him up to standard. How much of this to give a patient to bring him back to health. My chief goal in life when I went up there [Lincoln] was to see a patient come in sick and go out healthy. I have sat by the bed of patients and dared them to die all night long. And I've had people come up to me since I've retired, and, in the grocery store, in church, in places and say, ‘You don't remember me lady, but I was your patient and you are the only reason I'm alive now, 'cause you kept daring me, you kept saying, You cannot die on me, you cannot die on me, come on now, come on, we're going to make it.’

ANGELA HORNSBY:

So you applied to medical schools?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Oh, yes. I wanted to be a doctor and do the real thing. I didn't realize then that

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what I was doing when I went to work is what the doctor is all about. That without those people the doctor is almost helpless. Unless he knows what is going on inside his patient, he can't help the patient. But, like Dr. Eatons, Dr. Hollis Eatons, who was then the president of Duke told me, they couldn't afford to let me go to medical school. I was not only a woman, I was a black woman.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

Um, our time is running short but I was hoping that the next time we talked you could explain and describe more indepth your conversation with Dr. Hollis —

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

His name was Hollis Eatons and he was at that time, in 1938, president of Duke.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

And he basically explained that your education was not cost-efficient?

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

He took time to sit down and tell me. Everybody else just tell me, no we don't have any openings. But he was a friend of my father's and he explained to me the practical side of making a doctor.

ANGELA HORNSBY:

I would like to touch upon that the next time we meet, but for now, I appreciate your time, especially under the circumstances, and its been a pleasure as always to talk with you.

MARGARET KENNEDY GOODWIN:

Thank you, my dear.