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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview
R-0113, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Margaret Kennedy Goodwin was born in Clarkton, North Carolina, in 1918. Just two years later, her family relocated to Durham, North Carolina, because of her father's job with North Carolina Mutual. In this interview, Goodwin speaks at length about the African American community in Durham during the 1930s and 1940s. Describing a thriving African American business center and a close-knit community that treated one another like extended family, Goodwin laments that urban renewal programs of the 1970s and 1980s ultimately led to the disintegration of that sense of community. Goodwin also speaks at length about the prominent role religion had played in her life—primarily by way of her family's involvement with the White Rock Baptist Church—and her educational and career aspirations. In 1933, at the age of fifteen, Goodwin left Durham to attend Talladega College in Alabama, where she met her future husband. After they were married, they lived briefly in Washington, D.C., before returning to Durham. In 1941, her husband was killed in the war; Goodwin was left alone to care for her infant daughter. She had been working at Lincoln Hospital as a technician in the radiology laboratory since 1938 and continued to do so in subsequent decades. While arguing that she did not see herself as a career woman of choice, Goodwin describes the kinds of obstacles African American women faced professionally, along with the challenges of being a single, working mother. For Goodwin, the supportive role of her family helped assuage the kinds of tensions that many other women in her position faced. Goodwin also discusses at length her desire to become a doctor. Explaining that most women during those years could expect to find employment as nurses, teachers, or secretaries (especially at North Carolina Mutual), she was always encouraged to pursue her interests in science during her childhood. While her goal of becoming a doctor never came to fruition, she expresses content with her accomplishments at Lincoln Hospital.
Margaret Kennedy Goodwin grew up in Durham, North Carolina, during the 1920s and 1930s. In this interview, she describes a thriving African American community in Durham, one that she views as having suffered at the hands of urban renewal during the 1970s and 1980s. In addition, she describes her educational aspirations and her career as a technician in the radiology laboratory at Durham's Lincoln Hospital.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[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
And when and where were you born?
Clarkton, North Carolina, the 17th of October 1918.
Were you named after someone in your family?
I was named after both grandmothers. My maternal grandmother was Margaret Spaulding. My paternal grandmother was Katie Katherine Kennedy.
And I was wondering if you could tell me something about your grandparents. Who were they, what did they do?
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. stately woman and,
since I was the only grandchild on either
Can you remember around what time this was?
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.
Um, remember the last time we spoke you mentioned that one of your grandparents was of Irish ancestry?
Yes, my maternal grandmother, her mother was Irish. On the other side, we
Um, when and under what circumstances did you come to Durham?
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.
So you were two years old then?
Yes. So Durham is really my home.
Um, um, where in Durham did you initially settle?
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.
Now, we talked about, a little bit about urban renewal which you, um, sort of cast as urban—
Urban removal, right. It moved, it removed all evidence of, I guess about 17 black businesses.
Name some of those businesses for me. This was a known as Hayti—
Right.
The black business district.
Mmhmm.
What are some of the various businesses that were there?
Mr. Ed Green's Grocery Store. The —
Sounds familiar.
It's a large, they have a reunion somewhere
every year. And it's one of the 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.
And again, it was just the three of you?
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.
And your sister, um, is deceased?
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.
And your father was 96 [when he died].
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.
And what year was that? That he founded, or approximate?
Nobody has ever asked me that before? And, I was little, it must have been in the late 1920s, early 30s.
And he was involved in a lot of community activities. He founded the Durham chapter of the NAACP.
Right.
And served as treasurer of White Rock Baptist Church for a long time.
And teacher of a Sunday School class there for 55 years!
Incredible.
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
You couldn't try on the clothes in the store?
No.
But you could at home?
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.
There was no conception of having, um, a colored dressing room and a white dressing room?
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?
Um, how many people lived in your home?
On Fayetteville Street?
Yes, um, besides — Were there any people that lived there besides, um, those in your immediate family?
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.
Now um, I know you're still very much involved with White Rock Baptist Church —
Yes.
Which your father joined shortly after coming to Durham.
Yes, the first Sunday after he came to Durham he joined White Rock Baptist Church.
He didn't waste any time, did he.
Nope. Nope. His parents taught him to be in church somewhere.
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—
That's the way.
Um, and um, we talked about this, but, to what organizations did family members belong to? Community organizations, you mentioned some of them.
My mother and father belonged to the Volkamania Literary Club. That was a club that reviewed a book each meeting.
Spell Volkamenia.
V-O-L-K-A-M-E-N-I-A
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
Do you know what Volkamenia, where is that derived from, what does it mean —?
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.
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—
Was it in someone's home?
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
That's a pretty good list.
Uh huh.
What do you think, sort of um, motivated them to be so active in the community as they were?
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.
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 —.
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.
Now did your father, did he countenance drinking, I mean, within the family circle? Parties, that type of thing, was that something —.
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.
From where?
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
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?
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.
Do you remember her name?
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.
You also um, one of your uncles, another one of your uncles, Dr.[Aaron] Moore, did he also live there?
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. —
So your family was really an extended network of kin and was basically synonymous with the community?
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.
From what I understand they are continuing renovations.
Yes, uh, huh. In fact, the orange barrels are out right now, on that
corner.
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?
Timid. I was a very shy person as a child. My sister was completely
outgoing
And your sister's name was?
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.
What has, um, your intense, um, religious activism, what has that meant to you? What does it mean? How does it sustain you?
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
And you spent a large part of your life working at Lincoln, teaching—
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.
And you had Marsha—.
Yeah, to raise, mmhmm.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Mrs. Goodwin, we were talking about, um, your husband. And I wondered if you could tell me when and where you met.
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
And you were 21, were you 21 when you were married? And how old was he?
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.
What were those times?
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.
At one point, you lived in Washington?
Right, we went to Washington right after we married because he was working for the government there in Washington and—
What did he do?
He worked at the, in the Census department and he was the manager of
How did you like living in Washington, D.C.?
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.
Where did you live while you were in Washington, D.C.? Did you have a —?
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.’
So then your husband was called into the Army like you mentioned, and he went on to fight in the war —?
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.
You don't even remember what the telegram said? I wanted to ask you how were you notified?
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.
Them being the government?
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.
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,
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?
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—
When was that?
In 1938.
So, you just, did you just come out of?
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.
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
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.
What did they do?
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,
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?
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.
What would you have chosen?
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,
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.
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
And that's not even enough now.
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.
So, um, as a child then, what were your aspirations? What did you want to do with your life when you were a child?
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.
You mentioned, um, I know when we spoke before of some influential
figures
My parents, my pastor Rev. Miles Mark Fisher.
Explain what his influence on you was, the Rev. Fisher.
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.
All the more interesting that you decided to uh, you had this great interest in chemistry.
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.
Who gave you a chemistry set?
Mom and Daddy. They knew my interest was, lay in the sciences and —
And they nurtured that?
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.
These are all subjects you studied —
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.
When did you work there?
The first year, the summer of the first year after college.
And what did you do there, for that week?
Filing, and typing and sitting a lot. Just sitting in one spot was not for me. And they sat all day long.
The secretaries?
The secretaries and the, get up to go to the filing cabinet but sit and
— Oh, no,
So you only did that for—
One week. Yes, but we agreed, it was a mutual agreement that that was not for me.
But you said, you mentioned that you also had a mathematical interest and you also got that from North Carolina Mutual?
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.
Did your brother and sister also share this love of science, an interesting curiousity of how things worked?
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.
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?
I'm sure it had a great impression on the family but I
didn't know we were in a
Um, do you feel like you're more like your father or mother, or a combination of the two?
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.
What did you grow in the garden?
Tomatoes, beans, peppers, corn, you know, stuff to eat. And she always
had all over
the shopping center.
They were very much alike, the two of them.
Now you mentioned in high school you had a teacher who cultivated your love of science and it manifested itself in chemistry.
Yes, Susie Owens. Oh, she was wonderful.
Now, you attended Hillside High School in Durham.
That was all the school there was. High school, grammar school, any school. That was it.
Mmhmm.
It went from the first to the eleventh grade.
You were a pretty intelligent student, though. Did you skip a grade, 'cause you were in college at 15.
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.
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?
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.
Now, sort of, leaving college with that understanding that there were certain niches that black women were expected to fulfill, you —
I was a rebel.
Exactly —
I was going into —
You wanted to be a doctor, right?
I did. I was going into research chemistry which was unheard of for a
woman, 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.’
So you applied to medical schools?
Oh, yes. I wanted to be a doctor and do the real thing. I
didn't realize then that
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 —
His name was Hollis Eatons and he was at that time, in 1938, president of Duke.
And he basically explained that your education was not cost-efficient?
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.
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.
Thank you, my dear.
END OF INTERVIEW