Sarah Ballard interview recording, 1993 June 11
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Karen Ferguson | By telling me a little bit about where you grew up, and about your family. | 0:01 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. I was born in Hertford County in North Carolina, just out of a little town known as Harrellsville. Keep talking, just go— | 0:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Just keep going. | 0:20 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I didn't know whether or not we needed to wait for some response or indicate whether I'm going too fast or not for you. | 0:21 |
Karen Ferguson | No. Just talk your— | 0:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I was reared in a family of 10, including mother and father. See there were eight children, three boys and five girls. We were reared on a farm. Really, we were reared on two farms, because in our first experience my father was a sharecropper. He worked the land and somehow they had some arrangement where he'd give the owner of the land a certain portion. I don't know what share they had different percentage depending on the people involved. But then he was industrious enough to save money and buy his own land. | 0:29 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And I would like to tell you about that because see, our great grandfather, which my father's grandfather, had insight enough to just do something about being a slave to the extent that he ran away, and in those days it often meant death. But he was brave enough to run away and join the Army, so that after he served in the Army, doing whatever war it was, which evidently was the Civil War, but when he returned he was able to buy this large plantation a little more cheap than if he had not gone, it seems as reward for having served his country. | 1:07 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And therefore, when his grandfather, Dave Cherry died and his wife also my father bought his grandmother's dower. And of course, we were then in Bertie County, we moved from Hertford County to Bertie County because that's where the land was. Now in Hertford County, however, I did go to elementary school through I guess first grade or something like that. And of course, I had another sister who was going and somehow another, we were about the same size and everything. And back in those days, if you're smart enough, they let you skip a grade so I caught up with her and we finished high school together in Bertie County. | 1:47 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But out of that experience of evidently this deep wisdom and insight, my father, I would say inherited I guess from his father, grandfather in all this desire to be very industrious, to do the very best he could, and to guide us to do our very best in that we were very aware of a God. Capital G-o-d in our language. And we went to church regularly, the family together, not send them and you know, you go and come. They'd take us Sundays. And then in our home we had what we call family altar every Sunday morning. | 2:28 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | That was to read some Bible, usually the Sunday school lesson and pray and that kind of thing before we did anything. Most times a few Sundays we'd have it just as we set to eat breakfast as a blessing and people there. And it meant so much to us that most of us have grown up very well and that my father was able to send seven of those eight children to college because we, of course, respect— In those days parents had a kind of a, I said they deserved the kind of respect. | 3:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | We didn't question what they would tell you to do. So much so I wanted to mention the difference in schools now and then. We knew that we should go to school if we left the house for that purpose and when we got there, we was supposed to apply ourselves and try to learn everything we could. And if we misbehaved and the teacher told my people, then we would get two punishments. She'd punish us there and then we got one when we got home. | 3:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And my father said to us, really just frankly that I will send you to college if you accept it. That meant no going there, being sent home and that kind of thing that you had to go there and make good grades too, so I was real happy about that. And luckily, I went to Shaw University. You may have heard of this Christian college that I'm very happy about because I know that some people might not have sent their children to school had it not been there. | 4:01 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And proclaiming to teach and follow the Christian way because we are Baptists, and that's our faith so that's what happen now. I think four of us finished Shaw, however, out of the seven that went to college. Four went to Shaw, one went to St. Agnes School of Nursing, because in her early days she liked attending to babies and doing that kind of thing. And then one went to A&T College and one went to North Carolina. It was called North Carolina College at Durham in those days. And so that's the history of those. Now the eighth child made the army his career. And so he's living now in Florida, Crestview, Florida. | 4:26 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | At this point, four of the eight children have passed. There are four of us alive now. And of course, we are trying to carry on the heritage of doing well, helping make the world good and just, I said being worthy of God's blessings because I too are very much a great believer in supreme force. | 5:08 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I say it that way because I did teach 40 years, by the way. And the very time that they asked us not to say our prayers at school was when this dope, and just killing, and knives, and all just seemed to take it over. | 5:30 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And I was very proud that about a week ago I was at A&P on Central Avenue and someone had a petition asking those of us who believe it should be returned to sign, which I did quickly and complimented the young lady. She looked like she about your age, who was brave enough to have it at her cash register. I don't know, evidently, and the store, by the way, must have permitted that to be done. | 5:45 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So I think with that kind of experience, we are very concerned about what it is that you are about and I hope that you can find the truth. Because, now, I majored in science and math at Shaw University. But then in those days, this, what do we call it, did not acceptance of women and Blacks and all was such that they did not want a woman science teacher in many of the schools that I applied. And when I finished, of course, I sent applications all over. So even though I did get a job working as a science and math teacher in a smaller town, I finally took one in Winnsboro, South Carolina as a teacher librarian in a union school now. All 12 grades went in Fairfield County. The name of the school is Fairfield County Training School by the way in Winnsboro, South Carolina. | 6:08 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And of course, that was quite an experience and that's the kind of thing I think we need to be aware of that in spite of those kind of conditions we did well. And those of us working with children just went out of the way to be sure that we were lifting them as much as we possibly could to find their very best lives. It was not easy, but it was so rewarding. Yes. Any question you'd like to ask at this point? | 7:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Well I wanted to ask you a little bit about your life in Hertford County. | 7:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 7:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there many people that lived around you that you knew around your house? | 7:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Right around the house. There was one. Now the house I would say would be about a half mile from the road, but at the end of the lane at the road was one house. In that county there were not so many houses in that area where we lived, and that is why I stress we were not right in Harrellsville. When I said Harrellsville now, anybody I don't think I've seen but two people since we left that have ever been there or heard of it even, so we were kind of out. Yeah. | 7:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And it was interesting in that it was by a large creek that people left their boats into the creek right by our yard to go fishing. They were fishing, leave them, and going off when they came back would ask my daddy to take care of them and keep them drained or things like that and watch them doing storms. So that was how far away. We were kind of on an island I guess because the creek seemed have gone around most of that land that we were on. Yes. | 8:11 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you farm? What were the crops? | 8:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Tobacco, peanuts, cotton, corn. They were the marketable crops. And of course, we had large gardens with all the vegetables you can name. And what we enjoyed so much, the wild fruits like dewberries and I cannot even find them in the stores or even in catalogs that sell berries and all. It was called dewberry and it was similar to a blackberry but it was so much larger and rounder and so much juicier than the blackberries are now. And so we would enjoy roaming around when we were not working, picking the strawberries, and wild berries, and just being healthy. And it turned out evidently to be what you call a blessing in disguise because at this point I'm 70 years old and I have no pains unless I eat too much sugar. | 8:45 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Now, when I eat too much sugar, I'll admit that I may have a little pain here or there, but meaning I'm in pretty good health. And I by the way, just had a check and the doctor did say mostly everything is fine. So I said that you'd be surprised how just taking advantage of situations and resources around you, you might be more blessed than you think. | 9:35 |
Karen Ferguson | You said you remembered that you talked about your great grandfather. | 9:59 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 10:02 |
Karen Ferguson | And him getting the land and everything. Do you remember any of your other grandparents or any of your— | 10:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I did not even remember. That was they told us about him about the time. See, he was my father's grandfather and by the time we were in that area on the land he had passed on. But now on my mother's side, I can remember. I don't remember her grandfather, I remember her father and that was a large family. There were 11 of them, but none of them went to school or did anything like that. They just were so kind and good. I was just thinking about, you know, you get so much from people where you might have gotten from my father's side, the Cherry side. But both were Cherry's by the way. My father was a Cherry, mother a Cherry, so they were double Cherry's by the time they're married. | 10:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But anyway, those were the kindest people. They were so at peace and loving that you'd thank God anyway regardless of whether or not they were able to do some of the things, like send their children to school or buy a home and cars or things like that. They were just so kind that you said, well thank God anyway for all of them. | 10:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Did they live close by you? Any of your relatives on your mother's side? | 11:17 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Such that we could walk across the road and a little field or down the road a little bit across the field and get to visit. And we would do that. You'd be surprised how many Saturday afternoons because usually we worked. Some kind of work was to be done most of the weekdays. So Saturdays we could go over to spend the night with the cousin and we'd pack our things and walk. We didn't have to wait for somebody to take us or take a bus or anything. We walked over and spent the night and walked back Sunday afternoon. So that's how close they were. Because there were many that we're not that close that we would do this for. One of the experiences that I feel children need now is this togetherness. Like I said, my father would take us all in the car when he had the Model T Ford, but in Hoover days we did not have a car. | 11:22 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | We didn't have gas or whatever, tires and whatever, so we had what was called a Hoover cart that we made. Took the tires from the car and put on this to make it ride a little more smooth but it was a cart and we'd get in it and go maybe eight miles or so to visit those that were a distance. But we'd go early in the morning cause we were just so anxious to be with them. And then we would stay all day but get home by sundown. That is one of the things I can appreciate now that we moved by daylight and there were no problems like they're having now. It seems that everybody knew everybody. I guess could see everybody and nobody felt like killing and carrying on like they're doing now. I didn't hear of any when I was growing up. | 12:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you know everybody in the area then? | 12:49 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. At school, you see we all walked and we were in, as they said, the segregated school so most everybody in the neighborhoods went to the same little school and we walked to one about three miles until I was third grade. And then for some reason my father felt, my older sister was in high school and to get her there and for us to be company, we started going to that another union school. I taught in one but I was reared in one too where they had from first grade through 11th. Because believe it or not, when I finished high school, I finished in 11th grade. They had not 12th grade. So I went there from third grade on through high school at the Bertie Etheridge. What was it? Bert Etheridge High School. Well, it was Etheridge High School. I know that my, I think E. S. Etheridge, it went by the principal's name. One of the older principals. | 12:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there adults other than your parents or relatives who looked out for you in the neighborhood? | 13:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, everybody did for each other. So much so that when my son was born in '57 here, someone said something about children. I said to a neighbor. I said, "Well if he does anything wrong now you just give him a little spank and send them home to me." I mentioned to somebody, they said, "Oh, don't let anybody hit your child nowadays." But we were, they could spank us if need be because that's just how much they cared. And anybody, we had an uncle and his family living behind us a little further down in the field where we lived in Bertie County. And like I said, we felt like they were all one big family because in those days we did not lock our doors. And some of those relatives you didn't have phones, telephones, and so if they decided to get up this morning, didn't have anything to do, wanted to come visit, they'd come on over. | 14:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And if you were not there, they'd sit on the porch and wait for you, and you'd be so glad when you look and saw somebody sitting. Oh, they've come to visit and we'd go and cook the best foods we had. And we always had something from the gardens like fresh corn and chicken that we did. There was one thing about the chicken that we would not eat them right off the yard because they was supposed to be kind of nasty eating different things. So mother kept several chickens up on a high screened in box and fed them corn and she said that hard corn would purify them and when they needed one, they didn't have to catch one to put up there, they just go there and get one. Then they replaced some on the lower level and they kept those at the top who had been there. So anybody could come anytime and have a Sunday dinner. | 14:47 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And I thought we liked it so much because we didn't always eat on what we call and extravagant level day by day. We ate nourishing foods but then with company coming you might get an extra cake or something or maybe an extra piece of chicken so we were always happy when company came because we did all these extra things for them. | 15:28 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of chores did you do for your family? | 15:49 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well you see, as I said, being in the country like that where we did the regular things like wash, and iron, and sweep the yard with the stick broom because we had these large country yards and we didn't cut grass because my father usually would let the mules just walk around and eat the grass when they were not plowing. So I can't remember seeing a lawn mower all of those days. But anyway, we would do things and therefore, our homes were heated with wood. | 15:52 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So you'd take the wood from the wood piles. See the men and all and older boys would cut the big trees and bring large pieces to the wood pile we called it. Then they would cut it in little blocks and all of that. And our task was to get it from the wood pile to the porch and then from the porch to a wood box behind the heater in the house. And so you did things like that, wash the dishes and take care of the young ones. | 16:22 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Usually there were some younger ones coming along for several years to have eight different ages that the different ones would take care of. Change the diapers, wash the clothes, feed them, or whatever they needed to have done for them. | 16:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have to do much farm work? | 17:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, definitely. That was no problem. I mean that was expected when it was the season. There were times starting early because he would plant corn and some garden items like the last of February, 1st of March and then right on according to the Farmer's Almanac. Have you heard of it? It would tell you when it's good to plant above ground crop so root crops, and so he would go buy it according to the season. But he would start earlier than some people because somehow or another it seemed like everything he would plant just did so well. But then along with it, after you plant it, you had to plow it or I was telling somebody about the flowers you saw and I'm going to have to get out there tomorrow and lift the dirt right around the roots so the air tends to go down and the water that you're going put on will go further down too. | 17:05 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So we worked to lift the dirt around the tobacco plants and cotton. With the cotton, we didn't do as much lifting of the dirt as to thin it. See they'd sow it in a row and you'd have to come along and knock out those extra plants that keep it from developing properly. And corn, sometimes you break off the suckers. And tobacco, now that was an interesting one, because it would always develop these little shoots that would come between the leaves that they didn't want the shoots, see, and you'd have to go pull them out. And if there was any worms—and for some reason some seasons there'd be so many of those worms that would eat the tobacco. And that would make tobacco not valuable if it had holes in it so we had to take the little worms off—with your fingers, by the way. | 17:53 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But we didn't mind because the parents did it and we was just going to do what they did. They didn't eat them up, so they wouldn't eat us up—or the thinking, you know. Yeah, so we worked in the field, picked the cotton, and as I said, oh and they're just so different now. Have you been to the country reaches and watched how they harvest the crops? Where when we were there the peanuts, we'd have 10 acres and you'd plant them and chop them and do all the things, pull the grass out. But over in the fall, you'd plow them and shake the dirt off them and stack them on little stacks about the heights of this table if you turned it up and it would be about this round for them to dry. But now they just plow them up and rake them up and put them in a big truck and carry them on somewhere. So it's so different. But we did all that. | 18:34 |
Karen Ferguson | How much land did you have when you were sharecropping? | 19:22 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I don't remember the acres for the sharecropper but I know right now we are into the home farm seemed to be, I would say about 50 farming acres. But you see out of that industriousness from his grandfather, my father bought other areas when they decided they wanted to sell. So at this point, we hold undivided because we thought that would be better than trying to break it up new pieces and each one having to get somebody to attend to it, 168 acres when he bought. That's the amount he bought. I don't know. | 19:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your parents ever do any public work? | 19:59 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, not that I can remember. I don't know what they did. Oh, my father before he married I think had said something about going over to Portsmouth and that's why he's been from home until, I think that's as far he ever got from home because I don't think he ever went to Washington. My mother finally went to Washington, DC when my oldest sister got her Master's degree at Howard University and they laughed about not traveling because they were so busy taking care of us though and we appreciated it. | 20:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Did you sell anything that you grew other than your cash crops? Did you sell eggs or vegetables? | 20:28 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Sometimes certain vegetables and peaches. He had some fine Alberta, the yellow ones and then they had a white one that was very huge and he would sell those sometimes. And another thing that we had to laugh about is that the way we had many hogs and he knew how to cure the ham such that if we didn't almost hide us some he would have to sell them all. Because the people, if he ever sold one to any of the merchant, they'd say "bring me your ham, James." And he would carry so many we'd say leave these for us so we could have a good taste too. So yeah he would sell the hams especially and the peaches and vegetables. | 20:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your parents divide up the responsibilities on the farm? | 21:22 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Not really. We just all worked in a little group for example, if the tobacco needs chopping everybody get his row and just go and I'd take the first one, the next row, the next one, the next row right on down like that. And mother right along with hers. And sometimes dad didn't need to plow but that's the one thing that he did not feel that girls should plow. The boys had to do that. So sometimes when the girls were chopping and doing things, if some crops needed plowing then the boys would be doing that with him and milking the cow. That was another thing. He said he just didn't feel like a girl needed to strain like that to milk the cow. But he would teach the boys to do it, you see? But the field, he didn't feel like the girls should drive a car so I had to learn to drive after I left home. | 21:28 |
Karen Ferguson | So what were the girls supposed to do then? What were the girls responsibilities? | 22:10 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, like cook in the house. See the boys didn't even learn to cook. You see they cook, and wash, and iron, and do those things that the boys did not do. I think that they had an interesting program on Donahue concerning attitudes about what the woman is supposed to do when she marries this man. You know what her role is. So for us it was kind of sugar well. They cook up for them and all of that. | 22:16 |
Karen Ferguson | You've talked a little bit about this already, but what kind of values did your parents instill in you? | 22:46 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, you see when you use God as your key force in your life, when you accept that, and we have accepted the King James version of the Bible as our guide and I went to her and said that when I did my Master's in Library Science at the Catholic University of America, in many of the courses, all of the courses where you had a list of books that you would use for different purposes, then the Bible was at the head of the list as having the best, what is it, I share advice for all of the human endeavors. So now I know we have this question right now about people changing it and rewriting it and that kind of thing. I guess you might have heard of this Black Jesus movie coming out. | 22:53 |
Karen Ferguson | I haven't heard of it. | 23:46 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But Donahue had that on one day I had heard of it just vaguely maybe on other news and all but Donahue had a whole thing on it one morning, a whole program on it one morning. And they pointed out that for us as Black people, when you talk about segregation, we are going to have to do a whole lot of researching and sharing information. And I believe that for God I actually serve, when you talk about value system just gives you an idea. | 23:47 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Nobody in the world could say it to you but you can just sense if you are alive and a thinker or deep thinker that this has to be right and this is wrong and that kind of thing. To the extent that they were saying that it's unfortunate that in this Bible that we do like and accept that I'm a God, they have made Jesus White when the secular world is concerned about the truth is they term it and they have stated that the first people to show up on the earth were Black in Africa. | 24:16 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And that if Jesus came from Africa in that area, why then was he White? So somebody said it was to play down your value system because if the person said well if my parents took me this church and showed me a picture of Jesus and said, "Well, look at White men." Where if that's what's right and I'm not like that then I'm not right. But we didn't have that thinking about it thank God. The God as we knew him and as they were taught and taught us loved everybody and we loved everybody. See? Of course, now we have sense enough to know when we are not loved or not treated as if we are loved because that was one of the tenets would be, the golden rule. You know what is called the golden rule. | 24:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Why? | 25:34 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I said do you know what it states to do to others what you want them to do to you. Now, that can't be beat, can it. | 25:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-mm. | 25:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Because there wouldn't be any killing, any cheating in the stores, anything wrong if people actually would do what they want, not what the people did to them. We'd be out here, killing and carrying on like mad if we did what the people did to us as a group. Because you know how they lynched people and all of that. And then they said in the long run they do things to put it on people and then later on the force that we served would make them confess that one of them did it but they wouldn't agree or wouldn't tell the truth at that point and then later on they couldn't die at peace without telling the truth about it. And that's something to think about, isn't it? | 25:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 26:18 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So that shows you the strength of the philosophy we had because as I said, we firmly believe that this force, God, was so just. And just like my daddy when he was on that sharecroppers farm, well as I said, he was just ready to do his very best and he had good crops. He must have had mighty good ones because when he looked this man in the face, that owner of the land, and told him one day when he sold his tobacco, my daddy had gone down to the little town and asked the different other people who were selling the high tobacco was selling. Because they did what's called first, second, and third grades and they had given him prices for all of them and he had such good first grade, he had expected like $500 or $600. The man came back with two or three dollars. | 26:19 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But he see how they do you, he came up like this and said "You're such a good worker. I'll carry it, I know you don't want to miss a day off the field." Said "I carry it to save your day." So daddy said "That's mighty good, but I grew tobacco, I don't mind taking it." But anyway, when the man came back and did not give him what he expected, he said it all came out. He said he couldn't have planned it that morning to save his life. But he said what came out of his mouth? "Well, the next thing I grow on this land, I'll see sold if it's sold in hell." Said the man turned around had never did go back to ask him any question. He didn't even have to be in the office when he carried the share that he would give him fairly and he stayed down there I guess until I was about six years old when we left. | 27:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So that means the older ones were a little older and that's when he bought his land and left 'cause he was able to do that. But now if he had not had that deep insight, which we give God the credit for, then we probably would be like most of them. You would be surprised, at the time I went to college, I don't believe any other children right in our area had ever gone to college or even finished high school for that matter because they were doing that sharecropping and the people wouldn't let them go to school. They had to work. But that's one thing that I wanted to say. We did not stay home to work the fields in the spring and all. We'd get up early and go replant the peanuts. | 27:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | By the way, that was another thing when you plant the peanuts and some of them would not come up, then you would take a little stick and make a hole and put extra ones where there were none and we'd get up and do that kind of work and then come back to the house, eat the breakfast, take our bath, and put on our school clothes, go to school, come back home, take a snack, go back to the field and stay until dark and worked on Saturdays by the way. | 28:18 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And some of the children walking past this road when we would be picking cotton or doing something near the road in those fields, they kind of teased. "Going to town today?" Because that's what the sharecroppers would do. They'd let them go to town each Saturdays but they'd them stay home from school and work during the week. "Oh no, we aren't going today." But do you realize, I mean I would like to tell you that by the time we had finished college and gone off and married and we had gone home for some occasions when we ran into some of the boys and girls that grew up with us and they actually said, "We wish we were you." So you see if parents or people could have insight to do that, which is good, it will pay to the extent that even those who have I said any fairness or justice or anything would accept the fact that was good enough to want to be, you see. | 28:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 29:26 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And so we praise the Lord for that and we give him full credit. We don't take it braggadociously. Because right now someone just said to me, "I was glad you could take me today. I'm head over heel with this neighborhood matching grants fund." Have you heard about anybody mention that to you? Well, our Charlotte city council has recently set aside six $150,000 for the poor communities to upgrade their communities. But the poor communities would have to sit down and do the plan. Now, what any old person who has not been to high school or college can write up a proposal and do that or want to even tackle it? So knowing the situation and why so many of them did not have the experience, of course, I find myself into almost too much. | 29:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But then I somehow managed to live and keep going. So I keep doing and it's a joy, it's a kind of special reward that you cannot buy and what's so good about it, nobody can take it from you and nobody gives it to you. You have to decide when to do and what you want to do that you think the God wants you to do. | 30:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Where do you think you came by that, your ability and desire to help people who are less fortunate? | 30:33 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I call it a gift from God and nurtured by those Christians, of course, let me tell you about our little country church. Our churches. Because see we went to church in what we call your main church that you a member once a month. But depending on the weather and how far this other church there would be no, I was with third Sunday by the way. And well we'd go to the first Sunday church, the second Sunday church, then the fourth Sunday church and back around to ours you see. But in those churches, they had what was called mother's corner. Old women's corner. I know they were ladies would sit over well that was that fear you had segregation within segregation. But the women would sit on this side and the men would sit across from them in the deacons area. | 30:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | The elders and deacons of the church would sit on their side, the women over here and the front out here was usually young people and all but you could look over there and one of them would smile at you, be good now and you'd just be so proud. She looked at you, smiled at you, you'd sit so tall and listen well and outside when it was over the hugs and kisses and go into now "be sure you study hard at school this week," and this thing and you'd go out, you couldn't do anything else but just be great because there was so much caring for you, so much expectation that you would do good that they wanted you to do good. | 31:28 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And so I would give it that. I know some didn't all take it the same way. So other than that, you would think of a gift I guess from God. Because my daddy would say things like I was named after my father's mother, Sarah Winnie by the way. And he would say I was so much like her and he prayed. She died when he was three months old and so he has said he has tried to dream of what she looked like or see her as a ghost. So since it didn't happen in his life, he said he does not believe in ghosts or dreams because he couldn't see his mother. But he would say, "Oh she's just like my mother." And I feel like he said special prayers for me, of course, which I thank God for because I had prayed that I'd have more than one. | 32:00 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I ended up with only one son because I could sense that, evidently, I know sometimes when we go to visit and at church sometimes different ones would say a thing about look at this cutie, she's pretty, and that one. Stuff that I don't think they need to said. But it didn't bother me. Because you know what, once at first when I was in college and after college and someone said something about how you looked, I said well, you'd be surprised that never crossed my mind when I was growing up, I was just a living soul. | 32:51 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | It can be done, but some people will use it to the detriment of some people or disadvantage. And some people be worried about what they look like because they're talking so much about this fat and all of that. And they're saying very much about you know who you are and if you can find any good for being it comes out of dealing with caring for and working with others. You know, you cannot live in the world alone and find any kind of inner peace because if you know the word, the Bible. | 33:21 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I teach a Sunday school class at junior high school Sunday school class? And one day they talked about how after God had made all the animals and told Adam to name them, it just came, a thought came. Now these animals cannot talk to Adam. He needs a living soul that he can communicate with to lift his spirit. And also that's why God made women according to that explanation now. Take it for what it's worth. (laughs) But I just said he had a plan normally, but that could be acceptable if you want to. | 33:49 |
Karen Ferguson | And when you were at home, who made the decisions in your family? | 34:23 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | They seemed to be made together but I just somehow feel my father was a little stronger in the decision making because out of that time it seemed that women kind of looked up to me. And because I tell you this was when I got ready to get married, I had an old aunt said to me, "Now I want you to make a good—go up there and say now." And said, "Now call your husband Mr. Ballard." And they kind of worshiped them in that. So I guess he kind of lead with it. But I tell you one thing, if you would go to either one and said, "May I do so and so." If the answer was no, the answer no, you didn't go to the other one to say well I'll get her to say yes or him to say yes when the other one didn't because they seem to have been just so meshed in their thinking of rearing nothing. | 34:28 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | That's the thing I wish we had more now with the younger children that I'm observing because I told you I taught 40 years and I had said several times when they were talking about problem with children now. I wish we could close the schools for the children a year or two and let all the parents come and learn how to be good parents and we wouldn't have any problem with the children. I feel. Because I think you know the philosophy of human experience, the value of experience and the experiment. Did you do the research of that where they said if a child was born and put in a bathroom with a monkey, he'd act like a monkey if he didn't see anything else. | 35:14 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So you see how valuable experience and example for children. Those things are very valuable to children, and right now with this world being what it is if we could anyway just come together, any one person could get the people saying, "Look adults, we have sinned. We are going to have to make a fifth thing and live this good life before the children we'd win them back and until we do that we have lost them." | 35:48 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | We really have. Because honestly, I have seen cases where children are acting just like their parents but you can't tell them because the Bible said like father, like son, like mother, like daughter. And it seemed to be a truth if you take a minute, a tough time, if you're concerned enough to just watch the happenings and pay close attention. Some people see and don't see. But if you are thinking about as you see the things happening and you're thinking about reason for and why an outcome, you can sense it. | 36:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember, it's obvious that your family was very important to you as an example. | 36:47 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 36:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there any other adults who were your role models and who you took an example from? | 36:54 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I don't guess I would say anyone, but I thought I told you about that whole role of old people who would smile at you and speak kindly and you could see the love just coming out of you. I can remember the teachers, we just respected them because they were fair in my experiences. Because now I know right now teaching those 40 years, after a while I turned, I said teacher librarian. And then when the classroom teacher would bring their children to the media center, I've seen so many of them just be so unfair to the children. I guess they got up on the wrong side of the bed that did something. But a child may not know much about something but they can sense somehow fairness. See. So we disrespected our teacher because I don't have any example when I didn't think the teacher was fair to me. | 37:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And then some would go out of their way to tell you little things that maybe your mothers hadn't gotten around to tell you and you just liked that. See? So I just put the whole slew of teachers in there. But in the community and that, well back then preachers were different from what they are now. You know, you sat there and you looked up at the preacher, you just thought that man of God is someone great. | 37:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | That's what you were hoping I guess and expecting. But I have to say, unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. And it's so sad that just like the Jim Baker and I know we could talk forever on that. I mean I prayed so much before because I could have gotten very much involved in that to the disadvantage of the children. Because one of the teachers on the faculty where I was when he really came into Charlotte would go in the morning and have that breakfast and all that time she said, "You're such a Christian, come on join." | 38:17 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I said, "Oh, I don't think I need to leave the children," "The principal wouldn't mind," she said. I said, "Wait a minute, but I have a responsibility." And that was God again I guess guided me away from it. Because if I gotten all involved in giving all the money that some of these people gave and everything, I guess he would stay longer than he was going to stay because if I had anything to do with it, because when I stopped to think about that thing, that is a hard thing to have to accept as a reality. But it did happen. | 38:45 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So then you started looking around that particular, shortly after that so many in the local churches started doing silly things, getting caught with other men and women, and spending their money, and buying their own property with church money, and just all kinds of things went wrong. So we as adults are going to have to straighten our act and we want to save the world. | 39:12 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I mean just straighten it right up and do that golden rule. And let me speak to truth. There's something about this natural truth that not many people want to deal with. See? Just like I said, the lady said what I think is right, it's just as right as what you think. It's not what I think is right as much as what the God reveals to anybody. And even just like I said, a child would come in here and if they could see two of us doing something and one was not right, they could easily say, well that's not right. You know? | 39:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 40:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Because my son, when he went to school the first day in the sixth grade, because he didn't have kindergarten then. We had those little patrols and this patrol was mistreating another child trying to make him do what he shouldn't have according to what he done to the other. And my son said he just stepped and said, "That's not fair. Don't treat him like that." Well he got sent back to school but he justified his doing it to the extent that it was worth his doing it. You see? | 40:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 40:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So you see, they can sense in a bigger or more powerful position person when it's right or not. | 40:28 |
Karen Ferguson | You talked a little bit about the man who owned the farm in which you worked in Hertford County. | 40:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 40:48 |
Karen Ferguson | And you talked about your father's experience with selling his crop. | 40:49 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 40:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember any other experiences like that? Other people having the same similar problems? | 40:54 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, just like I said, being children, adults didn't necessarily just relate those things. And I don't know that when I heard him say that and evidently he was not just telling us he was talking to some adults and being a family when adults came, that was another one of the traditions again. When adults came, normally they'd go in this one room and everybody sit down and they'd talk about what I want to talk about. But I observed it did happen because many of the people had crops that we had and worked larger amounts for that matter and they never seem to have anything. So that gives me to believe what much has been written in the paper. I read where about maybe 10 summers ago, maybe 15, where there was somebody in the House of Representative trying to get a law to have those people that they know were mistreated like that some kind of, what you call it, payback. | 41:00 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Because they do things like if they said they didn't have any money and they were going, what did they call it? Just supply them until the crops came. Then when the crops came, well you didn't quite get out, you owe so much this year, and every year it would get larger and larger and larger. And they never had anything but just the little food that they give them when they go to ask for it. Yeah. So that was a general thing it seems to be for my observation, I can say. | 42:01 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And then from the way different ones are talked, as you know you did talk with them about things, but not specific instances other than that was so direct that we just concluded all the others were doing it evidently. And thank God when we got away from there and he owned his because, that was the difference in our going to school. See we didn't have to answer to the man concerning maybe the children go to school today. See he could make the decision. You go and you come back and you worked when you got back. | 42:26 |
Karen Ferguson | So you remember him being able to control when you went to school and not. | 42:52 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah, the others didn't because they just things like whatever the man's name won't let us go to school. We got to work the fields. | 42:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember playing with White children when you were growing up? | 43:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Not just playing with them. Because that was another thing that when you asked about public work. I don't know what you call, when we finished our crops, we would go over and help other people put in their tobacco or chop their peanuts and do things like that. Well, if they had children, they were out there and that's how we came in contact with them. And some would give you a lunch in the middle of the day and you'd sit, not with the family though, but you'd go up to the house and wash your hands and do that kind of thing kind of among them. But not to just directly play with them. But we did live, and when you talked about when I came to Charlotte and we had all this problem about fair housing and this White flight and everything. Well our house really was between two White people's homes. | 43:10 |
Karen Ferguson | This was in Hertford County? | 43:52 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, the one in Bertie County. | 43:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 43:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. Because in Hertford County now the lady that lived down at the end of that driveway or path was Black. Well basically, cause I think most of those people right around us, I don't know whether the same man owned all the land or what, but I don't think they owned the land. They were just sharecropping like we did or there was a rent. Some of them might have rented, but we were all Black, right in that little area in Hertford County. | 43:56 |
Karen Ferguson | So you didn't really have much contact with White people on a friendly basis. | 44:24 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Not real friendly other than they tried to be. I started to say almost superficially friendly if you were working for them. I want to be real honest about it, but I guess they were as friendly as they knew to be. Now I would actually say that. | 44:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, when was it that you moved from Hertford County? How old were you when you moved from Hertford? | 44:47 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I was six. | 44:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Six years old? | 44:49 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 44:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So when you moved to, what is the county? | 44:51 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Bertie. Okay. And some call it Bertie, but it's B-E-R-T-I-E. | 44:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. Bertie County were you the only Black landowners around? | 45:00 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Now, some of my father, see he bought the widows dower. Some of his cousins and all did own that land, that their father left them because we were really first to own here on the widowers dower. And then when different ones decided to sell, we would buy out theirs. And by that time some of them were moving away and all but we were surrounded by relatives. | 45:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Did any White people ever resent you owning land as Black people? | 45:33 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. Well I tell you what, the man that bought my father's father's share came one day. See back in those days, I was just looking at that map of the property earlier. And for example, if this was a big sweet gum tree that would be called the, what is it, dividing line of boundary mark. And so in order, we felt, that he could ease over one day. My father at the scar of hours has worked for us, said, he just said, "Go walking along the line today." | 45:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | He'd finished the call, "Let's just kind of walk along the line." And he did. And when he got out there, the man had salt all around the tree and salt would kill the trees. And so I think he walked further down, headed around another, all down that line. And so he said, my goodness. And he rushed back and got his shower and everything and moved it and water the roots so it wouldn't get too strong with it or whatever. | 46:14 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But he went over and talked to him and told him not to do it again. Well, it hasn't happened yet again, but he said now there's nothing to it. So y'all watch these lines and all of that because the man wants to move over and if he got two or three feet, then maybe take three or four more and before long they take it that way. Yes. Because one did that to us by the way. | 46:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But see what happened in there, my father inherited some land up about four miles away in a different section and it was mostly timberland, however, and since he just took for granted, everybody felt like he was, he— | 47:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Because there shouldn't be any law that would permit you to take my land, because I didn't go look at it and see you start on it. I mean, anybody. For me to take yours, I can say it that way. See, if you had land, and you think it's all right and you've done what you need, you're paying taxes on it, then why would I want to come take it? Can we stop to answer for her? | 0:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Yes, sure. Okay. | 0:22 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Now what were we saying? | 0:23 |
Karen Ferguson | You were talking about the White people being— | 0:24 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Just going out, taking over the land. Yes. Well, my father being trusting and getting in age and all just hadn't walked up there, but when he got to it and found out it had happened, he went to check downtown, and they said that, "Well, he's had that business there so long, and you can't bother." Some kind of a time span stuff. If a person uses it so long it becomes theirs. | 0:28 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I said, "I'd never try it back on him." If I could find a part he didn't see, I'd go over there and use it and see if we could get it back that way. But see, this is why I sense that those who don't believe in God and realize that, frankly, materials don't mean that much—He's not at peace, he can't be. I don't feel that he is, let me say it that way. That you go on and you struggle with doing all the good things you can do to acquire and be sufficiently fed, sheltered, and clothed is all you need. I mean, look at Howard Hughes for example. About five years before he became a recluse, I read that he was one of the three richest people in the world, not just America. What good did it bring him? When he died, no one could go in the room but his nurse, and she had to wear a mask. | 0:52 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, that might be some history you haven't come up to. You've heard of Howard Hughes, right? Had those 44 cousins, because about five or six that dead. Must have been the 44th cousin was trying to get his share, because there's some law in Texas or wherever he was from, I don't even know the place, said that any cousins that could declare they are cousins could demand a part of their money from inheritance or whatever. | 1:45 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But then you laugh about it, because see, I think this is the problem with America today. I would like to say that, because I was born and raised on American soil, but I cannot accept the capitalistic system as we deal with it. Too many of us, I say we the people, not just Black, White, blue, green. But the point is, so much is put on a dollar until—Many people will, as the Bible says, sell their soul for a mess of porridge, do anything where to get a dollar, whether it's going to mean that much to them long run or not. | 2:10 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | It's just to say I probably touched that many dollars, or I had that many dollars pass through my hand, and they'll do anything wrong. It's sad that people would do that. Because I remember, oh, about 20 years ago, Belstow had some kind of report. Some of the people, I don't know, they must have had a meeting, somebody they came out and said that Belstow downtown, that is not anymore there by the way, had made $30,000 in credits, and 30,000 cash. 30,000. We're paying the people $29 a week, the people who were cleaning up and doing that. $29 a week. Now, how could that be, with that much money going through there with all those people and all? | 2:49 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But then some people walk around in America and say things when they see those big old antebellum homes and all. "Oh, that's marvelous." I said, "Uh-huh, it represents too much sin." (laughs) It does. | 3:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And I just say, "Well, it's just sad that we have to face it, because—" Let me tell you, being a librarian, Thanksgiving, all the classes want these stories about the Indians and pilgrims and all of that. It would just break my heart so, because those dear Indians helped them survive, showed them how to plant crops, and all those kind of things. And then they did what they did with them, killed them and all, and on top that made that, "Unto these Hills." Have you been out there, in Cherokee? | 3:40 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Honey, I went one evening with the Y, thinking I'm just being cooperative and supporting the program of the Y. I have never been split. The moon was beautiful, and the sky bright and all, so that saved me. Otherwise, I probably would've had gotten up and gone in the bus or somewhere because I could not stand there, as they're bragging about how bad they treated the Indians, and now charging us to see how bad they did it, and many of us buying into it. You see? It's sad. | 4:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Talking a little more about this kind of bad thing, I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about race relations in Bertie County when you were living there. What do you remember? We know a lot about what happened in cities, the Black and White water fountains and that kind of thing. How did that sort of thing express itself in the countryside? | 4:39 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, just like I said, we would go and work for them. They'd talk to you and all that kind of thing, but when it came to having that lunch that some of them would provide for you, you'd have to sit outside on a porch or in the kitchen while they were in the dining room. It was bad weather, but basically I think it was summer, so we could use it in the outdoors on the porch. I'm outside on a porch to eat while they went inside. | 5:02 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Believe it or not, you talk about diseases and things they had back when I was a smaller child, well, I guess all the time that I was down there working this water bucket with a dipper, and they'd always had to drink first. Then after they had drunk water, if we needed carry it to the tobacco barns where you were working and all of that, they'd do the first drinking. Then once you would get a drink, then that was the end of that drinking from that bucket. I guess they carried it back to the house and purified. | 5:24 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But anyway, that's the kind of thing that they'd do. Just like I said, we'd go into the little town. The bus station had a little section for the Black, a little cubby hole, not much of a thing. Then the White had their sections. Like I said, in Bertie, we didn't go to movies and all like that because this religion of ours didn't permit us, which I have found some of the reasons why my parents felt that we should not go. It's better not to ask for trouble so to speak, or be where it could easily happen. So we lived 70 years, I am, did I tell you? | 5:55 |
Karen Ferguson | So they were afraid of you getting into trouble in town from White people. | 6:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 6:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Now did you remember that kind of thing happening to people? | 6:35 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I don't guess when I was talking about the movie and all like that, I know that we had to go in a segregated area. You had to go upstairs, way back to the back of the bus, and go upstairs to go to see the movie you see, which was just in itself degrading. I don't guess anybody challenged them, because it was something about—Let tell you, I have been very concerned about how humble it seems the Black people have been. Because many of them right now would have said things, like during the election, "Let's vote for this person." | 6:38 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, they got it cut out and dried. You know what the White folks want, they going to do anything. That has been too much of an attitude, even up to now in the older ones. Therefore, I thank God for people like you who will try to get some basic truths, and I don't know how you're going to interpret and see it out to say, "Look at this, how wrong this party is, or how good this party is."Just like the strength we got from the grandfather who was willing to say, "All right, I'll die if they catch me running away. I will not be a slave." | 7:17 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Even my father, I said a part of that kind of strength must have come in him when he could look the man in the face and said, "Well, back in the old days, oh shoot, they'd kill you and think nothing of it." We've heard of so many lynchings because a Black person would ask for his rights or challenge his land on or whatever. | 7:48 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | They'd just go on off and kill you, is what they said. I didn't ever see one happen right around us, because like I said, by the time I got six years old in Bertie County, they were relatives who had inherited that land and were somehow holding on to it enough that it wasn't right close up. I didn't just hear her being treated like that, but they are the tales that grandparents would tell, the great grandparents and all would tell us when they had us sitting around talking. Yeah, they'd just kill them like flies, and think nothing of it. | 8:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember—I know you said you don't remember any lynchings yourself, but do you remember people getting into trouble with the police, or with vigilante groups because they had— | 8:35 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, not during my time in that area, because as I said here again, I feel like the people were so afraid to even ask for their rights. That's what it seemed. That's the way I'd explain it. See, they had just bought into or accepted "There's nothing I can do, so we're going to be good guys to keep from getting in trouble." | 8:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you accept it? | 9:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Like I said, I don't know that I called myself accepting it, because what I accepted was my father's guidance, and mother's. My family, my parents' guidance. I can't remember ever—Because we went to do the work for the White folk, and we worked hard just like it was our fields and all of that and everything. I can remember working all day for 25 cents in the tobacco field in the heat and all, but that's what they were paying. See, we didn't get the 25 cents. If they handed it to us, we handed it to our parents when we got home. So we were just following our parents' guidance. | 9:08 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Now, when did I first meet up with or confront anything like that? I remember when I was working on my master's in Washington DC in the 60s, I did enter one of those marches. I knew I had been led to stop and think about it. Now, when I was here though, when I first moved here in '52, we had problems just like when we tried to find a place to live. We were told, "That is the only place Black folk can buy a home, Druid Hills community." Then when I decided to—It's coming now. | 9:49 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | When I decided to get a blueprint and try to have a home that I felt like from looking in magazines and all I would enjoy, I asked for Formica in that kitchen there, and the contractor said, "We do not put that out there." I said, "You have to know what Formica is? They do sell it, don't they?" See, these are the ways I think God awards you in the brain, like He did my father. It just came out. I said, "You know what Formica is?" And I guess I shouted. "Oh yeah, I know what it is." I said "They sell it, well, I'm paying for it. Bring it please." | 10:20 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And we got it. Then when we renovated—See, these were very small homes when we bought them—This one that you see has been renovated twice at least. But anyway, I asked for ceramic tile in my bathroom, and—Really, what is it? The ceramic tub. So I told the contractor, and I see about the truth that's coming out of everything. There's some good and bad in everybody, because this was a White contractor, but his workers decided that they were going to bring the wrong thing, and we didn't need a nice, heavy, solid tub. | 10:51 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So they brought it and put it in, but then when I said to the contractor, I said, "This is not what I told you I wanted." He said, "It can't be in there." He said, "Do you mean it's not what you asked for?" And I said, "No, come look." He just came right out and said "Take it out now." So we ended up with some quality. Again, I give God the credit giving us faith enough to appear just—You can't appear that, but being, I mean, be just enough for it to show. That's the term I want to say. If you are living from within, and you are thorough, and you're dealing with the natural truths what I'd like to keep going back, somehow it works for you as you work with it. | 11:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | That is what will save the human race, because it seems we are headed away. I mean, to extent we might become extinct because of the killing and all we're doing because nobody trusts anybody, nobody values anybody. They shoot you down like a fly and think nothing of it. I think some of them have come to some because they have had so much down on this, they just didn't get lucky or blessed or whatever turn you want to use. | 12:02 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But then unfortunately, many people who have been blessed have not helped them enough. I guess that's why sometimes I might overdo, but I ask God to give us strength, and He has up to now. So I don't call it overdoing, but there are many things that I know others ought to be helping me get done with people that just will not bother. But then, that doesn't stop me, because the amount of joy keeps growing and growing as one knows one is doing that which is good. I call that the ultimate reason for having passed this way, having lived difficult. | 12:29 |
Karen Ferguson | You said that your parents, that they didn't let you go to the movies partly for religious reasons, partly because they wanted to make sure that you didn't get any into any trouble. Do you ever remember your parents teaching you about how to behave around White people in order to stay safe? | 13:01 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I cannot. I don't remember their saying anything. Because you know what? See, for me, and for them evidently, children just respected adults. See, so it was taken care of. The ones we went to work for and all were dove. So we respected the Black dove. So we didn't have any just White, Black kind of thing. There was nothing, I can't remember anything being said to me in that area. But I do know it did exist, that many were experiencing some things that they didn't need to because they were Black, and things like that. Because now as you say about the White and Black water fountains we had, if you went to the courthouse, well, you couldn't drink the water with the Whites. I told you about the bus stations, how you had different rooms and things like that. So we knew it existed, but I think the way we got through it was that we were just basically God-fearing people, and respected everybody that we thought we should. | 13:20 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Basically, as I said, for us as children, it was any adult. I cannot remember other than he's telling that story. I can't remember him telling it as teaching this and us, but I can remember when they would sit around the fire, because they had one big potbelly fire the room and that was where you sat until time to go to bed. When the neighbors or relatives would come, we'd all sit around and just share not only any kind of experiences, but these little ghost stories and things they entertain you with. So that's how that came out. That was some kind of an embedded lesson. I never heard him say that but once. See, it wasn't like he kept repeating and said "Remember." And the man's name was Basnight. Have you heard anybody with that name. B-A-S, I believe, N-I-G-H-T, in Hoskins, North Carolina, was the seat where his office and things were, I think. But see, that's just a little, wasn't too far from Bertie County. | 14:21 |
Karen Ferguson | You said you had eight brothers and sisters. | 15:20 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Three brothers and five girls. | 15:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Five girls. Did they leave home at a certain—Who was the first person to leave home of your brothers and sisters? | 15:30 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | In the order we were born, yes. | 15:37 |
Karen Ferguson | And where did they go? | 15:40 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | To college. | 15:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, they all went to college. That's right, I'm sorry. | 15:41 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah, to college, other than the one who made the army his career. It was after high school that he did that. For example, the leaving the home thing—All right. We were there until right on through high school. Now, as one finished high school, however—Other than this one, when I finished high school, I had caught the older sister. It was right after that Depression time, and they felt they couldn't send two, because the oldest girl had just come out of college. So they had this family discussion. Which one should stay? Should it be the one with the stronger mind to go, that the other one may not do well, or should it—So we came up sending her. So I did stay home one year between my high school graduation and going to college. | 15:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there ever any question of people staying home and farming and taking over the farm from your father. | 16:28 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, no. That just didn't—Because luckily, he was of good health, and all of us had finished college before he became too sick to tend the farm. At that point, I had one of the brothers who went to Shaw and did his basic college work and added the BD degree for the ministry. He was in that area, and he kind of supervised it, but he hired other people to work at the farm when daddy could not. But no one did. I wish so now, maybe we'd have somebody take care of it now. We are hiring somebody to work it now, because neither of the boys, or girls for that matter, accepted to work it or manage it, you see. So we are kind of at a loss there. | 16:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you describe the house that you lived in in Bertie County? | 17:15 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | In Bertie. All right. It was a two story house with a stair where you get to and a fire place on the end. The fire place just was on both levels. The living room area and the bedroom upstairs were facing the fire, but the other side had this pipe with the heater going through it. Now, after you had those major two rooms, or four rooms they were, because both down and up, then they had an L with a bedroom, a dining room, and a kitchen. That was the house. | 17:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your family build the house, or was it there when you bought— | 17:48 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | It was there. It was there. I think it was the one that the widow lived in that he bought, but it burned now. Huh. We had to build a house in its place, which was right—Well, it had the two stories. See, this other house then was like seven rooms, but I know the one my father built after that one burned was 10 rooms, because I know he had extra rooms. He said he wanted all of us to be able to bring our families and come on occasions like Christmas if we wanted to. So that's what that was. What I liked so much about that place, they had about 10 large cedar trees, such lovely shade. We didn't have to worry about air conditioning. The way the house was constructed, it seemed like if I opened that door, it's not having any effect if I opened those windows. | 17:51 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But you'd open the dining room windows and the doors, and it seemed like air would just go through so that you didn't need air conditioning. It was just so comfortable. Because you know what they did with the cows? They had what was called a little dairy house, just a little house up on legs under the tree, and the shade kept the milk cool. Because they didn't have ice coming in regularly and all of that. They finally got what they called an ice box where you could buy a chunk of ice and put in it, but they didn't do that often enough. So they had the dairy house that they kept the milk in. They'd set it out there, early in the morning or late at night, and it'd be nice and cool. You'd just go out there and get it and drink it and no one died from it. I guess we'd all have what now. | 18:36 |
Karen Ferguson | I asked you this before, but I wasn't quite clear about it. Were there many Black landowners in Bertie County, other than your family and the cousins who had the— | 19:23 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Inherited that from granddaddy. Not very many. Very few. Most people were living on someone else's land. | 19:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember there being White sharecroppers or White tenant farmers in any other places? | 19:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, a few. Yeah, a few had to, yes. They were not able to own the land, and it seemed that some one or two of them would just seemed to have just such large farms, so that there's hardly any left for anybody that grew up there or anything like that because the big farmers had it all. | 19:50 |
Karen Ferguson | The White tenants or the White sharecroppers, were they better off than the Black tenants? | 20:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I just couldn't say, because we didn't go visit them, and they didn't come to visit us. We were there, we'd go to the door and say "We are here to work," and we'd go into the fields, and we couldn't tell. But I know some of those who owned the land, they had very fine homes. | 20:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Are there any happy or sad memories of childhood things that you remember particularly that you'd like to tell me? | 20:35 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, goodness. Let me think. We enjoyed Christmas very much. You know how they did it though, then. You'd be surprised it was so simple, because we didn't always get toys and all of that. Just some extra fruit or some clothes to wear, but it was just an excitement, the wonder what Santa would leave this time. I liked that a great deal, but basically—I would say that there was nothing said, because the philosophy just didn't permit you to have to worry about anything or feel sad if somebody passed. We were told that's God's will. Nobody's going to live forever, and momentarily we miss Jane or whomever, but it wasn't like any special sad thing. I'm trying to think. I can't think of any very sad thing right now. I'm just trying to see. | 20:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I know one time there was a tornado that was excitable, because they took us in the car and carried us way about 10 miles to see what a tornado would do. That was kind of excitable, but not necessarily sad, because again, it seemed that everything was so God-based that you'd just kind of take it in stride. I guess the saddest thing was when I couldn't go to college the year I finished high school. | 21:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I can remember crying a few tears wishing I could go, but then again, about the mysteries of life, I'm so glad I did stay home, because that sister, even though she finally finished, she didn't finish at the time she was expected to. If I had gone, I can sense that she might have said, "Look, you know that's because you sent her prayers." So that has given me a kind of peace, that I was strong enough to be at peace not going, so she would have an opportunity to do whatever it was that was for her to do. I would not be considered the stakeholder blamed for anything she didn't accomplish. | 22:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Maybe we can talk a little bit about school. | 22:50 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 22:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you first go to school? | 22:53 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | In Hertford County. | 22:56 |
Karen Ferguson | What school was that? Do you remember the name? | 22:58 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I could not remember the name. It's something. Because like I said, we started I guess that September sometime. Maybe not, maybe November. Because sometimes, those schools back in those days didn't start like these do. But I know that's how I got promoted, because when we moved over to Bertie County, I think it was like January or so, I just had been there a little while. They just put me in the class with the other sister. I know that was the first school I went to at six years old, or part of six years because I hadn't gotten to seven until October, was called Sam Chapel. But that one was in Bertie County, you see. But in Hertford County, I cannot remember the name of that little school. | 23:00 |
Karen Ferguson | So in Bertie County you went to, was it actually a church that you attended school in? Sam Chapel? | 23:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, it was just the name of a building, a small building that was really built for school. But they called it that, that's what the name of it is. | 23:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you attend school for the entire school year, or was it— | 23:59 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, well when I was going, we would go as far as the school year. So like I said, sometimes it seemed that those school terms were something like just seven months. It wasn't nine months at all like that, depending on I guess when somebody, the school board person in charge decided we'd start school this year and that kind of thing. But we would go all of the time that they were open, you see. But I can remember that when I finished college and went back, I did some summer. They had split sessions, you know how things change over time, and they would open school like the last of July and let the children go through August because they had to get out in September to harvest the crops. | 24:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, but that didn't happen— | 24:41 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Not when I was going. Yeah, that happened afterwards. | 24:42 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you like and dislike about school? | 24:49 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I just enjoyed so much being with the people, being with the children we knew, because then we had what was called recess. You go in and you study and do that kind of thing, then you go out and play all around on a campus and you'd just be so glad to be with those that had come from other places that you hadn't seen for several days or weeks or something, because they live right close to you. We'd play games and enjoy the children. Said nothing about the—We had a special joy in learning, because it seemed like if the teacher said do it, it was something special. As I said, they were good people because they would say, "Oh, that's just done so well." You feel so good that you had done what she wanted you to do. Well in this case, most of mine was shes until we got to high school. I just enjoyed the learning and the people, the children. | 24:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you ever disciplined by your teachers? | 25:39 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah, I said if we were, we got one—I remember one something, I can't remember what it was. Was it chewing chewing gum or something like that? The teacher had to punish me. Of course, she got in touch with my parents right away, and I got that second punishment, yes I did, at home. Which I can thank God for now, because like I said, I can't conceive of why I happened to have it in my mouth at that time. Maybe it was right after recess or something, being so excited and all like that. But anyway, yeah, I did get disciplined enough to get that second one at home. | 25:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your teachers ever play favorites? | 26:19 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | While I was teaching? | 26:22 |
Karen Ferguson | While you were in school. | 26:24 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Not that I was aware. See, if it happened, it happened such that I was not aware, and it could be that it didn't matter with me because I was so busy doing what I thought was right, and I was so busy trusting the teachers. She could have been playing favorites. Well, I tell you, but when it got to my oldest sister, who evidently—Yeah, she finished college before it was time for us to go in, I think is when that was. But anyway, she was very smart, and we always said the smartest one in the family because she just read, did all kind of things and new things. | 26:25 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | She was supposedly valedictorian of her class, it came out. But then the person in charge of that senior class that year decided she wanted another girl to be, so she assigned it to her. Now, when my sister went to her to tell her that she was unhappy about it, whatever, she said, "Well, you just have to grin and bear it." That's what that person said, the teacher in charge. But to show you about this God we serve, that child that was assigned valedictorian of the class had signed up to go to Shaw University, had been accepted and everything, but when she heard my daddy was sending my sister, do you know she withdrew and went somewhere else? That's evidence enough, isn't it? | 27:00 |
Karen Ferguson | So why do you think that the teacher wanted another person to be valedictorian? | 27:42 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I'll tell you this, some of us don't want to deal with it, but she was fair. One of those Ebony called, you know, White Negroes. Did you read the article on Ebony back in—Well, it's been so long ago. They had a thousand or 10,000, and all of the pictures they showed look Whiter than you do, but because they had that speck of blood—I don't know. Have you done anything about the determination of races and things like that? | 27:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 28:14 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | If they had that one drop or something, then they were Black. So she was one of those. | 28:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Did that happen in other situations in your life, where the lighter skin Blacks got things or were favored? | 28:21 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, that's the only one. That's the only one I can remember, that I can really remember. Just like I said now, I'm trying to think. Because at Shaw, I don't remember anything like that. But I tell you, at Shaw now what happened was that there was one out of Ahoskie, North Carolina, and that's known for its mullatoes, that's the term they use, who would go in Montaldo's. | 28:30 |
Karen Ferguson | In what? | 28:53 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Montaldo's. They had a Montaldo's in Raleigh back then. | 28:59 |
Karen Ferguson | What's Montaldo's? | 29:01 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | That's just a fine, very expensive woman's apparel shop, where she would go in there and pose for White, and buy those Black students anything they want if they were her size. So the teachers didn't do it at Shaw, that was all around the campus. "You want something, ask Martha." Her name was Martha, what's her last name? But anyway, I know her first name was Martha. "Ask Martha if you want so-and-so." So we'd go window shopping and see something pretty, say "Just tell Martha to get it for you." | 29:02 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But the teacher didn't do it, not that I knew of. Now, they could have done it, because I'll admit to being—I would say if I get very hurt in life, and usually it's just momentarily, it's because when I meet a new person, any person, I give that person a full range of being the best person that can exist. I treat the person like that, just like I would be treated. The golden rule I apply. So then people could easily get by, but you're not even expecting it or thinking about it because you weren't dealing with that kind of thing. You had not done it, so you didn't expect them to do it. So probably got by when you weren't aware. I can't remember. | 29:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Well, just going back to this Montaldo's incident, I just wanted to clear something up. Were you not allowed to go into stores like that to shop? | 30:13 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh no, that's right now. | 30:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, but back then, could you even go into that store? | 30:21 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, that was it. Because the one here we couldn't go in. They'd tell me.. Now, I moved here in 1952, and prior to that, and maybe right during the first time because I didn't go in because it was so expensive for one thing. But they have told me that Blacks could not go in it either, but now what I did experience this way—The big Belk's department store, they had an Efird's, I think. Not Eckerd, Efird's was another big department store, and Ivey's, had what they call special rooms, like the gray room, or the gold room, where the very expensive clothes were housed, and the Blacks were not permitted to go there to look and see what was available. | 30:26 |
Karen Ferguson | So they could go everywhere else in the store, but not— | 31:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But not in there to get—Some one or two clerks that weren't doing well would say, "I bet I could find somebody to go around the corner and bring it out to you." But then when integration took place in such that they had to hire Black clerks and all, do you know they closed those rooms out completely, and put everything out on the hangers. So yes, there I have experienced it such as that. Just like, "Oh, we couldn't go in S&W Cafeterias in places like that. That was existing at the beginning of integration. | 31:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there any other places that you couldn't go? I know you couldn't go into— sit in restaurants and certain movie theaters. | 31:45 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | The schools. | 31:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Schools, right. Were there any other places that people— | 31:53 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | And colleges, but I guess that's about everything, unless—I'm not so sure about the park. Oh, the swimming pools, wasn't it? | 31:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Were there parks to go to in Charlotte? Black parks, or could you just go to any park? | 32:04 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I'm saying the best I remember, because when I first came I didn't have children, I didn't bother with parks a whole lot. But I think the parks—I know one thing, they even had a cemetery segregated out there on Fifth Street, depending what Fifth Street in Charlotte is, there's that section. So you have about everything. Even now, the churches are still segregated, some of them. | 32:10 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I know we got one that has taken quite a few of the Blacks, and some of the Black people aren't happy, because they feel like if they have something special to offer, they should be offered to their own. Just like this in a marriage and all, now some Black people are very concerned when the ball players and the rich ones go marry the other race, because they say "Well, they should at least keep it in the race." But it's a personal privilege to do what one wants with his life, and so that's where I take it. | 32:34 |
Karen Ferguson | We'll just go back to school, for elementary school. How involved were your parents in your schooling when you were in elementary school? | 33:02 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. Well, they'd tell you to go and listen to the teacher now. I can't remember there just doing too much of the homework or anything. I'm not so sure we had any, because I think the teachers were so busy. I went to school where two teachers taught seven grades. See, one had first, second, third, maybe and fourth. And the other fifth, sixth, seventh. | 33:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you learn any Black history when you were at school? | 33:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I don't know why you call it Black history, because they would tell us things that happened and things—I mean, we didn't have it under the term Black history, and I can't tell you right how I became aware of the fact that—Because I know when I became a librarian, and we were looking for materials to help the children, whenever the person started what is called Black History Week, you remember they started out with just a week now, and when Carter became president I think it's when they decided to have a whole month of it. We looked in an encyclopedia, and we found that you just couldn't find anything, like an outstanding person like Mary McLeod Bethune. They'd have maybe a two-inch run on one of the columns, as much as you could say about that. So that's how I became aware that we do need some more information in print on the real contributions of the Black people in America. | 33:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember having any Black heroes, sort of people who were famous like Mrs. Bethune? | 34:34 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, like I said, as soon as you would read about them, and suddenly you sort of admired them, and you were so happy about what they were doing, I guess you could call them heroes. Because as I said, we had seemed like a goal that was already kind of spelled out through our parents. Because let me tell you, I had something when I retired, when my mother was busy cooking supper some days that we worked a little later in the field and all and daddy would not have anything to do. He put us on his knee and sing, "Daddy's going to educate this baby, he's going to send her to Raleigh school." | 34:42 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Now, Raleigh school at that point didn't mean anything, but it turned out to be Shaw University in Raleigh, because four of us went there. So they had kind of goals set for us, but now just like I said, I can't remember any one person. As soon as I could remember anybody, I guess it came along with the Montgomery situation with King and all those that were really doing a whole lot right here in Charlotte. I'm thinking about Mr. Kelly Alexander and the NAACP. But to me, I don't call them role models because they were just doing what they felt they ought to do. Just saying real role model is just those people around us that taught us to love and be good and that kind of thing. | 35:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you go to high school? | 35:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | To the WS Etheridge High School in Windsor. That's in Bertie County. That was the seat of Bertie County, Windsor. We lived about three miles away from the little town. | 36:00 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of activities were you involved in in high school? | 36:17 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well now, we had field days, you know what it is where people would put on their best talent, whatever it was. I can remember representing the school and they'd take us from Bertie to Elizabeth City for the camp or space and everything. I'd go and recite the long poems like The Raven and Paul Revere's Ride. I did enjoy memorizing poems and saying them. | 36:21 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | That was my greatest talent back then, because see we didn't have a basketball court or anything like that indoors, and outside it seems that just the boys played. The girls didn't play that, but some of them would go participate in bat and baseball then the boys. That was another thing too, the general trend of thought was that boys could do things like that, sports and things that girls were not supposed to do. But anyway, in the spelling bees or what else people do, sing in the choirs and things like that. | 36:46 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do for fun when you were in high school? | 37:19 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, just like I said, we are what? We'd just stand around and talk with each other during that recess and share what we had. There was a store across the street that we could run over to, and believe it or not, we got a whole big old cinema and raisin loaf for 5 cents. Everybody would shared this. If I had it, I'd share it around like that, and just talk and that kind of thing. We didn't have any special activities during that little recess time. It wasn't too long after you ate what you took. Most of us took our lunches in boxes then, so you had a hot lunch program for a while, a long while. Yeah. | 37:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you allowed to go out with boys at all? | 37:58 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | When you became about 16, 17 like that, but not younger. | 38:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you do that? Did you go out with boys? | 38:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | At 16, yes. At that age. | 38:13 |
Karen Ferguson | What were the rules? What rules did your parents set down for that? | 38:13 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, of course you had to get back, I think about dusk I guess. But you know what, when they'd come to see you, they'd have to leave at least by 11:00. So I think more came to us than go out with them, because there was hardly anywhere to go. See, we weren't going to movies, and we see each other at churches. That's one thing we'd enjoy, the boys too enough I guess, at churches, at the revival. | 38:18 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh yeah, our time was so taken I guess with things like the revival meetings that would start 1st of August and go through September, and we'd go around to all the different churches you see, because they would have at least three, four days, and they served dinner on the ground three of the days. You'd go in and have a session, and do the singing and praying and everything, and then you'd come out and have dinner, and that would last about as long as these other sessions, but you would go back and get one before you went home. | 38:39 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | So that's how we communicated. Just like I was telling you, what we really did a whole lot of, well just visit the relatives. There were so many of them. My mother had, there were 11 in her family, then my father's on his side and their families, we almost anytime you wanted to. If you weren't going to visit, they were coming to visit you just to play games. These little whip lashes or hide to [indistinct 00:39:29] or whatever with the cousins would entertain us until—Oh, one thing though, if it did happen when we would not go or they would not come, we'd do things that just have our own little program. | 39:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | One would say his poem or sing his song, and the brother who became a minister, often he just takes a Sears Roebuck catalog and put it on a bench and declare he was preaching to us. We entertained ourselves in those kind of ways. Then as I say, when it was good weather and all, we'd roam through the meadows and pick the strawberries and crocus. I just love the spring when under the leaves there you'd kick it, there's a pretty little purple flower, a yellow one, and you pick it up and carry it home. That kind of just enjoy nature. | 39:41 |
Karen Ferguson | So you finished up at high school, and then you waited a year, and then you went to Shaw. Is that right? | 40:12 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 40:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Now what was that like? Was that a big change for you to move to Raleigh? | 40:19 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | When you say move to Raleigh, I went in the dormitory. It wasn't like living in apartments. | 40:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Was that a big change to live there in the dormitory and city? | 40:30 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, because let me tell you now, I declared unto you, they had the grades and they looked at the grades and they had the records, but by the time I became graduated, I was valedictorian of my class. So I went to Shaw on a.—Would you just unhook the door? Maybe that means— | 40:36 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. So you were talking about going to Shaw. | 40:53 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. See, when I got there, I went on a scholarship. So I had to work it off. They didn't give you cash, they just gave you credit toward a certain number. I think it was $72 for valedictorian. But then to show you how we were so appreciative, and I worked so hard, they asked me to work the next year. I worked all four of my years. Only one of the seven children who went to college to work four of their college years. | 40:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you work? | 41:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I started off in the business office, then I don't know what they promoted, but they asked me to be head receptionist in the dormitory, how you answer the phone and you had to call people, run up there and get through that kind of thing, the other years. | 41:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Were they strict with you in the dormitory? Could you— | 41:46 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, they were very strict, I tell you. But that was good. I mean , I liked it when you stop and think about it now, because then it didn't matter. I hardly had time to do anything, usually because by the time I did my work and did my classwork in the library, and that kind of thing, then we'd do things like our hair and our washing, all those kind of things that I don't think children do that much now. | 41:50 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But anyway, I just didn't seem to have any time to want to do—But some of the children would put up these blinds on the transits where the light would come through, and after they called bedtime tell you put all the lights out, rather than go to bed, they'd black out so the matron wouldn't know what was going on. They'd play cards, and sometimes they'd smoke. The smoke would seep out and then she'd find, but they would be sent home if they called at that counter. They were strict. To go shopping, we had to have a chaperone, certainly the first couple years, I think. Then it was an adult, I believe one of the matrons the first, but then the senior girls could take us at that kind of thing. So yeah, they were strict aplenty. Nothing ever happened to anybody's child up there. | 42:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you belong to a sorority? | 42:59 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No. | 43:00 |
Karen Ferguson | No. Were there sororities? | 43:02 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes, and my first sister who went to Shaw did join the AKA. So when I got there, some of those people who I guess knew she had been, I don't know where she'd been back or how that they knew, but they walked around. You have to finish your freshman year, and the sophomore year they ran to me, "We're ready for you now." I said, "Ready for what?" They wanted me to join the AKAs, but I said "Well now, just give me a good reason for doing it." They could not come up with anything that made sense, because for example, they never said "Because I want you to be happy or be successful or be at peace," or anything. They came up with things like, "Well, if you go to a strange city and say the passwords, you can get certain treatment." I said, "Well, who would I know to give the password?" | 43:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I tell you, some things are just so—You know, I call it not reasonable. Anyway, I said then, "Most of the AKAs are the officers in the different organizations." I said, "Are they qualified?" "Oh, you don't have to worry about that. That just didn't happen." I said "I just can't deal with that kind of thing. I have too much to do." The only thing I've ever joined in my life is church, and I've been happy about it, because you can do any and everything you want to do at any organization, without enjoying church for that matter. Just out of your heart. Deal with people, live with people, help people, why do you have to do all this? Then later on now, I had a cousin that went to A&T that did join, and did my sister there—No, I don't think she did, but I know this cousin said one day, "You're the only one of us had any sense." Because see, time they got out of college, they dropped it. They would be writing to them asking to join in again, all that. | 43:49 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | They said "Shoot, don't bother about that." They said "You're the only one of us had any sense." I just believe in just doing good because it's right to do good, and you don't have to join up with things and all that just to do it. But if there is something, a worth movement or anything, just like I'm very active with the precinct committee to help the people find out what the issues are so they can vote, intelligent things like that. But it is not that you pay a fee and you got to do this and you got to go—Let me tell you about that initiation. One girl went over in a sorority, they had to wash a teacher's car with a toothbrush. You think I was going to pay to do that kind of thing? That made it twice not good. | 44:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you unusual in not joining a sorority? | 45:19 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well see, you had to have a certain average get in anyway. I had the average and all, so evidently I might have been, because so many people—I don't know. Like I thought, so many people feel like you just got to do that peer pressure thing. Even though they're adults, they're still under a certain pressure to just do what somebody expects. See, they don't do the sound beginning thought pattern for themselves, because any style somebody comes out with was one person starting. You could start a style, and if you do it, like my daddy tells a joke—I told you he went to Portsmouth to work, and he came home one windy day, and the wild blew his tie one-sided. Since they knew he was from Portsmouth, he said all the other boys came out the next day with their tie one-sided. I think it was a joke. I hope it was. So some people just thought less about what they do. They just, almost anything anybody says, "Let's do." | 45:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember any of your professors talking about civil rights, or exposing you to new ideas about the ways that Blacks should be treated and that— | 46:23 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | It's an interesting thing. See, I finished college in '45, 1945. Honestly, it just didn't seem it was—They talked of in terms, as I said, of value system. "Be your best, do your best," and that kind of thing. But this business of racism and all of that just didn't seem to surface, at least where I was. Because now I guess at Shaw you see, Shaw University was started by a White man. Did you know the history of that? | 46:35 |
Karen Ferguson | No, I didn't. | 47:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | He was a Northerner, and when he went into Raleigh to do it, and some of the people, the White people that heard about it, they— | 47:07 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | —there was a law in North Carolina legislature that any White person who taught a Black person to read would be killed, would be hanged, so that came out. Now that was just said, I guess, to help us see the value of trying to do good and appreciate Dr. Martin Tupper who founded Shaw University. That was about the limit I can remember because, like I say, I guess I was busy and accepted that was a good thing he did. I was going to show some appreciation through my living and acting, but just discussion since I didn't major in social— | 0:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | See, I majored in science and mathematics and it might have come out some of the social studies classes and things like that. But I can't remember any forums and Vespers, we had was called Vespers and those kind of—chapel. You had to sign in, they check that you were checking in class and all like that. As soon as you got there and heard what the other person was saying. But I cannot remember it being tied in with any just, per se, civil rights or racism, anything like that. It was more culture and things like that. Things to do that were good for you and uplifting. | 0:36 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do after you finished at Shaw? | 1:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I got a job in Burgaw, North Carolina as a science and math teacher. I did teach science and math, four years before I turned librarian. | 1:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 1:17 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Been teaching librarian for a term. | 1:18 |
Karen Ferguson | And then after you finished up there, where did you go? | 1:21 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | From Burgaw all those four years? I went to Fairfield County Training School in Winnsboro, South Carolina, out from Columbia. | 1:25 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you come to Charlotte? | 1:34 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | In 1957 after I left Winnsboro, because I was expecting my son and after he was born in February, it was February 12th of '57, I started working in Charlotte that fall and had worked out there for 30 years. | 1:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you meet your husband? | 1:54 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Here in Charlotte. He was working here. I was working in Burgaw, North Carolina. | 1:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | To show you about this family relationship, excuse me. I had a sister who had married a man who was working here in the school system and he needed to go to summer school that summer. They were renting a house out there on Cedar Avenue. It's not too far from you. I mean, you go down Beatties Ford Road, you know that [indistinct 00:02:20]. But anyway, to keep the household, she had to stay in it, so she couldn't stay by herself with one little girl. She wrote to my mother and asked her if I may stay. Now, I am working and had worked three years away from home. But she wrote to mother and asked her if I may stay with her that summer, and mother said yes. Then she writes me this nice letter, "Mother has said you can stay." | 2:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I said, "well I think about it," to myself, but I was glad to do it so I did. While I was there, again, blessings just come out, I guess. Because, see, I was busy going to Sunday school and church every Sunday morning and playing with the children in the neighborhood and visiting the old people and everything. When I told the people out to leaving they said, "We just going to miss you." They said, "We got to do something special for you. We're going to give you a going away little picnic. Who's your boyfriend?" Ones I thought were interested, one was in the army and the other one was 200 miles away. I said, "Oh, just don't worry about it." They said, "We know a nice young man that we can invite for you as a blind date." I said, "What that matter? Do that." that's how I met him at a wienie roast in July is what I said. | 2:43 |
Karen Ferguson | What was your courtship like? | 3:29 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, it wasn't too long. Unfortunately because see that was July. Yeah, July we married the next June, so it was just in 11 months. And then I was still working in Burgaw, and he lived then in Kannapolis and he was commuting from Kannapolis to Charlotte, you see. I'd come down to visit my sister, we'd see him and that kind of thing in between. Before we knew it, we were just married. Right. And then married. Oh, tomorrow is our 40-what? Nine from 13 — | 3:32 |
Karen Ferguson | 49? You married in 49. | 4:05 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 4:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Minus 13, so 10 would be 39, so then so that's going to be your— | 4:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | See, 40 from 90. 40 from— | 4:12 |
Karen Ferguson | I can't think right now. | 4:17 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Me either. | 4:18 |
Karen Ferguson | You're the math teacher. | 4:24 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | How about that? I went blank. I started saying that while you were thinking, but anyway, it's 40-something years. Like 43 maybe, or 44. Yes. Yeah, that's what it is. 44. Right. | 4:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Well, congratulations. | 4:46 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Thank you. | 4:48 |
Karen Ferguson | What was it like being a teacher? Do you think your experience as a teacher was the same as those teachers that you had as a child? | 4:56 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Some. Because we do learn through experiences, examples and things like that. But I know that in Burgaw, North Carolina, which at that time was a very kind of small place. Of course, I went in with the caring and love that I have for people, and would go to the churches even though one was a Methodist. I lived with a lady. In those days, you room with any citizen that would take a teacher. You didn't have a teacher where any special place for you and you didn't have apartments available, but you take some of the children take now. I live with this lady that was a Methodist and I'd go to her church and then her husband was a Baptist and I'd go to his church, and there again, they were meeting every other Sunday in that little town. You could go to both every time. | 5:07 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I grew to love the people. They loved me back and I just had a good time there. Started little girls club, which they all were so proud about. By the way, in Winnsboro I became a collective news—I didn't call myself well a real reporter or anything like that. But there was no comments about what the Black people were doing down there until I got there to gather up some facts and pay attention to the occasions they were having and write them up and get them into the local paper, "The Herald" every time that they to go out each week and all the people liked that very much. | 5:54 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | If you go out giving concern and love and helping people, it often comes back to you with praise and honor. Because I know when I left Winnsboro, the principal asked me, even though I had my son, he said, "Don't let that stop you. We'll find the best place for a mother and child we can find, if you come back." But then the job came open here and home is the better of the two places, the best of all the places. Yeah. | 6:26 |
Karen Ferguson | This column in the newspaper— | 6:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 6:57 |
Karen Ferguson | —his was in the White newspaper with the? | 6:58 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 7:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Were there certain things you could and could not write about because— | 7:00 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, no. I mean, see that's what I'm saying. I guess what they did, the people, as I said, and I think this really needed to be stressed to a point where many of the people did not even accept those boys that sat down in that store, when they did it, meaning the Black people didn't. Oh, those upstart sparks and all because they were in a mood of just obeying, so to speak, accepting the situation. The things they did was such that by the time I went to the man and told them, we just wanted to let each other know what was happening, encourage each other along the way and that kind of thing. He didn't have any problem because what I took was acceptable, so to speak. You know what I'm talking about, so I didn't have any problem. Uh-uh. | 7:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember any special students whom you helped, especially when you were a teacher in this period? | 7:47 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No. Because they come now and said, "Look, but for what you did, I wouldn't be where I am." Even in Sunday school and at the church, I remember one that finished there recently and she had told her aunt, so her aunt had told the neighbor, the neighbor came and said, "Look, so and so said that she wouldn't have gotten through college without what you did and helping her find herself and be herself and develop self-esteem and all." I just said it just comes back to you, not anyone, any special than the other, just so many of them out there. | 7:57 |
Karen Ferguson | How did you help them? How did you support these children? | 8:29 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, basically, if you go in and you let them see or feel that you really care, if they didn't look happy, you try to find out, encourage them not to be, you wouldn't just be nosy, but you'd say, "You're not maybe looking so happy, perk up," and that kind of thing. And then what I liked so much for the naughty ones, sometimes you could just kind of hug them and say, "Oh come on here, friend, do this or do that for me." Even when you were supposed to and when you weren't for that matter, you could say, "Look, God created you a pretty soul, let's be pretty today." They'd go on and behave. | 8:34 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I call it a extra dose of love and real caring, and I go back to this natural truth where some people don't give enough credit, I think to if it's there, it's felt. I mean, there's so many people who are so phony. I tell you, I think that's the thing I have to laugh about. I hate most a person who feels he's coming over strong being phony. You have seen all the way through and around and about it, and there they are. They seem not to be aware. But it's sad, isn't it? | 9:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. When did you retire from teaching? | 9:48 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | June the 11th, 1987. | 9:51 |
Karen Ferguson | '87. You experienced desegregation in the school system? | 9:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes, I did. Yes. | 9:59 |
Karen Ferguson | We hear a lot about the positive sides of desegregation, but I know that there were a lot of not-so-good things, especially for Black children in that time. Can you talk a little bit about the downside of desegregation? | 10:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I think, as I said, I wasn't one that expected a downside. Because maybe if I can tell you why, like the day we closed school, about May 25 or something like that, at the Druid Hill School right here in our neighborhood and all, there was a little cold water bowl about that large, just cold water. Now, when we having to walk out there about July 20th, that same summer, when they were going to integrate that library was twice the size. Had hot and cold, big water for the work with you pasting stuff and all that kind of stuff. Maps, drawers and things. | 10:21 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | For me, if they didn't just kill them, it was a upside, so that they would have the basic experiences and resources that others had. Being just meet among and being there was an upside for me. I know some of the Black people have said things like, "Well, the White people didn't care if they didn't learn and they wouldn't teach and things like that." But just again, I said, I was just so concerned about having them exposed that somehow that some of us, just like I said, they'd had some Black librarians and physical ed teachers and things like that, would help them sense the need to go on and take advantage. But I'm declaring to you when you had books that were just years behind that wasn't getting the current information, I just didn't look for any downside. | 11:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have the same kind of close relationship with your students as when you were working in a segregated school? | 12:17 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I did, because like I said, every soul who worked with somebody, and if you talk of one colorness, or colorblindness in relationship, honestly it didn't make a difference whether it was anyone. We had some Indians and then when those Chinese came, they didn't always speak. I couldn't understand some of the language as well. But you could see a smile. They would say it well enough, they knew the language enough to see what we could hear. It didn't make any difference. I really did. Parents and children, we'd hug and kissing and learn. If need be, you don't call it scold, but you'd certainly point out that which needed to be corrected in all of them. | 12:25 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Mm-hmm. If that was a downside for anybody, I know you were concerned about race, but one thing about it is, see I was librarian when it really integrated, when it just lifted us from in '70, from one place to another. But many of them pointed out the fact that since some people did not want the Black children, they would not discipline them. They could say, "Look how bad they are." But then the White children acted worse than the Black ones because they thought the Black one was getting by me what they weren't getting by with. It might have been a dime fried as much for one as for the other, in that respect. I can't tell whether a teacher really didn't teach a child or withheld information from them anything like that. Some tend to hold because as I said, as librarian, I did all of the same. | 13:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I was just hoping everybody else would. Now, they said something about the grades went down and all of that. I'm not so sure we had the right testing methods or anything like that to prove whether or not it was really education or more sound or not. Given the fact that, just like I said, about this experience about the monkey. See, many of them didn't have any, even when they were sick, they didn't have background to make them think or want to learn or know certain things when they got there. | 14:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | If the teacher had too many children in the classroom, she couldn't help them. She would need to give them individual attention. When they got to those schools, they were overloaded, they still didn't get individual attention. They were counseling necessarily down, maybe not so much of just integration, but the whole society which they lived in and they are living, just have them get balanced out all of the total national resources so that if you could visualize just on one big earth with no homes or anything like that, I hope you'll get that one. | 14:35 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Everybody was doing the same thing and living in all of that, I believe it would be basically all of them would come up doing the same thing with the same scores and all. That's the way I explain it. I know that right off that some don't agree with me in my race, but I have been just so hopeful that we won't play on that to the extent that we miss the fact that we are in the world together. The sooner we do all we can in being real naturally true, being very true, that we do need to understand each other—What you got? All right. For her? All right. It's for you this time. Want to hit it? | 15:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Is it for me? | 15:53 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 15:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 15:53 |
Karen Ferguson | [INTERRUPTION]. | 15:53 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, no. | 15:59 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. I wanted to ask you, when did you first vote? | 16:00 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | When I was 21. Yeah. On our campus in Raleigh, they set up a registration booth for anybody who would be 21 time it was to vote for that election coming up, whatever it was. We went over, those of us who were interested and registered. That the very first election after I was 21, I was able to vote. | 16:07 |
Karen Ferguson | What year was that, around? Is in the forties? | 16:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, 21 from 70, from 90, let see, 21 plus 70 would give us how many years? We're bad in math today. | 16:27 |
Karen Ferguson | No, no, no. That's all right. But when did you graduate from college? | 16:40 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | '45. | 16:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, so that's close enough. | 16:46 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. | 16:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Were you able to vote in all these different places where you moved to? | 16:47 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes, yes. | 16:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 16:52 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 16:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. There was never any problem going to the registrar? They never gave you any trouble trying to register to vote? | 16:53 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, no, no. | 16:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Yeah, you were talking earlier about Hoover days or the day— | 17:02 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 17:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember anything about Franklin Roosevelt? | 17:08 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, yes. It was right after Hoover that he came to be president to the extent that he came up with some of these programs, wasn't it NRA? | 17:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 17:20 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | (laughs) I had to laugh at that. You know what we tease and said it was? | 17:24 |
Karen Ferguson | What? | 17:26 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | The Negros Ragged Ass—(laughs) | 17:26 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But anyway— | 17:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Because it didn't help? Because it didn't help? | 17:33 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I guess somebody just wanted to be kind of comical with the alphabets that were used or something like that. But I do sense that it helped the whole society, his presidency and how many years he stayed and all of that. Yes, I'm quite familiar with it and how many didn't understand him at first maybe and that kind of thing. But I think he really brought America out of that Great— | 17:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Depression. | 17:59 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | —Depression where everybody was just so poor. | 17:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you know anybody who benefited from any of those alphabets agencies? | 18:04 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No. No. Because just as I said, being in college when I got out, I went on to work and I didn't apply. Then those around me being away from home, if there were those who were available to go out and seek that kind of help. Because with that along, prior to that was when we had that rationing and the people had to get those tickets to buy sugar and things like that. I knew about that because my parents though would go and they say, "This is the day we get so and so and so," and they'd get the tickets they and go get that. But not the special programs that he sponsored. | 18:10 |
Karen Ferguson | How do you think the Second World War, what was its effect on the Black community in North Carolina? | 18:40 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, many of the people got jobs and got more money to handle, and therefore, they could upgrade their living conditions that way. And then I think it's when they started using the Black soldiers better, didn't they? They gave them a different image about themselves and that need to be good citizens and things like that. Yeah. | 18:49 |
Karen Ferguson | When you arrived here in Charlotte, where did you live? | 19:23 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, we really came here because we came out of Kannapolis. When we got married in '49, we lived in Kannapolis until '52. I know that I had lived in Charlotte another summer when this brother that had to go to summer school when I met my husband, well, he needed to go again and his wife went that time, so we lived in an apartment over there in Double Oaks, just a whole apartment for them, for one summer. Yeah. | 19:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Was this land already, were there houses already on this— | 19:59 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh no, no. This one was constructed after we made the contact with the contractors. Yeah, because when I got here, when we moved here in September of '52, tree trunks and all were down in that spot where the flowers are. We couldn't drive on around like we do now. Uh-huh. It seems that the community had been developed down Druid Circle, you came down, Druid Circle to Edison fairly well. But now, that was an awakening of the race relations, bad race relations. Because when some of the people moved in available houses on Edison and down the upper end, they were threatened to be killed and fires were set or something like that I was told. | 20:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 20:51 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 20:51 |
Karen Ferguson | I was talking to a woman this morning who lived on Edison in this house— | 20:52 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah, she said the same thing? You see, but now this house, see, from that point on down to here, this had the prettiest Dogwood trees and everything. I had hoped they'd save more, but I guess, they're more concerned about grading and everything. They didn't leave me any Dogwood trees. But like I said, right after that road there was a big old, like a open section with tree limbs and trees and grass and everything out there until some of us decided to do something about putting flowers, getting the trees removed and all of that. | 20:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Now, my husband is particularly responsible for having the curbing and the regular material on the street, the overlay they called it. But now whether it's tar and gravel, whatever, because when we came it was looked just like plain tar and the grass was growing. You couldn't tell where the yard stopped and the road started. That's how it was. That's how they came out and build these homes and let them be. But he did go get a petition and got the people to pledge to pay that. We had to pay for extra footage around your house to get that curbing and the overlaid street, that was about '67 when that happened. Uh-huh. | 21:28 |
Karen Ferguson | When was your son born? | 22:12 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | '57. | 22:12 |
Karen Ferguson | '57. | 22:13 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | February 12th, '57. Mm-hmm. | 22:15 |
Karen Ferguson | I guess, he was brought up sort of at the tail end of segregation period. | 22:20 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Very much so because I know when, well, he was in this completely segregated elementary school and when he was in seventh grade, he went to William Junior High School, all segregated. Then that following fall they decided to take him to Cochran, and they said they going to bring him back or do something with him. But I know we had several meetings at which time we did ask them to let them, if he came back to William, which they did send him back to William, to go from there to West Charlotte to stay in that community so they wouldn't just be pulled so apart. He was a product of that integration— | 22:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 23:00 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | —effort. | 23:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember having to teach him about segregation? About the White and Black water fountains or anything like that? | 23:01 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I'm sure we had discussions about it, but to the extent that when he was a junior in high school, the school had an effort to do something about this whole integration throughout the nation. To the extent that in one of his little student council meeting, he suggested that a group of children from West Charlotte visited the children in Boston, and talk with them and tell them how it was working here. I remember when we'd be having breakfast, the national TV and the thing would call him and radios and ask how he got the idea of what he was thinking. He said, well, he just felt like if they could look at people who had done it might help. He gave his ideas or whatever he was thinking. I don't say that we—because I was so involved, I guess it kind of rubbed off. | 23:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Because as I said, I was with the precincts, and we'd make those meetings and the Black caucus. We have it what in Charlotte is called the Black Political Caucus and making those meetings to talk about those things. Evidently he just kind of picked up out of it a feeling of what to do, because he has mixed very well with the people as far as I'm concerned. I know there might be some who may not understand me or whatever, but I give them, I guess I see a fair chance in the grocery store and places like that. I enjoy sometimes some of the ladies would talk about the problems they're having with the pricing and everything like that. We can have a good discussion, you see. We just take them and go on. | 23:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right. Well, now maybe we can talk about your church. | 24:35 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 24:45 |
Karen Ferguson | What church did you join when you got to Charlotte? | 24:46 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | First Baptist, and it was called just First Baptist. But then on the paper we weren't aware it was called First Baptist Colored. Then we were out there on Church Street at Independence. When they decided to build a new church and all and everybody was waking up a little bit, I guess, and checking out things. When we got ready to have it chartered as the new church, we could not just say First Baptist because the White First Baptist had recently moved out on Davis, and had gotten that chartered and everything. You couldn't have two churches in the same city with the same name. They decided what to do, and since that was on the west side of town, someone said let's call it First Baptist West. I remember a First Baptist Church West on Oaklawn. Have you seen it? | 24:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Yes, I have. | 25:34 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Have. Yeah. Because I thought you went, but there were some other girls. I know when I saw you, you were not one of those— | 25:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, she was very tall. | 25:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah, that on that was there. Uh-huh. | 25:37 |
Karen Ferguson | That's right. I know that Reverend Humphrey was very active in community affairs here. | 25:48 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 25:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you talk a little bit about in the 1950s how your church and the congregation and the minister were involved in civic, political and social affairs outside of the church? | 25:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I just honestly don't remember anything special. Now, I understand he individually was involved with some things and all, but looked like there was at that time a kind of feeling that the church and politics wouldn't mix, which is what said— | 26:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Wouldn't or would? | 26:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Should not. | 26:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 26:32 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Should not. I even wouldn't have. Therefore, if it should, they wouldn't bother. I can't remember anything, especially anybody did through our church about it. You see. But now more in the recent years, they formed what was called public relations committee or something like that and some more things. Wat is it? Civic concerns or something like that committee, and more things are being done, but not just what you call some of the churches like the King and Montgomery and those churches. No, we didn't get involved like that. | 26:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. When did that change? When did churches start getting involved in civic affairs? | 27:04 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I'm not so sure they are overly involved. Now, they may do something like in our church, I know we give a contribution to Crisis Ministry and the wires as you said, but it seems to be more of a personal matter. Because I know the first time that the pastor did, as I say, acquiesce to a candidate getting up to say something. I think was when—Watt or Gantt, just very recently, because if a candidate goes to our church, he can stand and be recognized as a visitor, not make any comment about running for the office. You see how apart that is. | 27:14 |
Karen Ferguson | What organizations in church did you belong to in the '50s? | 28:01 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, in the '50s, you name it, I was in it, and I had to just drop some. But find out with the Sunday school, the Youth Missions, just mission program and then the division, the Youth Missions and the Board of Christian Education, BTU. | 28:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Why were you so involved? | 28:25 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I just loved helping people. I suppose if you go into a new situation often and show that will do and you care, many of the people there would just kind of pass the book. I have concluded to say, and even though they said flowery things or fancy things to you, make you feel like it was such an honor. But in the long run, so many people would give it to anybody rather than try to help make it work. This said is, I keep saying a whole lot of sad things that happened that I think we have are going to have to deal with to make the world better and we cannot sugarcoat it and play it up and act like it's fine when we know deep down in our hearts and know that God knows, it's just not what it should be. | 28:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Until somebody decides, even at the cost of my life, because if you are living in a state of hell because you're not at peace, you take it and you wondering who's going to catch up with this thing you did wrong with that thing or something. That's not any joy, any real lasting, deep inner peace. If we're going to deal with that and until we can just start being very honest with ourselves and everybody around us and doing the best we can to tell it as we see it. Now, we don't have to be God and swear we are right all the time. But we can certainly say, "This is how," and I honor, this is a factor in my religion, the Holy Spirit, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is the, what is it? Catalyst of the activator of what you think and do if you are honoring God, and if it somehow leads you to have this thought that you need to take this action on, then you do it. If not, you don't. | 29:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Well, maybe we can stop that— | 30:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. Well, it's been a joy to share with you. I hope as I said that it will mean a whole lot to somebody where we can start saying, "All right there is God, a great, just creator, loved everybody and still gives everybody a chance to do something or another, good or bad it's up to the person." Out of that should come a whole lot of good. If we can all stress that that is better than not doing that. | 30:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Well, before we finish, I have to get some biographical information— | 30:36 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 30:43 |
Karen Ferguson | —so that people who are listening to their tape can have a better sense of some of the things that you're talking about. | 30:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 30:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you give me your full name, please? | 30:48 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 30:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Sarah? | 30:54 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 30:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 30:54 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Cherry, if you use a middle name, they said normally we do that you use your maiden name as your middle name. | 30:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 31:02 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Ballard. | 31:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Cherry is your maiden name? | 31:05 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 31:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. What's your zip code here? | 31:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | It is 28206. | 31:09 |
Karen Ferguson | I have the wrong address. What's your number— | 31:13 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | 902. | 31:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. If your name appears in any written material, how would you like it to appear? | 31:25 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | As it is given here? | 31:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Sarah has an H, right? | 31:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 31:39 |
Karen Ferguson | .kay. If you don't mind me asking, could you give me your date of birth? | 31:39 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 31:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 31:48 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | October 23, 1922. | 31:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Where was it that you were born? What county? | 31:51 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Hertford County. I was trying to say Harrisville, some people asked for the city and some the county, but it was a county in the country area, so it wasn't right up in town. For just statement is Bertie County, I mean, Hertford County. | 31:52 |
Karen Ferguson | What's your husband's name? | 32:15 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Gary, G-A-R-Y. | 32:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Right? | 32:18 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 32:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Ballard. Okay. | 32:22 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 32:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you know when he was born? | 32:25 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, he says he's 73, so that must be what? | 32:27 |
Karen Ferguson | You're, okay. 73. That would be 1919? | 32:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 32:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Where was he born? | 32:39 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | In Heath Spring, South Carolina. | 32:42 |
Karen Ferguson | H-E-A-T-H? | 32:45 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 32:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Spring? | 32:47 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 32:48 |
Karen Ferguson | He's a barber? | 32:51 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 32:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What was your mother's name? | 32:53 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Hattie. | 32:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Cherry? | 33:00 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 33:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Did she have a middle name? | 33:01 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Sarah. | 33:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you know when she was born? | 33:08 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I believe it was 1897. | 33:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. When did she die? | 33:12 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | 1981. | 33:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Where was she born? | 33:24 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | In Bertie County. | 33:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Bertie County is B-E-R-T-I-E? | 33:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 33:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What was your father's name? | 33:38 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | James. | 33:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 33:42 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Andrew Cherry. | 33:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you know when he was born? | 33:47 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I guess he must have been 1895. I think he was about two years older than she. Would that make that right? | 33:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Where was he born? | 34:00 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Evidently he was born in Bertie County. Yeah, in that adjoined area. That's where his father lived and all. | 34:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, could you give me the names of your brothers and sisters? | 34:17 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 34:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Starting with the oldest. | 34:30 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. Leonora. | 34:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 34:30 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Cherry. | 34:30 |
Karen Ferguson | You know when she was born? | 34:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | 1919, I believe. | 34:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And then? | 34:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Hattie. | 34:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Cherry? | 34:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 34:51 |
Karen Ferguson | This pen isn't working. | 34:52 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I tell you, they really don't sometimes. Right when you want them to work most, they don't. Ballpoints, you know? | 34:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 34:57 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Mm-hmm. | 35:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Do you know when she was born? | 35:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, they say we came so close. If I'm '22, she might have been '21. | 35:05 |
Karen Ferguson | 1929, and then it's you? | 35:10 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes I'm number three. | 35:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And then after that? | 35:13 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | James Cleveland Cherry. | 35:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you know when he was born? | 35:20 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | He was [indistinct 00:35:23] other there. I'm just going roughly now this— | 35:23 |
Karen Ferguson | That's fine. | 35:25 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. Yeah. Two years from, that's about '24, 1924. | 35:26 |
Karen Ferguson | And then? | 35:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Andrew Jackson Cherry. | 35:31 |
Karen Ferguson | His date of birth? | 35:39 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | The 28th. How's that? They're not less than nine months apart are they? | 35:40 |
Karen Ferguson | No, no. | 35:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. | 35:44 |
Karen Ferguson | And then? | 35:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Roberta. | 35:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 35:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, you know what, when she was a child her name? She's married she's Roberta Bazemore. | 35:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. You can give her married name as well. | 35:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. Bazemore | 35:44 |
Karen Ferguson | B-A? | 35:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Z-E-M-O-R-E. | 35:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Do you know when she was born? | 35:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, like I said, she's next to about James, so about two year span. | 35:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, so then '30? Okay. | 36:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 36:09 |
Karen Ferguson | And then? | 36:11 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Naaman Martin Cherry. | 36:14 |
Karen Ferguson | How do you spell that? N? | 36:16 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | N-A-A-M-A-N. | 36:16 |
Karen Ferguson | N-A-A? | 36:16 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | A-A-M-A-N. | 36:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Cherry? | 36:17 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 36:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Was he born for two years apart as well? | 36:23 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I would say that. They just about came like that. | 36:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 36:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | When you talk about, oh, there's a joke about that in my teal tape. But anyway, they said that in the country they didn't do very much that was, anyway, not much that was more pleasant than sex, so they had a whole lot of children. (laughs). How about that one. | 36:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Who came after Naaman? | 36:38 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Jewrel. | 36:38 |
Karen Ferguson | How do you spell that? | 36:38 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | J-E-W-R-E-L. Now, most people were not write that R in it. J-E-W-R-E-L is the way she spell it. | 36:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Sure. J-E— | 37:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | W. | 37:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 37:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | R-E-L. | 37:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 37:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. | 37:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, I see. Okay. | 37:03 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | She was Cherry Cundiff. She has passed. | 37:04 |
Karen Ferguson | How do you spell that? | 37:08 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | C-U-N-D-I-F-F. | 37:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you know when she died? | 37:12 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | October the first, '91. By the way, Lenora and Hattie and Andrew all have passed. | 37:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 37:25 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 37:25 |
Karen Ferguson | When did Leonora die? | 37:26 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | 1970. | 37:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Was it James that you said? | 37:28 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, Andrew. | 37:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Andrew. | 37:33 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | He died July last year. | 37:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 37:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | That's '92. | 37:37 |
Karen Ferguson | It was those three? | 37:39 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But there's four, Hattie. | 37:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Hattie died. Do you know when she died? | 37:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Ooh. Not that. Yeah, I got it on my calendar. | 37:45 |
Karen Ferguson | That's all right. We can just [indistinct 00:37:48]. | 37:46 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. Uh-huh. | 37:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Is there somebody after Jewrel? | 37:52 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, are there not eight listed? | 37:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, that's right. | 37:57 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. | 37:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Your son's name? | 38:00 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Gary Dean Ballard. | 38:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Dean, D-E-A-N? | 38:04 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 38:05 |
Karen Ferguson | When was he born? | 38:07 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | February 12th, 1957. | 38:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you have any grandchildren? | 38:14 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah, two. He has two. Uh-huh. | 38:15 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. You were born in Hertford County? | 38:22 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 38:23 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you leave there? You said you were six years old? | 38:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 38:31 |
Karen Ferguson | You were born in 1922, so that would be about 1928? | 38:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 38:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And then you moved to Bertie County and you stayed there until you went to Shaw? | 38:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 38:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. When did you go to Shaw? | 38:43 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, it must have been, see if you finish in '40, spring of '45, then you backtrack to about '42? | 38:47 |
Karen Ferguson | '41. | 38:52 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | '41. | 38:52 |
Karen Ferguson | '42? Did you go for three years or four? | 38:54 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Four. | 38:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. '41. | 38:58 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. | 38:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. You were in Raleigh? | 38:59 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But see, it's '42 because see that was the fall. | 39:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 39:12 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | You know how you go past Christmas. | 39:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. | 39:13 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Something. I'll tell you, it's hard to just think that offhand. | 39:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Right. | 39:16 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Now, what was your question? | 39:19 |
Karen Ferguson | From Raleigh, where did you go? | 39:19 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | To Burgaw where I worked in Burgaw, North Carolina. B-U-R-G-A-W. | 39:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Burgaw. | 39:26 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Out from Wilmington, about 20 miles from Wilmington, North Carolina. | 39:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, okay. That was from 1945 until when? | 39:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | '49. | 39:34 |
Karen Ferguson | And then where did you move after that? | 39:34 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | We lived in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Right down the road there. | 39:43 |
Karen Ferguson | You moved from there in '57? | 39:48 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, we moved there '52. We came here in 1952. | 39:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. Oh, okay. All right. Right. And then you've been in Charlotte ever since? | 39:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 39:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. Could you give me the names of the schools in which you worked? | 40:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | All right. The first one was the C.F. Pope School. | 40:10 |
Karen Ferguson | C? | 40:12 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | F. | 40:13 |
Karen Ferguson | F. Pope? | 40:14 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 40:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Pope? | 40:16 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah, P-O-P-E, Pope High School in Burgaw. | 40:16 |
Karen Ferguson | The schools in which you lived, you went yourself. | 40:21 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, I thought you said worked. | 40:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Sorry. I'm sorry. I probably did. | 40:26 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But don't worry. Now, I told you that one down there. Oh, I hate to guess about that one in Hertford County. Okay. I don't know what they call it Harrisville Elementary or what. | 40:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 40:39 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | But it was in that little town or Harrisville. | 40:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Harrisville? | 40:41 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. That's H-A-R-R-I-S-V-I-L-L-E. Harrisville. | 40:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And then where did you go? | 40:51 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | To Stem Chapel Elementary School in Bertie County. | 40:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And then where do you go for high school? | 41:11 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, part of my elementary school was in that union school. | 41:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 41:18 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | It was the WS Etheridge. That's WS Etheridge High School is what they turned it. But it was serving with all the grades in it. | 41:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What grades did you attend there? | 41:27 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | That was 5th through 11. | 41:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. That was in Bertie County as well? | 41:35 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes, yes. That was in the little town of Windsor. Hey, did you hear the news about Windsor the other day? | 41:42 |
Karen Ferguson | That was what you said that's where the people were killed. Now, what happened? Was it— | 41:51 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, they said a guy came out of Philadelphia and said he was fired as a policeman, so he didn't have anything to lose. He just tied him up about seven people and shot three and stabbed four so badly they had to rush them to hospitals. They said one of the ones that was rushed to Greenville Hospital, Greenville, North Carolina, because it has that big center over there, health center and all, has died. You just can't hear there—it's a little way from Charlotte stations and you don't get a whole lot on it. But I have called down there a couple times to see what the people are saying and they're just all shocked and saddened. | 41:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Terrible. | 42:29 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Very terrible. | 42:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Was he from there or— | 42:32 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I don't know whether he was originally from there because you know how those people migrate from the south and go in and everywhere. He might have been born down there or something and all. | 42:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. What degree did you get when you went to Shaw? | 42:42 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | BS. | 42:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right. Have you gone to school—you got a library science degree? | 42:56 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. Master's. | 43:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you get that? | 43:04 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | At The Catholic University of American in Washington, D.C. | 43:05 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you get that? | 43:19 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | 1970. | 43:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. You said your first job was at C.F. Pope High School in— | 43:20 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Burgaw. | 43:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Burgaw, North Carolina. Okay. You worked there from '45 to '49? | 43:31 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 43:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And then when you moved to Kannapolis, where did you work? | 43:37 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Well, I worked with a little church day nursery for one year. | 43:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 43:44 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 43:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. And then where was your next— | 43:45 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Winnsboro, South Carolina, at the Fairfield County Training School is the title they used, Fairfield County Training School. | 43:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Fairfield County? | 43:55 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Training School. | 43:55 |
Karen Ferguson | When was that? Do you remember? | 43:56 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah, from 1950 the fall of 1950 to 1957. I went one day in 1957 because my son was due to be born in March. They had said something about coming back for a day to round out the way they paid you off or something downtown in the State Department. But anyway, that's when I left there. | 43:56 |
Karen Ferguson | You were a science teacher in Burgaw? | 43:56 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 43:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What did you do in Winnsboro at the Fairfield County Training Center? | 43:56 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I served as a teacher librarian, which meant I taught some science classes and spent some periods in the library. | 44:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 44:38 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Mm-hmm. | 44:39 |
Karen Ferguson | And then what school did you go to next after— | 44:39 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Alexander Street and Morgan. See, I came here as a librarian, full-time librarian. She was sending us to two schools back then because the library program hadn't developed so much that you could have one in every school. | 44:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 44:57 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I served at the Alexander Street Elementary School and the Morgan Elementary School for a two-year period. | 44:58 |
Karen Ferguson | That was '57 to '59? | 45:06 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yeah. | 45:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. And then after? | 45:18 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Fairview Elementary School for a full year, one year. | 45:21 |
Karen Ferguson | '59 to '60? | 45:30 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes. | 45:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And then where did you go? | 45:30 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Druid Hills Elementary School from '60 to '70. While there, I served Ada Jenkins along with Druid Hills for two years in Davidson, Ada Jenkins Elementary School in Jenkins. I mean Davidson, North Carolina. Right up the road there. | 45:31 |
Karen Ferguson | And then after that? | 45:56 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | I mean Chantilly Elementary. | 45:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Chantilly Elementary. How long were you there? | 46:01 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | 17 years. | 46:06 |
Karen Ferguson | That was until you— | 46:09 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Retired. | 46:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Retired. | 46:10 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Yes, sir. | 46:11 |
Karen Ferguson | That was in '82, you said? | 46:19 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | No, '87. | 46:19 |
Karen Ferguson | '87. Okay. Sorry. | 46:19 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | That's all right. I guess with all those numbers and days you might easily get it entangled. Uh-huh. | 46:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Have you received any awards or honors or held any offices that you'd like me to list here? | 46:22 |
Sarah Cherry Ballard | Oh, well, let me see. Like at church, I've been a supervisor of the Youth Missions Department and it's called the Superintendent of the Youth Department of the Sunday School. | 46:29 |
Item Info
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