Mildred Pearce interview recording, 1993 June 21
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Karen Ferguson | When do you have to be finished? When do you eat lunch? | 0:01 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We eat lunch right around 12:00 and 12:30 like that. | 0:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, so— | 0:10 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Sometime the man is late bringing the food. So we can't really say definitely what time it would be. | 0:10 |
Karen Ferguson | But if I finish by noon, would that be good, by 12 o'clock? All right. Okay. Mrs. Pearce, I guess what I'll ask you first is if you could tell me where you grew up and maybe tell me a little bit about the community in which you grew up? | 0:17 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well, I grew up in Edgecombe County. That's where I lived all my life, in Edgecombe County. | 0:33 |
Karen Ferguson | What did your parents do for a living? | 0:46 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We farmed. | 0:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there many farms around yours or—? | 0:52 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Yes, all of our neighbors and kinfolks all were farmers. | 0:55 |
Karen Ferguson | So they lived right close to you? | 1:04 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 1:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your parents own their own farm? | 1:13 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No. Kind of like—well, it wasn't a sharecrop, we just worked for somebody else. | 1:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Could you talk a little bit—what was the arrangement there with the landowner? What did you do? | 1:23 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Every day we worked, like this time of year, in tobacco and we chopped cotton. Anything that need to get the grass out of, we chopped it. And sometime we worked the tobacco with a hoe. And then my daddy, he would plow it after we get the grass out. He would plow it so that the crop would grow and look nice. When we got ready to harvest to the crop, we would—and Daddy and some of the other men would prime tobacco. We would go to, what we call a scaffold and loop the tobacco on the stick. And then when we get the scaffold place full, we'll take it out of the racks and put it in the barn so it could be cured. | 1:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And after tobacco was cured, we take it out of the barn and take it back to a building we call a pack house. That's where we would grade the tobacco. And the first beginning of my life that I understood about doing the tobacco, we had a place I reckon my half long as this table and we had different spaces for the tobacco where we graded it. We had the 1st grade, the 2nd grade, then we had the green tobacco and the trash. And each one of these sections of tobacco was a different color of tobacco. The 1st grade we would call it, that was the prettiest. The 2nd grade was a little bit darker than the first grade. And the green, this had a little greenish color to it. We would put that with the rest of tobacco. | 2:42 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And the trash backer was some of it almost as brown as this right here. We just kept it separated. Then we would wrap the little tobacco in a broom and tie it. And after we got enough of it tied, we put it on a stick. Then Daddy would press the tobacco with a presser. We had a press about almost as long as this table and we put tobacco in the presser and we would stand on it to make it straight and flat. And after got all tobaccos done like that, it would take it to the warehouse for it to be sold. So that was one of our main things in making a living was the tobacco. | 3:38 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And we also grew peanuts. We had to shake the peanuts out of the dirt and put them on a stack. And after the peanuts was dried, they had a machine that would get their peanuts off the vine. Then they put the peanuts in a bag and they were taken off to be sold in the bags. | 4:30 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And Daddy also grew corn. And we would take some of the corn sometime to a corn mill and have a grind for meal. At least he grew most everything that we ate except the flour. He would sometime trade in some corn for some flour. | 5:02 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And he raised all our meats, raised chickens, hogs. He also had a cow. We had our own milk and butter. And Mama, she would get a big old jar and put the milk in the jar and when the milk settle to the bottom, the little cream would come to the top of the milk, and she would skim that off and put it in another container and save it for the butter. Then after that, she got enough in that jar, we would shake the butter. We didn't have a churner, we would shake it until the butter got stiff-like. Stiff enough for her to take it out and put it in another container for it to settle real good and be kind of stiff like the butter is today. | 5:24 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Then my daddy would kill hogs and put them in a smokehouse. That's where he kept all his meats that he raised from the hogs. And he had chickens on the yard. When he got ready to use some of the chickens off the yard, he had a little pen, he called a chicken pen. He would catch a couple of chickens and put them in his pen and just fed them corn and water. That way, he could say that he was cleaning the chicken out. Excuse me. Then when he got ready to kill the chicken, just get the chicken out and kill him and dress him and we eat him. | 6:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you—now the livestock and the corn that were growing, was that on your own plot of land? | 7:16 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Right where we lived. | 7:24 |
Karen Ferguson | And the other things you did with the tobacco and so on, how did that work? Were you—did you work on the landowner's land for that? | 7:26 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And he raised a couple little calves one time and killed some of them and also put some of that meat in the smokehouse, let it dry out, and would cut it off and cook the beef and all like that. | 7:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Who did you grow up with when you were in your house? Was it just your mother and your father and your brothers and sisters or was there anyone else? | 8:00 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | That's all mother, father, sisters and brothers. | 8:08 |
Karen Ferguson | How many brothers and sisters did you have? | 8:10 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mother raised—had 10 children. They had seven girls and three boys. | 8:12 |
Karen Ferguson | What was the house that you grew up in like? | 8:21 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Just a plain old plank house, board house. | 8:25 |
Karen Ferguson | How many rooms did it have? | 8:29 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Imma see now, let me kind of count it 'cause it's been a long time. Let's see, we had five bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. | 8:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you spend most of your time in the house, when you were in the house? | 8:53 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | That's when I was young, would just sit around and play and read books. | 8:58 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I think he went to the bathroom. | 9:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember anything about your grandparents? | 9:17 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No more than I remember they were farmers too. | 9:20 |
Karen Ferguson | In Edgecombe County as well? So they weren't living when you were born? | 9:24 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They were living when I was born, but they were getting on up in age. | 9:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember them telling any stories about their childhood too? | 9:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, not really. | 9:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you describe some of the people that lived around your house, other people that were friends of your family, was it a close-knit community? | 9:49 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Very close. | 9:57 |
Karen Ferguson | How so? | 9:58 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We all worked together, help each other in our crop and their farm. We got ours chopping and so forth done first, then we would help them. And if they got theirs done first, they would help us. But we all did our tobacco together. When we got ready to loop it on the stick, the whole farm would go in together cause we would have so much. They would help each other loop the tobacco and help each other. Prime it. Priming it you know is pulling it off the stalk. | 10:00 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And then they would help each other hang it in the tobacco barn, 'cause my daddy's children, the oldest ones was girls, and so the girls had to do the work that the boys would have done if they were bigger. And we would help Daddy hang the tobacco in the barn. We were small but we got on one tier and handed over to him and he would carry it on up in the top of the barn where it was higher. After that, when tobacco was cured out, it was light then and any of us could get up there and take it down off of the tier and hand it down to him so he could pile it on a wagon right there and he put it on the wagon, then we take it back to the building we call the pack house. Then we'd take it off the wagon and pile it and on the corner of the pack house, so they could make room for each place of tobacco that we had to bring back in there. | 10:40 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you start working like that, in the tobacco fields? | 11:42 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | What about how old was I? | 11:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 11:49 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh I think about seven or eight. We help them pass the tobacco to the person that was going to loop it on the stack. | 11:51 |
Karen Ferguson | So did each of these families have their own—? | 12:01 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Excuse me, got a little dry cough this morning. | 12:08 |
Karen Ferguson | I'm sorry. So each family had their own plot of tobacco? | 12:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 12:16 |
Karen Ferguson | So how were you different from sharecroppers? I don't really understand. | 12:17 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh well each family that lived on a farm, it was four families with my parents lived on the same farm, but we were in different homes, houses really. | 12:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 12:38 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And so when we got ready to do whatever needed to be done, like putting into the tobacco or shaking the peanuts, they just help one another do it. | 12:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay, I see. | 12:50 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And in the end of the year, the man that was head of the farm, he would come out and talk with the head of the families like my father and my uncle. He also lived on a farm with us. We lived on a farm together I'd say. And we had a cousin on the same farm. Then I had a brother had got married, in later years, lived on the same farm. So we all just, it was one big family I would say. | 12:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 13:30 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And the man that owned the farm, he would come out sometime once or twice a week to see how we were doing. And when they needed anything they just ask him or tell him what we needed and he would go get it or he would get the money and see to we having it. So the end of the year he would sell it with our people and he would sit down with them and let them see what their crop brought and how much the cotton sold for, how much the tobacco sold for, and the peanuts or whatever. And then they just work it all up together and pay the family off. | 13:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Was he a fair landowner? I know some people had problems with sharecrop— | 14:11 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And he was very good. | 14:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, so did you know people who didn't have as good landowners? | 14:19 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, because I don't ever remember sitting down talking to anybody else about how their affairs were about the crop and stuff. | 14:27 |
Karen Ferguson | So was he a White man? | 14:36 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Uh-huh. | 14:38 |
Karen Ferguson | So all the people you were related to, most of the people who were living on— | 14:42 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | On that same farm. | 14:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you always live on that farm when you were growing up? Did you ever move? | 14:48 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Not until I got married. | 14:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Not until you got married. | 14:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Other than your mother and father, were there any adults who were important to you when you were growing up whom you really admired and looked up to? | 14:57 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I had a sister, the oldest daughter of the family, and I looked up to her because she used to call me her little girl. And my hair was very long when I was growing up and she used to do my hair all the time. And at Christmas time, she would bring me a toy and she would tell me that Santa bought it. So one Christmas she had asked me, she had called herself dating then and she said, I want you to do the living room for me today, because she was expecting company, I just want you to dust some place things. She said, I'll tell Santa to bring you something. | 15:08 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | So I was real happy about that. My mother had a great big bowl, glass bowl, with big old pictures, sits in the middle of the bowl and my sister had bought me a toy and put it down in the bowl, but I didn't know she had it in there. And I was dusting the door and I put my hand down in the bowl, dusting around in the bowl and I struck this little toy and I pull it out. And one of my other sisters told her that I had found that toy. She was so angry with me, said I won't tell Santa Claus to ever bring you anything else. I didn't really mean to find it because I wasn't looking for it. | 15:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, so she had hid it already for you? | 16:40 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Had hid it. | 16:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, for Christmas. Was Christmas a happy time at your house? | 16:43 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Very happy. | 16:49 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do, Christmastime? | 16:50 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well my parents wasn't what you say very well off people, but we weren't the very poorest. We always had plenty to eat and well we had clothes to wear, but they were wasn't expensive clothes. And at Christmastime my daddy mostly would barbecue a hog. My mother would cook a big Brunswick stew, cook cakes and pies, baked sweet potatoes, and oh we just had the works. And we really enjoyed Christmastime and what little toys they could get us. We thought they were the greatest. We just loved those little toys and especially the dolls that Mother was able to get. We would take them little dolls and we would hug them up and oh we just love them to death. And some of the dolls had hair that you could comb. We would comb the little hair and each one of us would share our doll with the other one and we would tease one another saying our baby look the best and all of this. So we just had a good time at Christmastime. | 16:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there any other time of year that you had celebrations? | 18:09 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, 'cause Christmas was the main celebration of the year for us. | 18:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, I suppose being busy with the farm and everything. | 18:22 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Once in a while, our parents, all the parents down at the farm, would get together and just give us a cookout what they call it, Children's day. | 18:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, was this through the church or was it just—? | 18:44 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | That's just through our family. | 18:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, so you're through your family. Did you have—so what would happen at Children's Day? It would be a cookout? | 18:49 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They would cook all kinds of cakes and pies and make big lemonade and cook barbecue and Brunswick stew and chicken and stuff like that. And we would have long tables like these tables on the outside under a big oak tree and that's where we would serve. | 18:59 |
Karen Ferguson | So was this just the part members of your family who were lived on the farm or other people as well? | 19:20 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We invited friends. | 19:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, where did your friends live? Were they close by? | 19:26 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Yes, some of them are, well we lived near the town of Battleboro. | 19:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 19:33 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And some of our friends came from Battleboro, and some of us on the next farm near us, we called the Phillip Farm. The farm that we were living on, we call it the Cali farm because he was the owner of the farm. So that's where they came from. Battleboro and so from different farms around us. | 19:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What did you do when you played when you were growing up? What kinds of games did you play? | 20:02 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We played hopscotch. And we played a game called Fox in the Wall. And we had a lot of little crazy games that we played. Can't even remember most of them now. | 20:15 |
Karen Ferguson | The Fox in the Wall, is that what it was? How did you play that? | 20:33 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We have a little distance I reckon, about from here to the wall over there. And we'll put a line between some standing on this end of the line, some on that end of the line, I would say, "A fox in the wall." And you had to run and get across that line and get over to the other end. Try to beat the difference. These on this side, try to beat them over there. | 20:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 21:07 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Getting across the line. | 21:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you ever play with White children when you were growing up? | 21:11 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I remember one year we lived near, well some White children lived near us, 'cause we always stayed on the farm. But they would come from different places like coming out in the country for a summer, and we would play together. | 21:16 |
Karen Ferguson | And that there was no problem doing that? | 21:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No problems. We had good times together. | 21:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, did that ever—were you ever told you couldn't, maybe later on, that you couldn't play with White children? | 21:42 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, never was told not to play with White children. | 21:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 21:57 |
Karen Ferguson | What do you think some of the values are that your parents instilled in you when you were growing up? | 21:57 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | How to be kind, treat people right. This taught us the right way. | 22:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 22:11 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They would often tell us if we didn't live right or treat each other right, the Devil would get us. | 22:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you believe that? | 22:22 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I sure did. | 22:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Who made decisions in your family? Who was the boss? | 22:27 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Daddy made most of the decisions, but he and my mother always went along together. And when time to go to work, if he said, "Let's go," we went. | 22:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 22:47 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I didn't work very hard on the farm because I was kind of a middle child. Some was older than me, some was younger and I had the privilege of going to school most of the time. | 22:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Did some of your other brothers and sisters not, were they not able to go to school? | 23:03 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They were able to go, but they just stay at home when the work time and help Daddy work. When the days was wet, too wet to chop, or do farm work, they were in school. But I always went to school, whether it was rain or shine. I loved to go to school when I was little. | 23:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Why was that? | 23:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I don't know, I just loved to go. I can remember one day that it was rainy and cold and Daddy didn't have no transportation except a wagon and mule, and I cried 'cause I couldn't get to the place where it was supposed to get on the bus. And he took me on a wagon and brought me all the way to Battleboro so I could go to school. | 23:36 |
Karen Ferguson | So you had a bus to go to school in? | 24:02 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | It was, well not all the time we didn't, it sometimes. For later years when we were 10, 11 on like that, we had a bus. | 24:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Was it provided by the county or—? | 24:17 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 24:21 |
Karen Ferguson | It was? What school did you go to? | 24:25 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | It was just named Battleboro School. | 24:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And how many grades did the school have? | 24:32 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | From primary to 8th. | 24:37 |
Karen Ferguson | 8th grade? | 24:39 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Uh-huh. | 24:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember any of your teachers from school? | 24:42 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Let's see, our principal for years when I was little and couldn't remember, it was a lady, her name was Hosley. I don't remember first name, but last name was Hosley. Then years and years later we got a man principal. His name was Coneggid. | 24:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have some favorite things that you did at school? | 25:15 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Reading mostly, and I liked spelling. | 25:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:25 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I didn't care too much about arithmetic. | 25:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you, now, was the school open all year round? Was it a full school term? Nine months? | 25:32 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 25:39 |
Karen Ferguson | But meant a lot of your brothers and sisters couldn't attend all year, is that right? | 25:40 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | All that, right. | 25:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Would your sisters and brothers ever complain about that? Not being able to go? | 25:50 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Because they knew they had to work, so they just took it for granted and stayed at home without problems and helped to get the work done. | 25:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you think most children attend all year long? | 26:06 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Most of those around me did. | 26:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you ever disciplined by your teachers? | 26:18 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 26:20 |
Karen Ferguson | How did they discipline you? And why? | 26:21 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Sometime they would make us stand in a corner. And you stand in a corner like that with your back to the class, they didn't allow you to turn around and look at the other children. And sometimes would make us stand on one foot. | 26:24 |
Karen Ferguson | For how long? | 26:39 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, about 15 or 20 minutes before they let you sit back down. Sometimes the children be laughing at you and the teacher let you sit down a little earlier. | 26:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Why would they discipline you? | 26:54 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Sometimes we'll be passing licks. If sometime a child be sitting behind you, they pull your hair. If they didn't do that, they tap you on the shoulder. Just something seemed like to get something started. And sometimes we would roll up a piece of paper and chew it and take it and throw it and hit somebody. And if she caught us, she would punish us. Once in a while, she had a little switch, she would sting us with the switch. | 26:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 27:29 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | But most of the punishment was standing in the corner, or standing on one foot. | 27:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Let me see. Did the teachers ever play favorites among the students when you were growing up? | 27:33 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Not to my knowledge. They didn't. | 27:52 |
Karen Ferguson | No. | 27:53 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Seemed like they were nice to all the children. | 27:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have one teacher in particular that you really admired? | 27:57 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm, but I can't remember her name. I really did. | 28:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Why did you like her so much? | 28:05 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Because she was so nice. | 28:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh yeah? How was she nice? | 28:09 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Seemed like the things that I asked her let me do, she let me do it. | 28:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:16 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And sometimes when she got ready to leave out of the class, go to her car to take her books and stuff, I would help her carry her books to the car. | 28:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did she ever come home with you or did your parents ever meet her? | 28:29 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They did like having our parents' night like that, but she never came to the house to stay all night or anything. | 28:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, how involved were your parents in your schooling? | 28:43 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, they were very involved. They would see that whenever—or we call it parents teacher meeting then. When those time came around, they were there to see what the class had did to see what their child had did in school and how their grades were coming along and all. | 28:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Were your parents able to get an education when they were growing up? | 29:16 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Yes, my mother did. | 29:24 |
Karen Ferguson | How far did she get in school? | 29:28 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I think it was 11th grade. | 29:31 |
Karen Ferguson | 11th grade? And where did she go to school? | 29:32 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well, same little Battleboro school, but it wasn't there in the very same spot, because one of the schools got burned down and we had to go to our church for a while till we got somewhere else to go. | 29:39 |
Karen Ferguson | How do you think the way your schooling was different than your parents or your mother's? | 29:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I was more able to go more days than seemed like she was able to go because of the work that they had to do. She had to help with the farming like I did when I grew up. | 30:06 |
Karen Ferguson | And why was your father not able to go to school? | 30:23 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Having to work. | 30:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Was the school, the Battleboro of school that you went to, how many rooms did it have? | 30:28 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I think it was six classrooms I think it was. Yeah, best I can remember, it was six rooms. | 30:44 |
Karen Ferguson | So each grade would have its own room? | 31:04 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 31:11 |
Karen Ferguson | I thought maybe we could go back to your family a little bit more. Who took care of, who was responsible for taking care of the children and for disciplining the children in your family? | 31:14 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | My mother was. Seemed like my daddy didn't really want to punish us like she would. | 31:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 31:32 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I remember one time my two older sisters were passing licks and he asked them to stop and they didn't stop when he asked them to. He'd pull off his cap and hit them a couple of licks with his cap. But we were more like obedient children. We didn't have to get too much punishment. | 31:32 |
Karen Ferguson | How would your mother punish you when she—? | 31:55 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | She would get her a switch and she would sting us good. And sometimes in those years we didn't have grass on our lawn. We just had the natural dirt. We kept it swept clean and we would get some bushes called dogwood and make a brush broom, a yard broom. That's what we would brushing the yard with. And when mother couldn't get to another switch or something, she would break her switch out of that broom. That's what she would whip us with. | 31:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you closer to your mother or your father do you think, when you were growing up? | 32:36 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I don't think I had no difference between them. I loved them both. | 32:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, did you do a lot of things together as a family when you were growing up? | 32:48 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We had nothing unusual. We just mostly sit around and talk and well not really play games like parents do now sometimes. | 32:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you talk a little bit about your mother and father? What kind of people they were? | 33:09 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, they were both good people. They both were church-going people. Well, my mother went to church more than my daddy did. She sung in a choir. She ushered on the usher board. My daddy didn't do those things. He would just—I said a regular church member just a bench member, that's what I call it. He didn't sing in the choir do like Mother did. But he saw to the rest of us getting to church. Most of the time we went, we were on mule and wagon. But we got there. | 33:15 |
Karen Ferguson | How far away was your church? | 34:01 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | About three miles from where we lived. | 34:03 |
Karen Ferguson | And did everybody go to that church that you were around you? | 34:06 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Most of our whole family was belonging to that church. | 34:08 |
Karen Ferguson | What church was that? | 34:11 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well, the First Baptist Church in Battleboro. | 34:14 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, what were the gathering places among the people who lived around where you did? Where would people go to meet each other to talk? | 34:22 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Just to each other's house. | 34:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Just to each other's house. There wasn't a store or anything? | 34:35 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well it was a Brownsville store or big store here in Battleboro and it was M.C Brownsville then. But it's over to—turn over to some of his sons now. And it's not M.C Brownsville now, but most everybody still knew it as M.C Brownsville. We would go up there, especially on a Saturday or Friday evening, and that's where we would gather and talk. | 34:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Where would you gather in the store? Right inside the store? | 35:14 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, he had a big parking lot outside that kind of to the back of the store. And that's where would gather out there in the parking lot. | 35:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So people would just talk? Would they do anything else out there? | 35:26 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, we just talked and most of the time if it was hot we could buy sodas and ice cream and just sit out there and talk. Some part of the yard had long, big benches that you could sit on and we didn't do that. Some of our friends had cars and we would just sit in the car and talk. | 35:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 35:53 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | But most of the time we'd sit on those long benches, especially if they were by the building where we could get in some shade. | 35:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there any places you weren't allowed to go when you were growing up? | 36:05 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | There was some little buildings where people had Piccolos and they would go there and dance. It wasn't what I feel now was a very rough place, but my momma and daddy didn't want us to go there cause some of the people went there, they liked to drink strong drinks. So Momma and Daddy just didn't want us to associate there. | 36:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 36:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | So we didn't go there much unless we slipped. | 36:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember slipping? | 36:39 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Yes. | 36:40 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do when you went to the Piccolo houses? | 36:42 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We would go there and dance, carry on like the rest of them was doing, but we didn't do them strong drinking. 'Cause we know they would find it out if we got home. They used to love to dance. | 36:44 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of music did you dance to? | 37:01 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They had fast music and they had the slow music. So most of the time I danced. I danced with the man that I married. | 37:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, and do you remember any of the singers or the musicians that you were listening to there? | 37:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I sure can't even remember anybody's music. I don't know why I can't because I sure used to dance. | 37:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you ever listen to the blues maybe? | 37:52 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I think that was most of what we danced by was blues. | 37:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, so maybe Bessie Smith? | 37:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I don't know really. | 38:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Did you ever have any live musicians, people who came to the Piccolos and played? | 38:09 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. | 38:14 |
Karen Ferguson | No. Do you ever remember seeing live music when you were growing up? No. | 38:15 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We were allowed to go to the movies once in a while, not often. | 38:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you go to the movies? | 38:30 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | The Buggatea in [indistinct 00:38:31]. | 38:31 |
Karen Ferguson | So that was a Black theater? Black cinema? | 38:35 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 38:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you allowed into any of the White cinemas in—? | 38:39 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We might could have gone, but we didn't, since we had a Black one, we just went there. | 38:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Why was that? Why would you go there instead of sitting in the balcony? | 38:47 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | To me it's just more enjoyable. | 38:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, do you ever remember an incident where your mother and father found out you'd gone to the Piccolo? | 38:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 39:12 |
Karen Ferguson | What happened? | 39:13 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | She sent our oldest sister to tell us to come home. | 39:14 |
Karen Ferguson | How old were you then when that happened? | 39:18 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | About 16. | 39:27 |
Karen Ferguson | What about courtship? Were you allowed to see boys when you were growing up? | 39:32 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Oh, well we wasn't what you said, a rowdy kind of girls. Well, three of us were sisters that stayed closely together and we just wherever the one when went, the other one would go. We just stayed close together and we dated together and all. | 39:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Where would you meet boys? | 40:07 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Sometime they would come to the house and stay a little while and tell us where they were going and we'd go meet them. | 40:11 |
Karen Ferguson | So you'd sneak out? | 40:19 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Sneak out. | 40:20 |
Karen Ferguson | And where would you go meet them? | 40:20 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Way down a long road. | 40:23 |
Karen Ferguson | A long road? And what was there, why would you go there to meet them? | 40:25 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Because we were slipping away from home. Go out there where we thought our parents wouldn't know where we were. | 40:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Would they ever find out that you were gone? | 40:38 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 40:40 |
Karen Ferguson | And who would tell them that you'd gone there? | 40:41 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | If they were home when we left, then we would just say we were going for a walk. But if they weren't there when we left, then they'd know we had sneaked away 'cause we didn't ask them. Sometime they would wait until we come back and ask us where had we been or why we didn't wait until they come home and ask or something like that. | 40:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you meet your husband? | 41:20 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | A girlfriend of mine and her boyfriend introduced us. I think he was at my girlfriend's house. | 41:23 |
Karen Ferguson | And did your parents approve of your court—of you going out with him? | 41:44 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm, 'cause they knew his parents and they were pretty nice people, so they thought he was nice too. | 41:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you know him growing up? | 42:03 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mmm. | 42:05 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 42:05 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | He said he knew me, but I don't remember meeting him before I had started dating him. And he said where they lived, I used to pass their house going to school and he would see me, he'd say, "Mmm, I'm going to marry that little girl." And he never knew for sure that he would until the day came. | 42:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. How did you decide to get married? | 42:32 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, we had courted about two years and we talked about getting married and he asked me if I wanted to get married and I said yes. So he asked my parents and they thought it was all right. | 42:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you get married? | 42:57 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | In Nashville. | 43:00 |
Karen Ferguson | In Nashville? Why did you go there? | 43:01 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We weren't able to have a church wedding, so we just went to Nashville and to the courthouse and got married. | 43:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Did many people have church weddings back then? | 43:16 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mmm. | 43:19 |
Karen Ferguson | No, why was that? | 43:19 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Weren't able. | 43:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Why not? | 43:22 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | By things being expensive and people being kind of poor. | 43:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. Do you remember the point in your life when people start treating you as a child when you felt like you were an adult woman? | 43:28 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | About 14 years old. | 43:50 |
Karen Ferguson | And why did it change? | 43:53 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I guess I just started acting older than I really was I reckon. | 43:57 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, what were the lines that regulated—let me see how I can—when you were growing up, what was the evidence of segregation between Blacks and Whites in this area? How were the races separated? | 44:15 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mostly by school. Well we didn't go to church together either, so that was the segregation of it. | 44:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 44:46 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | The school and the churches. But now we go to school together and some visit our church sometime and I have visited their church. | 44:49 |
Karen Ferguson | So the White Baptist church? | 44:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. I used to work for a lady, lived in Battleboro, and she invited me to come to church and I did. They had a concert. She invited me to come to the concert and I did. And I worked with her a long time before her. A long time. She has three children. I hoped to raise her three children and her son, which is the baby. He got married last year and I was invited to the wedding and I went and I enjoyed it. | 45:00 |
Karen Ferguson | That's good. | 45:37 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, did your parents ever have to tell you how to treat White people in order to stay out of trouble with them? | 45:42 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well, not really saying—she just, anyway, they just taught us to treat everybody right. | 45:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 45:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | So they meant Black and White. | 46:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember people ever defying the rules around behavior between Blacks and Whites? Maybe going to places that they weren't supposed to go to, or getting in trouble with White people for things that they hadn't actually done? | 46:11 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | It seemed like, I remember a couple of boys getting in some trouble like that. Cause they didn't want the Colored boys talking to their White girls. | 46:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh really? | 46:49 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Argue. Mm-hmm. | 0:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, yeah. And who would argue with the Black boys that they— | 0:01 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | The White boys and the Black boys would argue, mm-hmm. | 0:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember any other conflict like that? | 0:10 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. | 0:13 |
Karen Ferguson | No? Did your brothers and sisters stay in this area when they grew up, most of them? | 0:13 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Yeah, stayed on in Edgecombe County. | 0:31 |
Karen Ferguson | And what kinds of things did they do? | 0:39 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They turn out to be farmers too. Mm-hmm. | 0:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Did they live on the same farm as the one you grew up on? | 0:48 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, they lived on the next farm and one of my brothers is still on the same farm that he went on when he first started doing farm work. | 0:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Did any of them move away from this area? | 1:06 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. | 1:09 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 1:11 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Some of my nephews and nieces, they moved away but none of my brothers and sisters. | 1:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Did any of them own land? Were any of them able to own some land? | 1:26 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. | 1:31 |
Karen Ferguson | No? And were they living on the same kind of farm that you grew up on? | 1:31 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Yes. Same kind of work. | 1:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What did you do after you finished up at the Battleboro School? | 1:40 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | When I stopped going to school there? | 1:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. That was the 8th grade, did you say? | 1:52 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | 8th grade. I graduated from the 8th grade and I started coming up here to Bricks School in the 9th grade. | 1:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Did you finish up at high school here? | 2:01 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, the year I was supposed to graduate, the school was burned down. | 2:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh yeah. | 2:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | And so I didn't further my education any further. I stopped in 11th grade. | 2:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you have to pay to come to this school? | 2:19 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No. | 2:23 |
Karen Ferguson | No? Did you live here while you were going to school? | 2:24 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No. Still in Battleboro. Mm-hmm. | 2:28 |
Karen Ferguson | What was that like coming to the Bricks School? | 2:32 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, I enjoyed it. I've always liked to go to school and I used to come to school every day. | 2:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. What kinds of things did you learn in high school? | 2:42 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mostly like home-ec. I had started trying to learn French, but I could never make no headway with that. And I liked English. I ain't never liked mathematics. I could add and subtract and multiply but when I got ready to do that fraction and stuff, I didn't like that. | 2:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Did they teach you anything? Did they have vocational education? Did they teach people how to do certain jobs like carpentry or things like that? | 3:43 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 3:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you take any of those kinds of classes? | 3:56 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. | 3:59 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of things like that did they have for girls? | 4:03 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I don't know. I don't think the girls took up that carpentry. I know some of the boys did. And most of the girls around me, they took up home-ec. | 4:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you like that class? | 4:33 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 4:33 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you learn? | 4:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I learned how to make some dresses and things like that. When I was younger I made my own clothes. | 4:36 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do when you finished the school here at the Bricks? | 4:53 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Not too many years after that I got married. | 4:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. And where did you and your husband live then? | 5:02 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | He was on a farm and went on to a farm. And here we're still in farm life. | 5:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did your family, your parents or did you or your husband ever do public work when you were living on the farm? | 5:13 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I did a little bit of public work. I used to work in a restaurant and I used to work at a daycare center. Them the only two public works I did. | 5:31 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you work in the restaurant? | 5:46 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, right after I got married. | 5:50 |
Karen Ferguson | And what did you do there? | 5:55 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Cook. | 5:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Cook? | 5:57 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 5:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you enjoy that? | 5:58 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 5:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Why? | 6:01 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Sure did. I just liked doing it. It was fell in my lot to do and I enjoyed it. | 6:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you prefer it to farming? | 6:07 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. Because that was hard to me being after I got married it seemed like, especially if the weather was hot. That's one reason that I'm in the home that I'm in now because my husband said he got tired of seeing me coming home out of the field dirty and sweaty. He know how dusty you would get when the ground was dry. And he said I would be dirty and sweaty. He didn't like to see me like that. So he said, "I'm going have me a home built for my wife if it was last thing I do." So he did. | 6:11 |
Karen Ferguson | How did he manage that? | 6:57 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, this company, they weren't very expensive people but they are now. They weren't then. Called the Jim Walter people. | 7:00 |
Karen Ferguson | And what kind of company? | 7:13 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Jim Walter. | 7:16 |
Karen Ferguson | And this is a house? | 7:18 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. | 7:19 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of company is it? | 7:20 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | That's what I'm saying. The company is Jim Walter. I don't know where they are now. I reckon they still building homes though. We got ours built that way, through in them and we had to pay a certain amount of money a month to pay for the home. | 7:22 |
Karen Ferguson | When was this? | 7:46 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Let's see, about 25 or 30 years ago. And he had the home built. We moved in there and we've been there ever since. Well, he died about 10 years ago, so we're still there. | 7:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you still working on a farm then? | 8:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, when he died? | 8:15 |
Karen Ferguson | When you first moved into that house? | 8:17 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Yeah, we moved off the farm there. | 8:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And what did your husband do then? | 8:21 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | He was working with the M.C Brownsville company. He drove trucks for them. | 8:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. And was that the first time that he had not worked on the farm? | 8:28 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 8:34 |
Karen Ferguson | What do you think—which job do you think was better for your family and for him, working on the truck or working on the farm? | 8:37 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well, the truck life was better for him because he made more money. And when I was working on the farm, we only got paid—let me see, it was every week on the weekend. That's the way we got paid and it wasn't very much money in it. But I made pretty good when I was working at the daycare center and when I was working at the restaurant. | 8:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Had farm life changed for you when you and your husband were doing it from when you had grown up? | 9:27 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | About the same. | 9:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Were you paid in the same way? | 9:36 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Yeah, the same way. | 9:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have your own plot of land when you were farming with your husband? | 9:45 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. Mm-mm. | 9:48 |
Karen Ferguson | So what would you do? | 9:50 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | We just straight out do farm work for somebody else and they paid us for working for them. | 9:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Was the landowner on this farm that you worked on when you were married, was he a fair person? | 10:04 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 10:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Was he as good a landowner as the person that you grew up working for? | 10:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, I reckon they were about the same. They both were good people and we could go to them when we were in need and they would help us. | 10:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you live on the same farm throughout your married life? | 10:38 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm, but not the one that I lived on before I got married. After I got married I lived on the same farm until we moved in the home that we are in now. We didn't do much moving around, we just got in one place and settled down. | 10:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Did other people move? | 11:00 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Some of them did. Some went to the North and some just stayed like we did. | 11:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Who did who know that went to the North? | 11:09 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Some of my husband's people, they went to Virginia to live. And I think he had a brother to go to Maryland. | 11:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Why did they move? | 11:30 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Trying to better themselves. | 11:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you ever tempted to do that? | 11:36 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, I ain't never really cared nothing about city life. Mm-mm. I have a daughter living in the city and she want me to come live with her, but I don't like city life that much. If I go and spend the day, I'm ready to come back home. | 11:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What is it about the country that you like so much? | 11:54 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, just more outlet and I can enjoy myself walking from place to place better than I can in the city. And people have gotten so rough and everything now in the city, I just don't want to go there to live. Well there's some rough places in the country too, but I just don't like city life. | 11:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you think that's why most of your family stayed here in this area? | 12:32 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Maybe so. They didn't care too much about city life either. | 12:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you ever travel to a city when you were growing up? | 12:45 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm, a little bit. My husband and I used to go to Virginia a lot because he had a sister living in Virginia. We used to go visit her on the weekend. But other than that, since he been gone I don't travel much. | 12:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. When you got married, did you continue to go to church regularly? | 13:06 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 13:18 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things were you involved in at church or are you involved in today? | 13:18 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I'm on the Usher Board. I'm advisor of the Junior Ushers. I sing in the choir and I go to Sunday school every Sunday. And I used to be a teacher of a young ladies class but after they grew up they had to come over to the adult class. So that just left me without the young ladies class. | 13:24 |
Karen Ferguson | What do you think the church has meant in your life? | 13:57 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh it has meant a lot. | 14:00 |
Karen Ferguson | What's that? Can you talk about that a bit? | 14:02 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well, seemed like after I joined church and I started reading the Bible more, it just meant a lot to me in my life. Made me try to keep my lifestyle right so it just meant a lot. I believe it wouldn't been this way though if I hadn't really kept myself in church. I might be doing some things that wasn't worth doing. | 14:08 |
Karen Ferguson | What about the non-spiritual side of it? What kind of role does the church play in your community do you think? | 14:46 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I think it play a lot because so many people that didn't belong to church when I first joined church, they do now. We have had a lot of experiences lately of young men joining our church and we had so many young men join our church now we have an all male chorus and one of my sons is in that all male chorus. So it just means a lot to me to be in church. | 15:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Why do you think young men didn't belong in the past? | 15:38 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I just think they didn't care like they do now. | 15:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your brothers go to church regularly when you were growing up? | 15:49 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 15:52 |
Karen Ferguson | What other organizations or have you belonged to any other organizations other than church organizations during the time that you were married? | 15:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No more than some little club or something like that. It wasn't no big thing, just little something we organize ourselves. | 16:14 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of club was it? | 16:23 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well, mostly just some young ladies and we would just set aside a day that we want to have a little cookout or something like that. And what we call it then was a party. But to me as I can remember now, it's more like a cookout. And we would have our little meetings. We had one lady as a secretary, one as a treasurer and we would pay our little money and save it so that we could have a party. So we would have our little parties, invite our friends and we just enjoyed it. | 16:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have a name for your club? | 17:07 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No. | 17:10 |
Karen Ferguson | No? Did other women have similar clubs? | 17:10 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They might did, but we didn't go to theirs. Mm-hmm. | 17:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Did men come to these parties as well? | 17:23 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 17:25 |
Karen Ferguson | What other things did you do for fun when you were married? | 17:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They were the most things that we did, just having those little parties and stuff like that. And once in a while we would go to the beach and I didn't care too much get about getting in the water. I would just walk in the water where it would come up to my knees almost. But I didn't never go way out in the water. | 17:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you go to the beach? | 18:08 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | White Lake. | 18:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Where's that? | 18:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Way down in the country, I don't even know what you call—I don't don't know the name of that county, but it was White Lake. The water was very, very pretty. Just as clear, you could stand in the water and see your feet. Mm-hmm. | 18:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there White people at this beach too or was the beach segregated? | 18:33 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. No, it was White and Colored there because I rent down roofs from White people and I spent the night in a—they had their summer home down there. That's where we went and spent the night in their summer home. | 18:38 |
Karen Ferguson | When was this? | 18:54 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh that's been a long time. That's so long I don't even remember what year it was. | 18:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Were when you went down with these White people, were you working for them or were they friends of yours? | 19:06 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I was working for one of the ladies and the other ladies was just my friends. | 19:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh I see, I see. How were you working for her, the one lady? | 19:16 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, I had clean house for her. I cooked and kept the children and they were small. | 19:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you work in White people's homes other times? When did you start doing that? | 19:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I worked one other time with a lady when I was on the farm. She lived on the farm too. And so on the weekend she would ask me to help her do some housework. But I just had one regular job doing housework after I was married for a while. I haven't been too many years stopped working with her. I had a heart attack so after that I didn't go back to work. Because I wasn't allowed to lift anything heavy so I didn't go back to work. | 19:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you enjoy doing that work? | 20:18 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm, sure did. | 20:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Why? | 20:21 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Because I worked like I wanted to. | 20:22 |
Karen Ferguson | What do you mean by that? | 20:26 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I would go there about 8:00 or 8:30 and I clean house and nobody ever came in, looked like trying to say you ain't doing it quick enough or something. And they were very nice and they would come in sometime and turn on the TV, say, "You ain't looking at such and such a thing." I said, "No, I just haven't had time." Then at lunchtime, we all would sit in there. A lot of time we would sit in the den. If we didn't do that, she had another room, almost like a living room. We'd sit in there and eat and after that they would go back to work and I'd just do the rest of the housework. | 20:28 |
Karen Ferguson | So you ate lunch with them? | 21:14 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Sure did. | 21:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have other jobs? You said you could do what you want, you could control your own time and that kind of thing. Did you have other jobs where that wasn't the case? | 21:16 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No. Well the housework and the restaurant work, the only two jobs I had other than farm work. But the restaurant work, you couldn't really just take your own time doing that because people was always in and out looking for something to eat. And you had to fix it, get it ready. | 21:25 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you like better, doing work in the field or working in people's homes? | 21:48 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | In the house. | 21:54 |
Karen Ferguson | In the house? | 21:55 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 21:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Why was that better than farming? | 21:56 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Because we're always where it was nice and cool, out we're in the sun all the time. | 21:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. So I've heard you talking a little bit about your children. How many children did you have? | 22:08 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | 10. | 22:11 |
Karen Ferguson | 10 children? | 22:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Five girls and five boys. | 22:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Who took care of them during the day when you were out in the field? | 22:17 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | My mother-in-law. | 22:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Did she live with you or— | 22:24 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Yeah, we lived together and she was very kind. She would take care of the children while I worked in the field and sometimes she would come in the field and let me go to the house. Mm-hmm. | 22:26 |
Karen Ferguson | How were their lives different than yours do you think? | 22:44 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | My children? | 22:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Your children's lives? | 22:48 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Theirs are a lot different because they didn't ever had to really, say, work on the farm, but they went to school and graduated and got jobs. And theirs just was different from mine because they got their jobs from different plants like Abbott's and Compass Electric. And one of my daughters used to work to CDC over here on 301, but it wasn't in that name then it was in the name of Blanchards. And she worked there for a long while after they changed over to CDC, she went to Compass Electric. So they all got pretty good jobs and they're doing right well for themselves. | 22:50 |
Karen Ferguson | So do you think their lives have been better than yours? | 23:37 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | It was, I mean from the time that I was growing up, having to work on the farm, theirs is better. Different I'll say. | 23:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Are there ways in which it isn't as good as your life, do you think? | 23:48 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. | 23:52 |
Karen Ferguson | No? Have they all stayed in this area? | 24:00 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Yeah, they all live right around me but one daughter and she lives in New York. | 24:03 |
Karen Ferguson | And why did she move up there? | 24:15 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | After she got married, that's where they decided to go because her husband had a sister live up there and they went up there and bought them a home in New York. | 24:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Have you ever gone up there to visit? | 24:27 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I went up there two years ago and stayed a week. And while I was up there we went up on the mountain to a apple farm and looked like they had about 30, no, it wasn't 30,000, but I knew way over a thousand of apple trees. They were some of the prettiest apples and ooh, so good. So I got about a bushel and brought them home and I was going to put them in the freezer. The children ate them up before I could get them in the freezer because they were so good. | 24:31 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up and someone got sick, did you go to the doctor? | 25:07 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 25:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Was it a Black doctor or a White doctor? | 25:14 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | He was White. | 25:17 |
Karen Ferguson | A Black docto? Do you remember his name? | 25:19 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | One of them is dead, he was Dr. Porter. He'd been dead I reckon about five or six years or more. And there was two more, Armstrong Brothers. They used to have their office on Main Street. And one of the doctors that's living there is Dr. James Frampt. I'm trying to remember what street he's on there in Rocky Mount. Can't even remember the name of the street he on right now but he used to be my family doctor. | 25:23 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, could your parents afford to take you to the doctor every time you got sick? | 25:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, none of us was sick very much. That was a blessing. There was one doctor who was living in Battleboro was my parents' family doctor. His name was Dean, last name was Dean. I don't remember his first name, but he was a very good doctor. And when we got sick, that's where when anybody all around us got sick, they went to Dr. Dean. Mm-hmm. | 26:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember what happened if people got so sick that they had to go to the hospital? | 26:36 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | He would recommend them to go. | 26:41 |
Karen Ferguson | And what hospital would Black people go to? | 26:44 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | It was a hospital there in Rocky Mount was name was Memorial and then it was another one, mm, mm, mm. Now I can't think of the name of the hospital and I went there. That's where my last child was born and I can't remember the name of the hospital. Parkview. | 26:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Parkview, okay. And were these Black and White hospital? | 27:14 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 27:20 |
Karen Ferguson | So was there a special ward for Black people? | 27:21 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I don't think so. Not as I can remember right now. Because some of the rooms would have two beds in it and some of them had one according to what size the room was. But I don't think it—well, I know both Black and White went there. Mm-hmm. | 27:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you deliver your other children in a hospital? | 27:53 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, they were at home. | 27:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, at home? Who delivered them? | 27:55 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | It was a mid-lady. | 27:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh yeah? | 27:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Uh-huh. Her name was Kenzie Hunter. She was a very good lady. | 28:00 |
Karen Ferguson | And what would the midwife do for you when you were pregnant and when you delivered the child and afterwards? | 28:08 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well, she just kept you clean. And when the baby was born, she would get the baby and bathe the baby and dress him and bathe you and see that you had on clean things in your bed and everything. | 28:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Did she help you before the baby was born? Did she advise you about— | 28:31 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Yeah, she would talk to you and tell you what you ought to do and what you shouldn't do. So you help have a normal birth. | 28:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you remember any of the advice that she used to give you? | 28:47 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Not to eat too much of one thing and walk some. And a lot of times they didn't want you to wear your clothes too tight. Mm-hmm. Wear big loose dresses if you could. That's about much as they would do because they would tell you why you were having the baby, what to do. And they'd tell you about breathing and pushing down when you felt the pain. Mm-hmm. That was about all they could do until the baby was born. | 28:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Did they stay around after the baby was born? | 29:43 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | They would stay around for a while, see that you were doing all right. And they would bathe the baby and cut the umbilical cord and see that you weren't bleeding too much or whatever. | 29:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you see a doctor at all when you were pregnant? | 30:04 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Most of the time I went to Dr. Dean. | 30:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Did Dr. Dean work with Ms. Hunter? | 30:20 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Yeah, they worked together. She would get some advice from him. | 30:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Did he pay her or did you pay her? | 30:31 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, I had to pay her. He didn't accept pay from her just giving her advice. | 30:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Did the midwife do anything other than help pregnant women? Was there anything else that she would do? | 30:46 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I don't think they worked anywhere else, just there. Because my daddy died when I was pregnant with one of my children and she told me I shouldn't go. Said I should stay home and not go to the funeral. I said, "She won't talking nothing and that was the last that I would see of my daddy." I said, "Can't nobody chain me down and keep me from going." And she saw that I meant what I was saying and she didn't say nothing else and I went. But she meant well but that didn't hurt me because I was going to see the last of my daddy. | 30:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you like having home birth or going to the hospital? Which one was better? | 31:46 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Well, it wasn't any different to me because I still had the same bad pains that were born at home and that one that born in the hospital. | 31:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Why didn't you hire her for the last one? Why did you go to the hospital? | 32:05 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Because I was having blood pressure problems for one thing. And my husband just insisted that I'd go into the hospital. And I was pregnant I reckon about six months before I knew I was pregnant. And I had just thought I was gaining weight and that's all until I went to the hospital. The nurses there didn't realize I was pregnant. "Now, what you have for supper?" I told them, I said, "I haven't had any supper." Said, "Why?" I said, "Because I wasn't hungry." And they talked and they talked and put me on a little bed just hard as this thing here. And she said, "Lay down." I said, "I can't lay down." She said, "It hurts to lay down?" I said, "Yeah." Said, "Where you hurting?" I said, "My stomach." And she looked at me and she came near me and kind of felt to each side of me. And she looked at me kind of funny and she said, "You haven't eaten anything?" I said, "No." | 32:11 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Then she kept on asking me, "Where was I having pains and all?" And I told her, she said, "You're pregnant." I said, "Yes." And then she called one of the other nurses and told her to tell somebody to bring her a wheelchair so that she could take me to the delivery room. Said, "She's going to have a baby." And they wheeled me on down to the delivery room and carried me in there and asked me a few more questions and got me on that bed. I don't reckon I was on the bed 10 minutes before the baby was born. | 33:22 |
Karen Ferguson | So you didn't know that you were going to have a baby before you went to the— | 33:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I knew before I left that I was going to have a baby, but it was quite a while in the time break before I really realized that I was pregnant. | 34:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. When your husband moved off the farm, when he started his truck driving job, why did you move off the farm at that point? | 34:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Just for something better to do. | 34:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Why hadn't you done it earlier? | 34:32 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I really don't know. | 34:36 |
Karen Ferguson | You don't know? | 34:37 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Because even after we move in our own home, I still did some farm work because people used to hire us to chop and used to hire us to pick cotton. So I still did farm work. But he didn't, he stayed on the truck driving job. | 34:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Had things changed in this area so that people could have more? When you first got out, when you got out of school and got married, were there any opportunities for you, your family, other than farming in this area? | 34:58 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, not many. | 35:13 |
Karen Ferguson | No? So when did the change come that people could start doing other things, doing other public work? | 35:15 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | When they built these plants and all around. | 35:26 |
Karen Ferguson | When did that happen? | 35:29 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I reckon I was married about 15 or 20 years I reckon before they built all these plants around, but I never tried to work at any of them. | 35:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Why was that? | 35:44 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I really don't know, but just seemed like just had no mind to do no plant work. | 35:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. All right. Well, I think I'm finished up now. I thank you very much for spending this time with me. | 35:54 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | You're welcome. You're welcome. | 36:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Before we finish, I have some paperwork to do here and so if you could just give me a few more minutes of your time just so that when people are listening to the tape, they'll understand a little better about who you are. So could you give me your full name, please? | 36:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mildred Taylor Pearce. | 36:33 |
Karen Ferguson | And it's P-E-A-R-C-E? | 36:36 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Right. | 36:42 |
Karen Ferguson | And Taylor's your maiden name? | 36:43 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 36:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And what's your address right now? | 36:47 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | P.O Box 441. Battleboro. | 36:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Battleboro? | 36:50 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. 27809 zip. | 36:50 |
Karen Ferguson | And do you remember your home phone number? | 37:12 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I started to get that number this morning and I said, "No, she won't hardly need it." I sure didn't get it. | 37:20 |
Karen Ferguson | That's all right. Well that's okay. Now, if your name appears in any written materials that come out of this project, how would you like it to appear? How would you like your name to be written out? | 37:21 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Just as you have it there. Mildred Taylor Pearce. | 37:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but what is your date of birth? | 37:52 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | 1st, 26, '27. | 37:56 |
Karen Ferguson | '27? And you were born in Edgecombe County? | 38:02 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Edgecombe. | 38:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What was your husband's name? | 38:17 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | James Melvin Pearce. | 38:19 |
Karen Ferguson | And do you remember when he was born? | 38:24 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, I'm about six months older than he is. He was born the 1st of August, no, August the 10th. | 38:34 |
Karen Ferguson | 1928? | 38:46 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | 1927. | 38:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, 1920—oh, right, all right. And when did he die? | 38:50 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Let's see, it was— | 38:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Just the year. | 38:56 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm, mm, mm. June 4th of '83. | 38:58 |
Karen Ferguson | And where was he born? | 39:07 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | In Edgecombe. | 39:09 |
Karen Ferguson | And if I list his occupation, shall I put farmer and— | 39:16 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Farmer. | 39:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Farmer? What was your mother's name? | 39:20 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mary Taylor. | 39:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember what her maiden name was? | 39:33 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Thorne. | 39:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Thorne with an E on the end? | 39:35 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Uh-huh. | 39:37 |
Karen Ferguson | And do you remember when she was born? | 39:39 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, I sure don't. | 39:42 |
Karen Ferguson | That's all right. Do you remember about how old she was when you were born? | 39:44 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | When I was born? | 39:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. It's okay. Most people—that's fine. Do you remember when she died? | 39:51 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Died in '79. | 40:00 |
Karen Ferguson | 1979? And she was born here in Edgecombe County? | 40:02 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Edgecombe. | 40:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Edgecombe County. And if I put down her occupation, what should I put down? | 40:09 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Farming. | 40:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Farming? And your father's name? | 40:17 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Arthur Taylor. | 40:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember when he was born? | 40:26 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. | 40:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember when he died? | 40:29 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Let's see, he died a long time before mama did. He died in—wait a minute, I get it right in a minute. 1960. | 40:31 |
Karen Ferguson | He was born in Edgecombe County as well? | 40:45 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 40:47 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. Now you said you had eight brothers and sisters, is that right? | 40:51 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I had seven sisters and three brothers. | 40:56 |
Karen Ferguson | And where did you fit in? What number were you? | 41:00 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Let see now, I'll tell you in a minute. I was the fourth child. | 41:06 |
Karen Ferguson | What was the name of the oldest child? | 41:16 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Annie Mae. | 41:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Annie Mae? | 41:20 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 41:21 |
Karen Ferguson | And she had a married name? Did she have a married name? | 41:27 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | She was a Hargrove. | 41:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Hargrove? | 41:29 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 41:29 |
Karen Ferguson | And how much older was she than you, do you remember? | 41:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, but she was a good bit. | 41:37 |
Karen Ferguson | 10 years you think? | 41:38 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I would say 10. | 41:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And then after her? | 41:43 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Maggie Lee. | 41:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Maggie Lee, okay. And did she have a married name? | 41:51 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, she's not married yet. | 41:55 |
Karen Ferguson | And how much older was she, do you think? Or how much younger was she than Annie Mae? | 41:59 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | About maybe six years. | 42:04 |
Karen Ferguson | And then after her? | 42:08 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Blanche. | 42:13 |
Karen Ferguson | And did she have a married name? | 42:18 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Ellis. | 42:19 |
Karen Ferguson | E-L-L-I-S? | 42:20 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 42:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And how much older was she than you? | 42:22 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Two years. | 42:27 |
Karen Ferguson | And then it was you and then who came after you? | 42:42 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Polly. | 42:43 |
Karen Ferguson | P-A-U— | 42:44 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Polly. P-O-L-L-Y. | 42:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. P—sorry. | 42:48 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | P-O-L-L-Y. | 42:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Y, okay, I'm sorry. Polly. Of course. Okay, Polly. And did she have a married name? | 42:52 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-mm. | 42:57 |
Karen Ferguson | No? Okay. | 42:58 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Taylor, Taylor. | 43:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Taylor. Oh yeah, of course there's people there. Okay. And how much younger was she than you? | 43:02 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Let's see now, she is about 10 years younger than me. | 43:14 |
Karen Ferguson | So about 1935? | 43:22 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. Something like that. | 43:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And then after her? | 43:28 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Arthur Junior. | 43:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And do you remember when he was born? | 43:36 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | No, but he's about 48. | 43:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. 48. So '93 minus 48. 5, so '45. And then after him? | 43:54 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | James Edward. | 44:00 |
Karen Ferguson | And when was he born, do you know? How old is he? | 44:09 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | He's about 46. | 44:13 |
Karen Ferguson | 46. And after him? | 44:14 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Gene Nadolph. | 44:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Pardon me? | 44:29 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Gene. | 44:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Gene? Okay. | 44:30 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Nadolph. | 44:34 |
Karen Ferguson | How do you spell that? | 44:34 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | N-A-D-O-L-P-H. | 44:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Do you remember when she was born? | 44:35 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | That's a girl. I mean a boy, I'm sorry, boy. No, but he's about 42 years old. | 44:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, so 42, 13, 45, okay. And so he was the last one, Gene? | 44:51 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Oh, let me see. No, the baby girl name is Geraldine. | 45:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Geraldine. And do you remember when she was born? | 45:14 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | I remember when she was born, but I don't remember the year now because she's about, let me see, 38. | 45:25 |
Karen Ferguson | 38, okay. | 45:31 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Her married name is Lancaster. | 45:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Lancaster? | 45:46 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 45:47 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. And now your children? What's your oldest child's name? | 45:49 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Anne Carolyn. | 45:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Anne? | 45:56 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Mm-hmm. | 45:57 |
Karen Ferguson | And what's her last name? | 45:57 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Battle. | 46:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Battle. Carol was her— | 46:00 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Carolyn. C-A-R-O-L-Y-N. | 46:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And did Ann have an E on the end of it? | 46:10 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Uh-huh. | 46:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember when she was born? | 46:15 |
Mildred Taylor Pearce | Lord have mercy. Mm-hmm, I shouldn't ever forget that day. | 46:18 |
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