Deatherine Pelerson interview recording, 1993 July 01
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Sonya Ramsey | —grew up? | 0:01 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, I was born, I say in Halifax County, but it was a little place you called Pea Hill. You came through that way. But it was in the back, like in the woods. My mother had 10 children that lived. She had 12 children, but 10 grew up to get grown and have children of their own. So we used to play out in the woods and the fields and the dirt path and old tires. We didn't have many toys, so we got old rubber tires and made our own swing. But we loved it. It was nice at that at time because my father was a—you mind if I say something and don't get mad? | 0:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | Uh-huh. Uh-huh. | 0:49 |
Deatherine Pelerson | People say they're Black African, but I don't believe I'm no Black African because my father had more Indian. | 0:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | He was part Indian? | 0:57 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. So anyway, but I'm still—anyway, my father was the type that I knew they had to work, and the White people, they'd give them a little something or another to live on until they could get the crops in. But most of the time, they didn't clear anything. They would take most of the stuff from them. | 0:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were they sharecropping? | 1:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. But they would take most from them, but my father fed us. He had to give him some money in the wintertime. But we would eat because we had barrels of herring and my mother raised a lot of chicken and things like that and big garden and put away stuff when you had a lot of children. But we never was what you call hungry. My father was the type that the White people didn't run over him too much. | 1:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever see an example of that? | 1:50 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. He'd drink and get drunk. But they liked him because he was a worker, and his children would work. But you didn't beat his children. You didn't beat him either. That's the time I was coming along. But in his time, they were a little bit worse. But they would be in the field sometimes watching you, and you couldn't—they didn't want you to go to the shade or something like that. But a old lady would tell us when they came up, the master would be in the field. | 1:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | During slavery? | 2:26 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. If they would stop, he'd be up a tree, and he would whip them with a lash or either he would spit down on them and make them go to work. But that was in her time. But after that, when I was eight years old, my mother died. That was in 1926. My oldest brother and his wife was here for Christmas, and she died at that time. But she told him to take me with him up North, thought maybe I could get some education. But I didn't get no education. I just learned here. | 2:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | On your own? Uh-huh. | 3:06 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But anyway, I got a little bit. More than the rest of them. So we went to Portsmouth. We went to Newport News and went to Baltimore and from Baltimore to New York. That's mostly where I was raised at, in New York. But then I was fighting more up in New York than I was here. | 3:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | What kind of fighting? Fighting with Whites or fighting— | 3:29 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, we were running. | 3:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? | 3:30 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. I was getting— | 3:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why was that? | 3:33 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Because when we was here, little children, not even old as I were, they would make us say, "Miss. Miss." We were playing together. | 3:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | To the little children? | 3:45 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, and— | 3:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | The children y'all played with made you say that? | 3:45 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. They would say, like her name Miss Mary. She would say "Miss Mary," but "Deatherine" to me. But when we got from under her, I called her like that, but they didn't know it. But that's about the biggest thing, that part, because they didn't beat us, nothing like that. We worked under my father, not under them. But he had to work mostly like they said, sharecropping, but— | 3:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they ever try to cheat your father with money and with the crop and stuff like that? | 4:18 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Oh, yeah. You know. Only thing, my father couldn't read and write, but you couldn't cheat him in count. He could beat you count in his head while you get a pencil, and he couldn't read. But when I got a little bit of education and could read after I came back home, he would have me read a lot of his sermons. I used to cry because I didn't know. I would skip some words, and he would say, "Wait a minute. Go back over that. Spell it." I would spell it, and he'd tell me what it was. | 4:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | He did? Did he have the chance to go to school when he was growing up— | 4:52 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, no, no. | 4:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | He didn't have the chance? | 4:58 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. They worked most of the time. I guess that's why my mother wanted me to go with my brother. You know? | 4:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | What happened after your mother passed away? What happened to your other brothers and sisters? | 5:04 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I had two sisters was married at that time, the two older ones. And one was in New York and the other one was here. So my father had, I think it was seven, that was eight live, I believe. No, ten. We had eight at home. But he had one child. My older sister had a child before she got married. So my mother raised that one until she died. And my father kept until he died. Then he went to New York with his mother because he just didn't like up there. But we farmed. They farmed up until, well, I mean when I come home, I came home in '29. I was younger. | 5:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | So most of your family still stayed down here while you were up in New York? | 5:49 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. Until—no, they stayed down here. One of the next older sister, when we went to New York, Baltimore, she and her husband came to Baltimore. Then when we left Baltimore, we went to New York where my older sister was. Then she went with her. So then her children were raised in New York, the rest of them that born, she had six. Our older sister had nine and they was in New York. But I went to school some there. I mean, I went to school but look like me, I wasn't too much interested or certain [indistinct 00:06:29] learn. Maybe I'm mean, I don't know. | 5:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | You went to school some down here or when you were in New York? | 6:30 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I went to school in Baltimore. If I stayed in Baltimore, I would have learned. I would have learned more in Baltimore in the few years, couple of years I was there, than I did the whole time I think just about. But I went to school in Baltimore. I went to school in New York. But you never get nothing. I learned how to read and write. | 6:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why didn't you like school? What was about it that you didn't like? | 6:52 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, I mean I like the school. They had White teachers but they was not— | 6:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you had White teachers? | 7:00 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, and White and Black all went to school together in New York. And I had White friends but it was a different—people say New York was Jim Crow. New York is worse than the South. | 7:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what, how so? | 7:17 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Because in the South, let you know that you was a nigger. You see? In New York they could hide it because it was against the law for it to come right out or something like that. Because my oldest sister and a White lady living in a building, in the building we were living in, it wasn't no fancy building. But her husband was a white collar man. And I played with her girl and she was a friend with my sister. And they went down 125th Street, a nice restaurant, 125th Street was a nice place at that time. Went down there to a nice restaurant and sat down and the man told her that they couldn't serve the Black people. | 7:20 |
Deatherine Pelerson | And so this lady said, "Well if you can't serve her, you can't serve me." So she started to get up. He said, "Well all right, we'll serve," they said. So they did. And she had a big piece of money, he sort of let her know she going—and then they say they looked back. When they took the plates off the table, they threw them in the trash. Now what more? But I mean it's different now. But I have been in on up on Saint Nicks Avenue to a club to dance. I mean, it was a dance and eat and we sit there and sit there and sit there. They didn't never serve us. So, well we sit there, just see what they going do. So finally we just went out. And you ever heard tell of the Cotton Club in New York? | 8:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Uh-huh. Could you talk some about that? | 8:54 |
Deatherine Pelerson | The Black people did not go to the Cotton Club. Nothing but musicians. | 8:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | They couldn't sit in the audience? | 9:02 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Didn't go in now unless they were working. Now I knew this because we was living in Harlem. I could walk to the Cotton Club, but you couldn't go in unless you was a musician. But see, people down here don't believe those kind of things because they said, "Oh, New York, you can do anything you want." Uh-uh. Not at that time. That was in, I'd say '28, '29. And they probably stopped in '30. They did not. And then when they give the Black, I mean the club, the White, you know that club up and the Black took over, it was a different story. Black and White could go. But at that time you did not go in the Cotton Club. | 9:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | But they had all Black performers. | 9:49 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, uh-huh. Because I know some that was there and some of the big theater downtown, like RKOs, whatever they call it, you didn't hardly go in there. | 9:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? They wouldn't let Blacks in there? | 10:02 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. Uh-huh. You didn't go in there. | 10:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where did Blacks go to the movies and stuff? | 10:06 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Like on 125th Street and I done forgot the name of it. It was about three Vaudeville theaters on down 125th Street and 7th Avenue and 32nd like that. They was the Black, you could go in there. But here, right here, downtown, my church right now. | 10:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | In Roanoke Rapids? | 10:31 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, in Weldon. Right on the corner in Weldon. You could go to the theater but they had a outside step. You went up those steps and sit upstairs. You did not sit downstairs. None of these theaters. I been in downtown. I had to go upstairs and then, excuse me, what is you going to tell about New York? | 10:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where you lived in Harlem, in New York. What was Harlem like then? | 11:01 |
Deatherine Pelerson | They were still like that, some of them were, because that was where the Cotton Club was in Harlem. And that theater 125th Street, well, it was about like in Harlem, because most of the Black, a few White one, but most of them was Jews or something like that. 7th Avenue was a fine place, expensive place. Saint Nick was expensive but now it's everything, everybody. Most of the theatrical people stayed up there because the other people couldn't afford it. And I had worked in New York for 25 cents an hour. And then when the people, Jehovah Witness, you heard of that? | 11:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Uh-huh. | 11:47 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well we used to sit on the corner up in the Bronx and that's where they would come and get us for working by the day, hour like that. | 11:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. You worked for them and their—oh okay. | 11:56 |
Deatherine Pelerson | And they was paying us 25 cents an hour. When Father Divine people, they came up and a lot of them from over other countries, they came up, they started working for 15 cents. Some of them would hire them and some of them wouldn't because they didn't know too much about cleaning, but they just didn't. And they finally went up to about 30 cents. I worked for $2. I worked eight hours for $2. I mean, scrubbed walls. | 12:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was that a average salary in New York at that time or was it a— | 12:37 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Day's work? | 12:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Day's work is average. | 12:40 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-huh. | 12:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | How much were they paying down south for the same kind of work? Were they paying the same thing? Less? | 12:43 |
Deatherine Pelerson | They probably got a dollar, dollar, half like that or something. I have picked cotton for 15 cents. I have picked cotton for 25 cents and how it went up then and it went up to 40 cents, then I left again, went back to New York. | 12:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | So you went back and forth to New York and Weldon and things? | 13:03 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-huh. And then I picked one day and picked enough cotton to catch the bus. | 13:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Catch the bus away from there. Okay. I just wanted to get some time things. When you first moved to Baltimore, when you were eight years old, you said? | 13:12 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, about nine then. | 13:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Nine? And then you lived there for two years, you said? | 13:23 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, my brother didn't stay there, I guess, about a year I guess because he was moving on, you know. | 13:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | So you were still a little girl when you went to New York. Okay. And then how long did you stay in New York? | 13:30 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well I stayed there, I guess, about two years or three. And then I came home. | 13:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. And came back home. Okay. | 13:40 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, I got to fighting in the park with a 16 year old boy. | 13:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, when you were 10, 11? Oh. What was the fight about? Do you remember? | 13:44 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well his sister and I got to fighting and she pulled me down a hill like in the park up there. And I had on some scrap shoes and it busted— | 13:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | Tore up your shoes? | 13:59 |
Deatherine Pelerson | —and I knew my brother going to get me. So I grabbed her and started on her and then the brother come up and he took it up and I said, "If you pull me down the hill like she did to me, I'll fight you. So he did. He started to really, then we went into it and peoples around the fence just like that. Huh? And they would tell me, "Punch him, give him a right, give him a left." And I was trying to do it, you know? | 13:59 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Then I would grab him. If I got a hold to him, he couldn't get away from me. I grab and hold but I was punching. They were hollering about, "Hit him again, girl. Hit him that way. Give him a upper cut." Just like that. And my brother came out there looking for me because it's getting dark. And there I was over there fighting, a girl over there fighting. So he come to me and said "Don't whoop her because she got to fight. If she don't fight, they going beat her." So he wanted to whoop but my older sister, "You not going to whoop her." Then they got mad and called my father down south and told my sister, said [indistinct 00:15:07] and said my brother didn't want me to fight and I had to fight and she won't let him whoop me. So he said send my gal home. | 14:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did y'all had to fight? Was it a tough neighborhood where y'all lived or something? | 15:16 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, it wasn't that tough. They was just—we would pick on them too. The boy, he was 16, the girl about like me and he caught himself taking her for his sister. But then if he hit me, I was ashamed to get beat and I was ashamed to run so I had to fight. But I had to run though. So I came home then I think about '29 or something like that. And my father died in '30. So after he died we just gave up the farm. My sister and them, they wasn't going to run no farm. So they took everything. Then my brother then sent for me again to come back to New York. | 15:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | That was during the depression. How did that affect your family? | 16:04 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, '30, I was back in New York again and that's when it was really tough. It was tough in New York because this man I just now called Father Divine, he had a lot of business there and he would let people have things cheap. He had places for you to eat. They said he was giving him something in there. I don't know what it was. But anyway— | 16:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Y'all thought he put something in the food? | 16:34 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He said, like people give you [indistinct 00:16:41], salt peter something in the [indistinct 00:16:42]. | 16:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh okay. | 16:42 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But anyway, you had to eat it because you didn't have—well I mean I think I tried it one time, but I always been lucky. I had sisters and brothers and they would— | 16:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were they working? | 16:54 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, they were working. | 16:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | They were working. Okay. | 16:56 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. So then I would stay with one. I don't stay with my brother then. I stayed with one of my sisters. I think this one what stay next door to me now. | 16:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. Okay. | 17:06 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But she getting seen a little bit. So anyway, we could buy pork chop for 10 cents a pound. | 17:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | A pound? Oh. | 17:18 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Pork chop. I had a friend buddy, you always get a buddy and we would go, we'd get a dime, we may work, she may make $1, $2, and we would go in the grocery store and that man had to give us four pork chops for a pound. Because I had to have two and she had to have two. Get a little of bread for 6 cents. So we eat like that. If I didn't eat at my sister house. And sometimes we stay downtown there somewhere or uptown stay at the train station, the subway, that started with an L. "Mister. Lady. Will you give me 5 cents please? I'm up here and I got to go home downtown." | 17:19 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well at that time they would give it to you. "Go home now." "All right." Child, get that 10 cents and we run around somewhere near and buy us a hot dog or something or other something. But if we had to go downtown, we would go on downtown. Sometime we had walked back uptown. But I mean often on, it was nice in a way. But the people, you work with them, they were just like it is now. You didn't sit at the table with them. | 18:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | They wouldn't let you sit at the table? | 18:34 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, no. You don't sit at the table. You might sit in the kitchen and they children, you want to say "Miss-So-and-So and so" they would say "Mr. and Mrs." to the wives," just like some do now. That's order for you to say. "Mr So-and-So, Mrs. So-and-So and the daughter so and so, Miss So-and-So. Like that. That it was just like up here. | 18:36 |
Deatherine Pelerson | And then I was coming home. I think this was before Martin Luther King, was a good while before Martin Luther King. I was coming home on a bus and I had a seat by myself. In Washington D.C. a White man got on. Wasn't no other seat. He sit beside me. When we got in a little town around Alexandria, right out from Washington—Washington was Jim Crow too. It was terrible. You wouldn't believe it. I have stayed there a few months and you went in the drugstore, you couldn't sit down to the table and eat no ice cream or nothing. You had to stand up or either go out. | 18:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | In Washington D.C.? | 19:41 |
Deatherine Pelerson | In Washington D.C. and they wouldn't allow you to stand up, drink beer. | 19:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? They would want you to take it out or— | 19:45 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Sit down. But in these drug stores and places, they be sitting at the table. You know, had tables sitting there. You couldn't do it. You could stand up to the counter or stand somewhere or go out. And if you in line getting your groceries or something like that, and a White woman come up. You both be standing. She'll look at that person and serve that White person first. So I was on this bus and this man got on and right on other side, little place out from Alexandria or somewhere after past Washington. I know it was in Alexandria. But it was a smaller—Alexandria, them places, Black, White. | 19:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | They had the signs? You saw the signs. Is that what you're talking about? | 20:35 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Sign up there. Black, White. And it was filthy but you couldn't go in that Black, just like it was here. | 20:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever know anyone who went into the White bathrooms and broke the rules and things like that? | 20:46 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-uh. | 20:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | No? | 20:52 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. | 20:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you know what would happen to somebody if they tried to do that? | 20:54 |
Deatherine Pelerson | They didn't. Kill them, I reckon, especially up in that part. In New York now it was different. I mean, at some places and when we got there in a little town, it was kind of small town because kind of dark out there. But it had police and things there. This man stopped the bus. Told me I had to get in the back seat. I said, "Why?" "You can't sit with this man." I said, "Well I'm no dog. I'm not going to bite him." I ain't got no sense no way. I asked the man, I said, "Am I bothering you?" He said, "No, you ain't bothering me." But he said, "But you can't sit there. We don't allow it." | 21:00 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I said, "I don't see no sign." "Come on, I'll show you." There's some soldiers in there, some Jews in there, White people, and Black. So I got up and I said, "Show me the sign." I got up and went to the front of the bus and he's behind me and before I got to the door where I was standing, I stood aside and I said, "After you." Because I figured what he's going do. Them White people tried, they started clapping their hands and hollering because I had about as much senses he had because if I had got out there, he going to take my suitcase on and I couldn't get back on. | 21:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? He thought he was going to throw you off the bus. | 22:16 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-huh. | 22:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. | 22:20 |
Deatherine Pelerson | And they were just clapping. So anyway, made him so bad. He was just as red and he went to the police, got the police and come back. He said, "Where is the sign?" Said, "I don't see no sign where Black can't sit anywhere." Ooh. That made him so mad. He said, "I can't make her get off because you don't have no sign up there." So then when I said something to him and he was going to take out a warrant for me. So the policeman said, "Miss, I can't make you move." He said, "But if he take out a sign and say you was cussing and carrying on on the bus, you ain't going to have nobody going to stand witness for you and you just be here by yourself and you be in jail." | 22:20 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Then I thought about it. I said, "I will be here by myself. I don't know what these people might do if I get off the bus." So I went back there. I said, "Well I wasn't going bite him. That's one thing certain." So anyway, I went back there and I still was running my mouth. But anyway, I went on back there and it was a man on there. He said he was a lawyer but he didn't do nothing. He took his name and things like that. But he didn't ever get in touch. | 23:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | How old were you when this happened? | 23:36 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Oh, I was about 18 then, ready to attack him. | 23:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | In New York, you said you didn't go to school that much or did you go to school? | 23:44 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, I went to school some, but I played hooky as much as I could. | 23:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | You did? | 23:53 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. And when I was in school, I don't know what was wrong. I'm not a mean person, but I reckon I just had that in me and I would just pick at somebody or do something and the teacher put me out in the halls and put me in the class with little bitty children. | 23:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, to do that, to punish you? | 24:14 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Sometimes my brother had to come to school. I mean, I liked the people, but it was just something that, I don't know, was in me to make me do that. And so I finally quit when I was—I said I was 16 but I was only 15. So I quit. | 24:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you have to do any part-time jobs around while you were in school and stuff? | 24:37 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, I didn't do any work then. But right after I did, I started working up in the Bronx, out in Brighton Beach and places we'd sit out there and get jobs then. | 24:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. How did they hire find people for jobs? How did y'all find places to work? | 24:54 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well we was sitting on the corner. You could use a box and sit on the corner or something like that. And they know where the people sit at and they would come and they'll walk around, look at you and see if you look like you're honest or something or like that. Then they'll get you. | 24:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where did you first start working? | 25:15 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I think the first job I had was in Brighton Beach. | 25:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | And could you talk about that job? What was that like? | 25:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, that was it. Oh, you mean a steady job? | 25:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah, a steady job. | 25:25 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Because most of the time I did days work. | 25:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh they, you just work one place one day and— | 25:28 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, for a long time. And then when I got a little older I had worked at one place. But you believe I was just getting $7.50 a week. | 25:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was better salary, doing day work or working steady somewhere? | 25:40 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, you didn't get but $2 for eight hours, no way. | 25:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. They paid the same either way? | 25:52 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-huh. So that was all. But it finally went up some. And then I have worked in the factory. I have been on a presser and I could sew buttons and press out garment. People make them, but I couldn't sew. But I used to could press because I used to press for a man I know in his cleaner. That's how I learned how to press. So I got a job like that. And then they say you had to have a card. What did we used to get them? What we call them now? | 25:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh a card. A social security card? | 26:29 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, something like we had to have to work but I didn't. When the time I got one or something like that, he said he wasn't going to pay that price for that so I didn't work there. And then I worked at some other places, cleaners and like that. | 26:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were you still going back to Weldon? | 26:50 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No I stopped. Not supposed to work here. You're not supposed to work here, in here. | 26:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh I meant back in the '50s and things like that. | 27:01 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Oh yeah. Yeah. I went back and stayed three years, three months. Went to Jersey and stayed three years. | 27:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you move so many places? | 27:10 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I had a buddy and her family moved up there. You know when— | 27:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | To New Jersey? | 27:18 |
Deatherine Pelerson | —you come up together? Yeah. | 27:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | How old were you then? | 27:20 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well I was grown. | 27:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 27:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I was married. | 27:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh okay. | 27:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | At that time. But my children was old enough. My husband was living too so I used to go up there and work but I was back here every three months or more. | 27:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? How did you get used to coming back here from New York and things like that? Did they say you got city-fied when you came back and stuff? | 27:33 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Oh yeah. Uh-huh. | 27:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | What kind of things would they say? | 27:43 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I mean my father said that before he died because he whooped me and my brother one time in the corn field. And I always run my mouth, tell my sister how they didn't get to go to New York. So my father, we was in the corn field stealing corn, roasting ears, and I didn't know he was in the field. And I told my brother, "Yeah, that old hawk be along here after while." But that old hawk was in the corn field. He carried me to the house. He whooped me. Said yeah, "This old hawk going to hook this old New York gal." He called me New York gal because he said I was telling my sister how they could go to New York and live. | 27:44 |
Deatherine Pelerson | And when he died, he said he was going to whoop me. I had did something or other. He said, "I'm going to whoop you." And I looked for that whoop after he was dead because [indistinct 00:28:39] didn't tell no lie if he was going to whoop you. But anyway, after I went back in '30 and stayed there, I stayed up there then until depression was on and it was getting off or something like that. Then I came home in what was it, '30? I think I came down here in '38. I did. I got tired of New York. | 28:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you get tired of it? | 29:09 |
Deatherine Pelerson | It was just, I don't know, I just got tired. Looked like it won't— | 29:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | Too hectic? | 29:16 |
Deatherine Pelerson | People were getting to be kind of bad little bit too. And I just got tired. And when I came home, I met some old friends and different people and it wasn't like every day was like Sunday. See and I even come down and went to working on the farm. Would you believe that? Come down working on the farm for about, what'd we get? 50 cents I believe it was, and I had them go up to 60 cents that until later on and we thought that was good money. We'd get $3 or $3.50 like that a week, I went town, bought me two pair of shoes. | 29:17 |
Deatherine Pelerson | A Sunday pair and an everyday. I mean that's how things were at that time. So I just liked to stay down somehow. And then I was going to get married but I left and went back to New York and came back. I think I stayed up there about two more years. And then I came back down and I got married. And then after I got married I decided I needed some money, fix up the house. So I went back then and stayed. But I didn't stay up there long. Stayed up there and got me a little money, come back. And then when my children got grown, they wasn't grown, I mean like 14, 15 or 16 my husband, you could take— | 29:57 |
Deatherine Pelerson | So I went back, I went to Jersey then and I stayed up there about three years. But I wasn't up there hardly six months before I got both my sons up there with me and then they stayed up there. One went to New York and he got to working and he stayed a while and then he came home and back. And the other one, I had to send him home because he's getting out there with them faggots and things down in Jersey's bad too, you know? | 30:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | What part of New Jersey? | 31:09 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Now you asked me that. | 31:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Is it Newark or near there or near Philadelphia. That part of New Jersey? | 31:16 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, it was Newark. Newark. | 31:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Newark. Okay. | 31:20 |
Deatherine Pelerson | That's right. I think somewhere around on Pennsylvania Avenue. But I used to go out and work too. Stay in and work. You know, you make a little money and you stay in. But I had a room. | 31:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | What do you mean, "stay?" Live in a place and work there? | 31:34 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-huh. | 31:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 31:38 |
Deatherine Pelerson | See the other boy, the older boy, he was grown. He went on New York where my sister were and he was working. So my other boy, he was younger and crazy too. And he was going down to the bus station, that's where them at. And he was just drinking and carrying on when I said, "Uh-uh. That ain't going to happen." You got to carry him—I sent him back home. | 31:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | You sent him back down here? | 32:02 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-huh. | 32:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | Uh-huh. | 32:03 |
Deatherine Pelerson | So after he got down here, then he got some old girls or they're going to put him in jail or younger girls. So I said I better go home. So after while he was staying this place and that place and down in Greenside, I said I'm going home. So I come back down here. Me and my husband were separated then after that. So I come back down here and got a house for him to stay in. My other boy was in service. He was over in Hawaii. So my husband died in 1971 and after he died and the other boy was grown so I went back to New York and I stayed up there three years again. Then I said, "Well he was running there from one place to another room, had to come down and get him somewhere to live." I said that didn't make sense. | 32:06 |
Deatherine Pelerson | So I just come on home and got a place and I stay. I didn't stay now. I used to go back and forth and work. I had two people I used to go back. When they got ready to go on trips somewhere or another, they'll call me. Sometime if it didn't go on the trip. Like a lady was, she loved to drive, we have boats. | 32:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Boating? Okay. | 33:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. And they would have people from everywhere would come up every five years or three, something like that. But I used to go up there and they'd go off and stay with her. She had two little girls and stay there sometime a month, two months or something like that. Then I had another one. She moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania. And I was going from one to the other like that. This lady, the one in Scranton—the one in New York, she was nice too, I mean, but the one in Scranton, she was the best one. Nothing wasn't too good. I mean, I went there, they first moved they had so many things. I think I had six great big boxes of things to bring home. | 33:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | They gave you things? | 34:07 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. Clothing. | 34:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh that's nice. | 34:09 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well her husband was working at it this, what them old things? Alligator. It ain't alligators. | 34:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Izod? Izod shirts? Is that what you're— | 34:18 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. It's like alligators. What do you call them? He used to work where they stamped them things, the little shirts and things. That's where he was a manager, one of the managers. And he was good. So when they moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania, they had a nice home and everything. Well I always had my room. I had a room anyway, but she would give me things. Even now she would. And I sent things home and anything I want they would buy for me. I didn't have to worry about nothing. And clothes, she'd give me brand new clothes, because most of them were pants and I was too old to wear pants. But I would bring them home. | 34:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Back then, what was the typical day working for you? What kind of things did you have to do? | 35:07 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, when I was younger I just cleaned the house up. But I didn't do no walls. But I have cleaned from top to the bottom long time ago. But now as I got older they said, "Well, you done work long enough." So each one had a maid come in once a week do the heavy work, each one of them. And then I just do something because she would do more. I didn't have to do no cooking much. Very seldom I did any cooking unless they was gone someplace and I would do some but she left enough things. She'd go get $2—300 of food or something like that. They was going for two weeks. And she always left checks. All I had to do was sign it, put on what I want on it. I mean they just trust me like that. And always leave a hundred dollars in money with them checks. If anything happened to me or the children had to go to the hospital or doctor, something like that, all I had to do to put what you know they need. | 35:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | So you took care of the children too? | 36:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-huh. She had four and I was up there in, I think it was October, January, February. And them boy—let me see, every one is boys and I would [indistinct 00:36:39], "Well Reen is the only one that come to see us." The other children had grandmother come to see them. So they said I was their grandmother. So they said, "Reen, can we call you?" I said, "Yeah. I'll be your Black grandmother." So they call me Grandmother and they want go to school. I didn't care what is in, they want me to go there. If she wasn't there, I had to go with them and all like that. But they left money there. This lady left money there and checks. I don't mean no one check. She would sign two, three or more for just whatever. And then leave me $100 in cash to spend. | 36:25 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But I didn't do too much work. Most the thing I did with wash because I had to wash every day. And I would straighten up the house. If I go to Vi, she said "Reen," whatever the boy was because she had a boy, call whatever his name, "He going be here Friday. Now what he going to be doing if you going to clean up the house?" And she wouldn't let them children say I'm a maid if anybody come there. "Reen is not our maid. Reen is our friend." | 37:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's nice. | 37:45 |
Deatherine Pelerson | They never call me their maid. And if she introduce me to her friend, come that, "This is my friend." She come down and help us out or do something, keep the children. Never say maid, and she'd tell them children, "Reen is not a maid. Reen is our friend." | 37:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever have any bad bosses that you worked for back then? | 38:01 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Not no badder than me. | 38:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were some of the experiences? Did you ever have any bosses that try to overwork you? | 38:11 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, out in Brighton Beach, I got a job to work out there, to sleep in. I think I stayed one night or two nights or something or other, I was working, and the little girl called me a nigger. I said, "Your mother must be one because I'm not." | 38:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did her mother say? What is it? | 38:31 |
Deatherine Pelerson | "Oh, you shouldn't say that. You shouldn't say that." She wouldn't have knowed it if she hadn't heard her say it so I didn't stay there. Because see, I know what was going to happen and they'd have been putting me in jail. Now them little children call you a nigger. This lady, what I'm talking about now, her little girl, when she was small, I think she was just had started to kindergarten school and these people had some West Indian people coming there for dinner. That before I started. And she was talking about, "Well someone can wear some terrible perfume or if they put it on and don't take a bath you know how it smell. | 38:34 |
Deatherine Pelerson | And she was talking about she had the perfume on and she had other guesses there too. And the children, the little girl heard her say so. So, I don't know, she might have said Black, I don't know. But anyway, the little girl said, "Reen, you stink." I said, "What you mean I stink?" "You stink." I said, "Do you smell me?" "No, but you stink." I said, "I know I don't stink because I take baths," and all like that. So I told the mother about it. Boy, that man got that girl. He said, "I don't know why she got that from, because she been to his office and they got Black people working there. And she know. She know no better than that." But I never heard it said no more. | 39:12 |
Deatherine Pelerson | And they begged me, pardon me, they begged me, pardon me too. That's the only time I ever heard one of them children or the other ones say that and I was with them. Oh, that girl just started the kindergarten and she was the oldest child and now she's in college. The other boy's going to college this year. So she had two children, three children since I was with her. And I was down south and before she go to the hospital, I would go up there a week or two weeks before she go to the hospital so I stayed there with the children. | 40:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to go back then in the, I guess, the '40s and the '50, I wanted to ask about the 1940s. Were you affected by World War II? Did that affect your family in any way? | 40:47 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. My husband, he went down to sign up, but he didn't go in. I had two brothers, one in the Navy. You talking about my brothers too? I had one in the Navy and one was in the Army. And they was all over there fighting. They had some medals there. And my son was in service. My oldest son was in service. In fact he stayed in there about eight years or more. But I don't know why he didn't stay the other two years. He just come over and quit. He was in Hawaii and he was my—but I told him, I said, "Son, I love you, but if anything happen over there, you get sick, anything, ain't no way in the world I can come over there. I'm scared of airplanes." | 40:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you are? | 41:50 |
Deatherine Pelerson | So he sent his wife over here one time, said, "Come on back with her." I said, "She can't help me up there on that plane so you just have to come home." So he signed up for over here in Petersburg, I believe it was. Up there where they— | 41:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did your brothers ever talk about how they were treated in World War II? | 42:08 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, because I had old big mean brother. Even his wife down here scared of him, and he died though, about a year two after he come out. He went to New York and they think that somebody gave him something in some whiskey or something because he was doing all right and then looked like he started bleeding. So he died kind of suddenly. | 42:14 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But when he was in service, he kind of liked it. He was glad to get home. So he came home one time to visit and he went to Weldon. I was staying in the house back then. He went to Weldon and he called, he said, looking for me. Weldon or one of them places. He called and said looking for me. By drinking, he didn't know. So he went on a lady's porch and laid down and went to sleep. White lady. So she called the law. So they locked him up in Halifax. So when I went up there, he told me, he said, "I was looking for my sister Deatherine." Said, "I didn't know I was at this lady's house." But you know how they was then too. | 42:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | Uh-huh, because he was a Black man. | 43:25 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, on that White lady's porch. So anyway, somebody told me to go to the, see I know what I'm talking about, but I can't call the name, to the [indistinct 00:43:37]. | 43:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Judge or the jail? | 43:39 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, go to these people kind of help you. | 43:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | The service? Was it connected with the military? | 43:44 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. And can't call it. But anyway, I went there. He was a White man. The first White man in North Carolina called me Miss Pelerson. I said, "Well what's going on?" So I told him what had happened. I said, "My brother's in the service and he went laid on this lady's porch and said that he was looking for me." So he went up there and so they let him out and they talked to the service people anyway. And so one of them come down, I think, where we were and talked to him and he got out of that part. But my other brother, the young one, he didn't never get in any trouble. He never was troublemaker, no ways. | 43:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you were growing up and you were staying with your brother and things, were they responsible for punishing you and things like that? | 44:51 |
Deatherine Pelerson | What do you mean? If I did something? | 45:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | If you did something. | 45:00 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Did they get a whooping? | 45:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they get to whoop you when you were staying? | 45:04 |
Deatherine Pelerson | My brother? You mean my older brother? | 45:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Uh-huh. | 45:07 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, my older brother when I was staying with him. Yeah, he would whoop me. | 45:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was he more like a parent or a brother? What was he? | 45:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He acted more like a parent. But he didn't do too much. Where he would get me, though, he didn't allow me to—he thought he was lying but I could slip out that house child going to school daytime, not at nighttime now. Slip out that house and when I was up there, was wearing my sister-in-law made me—along then girls was wearing the dress with like the bloomers and the bloomers would be on it. You know, you could see them. Oh that was a star girl. And I had a gray and black shoe, barker. That was, ooh. | 45:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | It was stylish? | 46:02 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. Uh-huh. So then I had on a pair of pants one time and some—no I didn't have no pants. I had on a skirt and I didn't want to go to school with them drawers down. My sister-in-law had me had on some long johns and put them down in your stocking. You know, could see them. And when she would go to work, she'd go to work before I went school, I'd take them things, child, roll them way up here, something. But one day he caught me. | 46:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | What happened then? | 46:36 |
Deatherine Pelerson | My brother got out there. "You got to wear them down here." That didn't stop. I still did it. I was a great big girl, 12 years old. 11 years old going them drawers down there and the shoes come up along there. | 46:37 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He was nice to me too, but he didn't allow me to do so much, and I had to braid my hair. Usually I had long hair, and usually I had to braid my hair in one plait, and I wanted some other kind of way. | 0:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | But you had to do that way? | 0:16 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, I had to do that way. I went home, then I went home and told a lie, told my father that doctor said at nighttime I would sleep, I would see thing or hear thing, certain like that, I had [indistinct 00:00:39] and doctor said I had too much hair on my head and I cut it off. | 0:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | Now, why did he say he had too much hair? He said that— | 0:43 |
Deatherine Pelerson | The doctor didn't tell me that. I told him that. | 0:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you said that's what the doctor said? | 0:48 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. | 0:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Because you wanted to cut your hair? | 0:51 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-huh. I did. | 0:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was that more stylish to have your shorter hair? | 0:53 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, I wanted it. Most of the people—I don't know what I want. But I had it, my sister, somebody cut it off. I don't know whether my father whoop or not, but I told him that. | 1:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did you and your friends do in New York and stuff like that? I guess, when you were a teenager and things like that? | 1:11 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, I loved to dance. | 1:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were some of the popular dances? | 1:20 |
Deatherine Pelerson | The Charleston was old, but we still were doing the Charleston then. Then the Charleston was like the Lindy Hop. | 1:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 1:30 |
Deatherine Pelerson | You ever heard of that? | 1:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Were you good at that? | 1:32 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Oh, girl! When I was a child, we used to go around on downtown, way downtown, and we'd dance for Christmas. We'd make us some money. | 1:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | What? You'd make people give you money to watch your dance? | 1:46 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, we'd be out on the street, and they'd be throwing us money. Girl, I'd be going to town. | 1:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Could you turn the flips and all that? | 1:55 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Ooh, talk about getting down on your knees and all that kind of stuff, I could do it. I was just like a dish rag. We used to love it. That's where you'd make a little money, but we were mischievous children though. I tell you, we had fruit stands and vegetable stands on the street, when we want us an apples and bananas, somebody go round and talk to him, and just mischievous, and the other one be right in his back, getting the apple, orange, and that. They see us, child, we run like I don't know what. They wouldn't put us in jail or nothing like that. We'd just get one, two or something like that. | 1:57 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I loved the dancing when I got old enough. Even coming up, I loved to dance. I used to practice dance. I used to go to the movies. Most of my learning, was going to movies. | 2:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did you learn from the movies? | 2:49 |
Deatherine Pelerson | What'd I learn? I mean, I learned words and what they meant. You see, at that first, it was silent movies. | 2:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Was were those like, the silent movies? | 3:04 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, you see, whatever they was doing, then it would read on the thing— | 3:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | You had to read it? | 3:15 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. What they was doing or saying, and somehow, it looked like I could understand, because I could tell by what they doing— | 3:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | On the screen. | 3:23 |
Deatherine Pelerson | —what they meant. I learned more from them than I did in school. | 3:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 3:27 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I loved to go to movies, and my brother let me go to movies. | 3:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | He let you go there? | 3:32 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. Uh-huh. And then, after I was teenager, we'd go up there and make just a little money, and we'd just go onto the movies somewhere. I had been to three movies in one day. Different movies. It was three where I lived at. One sit there, one between and the other. You know I go through like that. I learned more by reading books. I loved to read. Loved stories. | 3:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 4:02 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I would get a book all day long, don't bother me, just let me read. I could imagine, look like me, what they saying and they were and that's where I learned more than learning in school, because I didn't have time. But that's mostly I read. But we used to have a lot of fun. We'd go out in the park, and sometime, at that time, you could carry your blanket, or quilt, and a lot of people sleep in the park in summertime. | 4:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | They did? | 4:30 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. | 4:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did anything happen to them? | 4:31 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. Uh-uh. We usually had paper out there, and they would stay out there all night. I don't mean we'd stay out all night. I mean, but we could stay out there all night if we wanted, just talking and laughing till it'd cool off, and then we'd go home. But you can't go out there. You can't go out there now, I don't really think you got a park now. You scared to go out there, if you did. But it was really nice. People didn't bother you on the street. I used to see people sleeping in doorways drunk, and people didn't take their shoes and clothes off. [indistinct 00:05:10] different now. They take it off if you walking. But then I see many men sleeping in the park. Nobody take nothing off of them. | 4:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was dating like, courting like, when you were a teenager? | 5:23 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I had a boyfriend. | 5:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, how did you meet your boyfriend? | 5:28 |
Deatherine Pelerson | One, I think, was a friend of mine, because they were from Charlotte, North Carolina. This friend, I was buddies till we grown and different. This was her cousin, and I met him through her. I don't know how I met some other. I had some of them somewhere, I don't know. I just would meet them, and sometime go to dance and meet them. I loved to dance and they loved to dance too. Go to a party, they used to have fish fries and parties like that, Saturday night or Friday night. People weren't killing you, weren't fighting. I'd go home four o'clock in the morning, and we were friend, go upstairs. Nobody didn't bother you. | 5:32 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But then, sometime I start seeing that it's getting kind of bad, my sister, I was staying with this sister here, and I would say, I would go to the window, and I would say, "Skee!" That's what we used. My girlfriends and come by sometime, and ain't have no doorbell or something like that. Instead of coming upstairs, we would say that, and we knew who they were. My sister knew who I were, and I'd say, "I'm coming up!" She would open the door and come to the stairs and watch. I mean, it was getting bad then, but it wasn't too bad. | 6:29 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I mean, like that, but before then, I think I knew every hour on the clock. Nobody never bothered me. I had friends being throwed off the roof, killed. Backyard, look out there sometimes, see somebody throw you off the roof. But I know this girl, she was going with policeman. I don't know if her policeman throwed her off the roof. I seen some death too. Seen them get shot. Seen one woman across the street from us, she sitting in the window, this really got my nerve, and she was sitting in the window, and it used to be an apartment like this now. Used to be a washing machine with a top on it, something else, she sitting in the window, reached to get that cup, and I'm looking at her, and her finger hooked in that cup, and when she went to sit back up, oh, she went. That wasn't but one flight up. She bust— | 7:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Busted her hand? | 8:24 |
Deatherine Pelerson | You could smell that [indistinct 00:08:30] getting to her. I saw, and I'm telling you, it was years I think, before I got over that. I was just so nervous. But it was terrible. I seen a lot of things now. Shooting in the hall, one shooting at the other— | 8:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was this recently or in the past? | 8:53 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, no. In the past. | 8:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | In the past? Mm-hmm. | 8:53 |
Deatherine Pelerson | One shooting at the other one, one running around the car, shooting and killed him. But I'm out of the way now. | 8:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was in Harlem, when you still lived in Harlem then? | 8:58 |
Deatherine Pelerson | In Harlem. I ain't seen nobody get killed around here, but I know plenty of them got killed though. But it was nice. Years ago, it was nice in New York. It was nice in Jersey. But you wouldn't want to live there now. You ever lived up there? | 9:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | I've been there before. I haven't lived up there. | 9:20 |
Deatherine Pelerson | You wouldn't like living up there. | 9:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | I don't think so. | 9:23 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But it used to be real nice. I mean, people didn't bother you or nothing like that. But it's just as bad almost here, right? Yeah. You've been broke in here. First time when we were here. It wasn't exactly breaking in, it was the man, he worked over there. We didn't have the lock like we have now. Just had the lock down there, and he would take a card or something like this and push that lock over. He didn't go in any of those things with three Blacks in here at that time. But he didn't go in any Black apartments. He went, I think, it was three people White, one man said he got $300 and the other got $50, the other one said got her jewelry. | 9:25 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He did come in twice, but the second time, I wasn't here. I was just coming back from New York at the time. One night I was coming in, it was at this door or that door there, and I said, "Don't go around that door. I know a van come in ahead of me, and a policeman behind me." Because they said he was on a black van, the Black man was on the black van, and they took him coming through the front. But see, they used to have all sense and they dumb. Instead of talking to the folk, let somebody talk to the talk, and the other one, somebody could have went and called the police. The man got away while they was talking. He got suspicious, went in and got in the van and went on back to business. | 10:14 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Come back that night and broke in the office, that same night, broke in the office. But he didn't get nothing because the manager had come in and took all the keys and everything out. But he broke in there, and I never seen it in the paper. They didn't never send no more body. Only somebody over there told me that they caught him. It was the man that worked over there. The boy that was working here, he was Black. He was nice fellow. Had him down in a coat a lot of times, saying he was the one or he had the key, or giving someone the key, but he knew everyone here. He told them, he said, "Do not." This man was a light-skinned man with curly hair, so he talked to him like Spanish, Puerto Rican, something like that, foreign language. | 11:06 |
Deatherine Pelerson | This boy said, "Do I look like light and curly hair?" He had not hair, so they didn't lock him up, but they gave him a lot of fight. But they did get him, but I never heard nothing about sending back [indistinct 00:12:15]. | 11:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were some of the places in New York when you were a teenager where y'all would go for fun and things like that? | 12:15 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, Coney Island was a real nice thing— | 12:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was that like? | 12:26 |
Deatherine Pelerson | You know that's a beach, and they had dance halls and stuff all out there too. My friend, one of my buddies, her aunt was living out there, and we used to go out there sometimes, spending the night, and dancing. We'd spend the nice and go dance all night long. All night long. | 12:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | You weren't tired? | 12:50 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. Go home, sleep. One time, we didn't even go home, we just washed up, changed clothes, and went on the day to get some day's work. All night long, and worked too. | 12:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | And worked the next day? | 13:08 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. We were. When we was young. But at Coney Island and Brighton Beach. You heard tell of that? | 13:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 13:18 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Brighton Beach was a nice place too. | 13:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was it segregated beach? | 13:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, no, no. Uh-uh. If they did, we didn't know it. No, everyone was together. That wasn't bad. They couldn't do things right out in public too much. Then we'd get a boat and go across from New York to Staten Island, you know over there? | 13:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 13:43 |
Deatherine Pelerson | And back. The boat was nice. They had dancing on the boat and parties, whatever like that. This boat. We'd do things like that and go out in the country, go up in the country, and go on picnics. We would do a lot of things, I'm telling you. I can't even begin to tell you all. We used to love to party. But it was fun. You weren't fighting. It wasn't nothing. It was just having fun. But you can't have no fun now. One time I almost got killed. | 13:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Whoa. | 14:25 |
Deatherine Pelerson | We was on a car. You remember these old car? I know you young, but you remember these old car had a seat on the back, outside? | 14:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | The rumble seat or? | 14:35 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. | 14:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 14:37 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, I was sitting back there with my friend, my girlfriend, they was in the front. We stopped at a gas station get some gas. It was at night, and this man that worked at this gas station, this Black man, he started walking up there toward me. I was sitting on this side, and my friend's sitting on that side. He come walking up to me and you could see his shirt, pumping. He said, "Look at him. Turn your head and look at him," my friend, "Look at him." But I was getting scared. That man coming at me, had that big thing in his hand too. Only thing he said that saved me, at that time, I had dimples. I had two, but this one —and when guy looked, I kind of smiled. He saw that dimple, and he — | 14:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did he think you was somebody else? | 15:33 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Thought I was his wife. | 15:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. Oh. | 15:37 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He said, "Ladies, I'm sorry." He said, "But I'm working, and my wife supposed to be at home, and you look just like her. The only thing that kept me from hitting you was that dimple." His wife didn't have none. That scared me then sure enough. But we went on, the boy said, I said, "You sitting over there, and I'm over here. He would have knocked me in the head before you." | 15:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | He didn't try to protect you or anything? | 16:04 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Even when he said what he going to do. | 16:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. | 16:07 |
Deatherine Pelerson | They could have knocked me in the head. "Oh, he wouldn't do nothing." We went on then, we was going out to Coney Island, out there, and so we went on that day and all that night to a dance place, come on home, went to work next morning. | 16:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where y'all went to go dancing, did White people go there too or was it just Black people? | 16:27 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, White people went there too. It was a place down here, called it Dewdrop Inn. It was on 301, it was called that time. A Black man was running it, and the White people came from up, we had rednecks up here. Used to be you couldn't walk on the street at nighttime. | 16:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | In Weldon or? | 16:54 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Up here, in Roanoke Rapids. | 16:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | In Roanoke Rapids? | 16:57 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Mm-hmm. Said he would tell you. I mean, I just been living up here for years, but it's still some up here now. You have this thing on? | 16:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | No names, you didn't mention any names. Well, I wanted to jump back and ask you, could you talk some more about the Dewdrop Inn? What kind of music did they play there? | 17:11 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Oh. They had a Piccolo, and they just had these records and dancing, and these, the men's up here, the White people and their girlfriends, they came there and they was going to look like they was going to take over. I think one man started to dance with a girl. No, I didn't start it now. I didn't start it now. But I was dancing, and what you call it? You swing you out and twist back in? I let the boys swing me way out there. But the White—I'd be butting the White man. | 17:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you hit the White man by accident? | 18:05 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Uh-huh. | 18:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Uh-huh. What happened then? | 18:08 |
Deatherine Pelerson | It wasn't an accident. I was doing it. | 18:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 18:08 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Come back in, and next thing I know, I know what somebody else did or not, but they thought they going to beat the Black people. I had it bad. I was mad. My husband was out there. He come in. He didn't dance. He was one of them slow thing. Anyway, he didn't dance, but he had plenty in hand. He come in and got the baby and went out. [indistinct 00:18:47], because I had one over there [indistinct 00:18:49] myself. I didn't want nobody to hurt that baby. | 18:14 |
Deatherine Pelerson | It got a fight, Black and White. Boy, and I had a look up there only count on the thing, this Black man was laying there, and this White man was beating him with a stick. They'd just kicking. Girl, I'm telling you. It was [indistinct 00:19:09]. I had had me one or two. I told them I said, "Man, if you all go to jail, then call the police." I don't know whether they locked some of them up or not, but they didn't. I said, "If you all go to jail, I'd be a witness for him." Because I saw it. | 18:52 |
Deatherine Pelerson | That went on long, and child, they told come that Nigger, I got to straighten that nigger back. "Now, you said—" I said, "Look, I don't know what went on. I forgot all about." I said I wasn't going to be in it. I said, "I don't know nothing," but I said I was just high. I said, "I don't know what y'all did, but I saw them fighting. They was tearing that place up." | 19:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | Now, were White people in the club dancing, too? Or they just there? | 19:50 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. They was dancing. | 19:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | That club, that was in [indistinct 00:19:59]. | 19:58 |
Deatherine Pelerson | That was between our side, on the other side of Halifax. | 19:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 20:03 |
Deatherine Pelerson | You probably come on through here one day. | 20:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 20:07 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, see, the other thing too then, but you know where the school, the Bricks place that was some kind of college— | 20:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Yeah. | 20:13 |
Deatherine Pelerson | —on the right-hand side. Well, when you passed that, it was just below that, coming this way. | 20:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 20:23 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Because you see some houses in the [indistinct 00:20:25] like then, and it was long in that. It was nice place. | 20:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | And a Black person owned the club? | 20:23 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. Uh-huh. | 20:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. That's why, he liked because sometimes Whites, and the Whites didn't mind coming to the club? | 20:34 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, being here from up here, you know what it come down that hall. | 20:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | They wanted to close it down? | 20:42 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, they wanted to start something. | 20:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 20:47 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Start to close it down, but they didn't close it down. He closed it himself. I mean, they didn't come too much. He said they could come, but he wasn't going to have no fighting there. Because I think anyone that started, one of the boys probably wanted to dance with one of the girls. | 20:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | One of the White boys wanted to dance with one of the Black girls? | 21:01 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. And then, I was dancing out there, bumping them too, you know? | 21:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you bump them real hard? | 21:11 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, I bumped them. Sit there and bumping and they were [indistinct 00:21:18]. | 21:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they say anything? | 21:18 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Not much there. But Lord forgive me for all that now. I don't do nothing like that. | 21:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did those White men ever ask you to dance and stuff? | 21:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, no. I didn't dance here. Not here. | 21:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | But in New York? | 21:31 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, I danced in that same kind of club. The Blacks started going. | 21:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were they nice to you? | 21:42 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Mm-hmm. They would be nice. They'd come on and ask you to dance. I mean, it got kind of little better. The Whites weren't too bad. Some of them. Some of the young people, they weren't too bad. Then the old ones, and it's just like it is right now. Them old ones putting in the young, but the young people not as bad as they. But you know, we worse than they are against them? | 21:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | You think so? | 22:09 |
Deatherine Pelerson | We are. | 22:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | You think so? | 22:09 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I mean, not me, but I mean, them young ones coming up now. I don't understand that. But them young coming up, you see them on TV, and they'd be like, "I hate White man." They do. That's why they're killing them. In the news that the White man would get the Black women. | 22:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yes, yes. | 22:32 |
Deatherine Pelerson | They playing that for years back. They were going with the Black women. The White women was going with the Black men, and the White men was going with the Black women. | 22:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 22:42 |
Deatherine Pelerson | And then, after they got caught, they women think they going to get caught, they're hollering rape. | 22:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 22:45 |
Deatherine Pelerson | It wasn't rape, because they was going with them. | 22:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you know anybody that happened to, things like that? Or ever heard anybody that happened to personally? | 22:45 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, I don't know. No. Uh-uh. I don't really know the names. But I know that they did do it, because I know they had been with them. I know that. It used to be another store up there, where he sold all that junk, when you come up from Scotland Neck Road. You saw that old store? Huh? That was a store, but he let us dance in it. But he didn't have no fighting, nothing like that. Because the lady in the store would take my baby, fix her box and put them up on the counter, so I could dance with the Blacks and the Whites, so I could dance. She used to love to do that. But I kept my own baby though. | 22:59 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But that wasn't like this other store. I don't think he went there no more. They didn't start this mess at the other store, but the Black one was too, they weren't scared of him. They fighting like that. I know some of them. Some of them probably dead now, but them things would fight like I don't know what. But I don't think we never had another fight there. But the man just got tired and closed it up. He [indistinct 00:24:14] now. Got a chicken place. | 23:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you were in New York, did White men ever ask you out on dates and stuff? | 24:17 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. | 24:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | That happened there? | 24:22 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Ooh, you [indistinct 00:24:25]. Consider it. | 24:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you say no? Did you ever go out with them? | 24:30 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. I been out with them, too. We been to dancing. We been to beer garden. We had friends. I had a girlfriend, she had a friend, but I didn't have it. Just some we know. Some of my sister's friends know from where he was working at. He was an Italian. He used to come up and he used to come over in Jersey. I was working over in Jersey, and he would come over there and pick me up and bring me up, go to a beer garden, something like that. Some of them was nice. | 24:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever consider marrying one of them. | 25:06 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, no, no, no, no, no. | 25:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why was that? | 25:11 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Mm-mm. Mm-mm. I said, "He won't look down at my finger and call me a nigger." | 25:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 25:12 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Blacks be in there and never do one. Uh-uh. Some of them is nice. Some of them really is nice. They treat you nice, but mm-mm. I ain't going that way. | 25:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they ever harass y'all if you went out with a White man or something like that? | 25:35 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. Mm-mm. No, I mean, they didn't come around in public or that place. No. Well, years coming up was different. Different back there like. I was telling you about my sister and this lady, it was different people getting more supervised or something or other, I guess, a long then. I mean, some of them was really nice. I had some friends, they married. | 25:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | They married a White man? | 26:06 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Mm-hmm. | 26:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. Would they— | 26:08 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Some of them down here married. | 26:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they look White themselves? Or did they look— | 26:12 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, they didn't look White. | 26:17 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? Now, what was the reaction to that stuff? | 26:17 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well I mean, to me, they're just one thing. It didn't make no difference to me. | 26:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 26:24 |
Deatherine Pelerson | It was a lady, she's from Africa and you couldn't tell her from White, and she said she had passed for White. I knew some people that said that they had been out with the White people, and they thought they was White. They said only reason they know is because they started talking about the Black folks, the niggers, suddenly, then they told them that they were Black too. But they didn't know it. If she African, if she didn't have an accent or something like that, how did the White get into Africa? | 26:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. Oh. I wanted to ask, how did you meet your husband? | 27:04 |
Deatherine Pelerson | In North Carolina, down in the country outside of Halifax. | 27:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. Was he from North Carolina too? | 27:14 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. But not right round in that area. | 27:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 27:24 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Now, you talking about White folks and I said, "No, I wouldn't marry them," but he wasn't White. | 27:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Is he fair-skinned? | 27:28 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. That's his picture over there. | 27:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. | 27:31 |
Deatherine Pelerson | You can see him. | 27:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. Right here? | 27:31 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He got two or three different kind of blood. | 27:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What was your wedding like? | 27:43 |
Deatherine Pelerson | We didn't have none. We had no money then living on the farm. Just went to church and got married. | 27:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 27:56 |
Deatherine Pelerson | That was it. | 27:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | You were working on the farm then. How old were you when you got married? | 28:00 |
Deatherine Pelerson | 21. | 28:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 28:00 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Or 22. One of those. | 28:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was he a farmer too? | 28:00 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. | 28:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you stay down here for a while? Did y'all go back up to New York? | 28:03 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, couldn't get that man on New York. He went up there one time. I been back several times. No, we sharecropped. Worked by the day. | 28:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 28:14 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He was on the farm. His people was on the farm, so we just worked on the farm. I was going to stay down here anyway, but I was supposed to marry somebody else. | 28:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. What happened with that? | 28:29 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, he was living in Newport News, one of my brothers lived in Newport News, and this boy had went up there to this man, he had went up there, too. He made his fortune and he was supposed to come down here and we were supposed to get married. But he made me mad. | 28:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | Uh-oh. | 29:00 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He didn't come down here like he was supposed to come down. | 29:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 29:06 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I heard there was somebody else was the cause of it. When he did come down here, me and this man, then, we done went and got married. | 29:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you got him, didn't you? | 29:17 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Went and got married, so he went on back. | 29:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Goodness. But so, were you dating him at the same time? | 29:25 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, I was dating him. | 29:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 29:32 |
Deatherine Pelerson | The first year I came down here, my brother was going with her step-sister like, and we was friends. Me and him. The other one, I know his parents. When I was a little girl, and him too, I guess, I played, I guess. But see, he went on up there to Newport News, and you know how men is. | 29:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 30:01 |
Deatherine Pelerson | When I was your age, you couldn't outdo me, so he come down here, we had done went and got married. | 30:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did your older sisters ever give you any advice on how to be a good wife or things like that? | 30:09 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, they didn't know how to be one themselves. No. No. I used to stay around here with them, they would tell me how to do and act and be around boys. My brother didn't tell, I ran and got big enough he went on. But he still would talk to me a little bit. But see, I was the kind of girl, that when my sister and them was courting, it used to make me mad or something. I didn't want to be courting. I didn't want to mess around with boys. | 30:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why was that? | 30:53 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, see, I was raised up different. You didn't supposed to be going with boys. | 30:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 31:06 |
Deatherine Pelerson | That's going on that hand. | 31:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | But they won't understand. | 31:09 |
Deatherine Pelerson | They were, and I used to fuss around, "You know you ain't supposed to be doing that." And then when I went to New York, the girl was doing it too, so I still wouldn't. I was ashamed or something. Still had that country in me, so they didn't tell me too much. They would teach me how, I guess. Because they was going, and I would sit, I wouldn't tell her husband. I wouldn't tell them on her husband, wouldn't tell her husband on them. | 31:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you were grown as a teenager, did you ever know of any girls that got pregnant, things like that? | 31:44 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. I had girlfriend of mine, and I felt sorry for her, because the people at that time, they didn't want the girls to be around the other girls that was pregnant like that. But I didn't. I stuck with her until the baby born. After the baby was born, we went to dancing. She danced right up to the ledge. Both of us out there dancing. But I was with her, and she said, "You ain't ashamed to be out?" I said, "No, I ain't ashamed to be out with you. That's you. It ain't me." | 31:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well, did a lot of people stop being friends with people that got pregnant? | 32:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. | 32:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 32:23 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Most people did. But I did. I went with her dancing, every time I went to a dance, she went. She danced up until the last, when I got pregnant, I danced up until the last. Right here in North Carolina. I stuck with her. Even after the baby born, I stuck with her. Of course, I don't think she had no more sisters, I don't believe. She probably had a brother, but I don't believe she had anymore sisters. | 32:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | What would happen to the boys that got the girls pregnant? Did they get in trouble? | 32:51 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Did her marry her—I don't think he married her. I was going with her brother. I was going with her brother, and he got a girl, I think I come home and went back, and he got a girl pregnant. He married her, but — | 32:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. They usually didn't get in trouble? | 33:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He didn't get in. He went on to marry her. | 33:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Usually would the guys go on and marry the girl or not? | 33:26 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Go and marry a girl? | 33:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Would the guys who got the girls pregnant, would they usually go on and marry the girl? | 33:31 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, this girl didn't get married. That girl I was with, she didn't get married. But the other girl we were friends, her brother married this girl. But a lot of boys didn't. I used to go to school down here. Down at [indistinct 00:33:54]. | 33:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. | 33:53 |
Deatherine Pelerson | There was a girls' school called Lama Branch, but some people don't know Lama Branch. I don't know. But I went there a little while. | 33:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Atlanta? What was the name? | 33:56 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Don't ask me to spell Lama Branch, because— | 33:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Lama Branch? Okay. | 33:56 |
Deatherine Pelerson | It was right down other side of [indistinct 00:33:57]. | 33:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Okay. | 33:56 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But there's a house built there now with a fence around it. I done forgot what I was fixing to say what I was saying. Oh, this preacher got my girlfriend. I ain't calling her name. | 33:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | You don't have to. Mm-hmm. | 34:23 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Got her pregnant. She had a baby, more than one. | 34:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | What happened? What'd the church thing about that? | 34:27 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He's still preaching, he's still living too. He can all get up in the pulpit, but he—old [indistinct 00:34:40]. I was too young. He said, but if he ever messed around with his daughter, he going to kill him. You know about my sister? But he did. That man is still preaching. | 34:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | I thought in the church, if a girl was pregnant they throw her out? Did that happen each time? | 34:56 |
Deatherine Pelerson | They used to. | 34:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Back then, that's what I mean, back then. | 34:59 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. They used to. | 34:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | They didn't do anything to the men that got the women pregnant and stuff? | 35:01 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. Some of them would get the shotgun, and make them mad. But that one wasn't no good. Because my older sister, she got pregnant, and my father wouldn't let her get married until after the child born, because he said he wouldn't marry her. If he wanted her, he would marry her. But he said, "She going to have the child first, then if you want to get married." After the child was born, they did get married. They married until she died. I think they had nine children or ten children, and then after she died, he went with another woman, and I think he had, how many? Ten more children or something like this by this woman. But they around, I don't know where is it? Chicago or where, because he moved from New York and went up there. But he came home. I saw him since then, and he said he had ten children. | 35:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. And then, when did you start having your children? | 36:15 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Don't ask my age now. | 36:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. | 36:22 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I was married five years before I had any— | 36:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | How many children did you have? | 36:23 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Not but two. | 36:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 36:25 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Two boys. | 36:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 36:26 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I don't know where my other boy's picture at. It's around here somewhere, but that one up there, that's the oldest one. Some of them are my grandchildren. | 36:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you have your children in a hospital? | 36:37 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No. | 36:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay, where did you have them? | 36:41 |
Deatherine Pelerson | At home. | 36:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | With a midwife? | 36:42 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Mm-hmm. | 36:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you go about finding a midwife? | 36:44 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, I know this lady. I been knowing her a long time before, and she came. Did I have the same one twice? I believe it was. But anyway, I know them, and she came there. I wasn't going to no hospital. | 36:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why didn't you want to go to the hospital? | 37:02 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Look like me, if I went to the hospital, I couldn't do like I want to. If I stayed at home, I could do like I wanted. | 37:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Feel more comfortable at home? | 37:11 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah. But everyone old as I were, I was about 30, still wasn't too bad. She said I was a good patient. | 37:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where did people go that got sick? Where did they go? Did they go to the doctors? | 37:25 |
Deatherine Pelerson | At that time? | 37:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. I had went to Enfield to a doctor, he was my doctor in Enfield. | 37:27 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Who was your doctor there? | 37:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Dr. Brant is his name? I've heard of Dr. Brant. | 37:39 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Brown? | 37:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Brant. Dr.— | 37:44 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Brat? | 37:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Brant, Brant. | 37:47 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I don't know Dr. Brant. | 37:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's okay then. | 37:50 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I done forgot this doctor name. I know Dr. Brown was one. | 37:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Dr. Brown? Okay. | 37:55 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But he left and went to New York. | 37:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Maybe that's it. | 37:56 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I forget this other doctor. Oh, I used to go to Dr. White, too, in Halifax. | 38:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 38:03 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He was one of the main ones. | 38:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. When you were working, how did you manage taking care of your babies when you were working? | 38:10 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I always had somebody I could take them too. Some old people that weren't working, they would always keep them for me like that. | 38:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 38:22 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Pay them a little something. They didn't have to feed them, because I was the type I didn't care where I went, where my children went, I had a bag of clothes and a bag of food. Everywhere I went. If I went to town, I had changing clothes, two, three, changes of clothes and I had food. | 38:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why was that? | 38:41 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Because I didn't want them to get dirty. | 38:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 38:41 |
Deatherine Pelerson | The girls usually keep them, they loved to keep them, and they'd take them —keep them riding around in town, and I said, "Let me tell you one thing, don't let my baby get dirty, and don't let my baby get hungry." Because they had food and clothes. I was very particular. I mean, I hated seeing a nasty child. Just have clothes. I worked, and I would go in town and would buy myself something, I would wind up meeting a friend and she had a boy, wind up buying something for the children. Every time. I just worked and bought clothes and kept them cleaned. One lady told me that had that store that I was telling you about a while later, she said, "Mm-mm, your children are cleaner and dressed better than the whole White folk children." I said, "I work and buy." Clothes were cheaper then, too, though. | 38:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you sew of your children's clothes? | 39:41 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Mm-hmm. People didn't mind keeping them, because they didn't have to cook for them, and they didn't have to use they food for them, and they didn't have to be washing out clothes for them, because I had clothes. I would get up four o'clock in the morning to wash sometimes. Sometimes I wash when I come from work, working on the farm. I would wash clothes that night and it'd be too cold, I'd hang them out the next morning. | 39:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | While you were working on the farm, after you were married and things, who made the decisions in your family about money? | 40:14 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, I think it was me. | 40:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? | 40:24 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Because my husband was kind of slow. | 40:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Did you ever— | 40:26 |
Deatherine Pelerson | He didn't give it away though, that money away to her, but I was most of the time, I'd go pay the bills. Buy the groceries. He'd give me the money to buy the groceries, but I was the one. If I wanted things, and he was coming up poor too. He just didn't have. Most of the time, like them, if they got changing clothes, that was it. But I never that way. I mean, I remember one time I was in New York—am I going too much for you? | 40:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | No, this is fine. | 41:04 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I was about 16, I reckon, 15 or 16, and I was walking down the street in June. June at that time, sometimes it gets hot, and I had walked downtown, round in the '30s or so where my sister was living, and was coming back home and had got hot, so hot, girl. I had on a winter jacket. | 41:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 41:27 |
Deatherine Pelerson | A winter jacket. Paste board in one of my shoe. I said, "Lord, in the street, if you let me live to get grown and get me job, I'm going to have winter clothes, spring clothes, summer clothes, fall clothes, and I'm going to have all colors." I never forgot it. When I did start working, making a little something, I started buying. One piece at a time, I started buying. And then, when I got grown, and making more money, I would buy them right now. Someone in here. | 41:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were some of the popular fashions and things like that when you bought your clothes and things? What were some of the clothes that you liked the best? | 42:14 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Along then? | 42:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 42:18 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Well, come up. | 42:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 42:18 |
Deatherine Pelerson | I was buying. I used to wear, you all call pantsuits, like that. I would wear them. And then they had the skirts with the shorts under. They wouldn't allow you in New York at that time to wear shorts without a skirt over it. | 42:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. Oh, okay. | 42:47 |
Deatherine Pelerson | You even had the skirt over it and you still had to have that skirt on, and had the shorts up under it. But I used to buy them like that, then pants too. | 42:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you mean they wouldn't let you wear the shorts, what time was that? The '40s or the '50s? | 42:59 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, this was around in the late '30s. | 43:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Just wondering. Okay. | 43:05 |
Deatherine Pelerson | No, in the '40s, I think, you went without anything no more. Some of them were, but I never went half naked. I didn't like to be that. I would have something on, like you got on or something like that. But all this just something up there, I never like that. I had a lot of bust, but I ain't got no bust now. But I mean, now, I don't wear a lot of things that people wear, young people especially. I know I'm not young, and I try not trying to act like I'm young. But I don't buy the oldest clothes now. I buy something that I like. I don't buy clothes for the style. I buy them for what I like. If it's not in style, it's in style for me. That's what I buy. But to go out here, and you making do. You know how they're half naked now. | 43:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Uh-huh. | 44:18 |
Deatherine Pelerson | You might, can wear, but I can't. | 44:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Those hats or those hairstyles? What are you talking about? Hats? | 44:21 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Hats and hairstyles, too. | 44:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. They different. | 44:24 |
Deatherine Pelerson | But them hats. See, I had a hat. | 44:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, those big old hats. I know. | 44:33 |
Deatherine Pelerson | You don't need everything just waiting. They got on so many. They got a top up here, they got a ring round there. They got a ring —it's so many —No, I can't stand that. | 44:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | You wore, back then, you wore hats though then? But they were pretty hats then? | 44:46 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Yeah, I wore pretty hats. A lot of time I was bare-headed, but I went bare-headed a lot, but I wear hats now. All the time. | 44:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they wear the gloves then? When did they wear the white gloves? | 45:03 |
Deatherine Pelerson | When they going dancing. | 45:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 45:05 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Oh, yeah, child. Not me, half the time I'd lose them. But I mean, you wore evening gowns. Sometime, you'd dress up, go out to this dance, or this party, certain long evening gowns on. We used to wear them a few years ago at the senior citizen up here, went and had a birthday, but they don't even do that now. | 45:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 45:33 |
Deatherine Pelerson | Just because we don't do nothing. Never had to tell nothing about. You see now folk, in the paper we went— | 45:34 |
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