Almyra Wills (primary interviewee) and Hubert Wills interview recording, 1993 June 30
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you grow up in this area, where we are? | 0:01 |
Almyra Wills | No, I grew up in an area we call the Eden Church area. | 0:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Eden Church. | 0:09 |
Almyra Wills | Eden Church. There's a Methodist church, it's quite old, there. I think one of the first Methodist churches in the county. And we are from down that area of the county, which might be eight, 10 miles from here. | 0:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And still in Edgecombe County? | 0:24 |
Almyra Wills | No, this is Halifax County. | 0:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, we're in Halifax now. | 0:26 |
Almyra Wills | We're in Halifax now. Dr. Boone's in Halifax, also. So these people you're going to interview later will be in Halifax, also. I don't know about the other people. | 0:27 |
Almyra Wills | Anyway, I grew up in the Eden Church area. That's where my father grew up, also. He was born and raised over in that section, and his property which was heired property, most of it, his father left him. And as they got older, of course my dad, when he married he built a house, just across what was then the road from his mother's house. And his front door looked directly into her front door, right straight through the hall. And we thought that was real neat. And he always worried about her, he did, because she and the girls were there. And he didn't know how they would manage, alone. | 0:40 |
Almyra Wills | Anyway be as it may, the house is still there that he grew up in, because someone else has it now. He had cousins who lived with him, and their parents died at an early age, and his mother took them in and raised them. And they were staying there with her, sort of helped take care of her until she died. She later died of cancer, too. But anyway, it's a nice little community there. It's quite built up anymore. When we were there, there were only maybe four houses within a quarter of a mile, and a mile and a half radius. And it was quite isolated. But we were happy, nevertheless, we enjoyed life and we had a good life. We didn't realize what a good life we had until we left, we got away from home. Then I realized just how really well off we were. | 1:32 |
Almyra Wills | My father was very aggressive. He was a smart man. He worked hard, and he accumulated much. He was an insurance dealer, he taught school when he first came out of Brick, he taught school for two or three years before he married, and of course my mother went to teaching right away. And he acquired a lot. He bought property over to Brick, which was parcels of land from the original Brick School. He bought that. We have documents to prove that, I'm not telling you something that's hearsay. I'm telling you what I know. We have documents in there, I could show you stacks of stuff. But my father, he saved all this material and he had it. So when they put it in the attic, we didn't realize it was there until they passed away, and we were burning things. And one sister said to me, "We can't burn this, because this was Pop's and Mom's school days." | 2:34 |
Almyra Wills | So we shoved it aside, and that's how we managed to have all of this material because they put it in attic. We put it in the attic. And later on, my eldest sister who's living. I have an older sister, another older sister who died, she took this material and kept it with her. And when Dr. Blackshear asked me about our project, I said, "Well, we have some material, but I don't know if the girls are going to want to part with it, because it's very precious material, very interesting. And nobody wants to part with it." But anyway, be as it may, I prevailed with her. And she came up here early one morning and brought me this stack of material that she had saved, out of all the other articles that we had thrown away. But anyway we had lots of it, and it's very valuable information, to tell you the truth— | 3:49 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to take a look at that, if we're lucky. | 4:46 |
Almyra Wills | —as part of it, we're using for our project. Most of it is, I said to Dr. Blackshear that, "Your people have the expertise and know-how, but we have the materials, so it's one hand feeds the other. You have to sort of get along with that, make things do." | 4:47 |
Almyra Wills | I went to school at Eden, after we left Brick. I went to school at Eden School, and this was a Rosenwald school, also. My father built most of the Rosenwald schools in the county. In fact, he built 33 of them. He contracted and he built them, himself. He had a contract. Here again, I'm telling you what we've documented, what we have documents for, not just something that was hearsay. We have papers in there stating that he did these schools, from the superintendent of schools, who at that time was Mr. Akers and Mr. Matthews, who wrote letters stating that he had done this, had built these schools. And then he filed, his last job was a middle school in Enfield, and boarding school. He built that school. And of course they've had many additions since that time, but they're still using it, anyway. And there aren't very many people, the children today, who know that my father built this school. So many of them did not know that he built the Rosenwald schools. And that is a very important part of our history, I think. But they don't know it. They didn't know it. | 5:08 |
Almyra Wills | But I went to seventh grade, at Eden School, then I went on to high school to Eastman High School. And that's where I graduated, I graduated in 1939. Of course I married, met my husband in school, didn't meet him in school. I knew my husband all my life. His parents and my parents were good friends. They'd known each other for years, or from childhood I guess, because my husband's father also went to Brick School, but he was at Brick School maybe in, we figure about 1914, '15, because we used to hear him talk about how they'd have to walk all the way from Brick, here. And that's a long walk. And they had no way to go but, other than walk, I think once- | 6:28 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What is that, 15—12 miles? | 7:23 |
Almyra Wills | 12 miles, uh-huh. So we knew them, a long time, and of course as we grew up, started high school, then we became very friendly. And we married when I graduated high school, and we've been together ever since, which is 53 years. We just had our 53rd anniversary. | 7:23 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Congratulations. | 7:44 |
Almyra Wills | Thank you. Seems like forever, but we've had a good life, we've worked hard together. And my husband's saved, and we've accomplished quite a bit. And I regret not going on to school, but if I had it to do again, I'd do the same thing, I think. | 7:45 |
Almyra Wills | I think that's my husband, coming out. You want to— | 8:05 |
Almyra Wills | Well, where did we leave off? After I got married, then we moved away, that's where we were. And we were in New Jersey for 36 years, and we were back home again. We're back here 20, already. But it has taken some adjusting from me, my husband adjusted very easily and well, but it has taken quite an adjustment for myself. | 8:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | To be back in North Carolina? | 8:32 |
Almyra Wills | To be back in North Carolina. Things are different here. They're even, different, more different than they were when we left. But it's not to say that, it would be segregation or people per se, but there are things that we could do in New Jersey that we don't do here. We had a nice church, and we went to church, and we had lots of nice friends. And we had a nice home, too. We lived in New Jersey when New Jersey, East Orange, New Jersey was East Orange, New Jersey. When we were there, when we first went there, East Orange High School was in the top 10 in the country. Not just in the state, but the country. But then of course the riots came, and it's just a whole new story. | 8:33 |
Almyra Wills | The riots came, and everything changed, because the people in Newark had to have someplace to go. And East Orange being the next town seemed to have caught all that overflow of people who needed a home, needed someplace to go. And as they came in, it sort of overcrowded situations, and things just started to get worse. And of course it's better today, I understand, but it was a terrible transition. Anyway, my husband has adjusted, and he just loves it here. I enjoy it, don't misunderstand me. I love my home, and I enjoy the peace and quiet of the country. I do. I just enjoy that. That's why I'm out here this morning. | 9:27 |
Almyra Wills | But there are many things that's lacking, here. A social life, and I don't mean a constant partying thing. I mean, there are beautiful programs that we were near to, in New Jersey. We could go to New York and have dinner, and see a good play, a show or a movie or something, and get in the car and come up. We were only 10 miles from New York, so we had a beautiful time of that. But I miss that. And of course I miss my church, and I miss my children. We lost one son since we've been here, this is the one that's with us now. But I do miss the grandchildren, being with them. Of course, I guess you don't want to hear that. But anyway, I miss them, and I miss the social and cultural life of New Jersey. | 10:13 |
Almyra Wills | Now where do we go from here? | 11:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I was wondering, you said that your father inherited property from his father. I'm wondering where, or where and how, his father obtained it? | 11:13 |
Almyra Wills | Well, his father got his from his father, who was a White man. And as the story goes—It's not a pretty story. He kept my great-grandmother in a log cabin, and a fence. He had a very beautiful wife, petite, and he did not want her to ruin her figure by having a baby. So every year he would pack her on a horse and wagon, and she would take a trip to Philadelphia and Baltimore to buy new clothes, and nice things, jewelry. And come back. In the meantime, he being lonely, I guess, he would go out and sleep with my great-grandmother. Thus, this child, that one child, she only had the one. And when his wife became ill with tuberculosis, so we understand, she died. He did not have any heirs, not a one. The only heir he had was this Black child, who was my grandfather, Benjamin. | 11:23 |
Almyra Wills | When he died, this is the older man, died. He left a lot of property to my grandfather. He was heir to this property, so he got it. So in turn, when my grandfather died, my dad became heir to—Of course, his share, he had two sisters named Carrie and Bonanna, had two sisters to share in this. And he later bought most of their shares out, but one. The cousins who had lived with his mother were living there, and taking care of her. They lived there so long that he let them take over that portion of the house, and the land. And in the meantime, when the girl got married, then this aunt, my father's sister who had died. She left her husband and two children, and they eventually sold their land to this cousin. Which might have been 25, 30 acres. It wasn't an awful lot, but they got the house in that portion of the land. But the rest of the land is all still there. | 12:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How much land was it that your father had, Mrs. Wills? | 14:11 |
Almyra Wills | 200, and I think 43 acres, in that area. | 14:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Before we started recording, you told me a story about your father running away from home. | 14:19 |
Almyra Wills | Oh! | 14:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Can you tell me the story again please, ma'am? | 14:24 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. I guess my husband, he's tired of hearing this story. He's heard it so much like— | 14:27 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | No, go right ahead. | 14:30 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah. Well, my father's father died when he was 12 years old. My grandfather was 37 when he died, quite a young man. And he had left these two girls and this boy, and my mother, my grandmother in the meantime, courted. The school professor they called him, he was a school teacher, and she courted and married him. And right from the beginning they did not like each other. They didn't take to each other. He said, my dad was lazy and shiftless, and wouldn't work. And he's just 12 years old, how much work could he do? And my father said, Papa Juno is what we call him. We didn't call him grandpa, we called him Papa Juno. So we told him that, my father said he was shiftless and refused to work, and he rode up and down the road. There were no highways at that time. It was just a road, dirt road. He rode up and down the highway, the road all day on a horse and buggy, back and forth to the schoolhouse. | 14:33 |
Almyra Wills | And when he wouldn't do what he told him to do, or what he thought he should have done, he would whip him with the buggy whip. And my father said he took as much of it as he could take, and he wasn't going to take it anymore. So he ran away from home, the first two times he didn't get too far, I guess he didn't know really where to go. But he picked him up and he brought him back home, both times. Well the third time somehow or other he got to Enfield, and headed south on 301, and that's going toward Brick. And Professor Inborden had been in town, in Enfield, buying groceries for the school and his home. And he picked him up and he asked him, "Young man, where are you going?" He said, "I ran away from home." He said, "Well, where are you going?" He said, "I don't know where I'm going, but I ran away from home, and I don't want to go back." | 15:35 |
Almyra Wills | He picked him up, he said, "Well, get in the buggy." He picked him up and took him to Brick, and he kept him there. And at that time, I think they were just shanties, I don't believe there were any dormitories yet. But that all came later, the dormitories did, and he kept my Ned and schooled him, kept him right there until he graduated from the Brick Agricultural and Industrial School. | 16:28 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you know when your father graduated? | 16:58 |
Almyra Wills | 1905. My mother graduated the same time, 1905. | 17:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | From Brick, also? | 17:06 |
Almyra Wills | From Brick School. And, you didn't see the picture of her, with her first class? No. | 17:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I would love to. | 17:14 |
Almyra Wills | Anyway, so the story goes, is that he helped do a lot of the work on some of the dormitories for there. He was, my father was very sharp, very smart, he could do anything. Anything he put his mind to do, he could do it. Anyway, he stayed there until he graduated. He left there and went out and he taught school for a couple of years. Then he became an insurance salesman. Then he became a builder, an architect. And I don't know what else, what all he didn't become, he was really a very sharp person. And we still have things at home that he made when he was in school, and that sort of thing. Which goes into our project too, we intend to show that. But that's how he got to Brick School, and he just stayed there until he finished. | 17:16 |
Almyra Wills | And he was very proud of Brick, wasn't he, Bud? He talked about Brick constantly, all the time. And as he went out and did the farm work, every day, he'd wear a necktie. Now if you could see somebody out that plowing a mule, or doing what he's doing, with a necktie on. He did that because at Brick, they insisted that they wear a necktie, dress properly. And there was wasn't but so properly they could dress, because they had nothing to dress in at. As the school progressed, they wore uniforms, the men wore uniforms. They looked like a farmer's uniform. We still have my father's cap. I don't have it with me, but I have a nephew who has it. And it's shrunken down about so little, this size, and it's tiny little bill. And it's all but falling apart, but we have it. And of course, that will be part of our collection. | 18:21 |
Almyra Wills | But he always pushed education and equality. He was one for equality. He thought that was the way it should be, and he stressed that long before it was vogue to do so. He was fighting for civil rights. Before we even went to Brick School, we'd have a letter that he was writing to the—I think I told you this at the meeting, writing to Professor Inborden, asking him to either sell him or deed him a parcel of land that he could put a house on, so he could bring his children over there to get quality education that he felt the Brick School could give them. And he was pleading for it, very desperately. He was pleading for this equality. | 19:22 |
Almyra Wills | And he was good to everybody. He used to take men out of the road, or the street, and buy them new clothes and set them up, keep them all winter long. And then as soon as warm weather came, I guess the fellows said, "Well, we can sleep any place now." And they would leave, and go elsewhere. But he was good, a good person. I don't say he wasted money, but a lot of money got away from him, helping other people. He saw the need to do this, and that's what he did. My mother was good soul, too. My mother taught school for 35 years, and raised a family of 10, she did. She'd get up in the mornings at four o'clock to cook breakfast, sometimes for as many as 14, 15 hired hands. And she had to do this before she could make breakfast for the children. | 20:20 |
Almyra Wills | And my father insisted, as the hired hands came in to have their—We had a long kitchen, and this huge long table there. My husband can tell you that. This long, great long, as long as that table. And before we had our breakfast, Mother would have to make breakfast for these hired hands, and then have to clean up, and then start all over again with the children. She also made lunches for us. There were no school lunches. She'd have to make enough biscuits, and there was no light bread either, no sliced bread. She would make biscuits. She had a pan that held 48 biscuits at one clip, in a wood stove. She made that twice, twice every morning. | 21:29 |
Almyra Wills | Plus she milked two milk cows, brought the milk to the house, cleaned it and put it away. Brushed and combed the girl's hair. We had three boys, but only two were in school. Brushed and combed our hair, braided hair where it needed to be braided, and then get her self ready to go to school. At one time, of course, we had a cook. A girl who lived in the yard, over what is known as the laundry. We had a laundry my father built for my mother, to do just our laundry. And we did not do laundry for anyone, just the family. And they lived over top of this building, what we called the laundry. And she, for three or four years, she stayed there and worked, and helped my mother. She did the cooking eventually, and she kept the children, the little ones who weren't yet old enough to go to school. Because as soon as they were old enough to go to school, my mother took them with her. She took them right along with her. | 22:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Where did she teach, Mrs. Wills? | 23:22 |
Almyra Wills | She taught at Eden School. Her first school was White Oak School, which is just up the way here, by Dolores. Dr. Boone. Dr. Boone's father went to school to my mother, he was that much younger than she was. But she also had an aunt who was his sister, who was older than my mother, and at that time my mother taught them. Very interesting situation. But my mother said they had not had the opportunity to go to school. So they were just older than she, but it did not matter to her, she taught them. And it was a one teacher school. It's a beautiful picture. And there are other people in the same picture that we know. | 23:23 |
Almyra Wills | Charles Johnson, here in Rocky Mount, who has the radio station there. His father went to school, to my mother. My mother taught he and his brothers, and one brother I know was older than my mother. But they're all in this picture. Very, very interesting situation. | 24:15 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What do you know about your mother's family Mrs. Wills, that you can share with me? | 24:35 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, well now, that's another area. My mother's grandmother was a free slave. | 24:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | A free Black woman? | 25:00 |
Almyra Wills | Free. Black woman, yes. But my mother has Indian, Chinese. Do you know anything about Eng and Chang, the Siamese twins? You don't? Well, look them up sometimes, that's a long story. You look up Eng and Chang, Ing, I-N-G. I think it was my great-grandmother's, my great-grandmother this is, they were related. She was related to them. She had quite a mixture of blood in her. I need my sister here to talk to you about that, I'm not an expert on that. | 25:00 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Hey, but your mother's mother wasn't a whole— | 25:43 |
Almyra Wills | No, my mother's mother— | 25:45 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | —she was mixed. She wasn't a Black woman. | 25:49 |
Almyra Wills | My mother's mother. | 25:53 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yeah. | 25:53 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah. | 25:54 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Ms. Laura Boone. | 25:55 |
Almyra Wills | Well, I had started at my great-grandmother. Oh, and then I came back. I was coming back to her. | 25:56 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Now you had said, I'm sorry, your mother's mother, had she been enslaved and was emancipated? | 26:01 |
Almyra Wills | No. | 26:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Or was she born free? | 26:06 |
Almyra Wills | No, she was born free. | 26:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. | 26:08 |
Almyra Wills | She was born free. | 26:09 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yeah. | 26:09 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah. This is my great-grandmother, I'm talking about, was born free. | 26:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Your great-grandmother was born free. | 26:15 |
Almyra Wills | My great-grandmother. And I have documents for that, too. It's not something that we're just telling you about, or we heard about. We've got these papers. | 26:16 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | We've got the papers, I should have got them from here. | 26:27 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah. | 26:27 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I had them here, [indistinct 00:26:30]— | 26:27 |
Almyra Wills | I could show them to you. | 26:30 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | She has the papers. | 26:32 |
Almyra Wills | But I just have so much, things of— | 26:33 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Freedom papers. | 26:34 |
Almyra Wills | The freedom paper. | 26:34 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I would love to see those. | 26:35 |
Almyra Wills | Because they had to have a paper to travel back and forth. My great-grandmother's brother was a minister, and he too was related to the Engs and—Well, anyway, my mother came down through White and Indian blood. That's how that came to being. My grandfather used to tell us all the time, and we thought he was loony, that he was related to Daniel Boone in the history books. We did not listen to Grandpa because we thought he was getting old, and he didn't know what he was talking about. But as we grew older, and we did some research on our own, we found out the men knew what he was talking about. | 26:37 |
Almyra Wills | And we wished many times that we had just sat there and listened to what he was trying to tell us. But of course it was too late, after he was dead and gone. And he lived to be 96, I think he did. Marvelous man. He insisted, too, that his children go to school. My mother, and he had two daughters, they both went to Brick. They both graduated Brick, and went on to teach school. | 27:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'm intrigued by what you're saying about being related to the Siamese twins, Eng and Chang. | 27:58 |
Almyra Wills | Yes. | 28:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Could you clarify a little bit for me, or elaborate a little on that? | 28:05 |
Almyra Wills | What do you mean, what did you want clarified? | 28:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'm just wondering, were there people in the— | 28:10 |
Almyra Wills | Who they are? | 28:14 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —people in this area? I'm wondering how your family came to be related to them, they were in North Carolina for a while? | 28:15 |
Almyra Wills | They were in North Carolina for some reason or other, I don't know for what. And I can go in there and get a book, and I'll show you it to you. Maybe Bud like would like to talk to you, while I go in and get the book. His family is a very well known family, too. Very prominent family. | 28:21 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Pretty much the same as— | 28:41 |
Almyra Wills | The women went to school. | 28:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'll just take the [indistinct 00:28:48], stop— | 28:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mr. Wills, Mrs. Wills told me that she's known you all her life. | 28:48 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | That's correct. | 28:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And the families knew each other. | 28:52 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | That's correct. | 28:54 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Could you tell me a little bit about your family? | 28:54 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. My family, the Wills family is well known here in Halifax County. Well, throughout North Carolina. What I could gather, my grandfather, Wilson Wills was born somewhere in Pennsylvania, I don't know just where. But he came here from Pennsylvania, and he settled in the township for Brinkleyville, which is about eight miles from here. | 28:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How would you spell that, sir, please? How would you spell the name of the town? | 29:28 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | B-R-I-N-K-L-E-Y-V-I-L-L-E. Brinkleyville. | 29:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. | 29:36 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | And that's where my father and my aunts and all them were born, up there, which is a rather known as the Wayman community, which they all joined. And my grandfather was one of the founders of the Wayman AME church, of then Brinkleyville Township. And that's, all of us became members there. I still attend that church, after being away 36 years, I was Presbyterian during the time I lived in New Jersey. But when I came back I reunited with that same church, Wayman AME, a Methodist church. | 29:38 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Now I don't know too much about my grandfather's mother and father. I never heard him talk too much about it, as I understand that they died when he was rather young. But he did have three brothers and a sister. They settled in Norfolk, Virginia. I think it's some of the grandchildren over there now, but all of the older ones have passed on. But on my grandmother's side, my father's mother, she was born in Halifax County also. She was a mixed blood, as I understand that, she was White, Indian, and Negro. And she had seven brothers, I think it was. They were from the Solomon family, and they lived in Halifax County also. And except a few of them migrated away, some settled in Omaha, Nebraska, some to Pennsylvania, and some to New York, and which they are supposed to be having a family reunion on Saturday night at the Holiday Inn, and run the graphics. I plan to attend it also, hoping that I will meet some, and learn some that I have heard about and have never seen. | 30:21 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | So my father also went to Brick School, and my mother went to Eastman High School, I don't know if you're familiar with Eastman High School. That was a school that was established from a Northerner that came down here by the name of George Eastman, who invented the Kodak. And that school still stands today, but I attended that school also. My wife, all of us attended that same school. But that's where my mother was educated at. But my father went to Brick School, and during the time that her father was there also, I think he was at—No, he had left? He graduated before, but he used to speak with her father, Mr. Pittman, so much I thought they were. | 31:51 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | So I went there also, before we went to New Jersey, that's how we left there, Eastman school. And from the 36 years that we lived in New Jersey, we came back down here. I retired, and we moved back down here. And so far it's been an enjoyable retirement, I've enjoyed it. That is about the end of it. And from here, to the table. | 32:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | There's a lot I could ask you. | 33:18 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yeah, yeah. | 33:19 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Maybe I'll look at the documents Mrs. Wills has. | 33:20 |
Almyra Wills | Well, this is actually a book, that research was done. And this is my grandfather's brother, who is Uncle Henry Boone. You passed this church this morning? | 33:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, ma'am. | 33:40 |
Almyra Wills | It's just up away, there. | 33:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I took a picture of that yesterday— | 33:42 |
Almyra Wills | Did you? | 33:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —because Dr. Boone told me that her grandmother was one of the founders. | 33:44 |
Almyra Wills | Right,. | 33:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And it was [indistinct 00:33:49]— | 33:48 |
Almyra Wills | Right. It was named St. Elizabeth's. This is, this has to do, this was a letter that my grandmother wrote her brother. I don't know how my sister got it, but she did. I'm looking for the Ing's picture. That's what I'm looking for, here. | 33:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Is this a family history, Mrs. Wills? | 34:07 |
Almyra Wills | This is a family history. | 34:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That's wonderful. | 34:10 |
Almyra Wills | Yes, it is. | 34:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Who else, then? | 34:11 |
Almyra Wills | Madeline. Madeline Nars, she lives in Ohio. She's a relative, too. See, now here are some of the Ing children, you see this photo here? My great-grandmother really was a Jones. So that's, see there's Jacob Ing, Esther Jones, y'all know? It tells you where she came in, what it was all about. I'm trying to find a picture of him. They have a picture of them, they were someplace together. | 34:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I would like to move the microphone since, [indistinct 00:34:55]— | 34:53 |
Almyra Wills | Oh. | 34:54 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —Mrs. Wills is showing me the book. | 34:55 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, okay. | 34:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I would like to make sure that the recorder is with you. Thank you. | 34:55 |
Almyra Wills | See, this is Jacob Ing. | 35:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, yes. | 35:10 |
Almyra Wills | This was her, I guess that must have been her father. There it is, there you can see his— | 35:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Tracing genealogy? | 35:17 |
Almyra Wills | Mm-hmm. And all through the story, you will find that they're in here. There's Chang in there, Chang. So that's where she came from. Down that line of people. | 35:18 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 35:33 |
Almyra Wills | There's Jacob Ing Reynolds, and it tells you, it talks about this child was born. So that's how they became known. Esther Mary Jones, that set of people. You have to read it, and really become involved in it, in order to understand it. Because there's so many phases of it, it's really hard to just look at it and see that it's— | 35:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Is it still possible to obtain copies of a family history? | 36:08 |
Almyra Wills | Yes. You have to write to this lady, Madeline Norris, I think her name—Yeah. I never met her. My sister, I got this from my sister. This is her address, here. This is my sister here— | 36:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. | 36:29 |
Almyra Wills | —who she's writing to. But this is, her name is Madeline Norris, and this is her address up here. Taylor Drive. | 36:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Taylor Drive. | 36:40 |
Almyra Wills | But is it a very interesting book, and we're in it here someplace, I don't know. Oh, this is Olivia. My dad was a Pittman. So naturally, I'm a Pittman. And this is starts here. Almyra and Carrie had 11 children. So it goes down the line. This is my oldest sister, my brothers, and the next in line, which is this girl. And it tells who their children are. And over here is Ozette's family. This brother died in infancy. This was her twin brother. And these are her children. Here I am, here they've got my name spelled backwards, but I'm Almyra Virginia Wills, and these are my two children. | 36:51 |
Almyra Wills | I don't know why I didn't put my husband in there. And it went right down, all the way down to here. This is the end of the children. But it goes on, starts over here with the rest of the Jones family, and relatives, which is long. And it says, "History of the artist's boom, Charlton, Jones, Reynolds and White families." | 37:45 |
Almyra Wills | I'm going to have to show you my mother, whom I'm very proud of. | 38:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I would love to see her. | 38:32 |
Almyra Wills | That's her graduation picture. She was 19 years old when she graduated, and that's her. That was my father's favorite picture. So I keep that with me at all times. And this is her class. This was her first teaching assignment, and this lady up here— | 38:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I've seen this picture. | 38:52 |
Almyra Wills | You've seen this? I gave it her, I gave it to, I loaned it to Leslie to have it done over for me. | 38:52 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Wonderful. | 39:00 |
Almyra Wills | And it didn't come out so good, so she kept it, and she's going to redo it. This is Dr. Boone's aunt, right here. This is her father. | 39:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I recognize him from his portrait here, today. | 39:11 |
Almyra Wills | Isn't that a beautiful portrait? | 39:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. It's really, I took a photograph of it. | 39:15 |
Almyra Wills | So that's my mother. And Charles Johnson's father, who is the radio announcer in the Enfield. And this is his brother, who was older than my mother, but he was a small-statured man. And this lady up here, I can't think of her name. I think she's Ms. Jones. Did you have an interview with Beatrice Jones, anyone? | 39:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No. | 39:39 |
Almyra Wills | No? Okay. This was my dad, that was his graduation picture, too. Look at those pants. | 39:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Very handsome. | 39:48 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah, he was. | 39:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Very handsome man. | 39:51 |
Almyra Wills | Very handsome. I think so. In this book I have to show you that, because this was one of his accomplishments, too. He edited this magazine. | 39:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Afro-American Masonic Guide. | 40:00 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I noticed they didn't mention that, and some of his activities there. | 40:02 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah, we didn't. | 40:07 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | He was the deputy grand master of the Masonic Order in North Carolina, for years. | 40:08 |
Almyra Wills | But here again, I tell people. I talk a lot, but then, I know a lot. I'm not just telling you something off the top of my head. I know this. And you should read some of the stories that he wrote. Here, see there? | 40:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | April, 1907. Okay. | 40:34 |
Almyra Wills | 1907. | 40:34 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And he signed the article. | 40:34 |
Almyra Wills | He wasn't even married, here. | 40:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | [indistinct 00:40:39] Pittman. | 40:38 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah, he wasn't even married. And there's one article in here he tells about his sister, and this man that we know who went to school with them. Who, the fellow that laminated this for me got it turned backwards, some way or other. And you know what had caused that? The Scotch tape. So I would admonish anyone not to use Scotch tape. | 40:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It looks like it burns the paper. | 41:02 |
Almyra Wills | It's the oil in there, it goes right into the paper. This is a nice article here, he wrote. | 41:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Interesting. "School closing—" | 41:10 |
Almyra Wills | "School closing at Daniel's Chapel." And this church is still over there, the school is not there anymore, but the church is still there. And it goes on down here. He said, "After which Mr. George T. Brinkley," will be Mr. And Mrs. Brinkley's uncle, that he's talking about here, "was called to say something. He spoke briefly of the importance of education in the public school system. He said, 'With other things, every child has a talent and it should not be buried, but others should be added.' That is, it is the duty of parents to make school one of the important objects in life. We have in every township some four months of school each year. And under our present system, there is a chance for all. There is no excuse for ignorance. Well, it is said, a wise son maketh the glad father. I would that all love their children enough to have that spark of aspiration kindled. There is no better place to begin that, than the public schools.'" | 41:11 |
Almyra Wills | "After which, we were invited to the table, and we enjoyed delicious things that had been prepared. The program that night was very good. The orations delivered by Mrs. Mary Jones," which was his cousin, "and Pearl Clinton," I knew this lady, "were such as might be expected from students from high school." This is the elementary school. "The dialogue, the Doctor and Sick Girl, and Taking Census, were amusing. Mothers and Sweet Home, given by the primaries, was worth hearing. The quartet by Mrs. Johnson's and Mr. Brinkley was indeed very nice," performed nicely. "The last piece, Would I Ever Be a Boy Again, by A.G. Crowell, brought so much laughter from the crowd. At the conclusion of the program, we returned to our homes with a thought of the bright future that awaits a community with such talented boys and girls." And went it goes on down, to another. There's lots of interesting stuff in there. | 42:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And this was printed in Enfield? | 43:24 |
Almyra Wills | In Enfield, and in 1907, I think it's in 1907. And this was long before people were really into education and writing, and things of that nature. That's it, I guess. I don't know what—oh, this I brought up, just to show you. This is in our collection, too. This is May, the 23rd day of February, Care of Pittman, Halifax County, "The contractor shall be provided, this is completion of a three rule frame school building to be erected in the name Ward." That's down the road, here. | 43:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 44:07 |
Almyra Wills | That school just burned down, they tore it down not too long ago, but that was one of the schools that he did. Again, I'm showing you this to let you know that, I'm not just talking off the top of my head. I'm very sincere about what I'm saying. And to show you, this is Drapers, this is another, these are Rosenwald schools. | 44:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | May I just read a couple of details? Year 1922, and the agreed upon some for the work was $2,490 for the school in the Ward District of the Halifax County? | 44:25 |
Almyra Wills | And he had to furnish the money, and all the material, and pay for the wages. And then when he finished the school, then if they were satisfied, they would pay him. Which wasn't very, it wasn't very kosher either, but anyway. See, this is another school, and there's another school. This is Eden School. That's my dad's signature there, isn't it fancy? And it goes on to say, here, let contracts. But this is another school, Draper Crossroad. And this is another one, here. | 44:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | From the Superintendent of Schools. | 45:19 |
Almyra Wills | Schools— | 45:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Halifax County. | 45:21 |
Almyra Wills | Who was A.E. Akers, at that time. And then we go, and these are his drawings and whatnot. This was the school plan, there. All the schools look almost exactly like that picture you see there. Very interesting it is, yes it is. I guess that's all I can—I've got plenty to show, but I won't show it today. Have to pull out everything in the house, we have so many, I have so many papers and documents and whatnot. And I have to go through them, and I have to go back through it again. I organize today and tomorrow, then I start all over again. Somebody else comes and I pull it out, and I have to show, start all over again. I don't even know what time it's getting to be. | 45:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | None of us are— | 46:15 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | [indistinct 00:46:16]. | 46:15 |
Almyra Wills | Reggie, what's the time, please? Reggie? | 46:15 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | [indistinct 00:46:20]. | 46:19 |
Almyra Wills | What's the time, please? | 46:20 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | 25 after 2:00. | 46:24 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. All right, we got time. | 46:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to ask you about going to school. | 46:30 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, interesting. | 46:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And Mr. Wills, if you have memories also, please join in. I guess maybe I'd like to ask you what you liked about school, and what you liked less or— | 46:33 |
Almyra Wills | Eden Rosenwald School. See, when my mother first started to teach at Eden, it was called Cedar Hill. It was not a Rosenwald school. It was just a little one room schoolhouse. And later on, I think Eden School was one of the first Rosenwald schools to be built. I have a lot of material in there on Roosevelt too, because he was the benefactor. He gave the money to build the schools, started it anyway. And we thought very highly of him, we still do. I still think he was a great person. But I liked everything about school. I really did. | 0:01 |
Almyra Wills | We lived on a farm and my father had hired hands to harvest the farm and all of this. But when it came time for harvest, he needed extra hands. So lots of times, we could not go to school. We'd have to stay home and help him harvest the crop. And at the end of the day, he would say to me, he'd say, well, "You might as well have gone on to school, because you didn't do anything today." We did so little. Most times I just cried. I cried all day, because I didn't want to miss a day in school. And it went right through high school with me. | 0:46 |
Almyra Wills | I was supposed to have been a nurse when I graduated high school. My father had the tuition and my papers all ready to go. All I had to do was go to—I was going to Lawrenceville, to nursing school and wouldn't you know, I upped and got married? Never regretted getting married. But I do regret not going on to school. I do, I really wanted to become a nurse. Of course, I don't think I could take it today. Someone said to me, "Why don't you still go?" I don't think my nerves would allow me to see the things that I see happening today. I could not take that. But I enjoyed school. I was always ahead and I'm not being facetious about this. I was ahead of most of the kids in my class. | 1:29 |
Almyra Wills | We have some people that graduated school with me were older than my husband and they'd always say to me, "We don't know how you got so far ahead of us." And I didn't know either. It was just that, I guess I was pushed ahead more or less to excel. Today, they would be gifted children, I guess you'd call them, but during that time, there were no such thing as gifted children. You were in that grade and you just went right along, because you were always ahead. I was. And as I say, I'm not being very facetious about this. | 2:27 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was it your parents who pushed you along? | 3:05 |
Almyra Wills | No. It was the teachers. I guess they found it. I could do this or I was capable of doing and it just catapulted me right through. So when I graduated high school, most of the graduates were 19, 20 years old when I was 17. | 3:07 |
Almyra Wills | I still have one cousin, he still comes to me and say, "Girl, I don't know how you got ahead of me." He said, "But you did. You were all this always the smart one." I said, "I was not the smart one. I just got over." I did well and I couldn't help it. That's what happened. When we graduated high school, a year after we got married, we went to New Jersey and we had a principal at Eastman, who was visiting in New Jersey. And of course he looked us up and he had told us when we got married, he said, "You all are nothing but babies. You will never ever make a go of it." So when we moved away in those two or three years later, he came for a visit and he looked at us and he said, "I never thought you two would make it." | 3:31 |
Almyra Wills | I said, "Yeah, we know you thought that, but we're still together." And he said to me—He's a chauvinist pig. He said, "You know, Virginia, you were supposed to have been the valedictorian of the class, but you are a girl." So we had this one fella who was smart, much more so than the other. So he got it. He was next in line. So he became a valedictorian. And a very dear friend of mine who was in my class, she was salutatorian. | 4:22 |
Almyra Wills | And he said, "If it had not been the fact that Jesse was a man," he said, I would've been a valedictorian in class. I never forgave him for that, but be as it may, that's the type of a student I was. I still know the valedictorian. And whenever we had our 50th class reunion, couple of years ago, and he got up at our banquet and he said he was happy to see everyone. And he said, "My friend over here, who was always smarter than I was." And he still, every time I see him, he said, "You were always smarter, I don't know how I got—" "Well," I said, "Let's let that rest, because there's nothing we can do about it." | 5:03 |
Almyra Wills | But I enjoyed school and it was a great life, great experience for us. We started going in the old school buses, hand me down school buses. They could barely make it to school. And my husband was a bus driver and there was a seat just—They didn't have benches or seats the way they have them today. It was just one long bench on either side, and the center of the bus was just a long flat bench. And nobody sat in that seat behind my husband, but me. If they all got on the bus ahead of me, they saved that seat for Jenny. And at that time, we didn't have hard surface roads. It was all clay and sand and rocks. I mean, really. And we were forever getting stuck it seems in the mud. We had a rough time going to school. It wasn't an easy thing like it is today. | 5:57 |
Almyra Wills | I remember my father and his father and other men in the neighborhood—this is before I even went to high school, getting together and pooling their resources. And some of them gave two and three—and we have receipts to show how these people with the name—My mother kept a very good record, rest her heart, and to show just how much each person could give. | 7:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Your father and Mr. Wills' and— | 7:34 |
Almyra Wills | And the other men in the area. The one, this fella who I'm talking about, who's the valedictorian of my class, his father gave an old truck and they put sides, built sides on it, for the first school bus that they had. And that really wasn't so far back, because I was a little girl in elementary school when they were doing this. And they finally got funds, I think from the county and they bought an old school bus with curtains on it. They didn't even have windows in it yet and had curtain in it. When the bus was driving along, it's flapping and making noise. | 7:36 |
Almyra Wills | But anyway, it wasn't always so easy to go to school and acquire an education. But we made it and we had a good time doing it too. My husband drove the school bus, until we left high school for four years— | 8:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When did you start driving the school bus, Mr. Wills? | 8:42 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | 1937. | 8:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And how old were you at that time, when you were driving? | 8:48 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | 16. | 8:51 |
Almyra Wills | 16. | 8:52 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yeah, 16. | 8:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And did you get paid for this work? | 8:58 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. You'd be surprised. $9 a month? Yep. $9 a month. That was by the state also. | 9:00 |
Almyra Wills | The county didn't pay? It wasn't from the county? | 9:12 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes, that's right, the county. At that time, the county. Now the states controls all of it now. It used to be the county. | 9:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And did you enjoy going to school, Mr. Wills? | 9:24 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Oh yes, definitely. My intention was to be a doctor. I always wanted to be a doctor, but during the time that—Well, I guess my father just wasn't able to send me to college at that time for a doctor, but that's the only thing I ever wanted to be, was a doctor [indistinct 00:09:48]— | 9:27 |
Almyra Wills | His father didn't have any help. He had a brother, but his brother had a sickle cell anemia, and he was not able to help them at all on a farm. And lots of times, he had to stay home and help his dad on the farm and his sisters went on to school. They all went to college and were school teachers. But see, he did not go to school just when he could, of course, after he started to drive the school bus, that gave him the advantage of having to go every day. And that was a big help too. I didn't mean to cut you off. | 9:50 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | But when I went to New Jersey, I went a lot of night schooling. I also took a course at the New York School of Photography and also went to Newark College of Engineering. I took a course in machinery, that helped me get the job at the company that I worked for, which was Worthington Pumps at the time, but later was purchased by General Motors. And I worked 32 and a half years there. That's where I retired from. And I moved to North Carolina and we built a home here to retire. I also put 10 years in the Abbott Laboratory here in Rocky Mountain over there. It's inspector over there. | 10:28 |
Almyra Wills | I also worked at that. | 11:17 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I retired from over there. So here I am now, two retirements. | 11:23 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah, he had two retirement parties. We have a dear friend of us, who lives in Detroit. And she left Virginia Beach, Virginia and moved back to Detroit. I talked to her one night on the phone. She's crying. She said, "I could kick myself up and down the street every day for leaving Virginia Beach. But you tell that Bud Wills—" That's my husband. She says, "When I retire, I'm going to have myself a retirement party and then I'm going to get a job, so I can have another retirement party, because he had two retirement parties also. So if he can do it, I can do it." But I also worked at Abbott Laboratory. I did instrument work all my working years, until I moved back and I got a job over at Abbott's and I worked in Abbott J. Print, in printing, and I retired there too. So that was a nice place to work. | 11:28 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you moved to New Jersey from North Carolina, can you tell me a little bit about what that was like for you, moving to the north? | 12:25 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes, it was quite tough. | 12:36 |
Almyra Wills | It was hard. | 12:37 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I had never been out of North Carolina before I went to New Jersey. In fact, I had never been any further north, than Weldon, North Carolina. But everything was completely different. New world— | 12:39 |
Almyra Wills | Never been away from home, even per se. We've been to Virginia Beach, but not any further than Virginia. But it was hard. | 12:52 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | But I believed that somebody else could do it. I could do it too. | 13:08 |
Almyra Wills | When we first got married, he was making like $3 a week. A week, I'm saying. And I don't know how we did it. Well, things were different. Eggs were like 12 cents, a dozen, sugar was 5 cents a pound and things like that. That helped us survive, I guess. Where we had to have some place to live, because he didn't work too long at that job. But he needed a job, so he took whatever he could get. We needed a job. | 13:08 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | From $3 to $12. From $12 to $15. All within about a year and a half-time, until I finished the course, and then I went to work for— | 13:40 |
Almyra Wills | School. | 13:48 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | But I used to work all day and didn't go to school from 6:00 at night until 10:00, 11:00 at night. But when I finished the course, that was something like four years just about. | 13:52 |
Almyra Wills | Took him a long time to get finish the course. But we enjoyed being there. We didn't have any problems with people or anything, because it was nothing like it is today. Absolutely nothing at all. | 14:09 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | It's a different world altogether. | 14:26 |
Almyra Wills | Different world altogether. | 14:27 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I know the ladies don't like to be asked, but what year were you born? | 14:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | 1966. | 14:33 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | '66? You don't know anything at all. | 14:35 |
Almyra Wills | You don't know anything know anything about that. | 14:38 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | This is, well, almost from hell to heaven the way it is now. | 14:40 |
Almyra Wills | Yes, sure is. It's pathetic. | 14:46 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | That simple. | 14:49 |
Almyra Wills | But we enjoyed it. We used to go to beaches and we used to go to Coney Island. And Coney Island was a nice place to go. Beautiful beach and fun and rides and food. But I would not even attempt to go to Coney Island today. I would not go there. But we used to have a good time. We used to go to the Lakes, New Jersey. We'd get up four o'clock in the morning on Sunday and go up to Lake Hopatcong. And we'd make coffee, pancakes and just spend the day and we'd have a good time. But as years went on, that changed. Everything changed and we just quit. But it's an altogether, different place. | 14:50 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you first moved to New Jersey, how would you compare the racial situation that you found there, with what you had left in North Carolina? How are things different for you, as African-Americans moving? | 15:42 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | It was a great difference, but it still was a touch of it there. It was a great difference from here, but there still was some that existed up there. | 16:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Some racism? | 16:14 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. | 16:16 |
Almyra Wills | You know the difference it made. There, they were prejudiced, but you would not know it. They would not let you know that, I'm prejudiced against you, or I don't like Blacks, or we don't like Whites. But here, they let you know, you start out with it. Well, you are Black and I'm White, and you don't forget that. It's something that you have to live with. But there, they accept you here, but then it would turn over another leaf and you weren't accepted. So you know that they were prejudiced, but they weren't open with it. Of course, today they're more open than—it's almost as bad as it is here, so I understand. I don't [indistinct 00:17:03]— | 16:16 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | With one expression they used to use, and it still puzzles me today. I couldn't figure it out. You'll be all right, as long as you stay in your place | 17:03 |
Almyra Wills | Stay in your place. Yeah. | 17:12 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Where was the place? | 17:13 |
Almyra Wills | Where was the place? Well, I mentioned that the other day that— | 17:15 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | That's the part— | 17:18 |
Almyra Wills | You stay over here. You're okay, as long as you stay here, but don't you cross over. | 17:20 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | You're paying taxes. You're a citizen— | 17:24 |
Almyra Wills | Same as anybody else. | 17:26 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | —the same as anybody else. So where is your place? That's the part that I couldn't— | 17:28 |
Almyra Wills | And then they wouldn't tell you where your place is. It's just, "You just stay there. You stay in your place." But they don't say, "Well, your place is over here in Nash County, or your place is over in Halifax County." They don't say that. It's, "You stay in your place and leave us alone and then we'll leave you alone." | 17:33 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | The only place that I ever known was really my place, is this here. And I built this house and everything in this property here, that's what I call my place. It's just where I pay taxes here. I call this my place, and that's the only place I consider as my place. | 17:52 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah, it's a strange sit situation. | 18:10 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I know it's hard for you to understand— | 18:15 |
Almyra Wills | To understand. | 18:17 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | You were born in 1967. Well, you missed a lot. | 18:17 |
Almyra Wills | Sure did. | 18:22 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | You really don't know too much about the integration move then, do you? | 18:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No, sir. I'm from Canada, also. | 18:28 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I gathered that, I gathered that the minute I spoke to you, when I came out. Yeah, I can see that. But it's an interesting thing, and yet sometimes it can be disturbing. | 18:31 |
Almyra Wills | It can be very frustrating. It can, because you know that you are entitled to these things and you know that you're not getting them. And you know why you're not getting it. I have been mistaken many times—Not mistaken, I don't suppose. They just didn't look at me or they didn't listen to me talk or speak, for someone else. And whereas it was good for me, it got me over, or got me where I needed to be. It was very heartbreaking, because you feel that they don't know. They're not sure that I'm White or Black, so they don't know this. And you know that you are getting the benefits from the White side. You're getting that. Whereas my husband over here, he wouldn't get that, because they can look at him right off the bat and say, "Well, I know what he is." But see, they're not sure about me. | 18:45 |
Almyra Wills | And they don't ask, but they just assume. But I have gotten many benefits. When my husband was in the Navy, I went to Rocky Mountain over here, and at that time, they had Colored and White waiting rooms. The Colored were over here and the Whites were over there. And my father dropped me off, because my mother was ill. And he said, "Well, I'll leave you here. You'll get the train." "I'll be fine. You go on home." And he went home and I took my bags and I went in what they called a Colored side. And I sat there and I was waiting for the train to come, which was a long wait. And one of the porters came to me, and he knelt down and he said, "Miss, I don't know where you're going or where you came from. But when this train pulls in here and stops in Rocky Mountain, they're not going to let any Colored people on that train." | 19:56 |
Almyra Wills | I said, "What?" He said, "No, there are no seats on there. The only person's going to get on that train is a White person." That's just what he told me. He looked at me and he said, "I can take you over on the other side if you would like to go, if you really want to get on that train." I wasn't thinking of anything but getting to Boston where my husband was, I didn't want to go to New York. I said, "Okay." So he took my bag and he shoved it under the division. There's a bar there that divided the two rooms. And he said to the station master, he said, Mr. Whatever his name was, I don't recall his name. | 20:59 |
Almyra Wills | He said, "This lady's in the wrong place. She's going to New York and she wants to get on that train." He shoved the bag. He said, "Well let her through." And he opened up the gate and I came through and went in, sat down, sat on the White side, and nobody said anything. Nobody bothered me whatsoever. Nothing. When that train rolled into Rocky Mountain, smoking and puffing and huffing and a blowing, the conductor said to us, he said, "Only the White people, only the White people." And he took my suitcase and lifted it up, put it in the train, and I was the only Black person got on that train. Now, see, he did not look at me to see, is this woman Black or White, or he didn't say, "Are you Black or White, or you're White, you get in the train." | 21:42 |
Almyra Wills | He just picked up my bag and shoved it in there. I got on the train and came onto New York. All the way there, it bothered me. It really did, because that was segregation at its worst. And this was during the war, very beginning there. And it bothered me. But I went on to New York and met my husband, and we had a good time and came home. But that's one of the instances of segregation or Jim Crowism, I guess you would call it. But of course, now you go there and wait and everybody has the same room. But that happened, that I can say happened many times. I have been mistaken or assumed—I guess it's a better word for it, that maybe I was White or not necessarily White, but of a different race. I'll put it that way. | 22:37 |
Almyra Wills | And have gotten many favors, I think because of this. But then deep down inside, it bothers you, because you know this and you know that your fellow man over here, cannot get that, because they are not White. But like I said, has its advantages and disadvantages. If you can get over that frustration and just work toward helping the cause and keep on going. Your turn. | 23:37 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Do you know the percentage of blood that makes a person White or Black | 24:15 |
Rhonda Mawhood | In this country? | 24:23 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. | 24:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Any Black, from what I have read, is supposed to make someone. | 24:25 |
Almyra Wills | What percentage of blood makes you Black? | 24:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I've always been told that there is what they call a one drop rule. | 24:38 |
Almyra Wills | A one drop rule. No, I don't think they told you correctly. | 24:45 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | It's one 64th. | 24:46 |
Almyra Wills | One 64th of a— | 24:46 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | You have one 64th of Black blood, then you are considered as a Black person. | 24:52 |
Almyra Wills | You are considered— | 24:55 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | It seems to me that parliamentary procedure, the majority always rule, right? | 24:58 |
Almyra Wills | It should. | 25:05 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | But I cannot understand it to save my life. You could take one drop of Black paint and put it in the bucket of white paint. You wouldn't hardly know the difference. | 25:12 |
Almyra Wills | Well, there are a lot of people too, who crossed over and never came back. They gave up all of their roots, everything to get out of situations. I had an uncle in this book here, uncle Henry, he went to Boston after the war, the Civil War. He went to Boston and he married a White girl there. They came on the train, got off in Rocky Mountain, and my grandfather met him and he said, "Boy, what are you doing in North Carolina? You take the next train back as fast and as hard as you can go, and take this girl with you. And don't bring her back." So they stayed over Rocky Mountain in the White hotel, which they could not have done, had they had an inkling that Uncle Henry was a Black man. | 25:22 |
Almyra Wills | You couldn't tell he was Black by looking at him. Good looking man. But they took him, they stayed there in the hotel, until they could get passage back to Boston. And he never ever came back. We lost track of him and we still—He had one son and we never knew what happened to the son, or any of his family. See, they cross over and they leave. They just completely vanish. Bud has an uncle, they're having a reunion this weekend, he had had an uncle who went out, was it Omaha? | 26:23 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yeah. | 27:03 |
Almyra Wills | He crossed too. And it's just that they give up everything. Give up all their— | 27:03 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | They took him for White when he got there. | 27:07 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah, they just assumed he was White and he just— | 27:09 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | He was White. | 27:10 |
Almyra Wills | —and he just [indistinct 00:27:12]— | 27:10 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | He married his wife, his children, you couldn't tell them from White. | 27:14 |
Almyra Wills | Couldn't them White. They looked White. | 27:16 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | They educated his wife. | 27:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you know if his wife knew the truth? | 27:25 |
Almyra Wills | I'm sure she did. | 27:25 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. Because he brought her here— | 27:26 |
Almyra Wills | I'm sure she did. He brought her here. | 27:27 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | —to meet the rest of the family. Even I met her, yes. She knew it. | 27:29 |
Almyra Wills | This was my uncle. So what would you assume? | 27:34 |
Rhonda Mawhood | He looks like my father? | 27:39 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah. This is uncle Henry. | 27:42 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I have some pictures in there. You couldn't tell them. I don't know where to put my hands on pictures— | 27:44 |
Almyra Wills | [indistinct 00:27:48]. | 27:48 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | [indistinct 00:27:51] knows the pictures that we have. I don't know where they are now. | 27:48 |
Almyra Wills | They're in one of the books. | 27:48 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | But if somebody didn't tell, you would never know it. | 27:56 |
Almyra Wills | This Mrs. Brinkman, that you're going see at one o'clock, she lived in a place called Hollister. | 28:00 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Have you heard of that? | 28:11 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah. Have you heard of Hollister? | 28:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | [indistinct 00:28:13]. | 28:12 |
Almyra Wills | Well, there's many people— | 28:13 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | That's where my mother came from up there. | 28:13 |
Almyra Wills | They crossed over there and now they've got a tribe up there. They call themselves the Haliwa tribes. I'll tell you the truth, they're more White than they are Black. But they weren't accepted as Blacks. They weren't accepted as Whites either, but they crossed over and they just got a whole tribe up there. So they call themself Haliwa Indians, half White, half Haliwa. But anyway, she could elaborate on that a little bit more than I could. She's a very learned person. She taught school. | 28:16 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | She can tell you. | 28:55 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah, she taught— | 28:55 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Her husband also. | 28:55 |
Almyra Wills | Her husband's mother, I think, went to Brick for a short time. She left Brick and went to Kittrell, I believe. But anyway, they were both educators. They taught school for 25 and 30 years, things like that. But she is a very good candidate for what you want to talk about. I'm sure of that, because she was here during the struggle, whereas we were away. I keep saying that I really couldn't elaborate on the struggle, because I wasn't here. And there was a struggle. I know there was a struggle, but we weren't here— | 28:58 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | [indistinct 00:29:36] right here. We were in New Jersey at that time. They really struggled with the Martin Luther King days, all who were here. We weren't here at that time. | 29:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'm sorry. | 29:45 |
Almyra Wills | I was going to tell you about the dime store incident we had in Rocky Mountain when my husband was in the Navy. He was away. I lived with my mother and father. I came down, stayed with them, because they had a big old house. And we came to stay with them. And I'd come up and stay with his parents. I'd visit, and we went to Rocky Mountain this day and my little boy was hungry and he said, "Mommy, I'm hungry. I'd like to have something to eat. Could I have ice cream?" I said, "No, let's get a hot dog, a hamburger or something, and then we'll get—" So we went and, at that time it was a dime store, Woolworths. And they had this bar there and the stools and sitting there. So I knew we couldn't eat in there, but I didn't sit on the stool to eat. | 29:52 |
Almyra Wills | I put my order in and I sat on the stool. And when I sat on the stool, she started preparing the hot dogs and whatnot. And I sat on the stool and she looked around at me and she looked over the counter and she saw my little son, who was a beautiful brown. She said, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve Colored in here." So I said, "You don't?" And I had ordered two hot dogs each for us and Cokes or Coca-Cola, whatever we were drinking, and popcorn, French fry. So I said, "Well, you can just keep whatever you have. I don't want it. We weren't going to eat in here anyway. I only sat here to wait until you've completed the order." So with that, we walked out. Another incident we had was, we went to a famous photographer studio in Rocky Mountain. | 30:44 |
Almyra Wills | And I was again, having pictures made to send my husband who was in the Navy, and I was all dressed up in this black dress, all looking good. And my little son in his little brownish suit. And he looked so nice and we walked into this photography shop. And it had a big bar on it. And he's a tiny little fella. He's just four years old. And she said, "What can I help you with?" I said, "I'd like to have some photographs taken if you could." She said, "Oh, yes. What time?" I said, "I'd like to get get it done today, because we live out in the country, which is 18 miles away, and I'm here." So she said, "Okay, well just a minute." And she walked up to the bar and she started writing my name. She wrote my name. And just then, my son, Carlos, he said, "Mommy." And when he looked up, she looked over the bar down, and looked. And she stopped writing, and she said to me, "I'm sorry, we don't take Colored people's pictures in here." | 31:40 |
Almyra Wills | Now here's my husband over there, fighting the war. I said, "Okay, thank you very much." So she took her paper just like this and ripped it in half. And my little son and I walked out. So we went on to another studio, which was a White studio, and they took our pictures and we sent them off to my husband. But it's things like that, I guess you would call that—I don't know if you'd call it Jim Crowism, or segregation or what? Just downright— | 32:49 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Stupid. | 33:20 |
Almyra Wills | —stupid prejudice. | 33:21 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Ignorant. That's what it is. | 33:23 |
Almyra Wills | Ignorant. | 33:24 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I don't care. You can't put it any other way. I just can't understand it. | 33:24 |
Almyra Wills | Well, lots of people can't. | 33:29 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I mean, don't get the wrong impression, but believe me, I am about no ways prejudiced, because there is a lot of Black people I don't care to bother with. And there's a lot of White ones that I don't care—It's not the person, it's not the race, it's the individual. That's who I go by. I mean, I don't know of people that I care any more, and respect any higher than the White family live right there. Some of the best neighbors that I have ever lived around. And they got along fine. But then you may go five or 10 miles down here, you say something— | 33:30 |
Almyra Wills | They won't even speak to you. | 34:13 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | They won't speak to you— | 34:15 |
Almyra Wills | They look you straight in the face— | 34:15 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | You could be White or Black— | 34:15 |
Almyra Wills | Turn their head. | 34:15 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | —and why hate everybody else? Just because they're the same color. That color don't have anything to do with it, so far as I'm concerned. It's the individual. That is one of the things that I admire so much about Martin Luther King. And one thing that he said, "Judge a person by his character." | 34:18 |
Almyra Wills | Not a color [indistinct 00:34:43]— | 34:42 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Just what I do, is not by the color of his skin, but by his character. And that's the way I judge people. So far as race, I don't have anything in the world against race as a whole. | 34:43 |
Almyra Wills | We hope we have helped you somewhere, though. | 34:59 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. | 35:05 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, not at all. You have, I'd like to ask you some more things. | 35:05 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I know it all sounds like Greek to you, I guess. | 35:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No. I've actually [indistinct 00:35:10] a lot of people— | 35:09 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I know, even my son that you see passing there— | 35:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | [indistinct 00:35:13]. | 35:12 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | —we tell him things like we talking to you now— | 35:12 |
Almyra Wills | He won't believe it. | 35:14 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | He can't believe it. | 35:14 |
Almyra Wills | He can't believe it. | 35:14 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | He said, "I just can't believe it, Pa." | 35:17 |
Almyra Wills | He said, "I don't believe that, mom." | 35:20 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | He just can't understand. But it was true. | 35:21 |
Almyra Wills | [indistinct 00:35:24] to happen. Yeah, sure did. | 35:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I know. I know that it might be difficult for you to talk about this whole issue, but I'd like to ask you a little bit more. One thing, of your brothers and sisters and your parents, are there different colors— | 35:26 |
Almyra Wills | Yes. | 35:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —among them. And was that ever difficult for the family? I know this is personal. | 35:48 |
Almyra Wills | I don't think so. No, it doesn't bother me, because it wasn't a thing. The only time I really had any problem, we were playing baseball one day and this girl called me yellow. And yellow to me, is color of material things. And she and I, we had a big fight about it. I said, "I am not yellow, and I don't wish to be called yellow. I'm Black just as you are. My skin might be a little lighter than yours, but I'm still—" Well, it was Colored at that—because we never used Black when I grew up. We didn't use that word. You better not use it because you'd get your teeth knocked out. But today, it's a different thing. | 35:57 |
Almyra Wills | Now, I'll tell you about my family. Almost every other one is light. My oldest sister and my oldest brother were dark skinned. Then my next two brother and sister were light skinned. Then the next two, which was Jerry and myself and a brother, we were all light-skinned. Then Viola was light-skinned. Then the next to the baby girl, she was dark/olive, beautiful color. But that's the way we came. So we came— | 36:59 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I wouldn't say they were dark— | 37:34 |
Almyra Wills | They weren't dark, but— | 37:37 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | —skinned. They were a brown— | 37:38 |
Almyra Wills | Olive. | 37:39 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | —olive color. I wouldn't say they were dark. | 37:41 |
Almyra Wills | Well, what I mean darker than— | 37:46 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | A different shade. | 37:49 |
Almyra Wills | A different color than I was myself, we were, but that's the way we came. Every other two, then the color would come in. But we never had any problem with it. We, being fortunate to have a good home, have things, we didn't have a whole lot of money to spend, but we had the necessary things that we needed to make it. | 37:51 |
Almyra Wills | We stayed home. We had a piano. We played piano. We used to give plays on the front lawn of our house. So the neighbors could come in and join and see that part of our culture, that they didn't experience. I'll tell you this. My mother used to beg old men in the neighborhood, for their felt hats. "Save me your felt hat." Because she knew she had, my dad's felt hat. She'd take those hats and clean them up. I've seen her do it many days. Then she would cut out patterns of little feet and she'd sew around this soul of a shoe and make a booty out of it to give these—I want to say underprivileged, but children who did not have shoes, or things to wear on their feet. My mother sat up nights, 12 and one o'clock at night, sewing and making these things for people who did not have the things that we had. | 38:25 |
Almyra Wills | So we were privileged, really. And I didn't realize just how privileged we were, until I was up and just about a grown girl. And I realized that so many people did not have—I know a girl today, she still wants to be very friendly with me. She's called since we've had our project going and offered me so many suggestions and give me names and whatnot. And she would come to school every day. She never had anything to eat, never. And I couldn't figure it out. Why didn't she bring a biscuit and jelly? A peanut butter and jelly biscuit, sausage and ham. My mother made us, everybody two biscuits. That's what we had. If we had cookies or Johnny cakes, she'd give everybody Johnny— This girl never had anything, never, ever. And it took me a long time to figure out why she did not bring a lunch. | 39:43 |
Almyra Wills | She didn't have it. They did not have that. And today she remembers that. She still remembers my mother's good biscuits and my lunches that I'd share with her, because she did not have any. But I said that to say this, that whereas we thought we didn't have anything, there was so many people had so much less than what we had. So much less than what we had. Anytime a person would have to come to you to borrow a string of thread, then a needle to sew this object with, sad. Borrow an egg. | 40:43 |
Almyra Wills | "Mama said, would you loan her an egg? Mama said, would you loan her a needle? She said, she'll send it back." And my mother would say, "Well, you keep that. You keep it." It's one of those things. So there were lots and lots of people who had so much less than what we had. And I'm grateful for it. I didn't realize until it was too late, I guess, to really appreciate it, really what we had. We did. Okay, you'll turn, Bud. I'll shut up. | 41:27 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I guess her ears are sore by now. | 42:09 |
Almyra Wills | I'm sure. | 42:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I can listen forever. | 42:12 |
Almyra Wills | My mother, teaching school for so long, she had kept the teachers in her home, because they had no place to live either. There were no motels and places to live. No cars. You couldn't drive to work. You couldn't drive to school. So the teachers every year, would have to go around and find homes in which they could stay. And my mother always had a room for a teacher. And she'd cook and serve them and it was like an extra child, because she had to take care of them just like she did the children. But she did. She took in many teachers and they were good. They helped her with the children. They helped with their homework too. They helped us with our homework, which was a sort of relief for mom, because 10 children, a lot of children, they're not all babies at the same time. But they all have to be looked after. | 42:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How many rooms were in your house, Mrs. Wills? | 43:17 |
Almyra Wills | Let's see, how many rooms are there? I think it's 12. We got 12 room. We had a big house. That's why I said I'd like you to go see. You wouldn't believe it unless you actually saw it. It was a big house. | 43:20 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Didn't you you have some of the pictures there? | 43:37 |
Almyra Wills | I don't know if I have any out here. I do have some, I have lots of pictures, but I don't think I have any out here. | 43:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How far away is the house, Mrs. Wills? | 43:43 |
Almyra Wills | It's about eight miles. | 43:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I would love to go. | 43:46 |
Almyra Wills | Would you like to go? | 43:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, ma'am. | 43:47 |
Almyra Wills | Would you want to take a ride? | 43:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. I would love to. | 43:49 |
Almyra Wills | Would you? | 43:50 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. | 43:50 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. Well, gather your things. | 43:52 |
Rhonda Mawhood | All right. | 43:54 |
Almyra Wills | And we'll take a run down there and let you look at it— | 43:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Let's go. | 43:57 |
Almyra Wills | —just let you look at it. | 43:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | This building here with the laundry? I see. | 43:57 |
Almyra Wills | This was laundry. That's locked up. It isn't open there. Somebody broken in it lately. | 44:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, my camera. Excuse me. I'll get my camera. | 44:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —while we walk around. | 0:01 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Okay. | 0:03 |
Almyra Wills | This the laundry area. You can look in there, but it's locked. Flies biting. Dropped something. | 0:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. | 0:07 |
Almyra Wills | And upstairs is where the hired hands, the couple lived. | 0:15 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Over the laundry area. | 0:18 |
Almyra Wills | It had a stairway there. | 0:19 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 0:20 |
Almyra Wills | But with the years it broke down and we didn't bothered to put it back. Then back there, there's another room where another hired hand slept back there. If you look, just up top here, see in later years, my father added onto the house and this was the new section back here. But all the front is the old section. | 0:21 |
Almyra Wills | I'll see if I can get in here. It's— | 0:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you know when the house was built, Mr. Wills? | 1:02 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I think they married in 1910. Was it 1910 they married? | 1:07 |
Almyra Wills | I think so, yes. | 1:10 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | 1910. I think they built it. He started to build it before he got married, didn't he? | 1:15 |
Almyra Wills | He built it before he got married. | 1:18 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Before he got married. | 1:21 |
Almyra Wills | He got married and moved in. | 1:21 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | But they moved in 1910. | 1:22 |
Almyra Wills | Come on in. | 1:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, thank you. | 1:25 |
Almyra Wills | I'm not going to promise you what you're going to see when you get in here, but see, we love it. This was our eating place in the summertime. We always ate out here. | 1:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Screen porch. | 1:36 |
Almyra Wills | But they had built this table and it's still here. Our lights are shut off. Let me see if I can snap, get a light on real quick. | 1:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Wonderful. | 2:07 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | During that day and time— | 2:07 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. | 2:07 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | —this is one of the outstanding houses. | 2:21 |
Almyra Wills | This was also—Mama used to—One of them that she used to cook on years ago and it's still there. We don't use it, but you could use it. | 2:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Big oven. | 2:21 |
Almyra Wills | This is the kitchen. Somebody's been here since I've been here, too. You can see, this is our dining room. See how fragile floors are. That's my dad's certificate. There's my mother's certificate over there. | 2:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | From the Joseph K. Brick Agriculture, Industrial and Normal School. 1905. | 2:29 |
Almyra Wills | It's hard to see. This is my mother's in here and my dad's in there someplace. I can't see him right now. | 2:38 |
Rhonda Mawhood | A class photograph. | 2:44 |
Almyra Wills | But she's in here. This was an Eastern Star Meeting they went to. | 2:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Eastern Star. | 2:51 |
Almyra Wills | In Winston-Salem. | 2:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Your mother was an Eastern Star. | 2:51 |
Almyra Wills | Was an Eastern Star. This was our old piano here that we played. This was one of my dad's hats here. This is some of the grandchildren's shoes. This was a piece from the first World War that was—My cousin brought back for my father for a souvenir. | 3:00 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | The bugle. | 3:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | A bugle. | 3:10 |
Almyra Wills | A bugle. We all played the piano. | 3:12 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | That is one of the oldest sister up there, the picture there. | 3:17 |
Almyra Wills | That's my oldest sister. | 3:20 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, yes. | 3:20 |
Almyra Wills | That's Olivia. | 3:20 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You have The Lord's Prayer over the piano. | 3:27 |
Almyra Wills | Yes, Mama's favorite. She always kept it there. This is another old piece here, of course. Right on that [indistinct 00:03:42]. This is my mother's bedroom here. On back of these doors here was two boards. There's a blackboard. Then this is where we did all of our studying. | 3:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I see two—One blackboard on the back of the door and one on the wall. | 3:56 |
Almyra Wills | The wall. The kids—We all did our homework right there. This was my mother's room. | 4:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Would your mother check your homework after— | 4:06 |
Almyra Wills | Yes. She'd make us spell and read and write and whatever. I don't know if I can get through this door. This is— | 4:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | The door from the bedroom, you'd study? | 4:13 |
Almyra Wills | This is another room. My brother lived in here while he was living. He died two years ago. | 4:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh. | 4:24 |
Almyra Wills | He stayed in here. | 4:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Sorry. | 4:24 |
Almyra Wills | But this was the girls' room. We had two beds in here and two or three stayed in this bed and two or three over here until we got bumping out, moving around. We'd go through this door. | 4:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | The door to a hallway. | 4:39 |
Almyra Wills | This goes up there. | 4:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Upstairs. | 4:42 |
Almyra Wills | I'll show you down here real quick because this was our bathroom. We've got running water, but we've never got a toilet and bathtub in there. We got running water. The sink is in the back there. We don't have—This is the bookcase my dad made when he was at school. This is another room. This old cabinet here, my mother used to fuss about, she never had enough space to put her linen. My daddy made that out of an old carved wood box he had. That he made a long time ago. | 4:49 |
Almyra Wills | I'm trying to see his chairs that he made. He made two chairs, but they must be upstairs. | 5:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. | 5:27 |
Almyra Wills | Take you up there. | 5:27 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You have a Singer sewing machine here as well. | 5:29 |
Almyra Wills | Have a Singer sewing machine. We had two of these. My sister has another one we used [indistinct 00:05:38]. When we were kids, we used to get at the top of the stairs and slide down many, many days and all our friends that would come. They'd all come and we'd slide down. Right away, they wanted to ride the banister. Boy, it's hot up here. These are just rooms that—This was an extra room. | 5:31 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Excuse me. Thank you. | 5:50 |
Almyra Wills | When I was with my mother and my husband was in service, this was my room. But since then, everybody brings things from their house that they don't need anymore. They don't use it. They bring them and we store them here. | 6:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Were the walls pink when you were living in that room? | 6:11 |
Almyra Wills | Yes. I know my mother's got way out here. Somebody's been here. There's a room in here, too. See, the old house is falling apart. It really is. We don't stay in here. We are coming—Supposed to be here over the weekend and clean. Whether or not we'll get it done, I don't know. I hope we can. That's another one I'll show you. This is a nice piece that we have. This belong—This is a nice piece. | 6:18 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It's beautiful. A dresser. | 6:50 |
Almyra Wills | The only reason I think they—Yeah, they didn't take it because it's so heavy, they can't move it. | 6:50 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Wooden dresser with marble top and a large mirror. Very ornate carving. | 6:56 |
Almyra Wills | It used to be a beautiful piece, but of course with time. Time takes its toll. This is our attic right here where we had all the goodies stuff, it's in back then. You can't see too much, I don't think. But just where we—This was an old ironing board stand here. | 7:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh. | 7:01 |
Almyra Wills | See? It's supposed to be a light back there. I don't—See up above that? | 7:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, ma'am, there is. | 7:01 |
Almyra Wills | Bed was right there. | 7:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How do I—There we are. There we are. Yes. My camera case. | 7:38 |
Almyra Wills | See, this is just a lot of stuff in there. Trunks. Things that we [indistinct 00:07:52]. | 7:42 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Another Singer sewing machine. | 7:50 |
Almyra Wills | Then on the other side of that door, over there, lots of things over there. There's a noose over there also. | 7:54 |
Rhonda Mawhood | A noose? | 7:58 |
Almyra Wills | We had my older brother—Yeah. He had cancer and he came here from New Jersey and we think he had tried to commit suicide there. We just left it there and we keep it closed, but he later died anyway. | 8:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 8:18 |
Almyra Wills | This was an old ironing board. This is way before you. That's another room over there. There's nothing in there. Nobody even stay. [indistinct 00:08:34] Those are my grandfather's pieces of furniture there. We keep them there just for sentimentality even though it's no good. | 8:18 |
Rhonda Mawhood | There's paper on the walls? | 8:44 |
Almyra Wills | Yeah. Everybody comes, "Well, we going to take this paper off," or, "We going to do that." But when we get here, we do more talking and funning than we do work. | 8:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It's a large house—You were saying 12 rooms. | 8:59 |
Almyra Wills | Yes. This used to be one big room, one huge room. Just a huge room. | 9:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | The entire upstairs. | 9:04 |
Almyra Wills | My father [indistinct 00:09:09]. That's just where the boys lived. They'd stay up here with Grandfather. But as time went on, my father decided he's going to make—Give everybody a bedroom. He wanted each of his children have a bedroom because he never got it. We never got it. But it started out that way. We'll go back this way. We got to turn the lights out. | 9:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You go through one room to get to another in some— | 9:33 |
Almyra Wills | To another. | 9:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —cases. | 9:35 |
Almyra Wills | Well, that's a hall there. | 9:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, I see. | 9:38 |
Almyra Wills | That's all—It's nailed up. | 9:38 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 9:41 |
Almyra Wills | But you didn't have to come through the rooms. You could go— | 9:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, okay. | 9:43 |
Almyra Wills | —this way. Probably keep, let's see. That's fine. | 9:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | There's a— | 9:43 |
Almyra Wills | This is another piece that belonged to my grandfather here, too. [indistinct 00:09:59] This was a chair, I meant to show you the chair upstairs that my dad built in school. He made this chair in school. | 9:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Himself, a rocking chair. | 10:05 |
Almyra Wills | A rocking chair. There's another straight back that matches this. Using collection. | 10:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | There's a stove here, too. | 10:13 |
Almyra Wills | It's an old pot belly stove. | 10:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Torrid Hot Blast, Hardwick Stove Company, Cleveland, Tennessee, #216. | 10:16 |
Almyra Wills | It's a nice old stove. It heats like crazy. We have lots of fun when we come because some—See, this is where that door leads over there. | 10:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 10:29 |
Almyra Wills | This picture up there. Okay. That's about it. | 10:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | May I take a picture of the living room, this room here, Mrs. Wills,— | 10:41 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, look who's in here. | 10:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —is that all right with you? Hello, there. Oh, I can put it down. Thank you. Take a photograph of the piano. | 10:43 |
Almyra Wills | Take—just the piano. | 10:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. This is much [indistinct 00:11:00]. | 10:43 |
Almyra Wills | They robbed the house, two or three times they took the—We had wall to wall draperies and somebody broke in, took the draperies off the wall, tried to take the piano, but it was too heavy. They couldn't take it out. Anyway. | 10:59 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Am I in the way? | 11:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No, sir. No, I'm just trying to get back so that I can get as much of the room as possible. | 11:20 |
Almyra Wills | That was one of my dad's old hats. That was after he—All the children. We just kept it, so we hung it. We leave it there for him. Really. It's pretty well dilapidated and on its way out, but we keep it anyway. That's an original chandelier right there. It's been here ever since I can remember it. | 11:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Really? | 11:59 |
Almyra Wills | Mm-hmm. | 11:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It's beautiful. | 12:04 |
Almyra Wills | It's a nice old piece and we leave it there, but I don't know for what reason other than it's just, it came with the house. See, when they first wired the house, there were no wall sockets. They didn't put the—By the way, my dad— | 12:06 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | They didn't have too many electric appliances. | 12:33 |
Almyra Wills | No, he— | 12:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Right. | 12:41 |
Almyra Wills | He built his first electrical system. He bought a generator. At that time we thought it was a dynamo generator and some big old batteries and things. He built the house out there and he wired up the house as best he could and electric— | 12:41 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Generated his own electricity. | 12:52 |
Almyra Wills | He sure did. I say that to say this, during that time, nobody else around here had electricity, Black or White. Am I correct? | 12:54 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yeah. | 13:05 |
Almyra Wills | I don't want you to think I'm talking over my head, but I'm telling you the truth. He did that. That was years before electricity came to the country. REA, what they called Rural Electricity. It was years before it came through. Everybody else had lamps and we had electricity. It was really a great experience. | 13:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. | 13:30 |
Almyra Wills | It's really been a great thing for us. | 13:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What did the people who came to your house to visit think of the fact that you had electric lights? | 13:32 |
Almyra Wills | They looked. They looked. | 13:38 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Was amazed. | 13:38 |
Almyra Wills | They were amazed, too. | 13:38 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | They couldn't believe it. | 13:42 |
Almyra Wills | Both Black and White. We had White people come. We had a dollhouse out there and we had many, many, many White men come in this yard and wanted papa to let them have that dollhouse for their children. He said, "No, that dollhouse is for my kids, my children. You cannot have—I'll build you one, but you cannot have that one." | 13:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Where did your father learn to make his own generator for electricity? | 14:09 |
Almyra Wills | Evidently at Brick. I don't know where he—But I can pull this out. | 14:14 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | At Brick. | 14:19 |
Almyra Wills | At Brick, I guess he learned many things at Brick. | 14:20 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | He used to read books of people like Thomas Edison and all of them. [indistinct 00:14:36]. | 14:23 |
Almyra Wills | Let me see if I can get up here. | 14:35 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | He'd just put in mind and things together and started to work and it just materialized. | 14:42 |
Almyra Wills | It worked out fine for him. | 14:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Huh. | 14:46 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | He just had that—He was gifted and he had that know-how. | 14:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Certainly was. | 14:49 |
Almyra Wills | Well, it'll go out when I throw the switch. | 14:51 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Oh yeah. | 14:54 |
Almyra Wills | Just leave it then. Rick is coming home next week, so he'll get—When did I get all that stuff? | 14:55 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Dust in plates. | 15:04 |
Almyra Wills | [indistinct 00:15:05]. | 15:04 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Dust is accumulating when nobody's around. Haven't been a lot of—That's an old piece, isn't it? | 15:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Beautiful sidebar. | 15:09 |
Almyra Wills | That's an old piece, too. My mother used to keep it full of dishes and pies and cakes. This is where we—This piece wasn't in here. | 15:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | This counter. | 15:15 |
Almyra Wills | That bar wasn't there. It was a long table that stretched all the way across here. We would all sit around this table and eat. If my father was at the table, we'd be very quiet. Nobody said anything. But he'd always get finished ahead of us. The minute he got up, oh, we'd have a ball then. We'd have so much fun. We'd laugh and talk. | 15:20 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Why were you quiet when your father was there? | 15:49 |
Almyra Wills | He didn't allow us to make noise. He would have to keep— | 15:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | At the last supper, you've not heard? The disciples. When Christ left, then they start to talking. | 15:57 |
Almyra Wills | My mother's original China Closet right front there, she kept all through the year. On this wall, it was a huge shelf, shelves. In the winter, she cooked. She would preserve pork meats or beef. We'd have it all year long. Then during the summer, she'd make tomatoes and string beans. Whatever was in season, she canned that. That whole wall was just covered with food. She had to do it in order to feed us. | 16:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'm sure. | 16:33 |
Almyra Wills | So many of them. Ten children. | 16:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, yes. | 16:36 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. That's it. | 16:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you, sir. I'd like to take a photograph of the laundry as well. | 16:40 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Okay. I've always admired the porch here. | 16:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It's a wonderful porch. It goes right around the house, doesn't it? | 16:49 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | All the way around. I don't care what time of the day, it always was a shaded side. In the morning, it was shaded here. Then when the sun had to travel to it, the west and evening to get sun here. Then on that side, it'll be shade. | 16:49 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I can see the usefulness of that on a day like today. Okay. | 17:13 |
Almyra Wills | This is what's known as an packhouse over here. | 17:42 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Packhouse. | 17:43 |
Almyra Wills | That's where we'd grade it. At one time, you just didn't take the tobacco and go to the market with it. You'd have to grade it. You'd make five or six grades. It would be light, dark, green, better, worse. That's where we worked the tobaccos. Then we'd store it, all the tobacco and we'd grade it and put it away in fall. You got these pears over here. | 17:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, there's a pear tree. | 18:19 |
Almyra Wills | Pear tree. It sure is. I'll have to tell my sister. They're ready to eat. | 18:19 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Little pears. | 18:24 |
Almyra Wills | Mm-hmm. They're hot now. Could be. [indistinct 00:18:32] them all. | 18:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Sweet. | 18:24 |
Almyra Wills | My mother used to make the best little pear pies out of these, like a apple cobbler. Pretty good. | 18:31 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That was our horse barn down there. | 18:49 |
Almyra Wills | Back there behind the laundry. | 18:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | With the horses and mules. On top up there, my father kept the hay, feed for the cattle and horses. Down in that corner. There's another barn over there. You can't see it, but it's in there. | 18:53 |
Almyra Wills | How many— | 19:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | All back in there with was the pig farm. | 19:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How many horses and mules did you have, Mrs. Wills? | 19:15 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, about six and seven at the time. Then came the tractors. We went down to two. We kept two for a long time, but they didn't use them too much anymore. You want one? | 19:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I had one. Thank you. There you go. I just took one. | 19:32 |
Almyra Wills | Up there, you can see the cemetery. That's why my mother and father are buried. | 19:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Right across the road. | 19:41 |
Almyra Wills | Before he died, there was a big persimmon tree up there and there was no one there. He always said he wanted to be buried underneath the persimmon tree. When he died, we took him up there and buried him up there. Because my mother, two sisters and a brother, my sister's husband's up there. Five or six of us up there. That's about— | 19:43 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | They may be softened now, I don't know. | 20:06 |
Almyra Wills | Come around this way so you won't ruin your shoes. | 20:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 20:12 |
Almyra Wills | We had that pulled in because the water had washed it down and [indistinct 00:20:18] we really hadn't worn it down yet. If you can see where that line of trees are there. See those trees there? | 20:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, ma'am. | 20:28 |
Almyra Wills | My father's house where he was born up there, you can't see it from here. | 20:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 20:33 |
Almyra Wills | But there's a house over behind. That's where he was raised. The house is still there, but you can see that he wanted his front hall to look straight into his mother's hallway. That's why he built it that way. You can hardly see the house from here. It's all grown up. | 20:34 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | That just—What she was telling about, is where it all started. The ancestors lived back there. | 20:56 |
Almyra Wills | It's hard to see it. | 20:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did his parents build that house or was that in existence before that? | 21:04 |
Almyra Wills | They built it, I think. | 21:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 21:09 |
Almyra Wills | That was their home. Our property goes back—All of this, you see around here belongs to us. We never did anything with it. We kept it as it was when we got it. | 21:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'm just saying, we're at the intersection of Keeter and South Brown. | 21:29 |
Almyra Wills | We're in the process of having the road changed from Keeter to Pittman. | 21:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Pittman, I see. The family name. | 21:38 |
Almyra Wills | Mm-hmm. We want to, I don't know if they'll do it or not, but we hope so. If not, we won't worry about it. | 21:39 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Did she point out where her mother, father, and brother's buried up there? | 21:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, sir. We are four miles from Heathsville. | 21:51 |
Almyra Wills | Mm-hmm. | 21:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Are we— | 21:53 |
Almyra Wills | That's right. | 21:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Which direction are we from Heathsville? East. | 21:53 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | This is East. | 21:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | East. | 21:53 |
Almyra Wills | Heathsville is this way. | 22:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 22:01 |
Almyra Wills | This is east going that way and west. | 22:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 22:06 |
Almyra Wills | And 561, this will take you straight back to 95. | 22:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 22:07 |
Almyra Wills | Right, this little road here. They haven't been too many years blacktopped this road. It was a dirt road all the years. Let me just check on the mailbox. | 22:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | All right. | 22:19 |
Almyra Wills | I'll be back. | 22:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to— | 22:22 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | We had a lot of fun out here with the family picnics. Put a large tent up all the way across and had all of the family from all—I think it was three or four generations was here. That was a couple of years or so ago. I understand that the nieces and nephews are trying to arrange to have one pretty soon again. | 22:23 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That would be wonderful. They should bring tape recorders. | 22:47 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. Yes. By all means. | 22:50 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Record the stories of the older people. | 22:50 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. | 22:50 |
Rhonda Mawhood | They really should. | 22:55 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. | 22:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Keep that for the family. | 22:57 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yes. They should. Quite a history behind it all. | 23:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. Yes, there is. I would like to take your picture with Mrs. Wills in front of the house. Do you think that would be okay? | 23:04 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Okay. Sure. Sure. I have one shoe on and one off, as they said [indistinct 00:23:16]. All right. | 23:10 |
Almyra Wills | I swear I'm supposed to do my interview for our project that's on the swings. | 23:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | On the swings. May I take a picture of you and Mr. Wills in front of the house? | 23:21 |
Almyra Wills | I guess. | 23:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | All right. Thank you. So that we see the house and we see the two of you. | 23:25 |
Almyra Wills | See, it's so fragile. It's falling all apart. | 23:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh. Okay. Well, would— | 23:36 |
Almyra Wills | It's old. Did it bite you? | 23:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It tried to. [indistinct 00:23:43]. | 23:39 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. You want us over here or where? | 23:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Anywhere you would like to be. Where would you like to be? | 23:45 |
Almyra Wills | Well, this is the probably a good—Just want to get on the steps. | 23:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | All right. If you could get a little closer to the house, maybe, I'll take the two of you, Then I'll take the whole house. | 23:53 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | All right. | 23:58 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That would be fine. What about getting closer to take the two of you. From about the waist up. All right. Okay. We're good to go. Thank you. That's a lovely picture. I'll just step back to take a photograph of the entire house. | 24:00 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. | 24:22 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Okay. | 24:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Or as much as I can get. | 24:22 |
Almyra Wills | That's a lot of house. | 24:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It certainly is. I don't know if I can get all of it. | 24:22 |
Almyra Wills | When I shoot the house, I just have to do it in sections. | 24:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I think I may have to. | 24:22 |
Almyra Wills | Just to look at the house, you wouldn't think it was so big. | 25:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No. But it goes back forever. | 25:36 |
Almyra Wills | Then when you go the other way, go around the other side and get inside, you can see actually the size of it. | 25:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It goes back a long way. | 25:43 |
Almyra Wills | It gets the name, Big House from the grandchildren. | 25:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | From the grandchildren. | 25:47 |
Almyra Wills | But see, always said, "Wow, this is such a big house." From that, they started calling it the Big House. I called my sisters and I'll say, "Well, I'm going to run down to Big House for a minute." Call my sister, "You want to meet us down to the Big House?" That's how it gets its name, the big House. The grandchildren started that. Okay. Are you ready to go? | 25:49 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes ma'am. | 26:09 |
Almyra Wills | You want me to take you? | 26:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No, that's fine. Thank you. But I will leave the tape recorder on if that's all right. Excuse me. | 26:13 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. | 26:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Maybe when we're passing by— | 26:20 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, it's hot in here. | 26:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —back. Oh, I will put the air conditioning on right away. All right. Oh, excuse me. Here we are. All right. Now, Mrs. Wills, would you mind just holding the tape recorder just like that. Thank you. | 26:21 |
Almyra Wills | Wow. That's a heavy one. Now we'll see if you can get back home. | 26:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh no. | 26:57 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Don't do that to you here. | 27:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, my. Not sure about that. I was talking when we were driving. | 27:09 |
Almyra Wills | Now if you can just— | 27:09 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Back up and [indistinct 00:27:10]. | 27:09 |
Almyra Wills | —go right over that way. See straight through here? | 27:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 27:10 |
Almyra Wills | You don't have to go all the way back. Easier. These were all tobacco barns over there, | 27:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Across this way? | 27:23 |
Almyra Wills | Mm-hmm. It's three of them now. One's just about down. We're going to burn it down as soon as we can find— | 27:27 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mrs. Wills, would you mind telling me the story again of how you crushed your toe? | 27:33 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, yes. Well, it was in August and people were, what they called putting in tobacco. That meant they were breaking the leaves and taking it to the barn. Then they'd put it in the barn to be cured. My mother was preparing this dinner or a cookout really, for the administrators and teachers, instructors for Brick School. She was busy cooking and whatnot. We looked over this way and we saw this billowing smoke go up in this sky. My father said, "Oh my goodness, that's Mr. Jimmy Hardy's tobacco barn." He left the house and came on over here and we stood and looked, and finally some fellow came along driving a mule and a wagon. That was all we needed. | 27:39 |
Almyra Wills | We jumped into the wagon and came with this fellow over to the house. We had already been warned many, many times never get in the car with strange people, especially men, but we got in his wagon anyway. When he turned to go up the driveway right here, my toe got caught underneath the tongue of the gang plow. You don't know what a gang plow is, but at that time, it was a triple plow that they hooked two mules onto and it would plow the farm, whatever. Well, it just mashed my toe to smithereens. I was so afraid my mother was going to scold me and spank me because she had already told us not to get in a wagon or on a car with anyone. | 28:27 |
Almyra Wills | We went up to see the fire and we stood there. My toe bled and it hurt. I cried. My sister said, "Well, don't cry now because Mama will hear you. We finally got home and Mama was still cooking. I went and got a piece of white cloth and wrapped my toe and got over behind the cook stove. It was hot as it could be because it was in August. I'm whimpering and crying and my mother's busying herself around the kitchen. All of a sudden she realized I was there. She came over in the back of the stove and she said to me, she said, "What's wrong, sugar?" She saw me with this bandaged foot. She said, "You hurt your foot." I said, "Yes, Mama." She took the bandage off and she cleaned it and dressed it and wrapped it. | 29:23 |
Almyra Wills | I stayed over behind the cook stove all the afternoon. When the time came for the party, my toe was hurting me so much that I could not even eat the ice cream that they made. They had two big freezers full of homemade ice cream she had made. I couldn't even eat that. It was really a time. | 30:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How old were you at the time? | 30:33 |
Almyra Wills | I must have been nine, 10 years old. I was good size little girl. | 30:34 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your mother scold you for getting into the wagon? | 30:39 |
Almyra Wills | That's the best part of the story. She never said to me, "You shouldn't have gotten in there. You should know better." Nothing. She didn't say a thing. I guess she figured, "Well, here she is feeling badly enough." So she wouldn't say anything to me about it. That was the best part of the story. I never forgot it. I remember this, if it were yesterday, and I can almost feel the pain of that piece of wood grinding my toe when it turned. I really can. | 30:41 |
Almyra Wills | But it all had to do with Brick School. That's really, I guess why I remember it so because that was the second of the entertainments that they had had for Brick School instructors and professors or whatnot, whoever. But they came and had a good time. My dad pushed the piano on the porch and there was no dancing. I don't remember any dancing, but they played the piano, the rag a tag tag. They had a good time. The food was good, I'm sure, because she made peach cobbler, chocolate cake, blackberry dumplings which was just was super. They made a big barbecue pig out on the yard and made big pot of Brunswick Stew. Now you take a left. | 31:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. Brunswick Stew? | 32:00 |
Almyra Wills | Brunswick Stew. You know what Brunswick Stew is. | 32:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What is that? | 32:08 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Never heard of it. | 32:10 |
Almyra Wills | You never heard of Brunswick Stew? Oh, boy. If you're going to be here another week, I'd make you a pot. But it's a big pot of everything. | 32:10 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Right, everything. | 32:19 |
Almyra Wills | Tomatoes, all kind of vegetables, beef, chicken. You just put it on and let it simmer and cook and cook and cook. When it's finished, oh boy, you've got a real treat. I usually keep some in the freezer, but with my son there, he's murder on the food. But it was a good party. I'm sure. That was—They had two like that. I remember every—For two years, they had this—Well, for one of a better word, cookout, because really that's what it was. It was outdoor. They entertained these people, which was nice. I remember my father saying that night that Mrs. Pittman so-and-so and so. You have to thank Mrs. Pittman for this delicious dinner. He was very courteous and right up on the ball with things. | 32:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You were telling me earlier, Mrs. Pittman was your mother. | 33:27 |
Almyra Wills | Yes. | 33:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | He called her Mrs. Pittman. | 33:29 |
Almyra Wills | He called her Mrs. Pittman. He didn't say Almyra made this, Almyra cooked so-and-so. It was Mrs. Pittman. It sounded good, tell you the truth. It really was a good sound and he was happy with it. Where's your time? I don't want you to lose track of your time. | 33:31 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It is— | 33:49 |
Almyra Wills | I have to make you a sandwich. | 33:49 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —12:11. | 33:50 |
Almyra Wills | Twelve eleven. | 33:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It's eleven minutes past twelve. I will be at Mr. and Mrs. Brinkley's on time. | 33:52 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. Well,— | 33:57 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | What time are your appointments at? | 33:57 |
Almyra Wills | I'll get home and make you a— | 33:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | One o'clock. | 33:57 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | One o'clock. Hold on. That's about on schedule. | 33:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. Well, actually, there are some forms with biographical information and family history spaces to write things in that I won't have time—that we have to get from each person we interview if possible. But I won't have time to ask you for today. Maybe I could come back to your house—I don't know if you're free after I speak with Mr. and Mrs. Brinkley or if I could come tomorrow morning perhaps? Or I could leave [indistinct 00:34:30]. | 34:05 |
Almyra Wills | Tomorrow morning is a bad day for me. | 34:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. Okay. | 34:32 |
Almyra Wills | I go to class at 10:00. | 34:33 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Keep straight. | 34:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Straight. Would it be possible for me to come back later today? | 34:40 |
Almyra Wills | Yes. I'm sure. Right now I don't think I will be busy. | 34:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Well, we can discuss it— | 34:49 |
Almyra Wills | I'm not going anywhere. | 34:50 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —when I leave you off home. I could also leave the forms with you and maybe fill them out. But I'll show them to you when we get back to your house. But we were driving along earlier and, Mrs. Wills, a house that we saw brought up a memory for you. The house we were talking about President Harrison. | 34:51 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, well see, we are not going back past that house. | 35:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 35:11 |
Almyra Wills | When you go back to the Brinkley's, you will, but this is a shortcut here. | 35:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 35:15 |
Almyra Wills | We're going back home. | 35:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Could you—Since we have the tape recorder on, could you tell me the story about your grandmother, please? | 35:16 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, okay. That was President Harrison's home. It used to be a beautiful house. My grandmother on my mother's side worked for these people. She cooked, cleaned, did the wash and laundry, took care of the children, and she would cook and clean and work all day in the house. In the evenings after they'd finished dinner, she'd finish washing dishes. She'd have to put on a clean white apron and she'd go in the parlor, a sitting room they call it. They would clap their hands and she would have to dance a jig for these people for entertainment. | 35:22 |
Almyra Wills | I used to think that was so horrible. It's a beautiful story, but I thought it was terrible because she had worked all day and then doing the dirty work. Then she'd have to entertain them after dinner or supper, whichever they call it. Every time I go past that house and we go past there almost every week, I think about that. How grandmother was subjected to that sort of life. Well, I guess it worked out for her because she got an education and she was helped with food and things of that nature. | 36:09 |
Almyra Wills | But I didn't think it was such a nice thing. But I could see my mother right now doing the same jig that she did. She told them that she would dance this jig, they called it. I never forgot that, it sticks with it. | 36:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Who did your mother dance the jig for Mrs. Wills? | 37:17 |
Almyra Wills | She would dance the jig for us to tell us how at Brick School, they didn't dance together, like boys and girls did when we came along because they're dancing apart now, but they danced separately and the ladies would fold their arms. I have been practicing that. I'm trying to learn to do it the way she did it. The men did their little jig and thing over here and you were over here doing your thing. She used to show us how they would dance the jig at school, that Brick School. | 37:19 |
Almyra Wills | She'd dance around the kitchen floor. We would laugh because we thought it was funny. And it was, but it really wasn't funny. It was something that was very interesting and we should have paid more attention to it, I guess. But we didn't. But there was no dancing together until later years, I guess— | 37:52 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Now, you make a right. | 38:09 |
Almyra Wills | When the wars came about. But she did. She would dance the jig for us, just like Grandmama used to dance the jig for people she worked for. That was President Harrison, the President of the United States. He only remained in office for a short time because he got sick and died. I think he had tuberculosis if I'm correct, but his name was Harrison. His nephew used to be the mail carrier on our route over there where he saw the mailbox. | 38:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Wow. | 38:40 |
Almyra Wills | He'd always stop and talk to Mama and ask her how she's doing and the latest thing in the neighborhood. He was very friendly person. He was White, of course, but he was a nice fellow. He was mail carrier there for years. In fact, when I got married and moved away, he was still a mail carrier. He died sometime in the early mid-forties, I think he died. | 38:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When your mother told you that story about your grandmother dancing that jig, Mrs. Wills, do you think that your mother had the same reaction to the story that you did? | 39:06 |
Almyra Wills | I think she did. I think she felt very bad for Grandmama, but by the same token, she knew that was a way of life for people then. She was just another pawn in the establishment, I guess you'd call it. But it didn't—I don't think she liked it at all, but there's nothing they could do about it. I think that was before she married my grandfather. My grandfather was her second husband. | 39:18 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, really? | 39:59 |
Almyra Wills | I don't think this was during the time that she and my grandfather were married. It was before she married him, but it was a good story. I'm sure it bothered her because she used to talk about it a lot. | 40:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you for telling it to me, Mrs. Wills. | 40:19 |
Almyra Wills | Oh, you're welcome. Would you like me to shut this off or keep it running? Just let it go? | 40:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I guess you could just let it go. | 40:23 |
Almyra Wills | Okay. It must be nearly out now. | 40:27 |
Rhonda Mawhood | In case you think of something else along the way. | 40:28 |
Almyra Wills | Well, we're almost home now. | 40:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Almost there. | 40:29 |
Almyra Wills | I'll make you a tuna fish sandwich or something. | 40:31 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, thank you so much. | 40:34 |
Almyra Wills | Then if you'll have time to go. | 40:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Well, it's about 20 past now and it'll take me, what? 10 minutes to get to— | 40:42 |
Almyra Wills | I've got some cold cuts, I can make you a sandwich. | 40:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Take me about 10 minutes to get to Mr. And Mrs. Brinkley. | 40:43 |
Almyra Wills | Right. | 40:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It's not long. That would be lovely. I would really appreciate it. | 40:44 |
Almyra Wills | Then you wouldn't have to go— | 40:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | If it's not any trouble to you. | 40:48 |
Almyra Wills | No, not at all. Not at all. | 40:48 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | First, then you remember [indistinct 00:40:59]. | 40:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Right. I was so happy to find it when I found it though. I remember where it is. | 40:59 |
Almyra Wills | If you're not careful, you'll go right by real fast. | 41:04 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Well, then you'll pass the woods there. | 41:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That's what happened to me the first time. | 41:09 |
Almyra Wills | I had an experience at Abbott, when I worked at Abbot's. There was a girl there who had a sewing machine to sell and she was going to bring the sewing machine out here. I said to her, I said, "Now, I'm the very first house after you make the turn, the very first house you get to." I said, "You can see the house from 48 coming over." She came, she rode up and down the road here three or four times. She went to that house and the other house and all. She—This fellow over here told her said, "You passed her house. That's the Wills' house over there." She wasn't looking for this house. She was looking for something else, but anyway. I can take this [indistinct 00:41:49]. | 41:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Anyway. Short story. Yes, shut it off before I— | 41:49 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | My, oh, it was my father, on my father's side? Now, my mother grew up in Branchville Township also. And she was a Baker, her mother— | 0:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | A Baker. | 0:12 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Uh-huh. | 0:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Uh-huh. | 0:13 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Yeah, she was a Baker: that was her maiden name. | 0:14 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. | 0:16 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | Now right here, that's the old home place. | 0:18 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I see. | 0:21 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | That's where my mother and father died. | 0:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, I see. | 0:24 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | They lived there from 1937, up until my father passed in 1977 and my mother passed in 1987. | 0:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. | 0:35 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | And that's both of them passed up there. That is known as the old home place now. We also have tenant up there now, but the original home place were just down there. I should have pointed that out, when we made that turn down there. That was the old homestead of the Wills'. | 0:38 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes. | 0:57 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | I was born, all of my sisters and brothers, my mother and father married there. And I think I was... | 0:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Wait. | 1:18 |
Hubert Reginald Wills | [indistinct 00:01:19], between New [indistinct 00:01:19]. | 1:18 |
Item Info
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