Mamie Barrett interview recording, 1993 August 02
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| Karen Ferguson | —begin by you telling me a little bit about the community in which you grew up and the people you grew up with? | 0:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, they're dead and gone. And another thing about them, they were all nice people. I must say that because I didn't have any mother. My mother died when I was 10 years old. | 0:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | So she died when you were 10? | 0:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Ten years old, and I looked around here at these old people and there's not a whole lot of doctors then. They'd go to this, right down this street but they all gone, bless their heart. They belong to St. Peter's too. And I didn't know what to do because my father, I didn't ask him even when I started menstruating. I didn't know what was wrong. There was houses over there, then. I'd go over there and ask this little old lady tell me what was wrong with me and all that kind of stuff. | 0:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 0:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And that's how I got—I'm so glad. It was nice. She was on [indistinct 00:00:50]. I declare they led me right. My father did too. He was a good father, loving father, good provider. So, isn't nothing I can say. | 0:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. And who did you grow up with? Did you have any brothers and sisters? | 0:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, oh 14 had, but they're all gone but me. But they all gone but me. | 1:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | So were you the youngest? | 1:06 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know that. I ain't never asked no questions. I'm here. I don't know who I was next to and this kind of stuff. We didn't have all that kind of, "Who are you next to?" Of course a lot of children know that, but I never heard that. | 1:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Okay, but were most of them older than you? | 1:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Older than me. Yeah, dying in my time. | 1:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. And you grew up, you were born— | 1:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | There's some of them born, died a baby, too I would probably say. They were babies, some of them died a baby when they're born, you know? I remember that. | 1:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now you were born in this house, you said? | 1:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | In this house right here. | 1:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, who built this house? | 1:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | My father. | 1:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | And what did he do for a living? | 1:46 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He was a mechanic and he was a real estate man. No, not in that day. No he wasn't. No, not in that day he wasn't no real estate in 1905. No, he be turned in after that, but the housing scene was right back in that time. | 1:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, and he was a mechanic? | 1:59 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. He did anything he wanted to do. Yep, he did them old people's, them old tearing up things on there and they learn them, themselves how to fix up new things. That's just what the way it was. Wasn't no college up there. Of course, there wasn't any colleges, anything, as I know of in his day anyway. Nothing but just plain school. | 2:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Okay, now did he work for himself? | 2:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He worked for himself. | 2:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm, and who did he do jobs for? | 2:31 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, Dr. Duffy, they all dead. Dr. Duffy, the whole Duffy family. Oh, Lord have mercy. I can't know all that. Just Litmans, they had stores go out and we got our clothes from downtown. Where he used to come to get our clothes, you know? And then my father, I'm proud of him, he had such a reputation. All we had to do was carry a note and there was the clothes. He would never give us the money, but tell us, "Go pick what outfit you want. Whatever you want, you get it, but I'm not going to let you take it back. Get what you love and what you want right now." So that's how that happened. | 2:32 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That was way back in yonder. No, them probably closed [indistinct 00:03:18] though. Ooh, they said he's just so honest and doing good. He built homes, you know? Built houses, you see. | 3:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, he built other homes, did he? | 3:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now I don't know a lot of them. I can't tell you about that. I just know he built homes. See, I cant give you history of nobody life but mine, but I know what they were doing. I stayed and helped take care of them children because there wasn't no mother here. When I grew up, see? I had to be head here, just about here and me til I growed up. Then when I growed up, the responsibility was to do for the family, my sisters and brothers here. | 3:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I did it. It wasn't half done because I wasn't going to make a biscuit before I got a good biscuit. And the people say, "You going to let your daughter, Mamie, take all your money and do all that?" He said, "Listen, lady." I heard him tell this woman, he said, "Listen lady, that's my daughter and she don't have no mother. And this is my money, and I—" Hello! "And she's trying to do the best she can, and I'm not going to kick or knock on her. And I see where she's improving, so please don't have no more say to discourage her." | 3:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Things like that, you know? Then I got to be doing better. I go around to other people's house and ask them this and ask them, the old people, you know? And they were good to you. They show you how to make a biscuit and make up the dough then, you know? I believe I want me some biscuits and dough and I'll tell you the truth right here, it's been so many years. We had them in dough, mix them all up in dough. See, I wasn't going to make a nice [indistinct 00:04:57] biscuit with enough lard in it to, you know, to be good to eat. | 4:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So, I'm telling you more than I thought I could tell now, but that's what I come. I come along like that. I didn't have no mother, and then I go to them old people and ask them what must I do, you know? And how much the honey you use [indistinct 00:05:16]? How much yeast probably you put in there? I said, "Well, just let me write it down here," and I'd write it down. And she said, "That lard." I wasn't putting enough lard. She said, "Now, I'm going to show you. If you got a half a sift of flour, you get your hands full of lard. This here handful, and put in that much of the flour." That's the way I went along. | 5:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Okay, so the old people helped you out then? | 5:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's all there was helped me out. Wasn't nothing else to help me out then. | 5:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | And were you doing all the cooking at home | 5:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, yeah. After I got up, mm-hmm. | 5:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. How old were you when you were cooking? | 5:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know that. I told you, I was born here and until I got old enough. I don't know what age I started. I wasn't even studying about that. All I was studying, I learned better from the people and I went right on regardless to what that age was, but I was young. I was really young, but I didn't study about the age because I didn't think I had to tell nobody about how old I was and what I was doing. I was coming up, finding out someone had to do this. So I'm not memorizing it all that perfect. | 5:52 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | [indistinct 00:06:14] I could have did it, if I'd have known this was coming up. Yeah, of course you can be proud to tell these kind of things when I don't remember everything. What I remember, you hear me, just answering you. | 6:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. You were talking about the old people helping you out. What other kinds of things would people do to help each other in your neighborhood? | 6:31 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Anything you asked them, but I didn't ask them nothing because I kept right on working and working until I got mine like I wanted. Like my daddy wanted. It was to satisfy him because he was taking care of me, so I just went and kept right on. Kept doing that stuff because he said he seen a difference in me, the older I got, you know? He said he seen I was doing well and I used to go over to school, was the West Street School right over there, you know? | 6:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Uh huh, right. | 7:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And J.T Barber was my principal in that time, I mean. Oh Lord, I'm just [indistinct 00:07:09] on that. Did I do any harm? | 7:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | No, that's fine. | 7:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, what else could I say? | 7:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | J.T Barber. | 7:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Redemption school at that time, and all my teachers that I knew of is dead and gone. All of them. All this, honey let me tell you, there's some people go on this I know them way back and they were so nice to me. Gone, honey. Sad to me now. You got nobody to go to now because everybody's full of the devil and everybody's just cutting up and killing and fighting and doing—I'm certainly glad I didn't come up in this day. I really am. I'm proud of the people that I come through with, that's the truth. They were nice acting people, they were nice people and so but if I had to do with this, all of them. And tell your daddy when he come home if you didn't do right, he'd tell and you'd get a whipping in that house. | 7:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, yeah. | 7:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I'll tell you that. Yes, sir. I'm proud of all that today because it makes me feel like that everything everybody say about me from a little child up—I had my history given to me by two doctors, but they dead and gone. Dr. Manny and Dr. Bishop. | 8:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. So, they taught you Black history? Or they— | 8:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, he was talking about how nice I was. He was talking about me. He said, "You come up nice without your mother and your father. And you're a decent, respectful woman in this facility." That's what they—thinking about that, they was talking to me personally, you mean. No, ain't nothing brought up with that now because my father was leaving for [indistinct 00:08:34], but he just talk about me before they died, you see? Before these two died because they didn't want who they had [indistinct 00:08:42]. What was it then? | 8:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Midwives? | 8:41 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Midwives, mm-hmm. Midwives, had midwives then and oh yeah. And they know about me, you see, from my birth. Yeah, they know about me. Dr. Bishop and Dr. Manny—they all gone on now. I guess you heard there's somebody talking about me, but they gone on. | 8:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | So were you delivered by midwife or by a doctor? | 9:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Huh? Both of them. | 9:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you delivered by a midwife or by a doctor? | 9:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Both of them. They got both of them for me, so they tell me. Yeah. Yeah, I guess mama was scared, I reckon. You know? She didn't know either, I guess, about how them doctors was. I mean, how them midwives was. She just wanted both of them. | 9:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now, do you remember a midwife living in your neighborhood? | 9:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, he didn't live in my neighborhood. No, because this was all field. Wasn't a neighbor. I can't tell you the name of it now. No, because ain't no—I don't know, maybe some of them there now. | 9:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 9:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Just living. But I don't know because I ain't thought of that no more. But they were nice to me and to my mother. I heard nothing about no bad records or nothing. | 9:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, and what did people do—the people who lived on Queen Street when you were growing up, what did they do for a living? | 9:56 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Honey, I don't know that either. Let's see. Oh, yes. The man I told you care about everything I done. I can't forget him because he'd tell him if a boy come here, and wasn't no screen door, like you said. We didn't have these kind of screen doors. We had the screens that, you might know what kind of screen door way back then we had. The wooden screen, with just the wooden strip, you know? Not now you buy? Okay. | 10:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And we lay on that floor, go upstairs and look out the window until Papa come home from work. And if he didn't do it like that if he had the boys here. I'm one of the ones that called on me, if I could. But after I found out I was going to get a whipping, then I turned it all loose because he wouldn't be lying. Because I was on it, you know, but I said I wasn't. And he said, "All right, I'm a catch you now and you'll get your whipping," and he wouldn't play with you. He didn't lie to you. He done what he said he would do. | 10:25 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | The children told me now, say, "The way you talk, he just like your father, man." I said, "No, but he made us do right and so we got to follow some of the footsteps of him." And what else did you ask me? | 11:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did people do for a living in the neighborhood? | 11:19 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, we had got the store. There was a store right there, not where that thing, where the trimming station is now. Not there. I mean, [indistinct 00:11:27] here. That yard in there, the city got now, you know? That was a store— | 11:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. Okay, all right. So there was a store? | 11:32 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | —and houses too. Residents, too. Yeah. | 11:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, and did Black people own the store? | 11:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, he was Black. Named Mr. Barnett, but he dead and gone honey. But he's the one that told everything on us, the kids. If you done wrong. | 11:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. And how about other people? How about your next door neighbors? | 11:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Honey, oh, oh let me see. Well now, listen. In later years for me coming up, there's Ms. Edna Kay Tucker. That's some swan. Edna Kay Tucker and she's a school teacher. Ms. Edna Kay Tucker and that's the famous [indistinct 00:12:09] you just built. That's just built up through her, but of course there was homes on there, too. Little small homes. You know them apartments, right? | 11:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 12:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | She built big homes back then. | 12:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, and she was a teacher? | 12:17 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | She is right now. Oh, but she don't teach now because she's retired now. Yeah, she's retired now. I won't say the wrong thing about nobody. | 12:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Okay, now do you remember anything about your— | 12:34 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And she was a teacher too, right there. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Ms. Edna Kay Tucker. | 12:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember anything about your grandparents? | 12:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I don't even remember. I wasn't living when my grandmother died. And I was living when my mother died, but I was 10 years old. And Grandfather, I never seen him. All this must've happened before I got old enough to realize them. See what I mean? Let me see now. No, I never seen the grandmother. I got a picture. Never seen the grandmother, never seen the grandfather. No, never seen none of them. That was before my time, I think. | 12:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Did your father ever talk about his parents to you? Where they came from or anything? | 13:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. Yeah, yeah. He said he had lovely parents. His parents reared him so good, he said. He had to mind his mother and father too. And yeah, he had spoke good of his family. Nothing wrong at all, but I didn't live to see none of them. | 13:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you know where— | 13:52 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I mean to say, they were gone before I seen them. I'm living. Never have put myself, putting my own self in the ground, right? You get me too tied up here now. No, they were all gone. So I've never seen any of my father's mother and father. Mm-hmm. | 13:53 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now, my mother, she got her a sister. Her sister's dead too. She died before my time. I don't remember her dying. And her daughter's living, but she's in Trenton, New Jersey. Mm-hmm, yeah. Her daughter. | 14:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, do you know, were your grandparents born here in Craven—New Bern? | 14:32 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, yeah, but I can't think of the place now. Down in the country somewhere. Yeah. | 14:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. Is that where your parents were raised too? | 14:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I'd say my mother. I don't know where my father was. I don't know where he was raised in. Lord, I wish I would've paid more attention to all this stuff because I need to know. I don't need to know it because it's nothing to me, but ain't no profit in it for me, but still. I would like to know, but I never knew because I just didn't thought about nothing like that in me either. | 14:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So, your mother grew up in the country? | 15:09 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, not in the country. It was out of the country. Out in the country. | 15:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, in the country. Did she grow up on a farm or? | 15:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, not that I know of. I never heard talk of no farm or nothing. | 15:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you know what her parents did for a living? | 15:19 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Hmm-mm, no sir. Oh, that was before my time. I tell you, because I wasn't even [indistinct 00:15:34]. I wasn't born. Wasn't got. After hearing that, mother died when I was 10 years old so there's very little I can say about them. | 15:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. So when did your father die? How old were you then? | 15:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know, I don't know. | 15:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you young when he died? | 15:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Hmm-mm. | 15:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | No? Okay. | 15:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I was younger than I am now. | 15:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 15:55 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. No, honey. When you going through that kind of stuff, you ain't talking about how young and how old you was. That's the truth. You don't be thinking about it and I know I didn't, because I had no idea I'd ever go through this, you know? Didn't even pay no attention to everything. | 15:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Now, when you were growing up, what kinds of things did you do for fun with your friends, when you were a little girl? | 16:17 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Say what? | 16:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did you do for fun? How did you play? What kinds of things did you play? | 16:23 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | What do you mean, what kind of things did we play? | 16:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, did you play games or— | 16:30 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, no. Ain't have no games in this house. No kind of games, no. No, all you would do is get out here and play going to church every Sunday. And going to whatever was down there. You got to put on them clothes and go around down to St.Peters. Mm-hmm, we were brought up there before we couldn't even talk. I reckon as long as we could walk down to church with him. | 16:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 16:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yes, sir. I must say that and I'm thankful today for it, too. | 16:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. What kinds of things, what has the church meant to you? | 17:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | It meant to me that live a good life and do the best. It's not the church, it's God's Bible. Church ain't nothing, but to sit down and listen to God's word and learn me how to go through this world. In this day, in this evil day. It learned you to listen to somebody and know everything. And it learns you to know nice people from common people. Not common people, but from disrespectful people. I'll say it like that. | 17:12 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And a lot of them listen to me, you know what I mean? But for my benefit. Yes, sir. Of course you know, right here where I am now, and I don't know why, but this here [indistinct 00:17:43] always like to sit on the corner of this porch right over here. I said to him, probably was giving this here porch here. I said, what he was doing then and knowing that he must got a daughter's coming to love the front porch. Because I do. And he built out a porch right here when I was born, a wooden porch. It was a wooden porch. I'm the one who fixed it like this. Yeah. Fixed it up pretty because he knowed how to fix up wood and stuff, and put it up there. You know what I mean? Just figured just like this, but that's been a long time ago. | 17:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, that's how I found it. I'll say it then, so you know it's been a long time. He did build that kind of home. And I put this awning up here, everything, working hard! Back then I did. | 18:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there any bad areas of town you weren't allowed to go to when you were growing up? | 18:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Bad areas? | 18:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, like disreputable areas. | 18:41 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Bad places, you mean? | 18:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, mm-hmm. | 18:41 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Not that he knowed anything about it, and I didn't want to go because I thought I might get hurt. | 18:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, right. What kinds of places were you not allowed to go to? | 18:54 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Not in this vicinity, wasn't any. I tell you why. They had cafes down here, had lawyer's office right there where the café is now. Lawyer's office and a café. I mean, that's the little store right there. It was a grocery store. No, it was a café. A little café and [indistinct 00:19:22]. That's all I remember. Café there and a little shoe shop in there, about the size of that building right there. They took it out, you know? | 18:55 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That they got me sitting out there, around that corner, the store was sitting like this, you know what I mean? Now, you can't see all that I'm telling you about because when he got there, he turned his place how he wanted, you know? And let's see now. Oh, there was houses. The doctors and lawyers lived right in that house right there, and that was a—now it's a beauty parlor. That was a shoe shine parlor. Not shoe shine parlor, they put good leather on your shoes. You know? He could take a bad shoe and make a good sole. That's when I was a little girl, and let me see what was next to it, though? | 19:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, that was a house there. Some teachers stayed there in it. Where that little building is now. And no, there's no rotten people in this neighborhood as I know it. I don't know nobody that I was afraid to be around, or afraid to listen to. | 20:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Where were some of the bad places? | 20:35 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know about that. I don't know where at because [indistinct 00:20:40] didn't go nowhere but down here. Like, we'd go to school down there. Sometimes we'd go to the store like he tell us to, "Go and come right on back here or I'll whip you. Don't stop along the street, gossiping. You get yourself in trouble." That's what he'd always teach us, you know? Uh huh, he'd always teach us. | 20:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Let's see. No, that's all I know of right now. Yeah, that's all i know of right now. And all of them was homes right there, but you just got up there. All that lot sitting in there was homes. Yeah. Listen here. See, it wasn't no homes here. None. | 21:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Before the—when were there no homes? | 21:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know what year it was, but I'd say it wasn't no—no what? | 21:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | No homes? | 21:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No homes. They call it the Frog Pond. | 21:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 21:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | See that building there say Frog Pond and all that? | 21:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 21:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Alright, I can tell you what's all down that end was there, but it wasn't no—what I just tell you? I talk so fast, I don't know what I'm saying myself. | 21:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. Sorry, now what was Frog Pond? | 21:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Just like you see it there, Frog Pond. Why? Because there wasn't nothing but water here, and frogs. See? Nothing but water and frogs. I asked my Pa just before he died—not just right on time dying, but about I'd say five months or six months before about that, I said, "I'm going to ask Papa why they got name here Crane Street and they got a name here Frog Pond. What is this?" I said, "Why did they call this the Frog Pond, Papa?" | 21:34 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And he told me. And I just wanted to know, because I wondered what the two names stood for. See, when everybody bought their homes, all right you build up over here because you like that. And you fill up here because you want it. You work all day, but when you come here you can wheel barrow and you'll put in anything. Cane, grass, dirt, anything you get to fill up next to the end here where everybody built his own home. | 22:26 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And this doctor I'm telling you about right now, see that big building with them long steps coming down? It's a beauty parlor now. That's my doctor, but oh, he's been gone so for umpteen years! But that was my doctor. That's the building still. | 22:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | So he had a clinic there? | 23:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, he was just a doctor. A medical doctor. | 23:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now, the Frog Pond, this is what this area was called? Frog Pond? | 23:21 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | The whole thing, all the way down. | 23:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | All right, now who filled it in? Was it the Black people? | 23:31 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, it had to be. Back here that's all lived down here was Black people. If I know anything. I don't know about no White people living down here. Now, there could be some now, but I ain't seen none. | 23:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 23:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Let's see do I remember any White people being down here? I don't remember. No, I don't think so. I don't remember no White people living down here. Now, right there on the corner right there, that was a—once upon a time, it's another place now, a beer garden now, but at that time when I was growing up, it was a meat market, grocery stores. A Colored fellow had banks around there, had a bank down there. | 23:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | A bank? | 24:54 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Bank. And on the other side, where the law is now down there at the end of that—but clean down to where the law is, there was homes and all Colored people lived in there. It was just Colored everything along there. See what I mean? From the meat market, grocery stores, bank. All that was along there. | 24:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now, were these all owned by Black people? | 24:58 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | All that was owned by Black people. Nobody owned by them now. I'm afraid to say that. I don't know nobody—and that [indistinct 00:25:07] as far as I knew, because let's see. No, I don't know. When I say that, I don't know, but as far as I know, they rented them. I don't know, because I didn't pay about that, but that was Colored, you know. I'll say they could stay there until they died. Yeah, they kept them out here— | 25:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | And when did that change? | 25:30 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, that changed a long time ago. | 25:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Before the fire? | 25:30 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | The whole family before—that was, wait, let me see if that was about before the fire now. Let me think now, because I [indistinct 00:25:47]. Let me think. Before the fire, yeah. | 25:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | It happened before the fire? And it changed, that those shut down? | 25:46 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Hmm-mm, no, no. No, no, no. I think after everybody died out along there. Then they come putting homes in there. See, now after everybody died out there now, all that I told you was there except that building still operating in Colored people down there. See? But I ain't seen no Colored people in there. That's on that corner, you know? Yeah. | 25:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm, okay. | 26:09 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's from that corner down to, not to the next corner because it was Colored homes, families. So your family take right on til death. That's right, mm-hmm. | 26:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm, okay. | 26:28 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I remember more than I even think I was going to remember, that's the truth. Because I had no idea I'd ever tell and do this. | 26:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, did your father have an office or a garage for his mechanic business? | 26:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, he built him a little place. | 26:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, where was that? | 26:46 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | In the yard out there. Yeah. He had a little place to keep the tools in. That's right, because you know, back in the day, they wasn't paying nobody nothing. Nothing was hiring. They really wasn't. Lord knows I worked my own sled when I first started out here and I know they didn't give me nothing. That's the truth, I'm not joking, so there wasn't nothing for you to do so great, you know? But you could day after day, year after year, you probably get where you're going. But it wasn't like today people now, got to want a house today, they got it up in there by tomorrow. See what I mean? Not that day, huh uh. | 26:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They had a hard time, them old people. Had a hard time, but they hoped to see better days. I hope we'll see better days than we have here. I do, because it sure is some bad. People didn't pay them no money, but they kept their money for their selves. That's the truth, it really is. So, they didn't get no money. Nobody will tell you that. | 27:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, your family owned this house, right? | 27:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | My father and mother. | 27:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, okay. Now, did your mother work while she was living? | 27:53 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know nothing about her, because she ain't lived til long after my time come. | 27:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 27:59 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | My mother, I don't know. I can't explain none of that to you because she was gone away from here before I got up here, to realize my mother. | 28:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, yeah. Did your father remarry? | 28:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, I don't know about the remarrying. I don't remember no remarrying. I don't remember that. | 28:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, did you have to work when you were a girl? | 28:19 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I ain't never had to do nothing. My father was nice to me, but I did work because I wanted mine, too. That's the thing. | 28:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, so where did you work? | 28:35 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, I don't know honey. Oh, I don't know. Worked at so many, worked for what's her name? Now, she dead now. I can't recall none of them names now, but anyway, I worked. | 28:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you were in service then? | 28:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, yeah. | 28:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, and when— | 28:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's how I get my [indistinct 00:28:44]. I didn't get no money. Yeah, yeah. Talking about pay you now, they didn't pay you nothing. That's the truth; they didn't pay you nothing. That's the truth. | 28:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, so when you earned that money, could you keep it for yourself? | 28:54 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I didn't want to keep it. I wanted to get me something every time I seen it. Get ahold of somebody to go downtown and buy me a pair of shoes or a dress, or something like that. I go to the beauty parlor and have my hair done. That wasn't no beauty parlor. Just go and getting your hot combs and things, some grease, you know? It wasn't no beauty parlor. I didn't see them. | 28:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Where would you go to get this? You have these hot combs at home? | 29:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, no. You go downtown, you got to buy them. No, no. | 29:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. But then you do it at home, you did your hair at home. | 29:26 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, yeah. No, you go downtown, buy them combs honey. | 29:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. And when did there start to be beauty parlors? | 29:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, downtown. Now they take these beauty parlors and they done left. I don't know. I really don't know the year them beauty parlors started. That's one right across the street there, right in front of me, and I don't even know when she started. No, no. She's not in there now. The one that started there when they built it. She's out there, too. Wasn't even a drug store. I mean, wasn't even a—I'd see the White people out there in the mall, you know, working. No, I don't remember that. Because I hardly ever go to a beauty parlor, to tell you the truth. I ain't never like a lot of curls. I just want my hair straightened and use balls. I used to like balls, they can make balls out of them, you know? | 29:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. What would you do? | 30:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Make balls out of my own hair. Yeah, my hair's coming out every day right now. That's how come I trying, I like to have let my real hair grow. My real hair is gray, but I'm letting it grow. You know, and then when it grows, I'm going to be proud again. I bet you I won't take them combs and bun it up and wind it up in there. I know better now. I know how to do now. I had to go to beauty parlor now, yeah. But that other time, oh, I didn't have to go beauty parlor and I didn't even ask my father. Because I know he had all of us here, had 14 heads. And they're all gone, but me. | 30:20 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I didn't have the heart to ask him, and he trying to keep us looking pretty. He did, and he had a mind on him. Plenty to eat, and clothes to wear. Obey him and do what he tell you to do, you get what you want. And you got to go to that church. That's right. I mean, you got to go there. That's right. That's what I'm talking about I'm tired today, I told you. I may have wanted to go out and I may have wanted to go out this place and I may have wanted to go. We didn't do like we wanted to do; we had to obey him. But he wasn't mean. Beating and knocking and getting on you to do what you want to do. He just let you know, "Out of my mouth comes my words and I mean them." And if you didn't, he'd show you because he'd whip you. So, that's the way we come up. We didn't come up with no brutish father, you know? Drunkard or, you know, cussing father. We didn't have that and I ain't going to tell no story on anything crazy. | 30:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | We, through the Lord's help, had a good father. That's all I can tell you and his reputation is downtown and around the White folks. The White folks know him good, them that's living. Mm-hmm, the Litman's and I don't know about Copeland and Sons. He worked for them. See, he was Copeland and Smith. He ain't work for no Copeland and Smith, that's somebody took it over. He worked for Copeland and Sons; that's who he worked with. And who else he work with? Oh, Mr. Jim Blaze, the rich man downtown. He was a known rich man. And the Litman's. The Duffy's. | 31:58 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | See, but them people is probably in the grave. if any living, I don't know. Might be a few. I seen one of the Litman boys and well, he seen me. He got to come to me and put his hands on me and say, "I'm glad to see you." I carry Papa's dinner to him so many days, 12:00 down there, you know? So, he used to seeing me come in the yard and he said, "All right, Jones. Here come your dinner!" You know? So I'm well known by the White people downtown through my father. Right now, there's some people downtown when I go there. | 32:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, what kinds of things—would your father work for these men? | 33:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, he worked for them. | 33:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | What would he do for them? | 33:19 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. Whatever they wanted done. Wanted build something or whatever. Mm-hmm. | 33:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, would they help him out? | 33:24 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Why they going to help him? Just pay him, that's all he want. His money for it. I guess they didn't know to do it their self. Then they didn't have to hire him, you know? No, if they could've done it their self, I don't think they'd have hired him. Of course, they had the money because they had them stores downtown at that time. At my time, see, the stores was downtown. Yeah. When I growed up. Now I'm talking about what I know now. Yeah, now what come, I don't know what went on before I got allowed to do any of this stuff. I couldn't tell you about that. | 33:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now, did these White folks, did they help him out to get loans or anything like that, do you know? | 34:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. I'm sure he got help from them, though, but didn't nobody refuse him for nothing. And they're glad to see my dad. As I told you, one hugged me. The son now is living and I don't care where he see me at, downtown or up, he got to come and touch me, let me know that, "I see you. This is Jones' daughter. How you feeling? You getting along all right?" He's not well, though. Well, but he don't forget me. | 34:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I was down there so many days. Carried them dinners down there. Cooked and carried it right down there. Yes, sir. My father was worth everything. I ain't got nothing to say about him, not a thing. When I say I just wanted to do bad and do things, he wouldn't let us. I thought that was mean, but it was just what we needed done to us. | 34:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. What were some of the values that your father taught you? | 35:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Values of what? | 35:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Moral values and that kind of thing. | 35:03 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Moral values? What, about people? Concerning people? | 35:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm, right. | 35:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Only told me this; don't follow nobody's opinion but your own. And you know right from wrong if you hear it. Anybody do that. Not no anybody, but a grown person knows when they going to do wrong and when they going to do right. If you tell me, "Come on, let's go steal this," I ain't going with you because I know it's wrong. | 35:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | If you tell me to come and go shoot at somebody, "I'm a kill that girl," or, "I'm going to kill him," you're going by yourself. See? Because way back then, this instilled in me. I'm not going to do none of that. And then I'm trying to serve the Lord and I know He sees everything we do. And He hears everything we say, so you can lie if you want to. It makes no difference. You're lying to ourselves, that's the way I take it. So that's the way I take life, right here and now. | 35:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I was just good back then and that's just the way I do. And down here at my church, I do the same thing down there. Anybody want to do anything wrong, they do it by themself. And if I see things going on wrong, then you want to straighten it and I know it's wrong, I'll help you there. That's just like, I'm still like that. That's true. And I sit here on this porch here. Everybody in town, the policeman's here, you go in there and ask them about me. See what will they tell you. I've heard too many, I've heard from one the other day. And what more respect could he give me than he did give me. They off in, wherever this come from. This letter come from wherever—Duke [indistinct 00:36:47]? No, it come from, I forgot right now, but I got the letter right in the house you can read now. | 36:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But anyhow, they talk nice to me with the phone and I said, "You don't know me." He said, "I do. I got your record." I guess he talked to them here, and he said, "You've got a love name." Wasn't nothing they give me. I ain't never get in no trouble, I ain't bother them. And I always stay here tending my business and don't bother people. All my neighbors on this street can't tell you nothing bad about me, that I know of. | 36:52 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I'm not a perfect person now. I done a lot of wrong things coming up; playing every time I could get out, but that was [indistinct 00:37:23] and it been til we got grown. We didn't leave to get—we wasn't grown then, but we thought we was grown and then got to be 15, 16 years old. And Papa would let us come out on the porch there and sit down. And he said, "Now you're old enough to sit down and act right." He said, "When you was little, I kept you in the house and had to peek over and send out for you til I come home and let you out." So that's how we got out, just like that. That's the truth. | 37:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, the parents nowadays, Lord them man was just drunk downstairs and the children is drunk upstairs. It's a mess now. It's everything, but honey we was not raised like that. | 37:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Now what kinds of things would you do when you snuck out? When you were able to get out? | 38:00 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Do nothing. Do not a thing in the world, because you better not bring no babies back in here. You better not do that, and you know that'll keep you in the house all the time. Ain't nothing for you, but a baby. And I knew what Papa was going to do. No mother here to do nothing and I'm just getting around and still helping to do what little I know, you know? And then go out and get something? Hmm-mm. | 38:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, did you know girls who got in trouble that way? | 38:31 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I don't know. None of my girlfriends, as I know of, got any children. Not that I know anything about. | 38:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, your friends when you were growing up? | 38:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's what I'm talking about, them. I don't know any. If they did have them, in them days there wasn't no having babies and every time you turn around, there's babies and a baby over here and a baby over there. It wasn't that when I was coming up. No, you didn't even hear talk. You believe it, huh? I mean that. | 39:00 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | A house full of babies, huh-uh. But now there's a house full of babies all the time now. No, no. That wasn't in my day. Now, you know somebody got pregnant, but I don't know nothing about it. Yeah. | 39:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. What would happen to somebody if they got pregnant before they were married? | 39:17 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. I guess the people would, the city—what it is? The city? Yeah, the county, I'll say. I don't know what you put in it, would help. | 39:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | The what? Sorry? | 39:35 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They maybe would help, you know. | 39:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Who would? | 39:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. | 39:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | The city? | 39:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I don't know if it's the city. I don't know which you say because the city ain't help with nothing, as I know of. There's things in the city, you know? Like, work or something like that. Or your light bill or telephone bill, or something like that. I ain't going to put the city in it. | 39:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Would other people help that girl? | 39:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | If they had any feelings for her. I would too, because you can't laugh and point at nobody because you're still living yourself and anything can happen to you. You laugh at other's problems and the next day might can be yours. So, I'm still that way today. Make fun of nobody and don't help nobody to make no fun of nobody. Because I been there with no mother. And I've learned the hard way, and the hard way was the best way for me. | 40:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So now, if he going to ask me some questions now about, "Would you do this?" I said, "No, honey. I didn't when I come up. It's up to you." That's what I tell them. I don't persuade them, no. I really don't. I got grandchildren today, my grandchildren, they're not here. In Kingston and in Massachusetts. Yeah. They got children now. Now, that's a different day altogether than this day here. But she fitting to get married, yeah. Mm-hmm. And she's going to teach school too. She's in college. She wants to go out and teach school. | 40:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm, now you said that there was an old lady who helped you out when you got your period? Is that right? | 41:12 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, she dead and gone. Yeah, that was the café over there and a house on this side. It wasn't big as it is now. It's just as big as it is now, but now they divided it up. It was, you could go through that door where that window is? That was a door. You go upstairs and the café was then on this side of it. Mm-hmm. | 41:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. Now, were there other women who taught you about being a woman? | 41:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, no, no honey. I had me one woman. Well, I don't know about that. I got [indistinct 00:41:46], but I think I would care enough about her to lead me right. So, yeah, I went to maybe two or three of them and asked them what must I do? Nothing about nothing but what I wanted to know at that time. All I wanted to know at that time was the menstruation, you know? | 41:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Because I didn't know what it was all about, and I wasn't going to tell Papa. I wasn't going to say it to him, and so I sit there and thought to myself, I say, "Well, maybe I'll go there to Ms. Haddy's." She's gone now, Ms. Haddy Downing. And her husband dead and gone. Whole family dead and gone now, I've heard now. All of them gone, but that's the way I know that. Walked up her stairs and asked her. | 42:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That was a café on the other side of it, you know? I asked them, I didn't know how to hardly ask her, to tell you the truth. I kept on hemming and hawing. I didn't have the nerve to ask her, but I knew that I got to ask some woman. I sure wasn't going to say nothing to Papa, and I didn't know what to do. And she told me, she said, "Sit down there." The people called, in them days you know what they called them? "Come here, girl." That's what they call you then. | 42:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Fitting I wanted some herbs, you know they had a couple for me. The herbs you buying now in the store, it was in them old people's gardens. Any kind of herb you want, you can buy there, it was in their garden. And they put them bonnets on their head, honey. And them long dresses that you couldn't see none of it down here. And tell you, "Sit down. I'll be back, girl. Sit down. I'll be right back." | 42:46 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They, "What's the matter with you?" That's the first thing they wanted to know, so they know what kind of herb and what they can give you. I say this, well I tell her, I say, "Lord, I don't know because my sister had a coughing spell last night or a fever or whatever." I named something was wrong with the kid. When they started menstruating too. I could tell them, but I wanted them old people tell them because they talking about the pain, you know? Some people have pains like that, so I went to them. | 43:11 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | She said, "All right, girl. Have a seat and I'll be right back." Reckon they had a garden out in their yard, right down the road, and get that stuff and bring it back to you. "All right, girl. Now I tell you what you do. You carry that stuff home and boil you some water. It'll be real boiling, and get you a jar, and take—don't boil the herb, honey. Boil the water. Then put your herb in there and put a lid on it, and let it draw." Took all the fevers and stuff away from them. All that. That's how come I know so much about herbs today. | 43:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. So that helped you with your pains? Your menstrual pains? | 44:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I said, "What you talking about?" Just I went to the herb store the other day to get me some golden seal. Get me some pansy. Was it pansy? Yeah, I think it was. Pansy, and you can get any kind of seed you want. You go down to the herb store, you can get it. All you got to do is name it. Now you don't have to go to no old people now. | 44:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now were these, did all the old people know about these herbs? | 44:45 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They made them. They got their seed store. They went to where they had a seed store them, but not like the people got now. This is the dignified one in boxes and all that kind of stuff. They have them in jars and sell you so much of it out. You know what I mean? Sell you so much of it out. They didn't have all of the fancy stuff like they got now. You can go get a pretty box now with it in it. You know? But in that day, they just wasn't there. That's all. | 44:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, we come from a long ways and all that. Yeah, but you got the same service. They planted it. When they give you seed, they carry it home and plant it. They had the seed, too. Mm-hmm, sure did. Yes sir honey. They had it and I'm used to it today. If anything is wrong with me, anywhere hurting or anywhere, Ms. Andy or Ms. Alice, or whoever I think going to tell me the truth, I go to them and I say, "Look. You know, my stomach was hurting me last night," or whatever hurting me. I'm telling them about my ankle right now. "I'll tell you what you do, girl. You go and get some—", what she tell me to go get? Some castor oil. That's what I got to get too. Get some castor oil. | 45:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now, she said, "Now, don't rub. See, just take it," and just what I want to know. Which way do you go with this rubbing? Because I don't know which way you go with it. Because I tell you what, I look like me, my feet wouldn't swell if I had went down with this stuff. But she did tell me now and I got to do it where I can get it up, down. It start here and get your leg, the stomach, and then do like this and come on up to where you're hurting see? I'm hurting right in here. It's soft right there. But see, that's the stop with the other, but now you should just keep right on with it. Just keep yourself, but don't do like I've done. No, I've done wrong. | 45:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's how come I think now that it hurts so bad, because I got it all down the feet. Ain't got nowhere to go. That's the truth. But now, I think I've talked to her, the lady told me, "Get you some castor oil and start rubbing your toes. Just do this like this, get you a wet rag. I mean, not no wet rag, but just start beating the rag like—" | 46:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | So they taught you about these are— | 0:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, they told me about them. Sure did. | 0:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you ever go to the doctor when you were [indistinct 00:00:11]? | 0:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. No, if I go to doctor for anything, it be for my eye, not for my—it be for colds or certain, anything else but that. I never been to the doctor once in my life when I was a child, I know of. But not here. I don't even go now much. Dr. Preston. He a good doctor. I like him. I don't know when he come take me, when he supposed to take me. And let me see what else. He live down in [indistinct 00:00:45] move up here now. | 0:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, this was the doctor you had when you were a child? | 0:45 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I told you, they didn't go. I told you, there wasn't but two of them. No. This is grown time now. No. I didn't know nothing about they had doctors then. [indistinct 00:01:00] time I made [indistinct 00:01:02] all of a sudden try to be doctor, I guess. Because it take your doctor coming to Duke's Hospital to be a medical doctor myself, and I learnt myself by talking so much, you know what I mean? Because what I wanted to do is be a medical [indistinct 00:01:19]. | 0:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | A nurse or a [indistinct 00:01:21]— | 1:09 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yes. So they said, "Well, Ms. Mamie, we like you. We'd like to find anybody that—", they scared of blood. What they say? "Anybody fears blood, we can't use them." That's what they told me. And I wish I hadn't have told them nothing. And kept right on going, and I'd come out anyhow with my medical paper. And got to be a medical doctor instead of a surgical any kind of of way. That's right. I did speak to her, but my Mom got mad and said, "I ain't talking with this." | 1:25 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I tried to say, right. "Oh, I did the right thing." But I wasn't. I didn't know I was hurting my own self. | 1:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Okay. | 1:50 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yes, sir. | 1:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you wanted to be a doctor? | 2:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 2:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, and where did you go to [indistinct 00:02:23]? | 2:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I didn't go [indistinct 00:02:23]. Because I told you was cut off before I can get started. Because they asked you just like you do, a whole lot of questions. And I said mine too fast. Mm-hmm. So they did nothing. Nothing [indistinct 00:02:28] I cut my own self off. I didn't get started. That's what I wish I could have done. Kept my mouth, they wouldn't ask nothing [indistinct 00:02:37]. | 2:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | But what was the reason why? What did you say to them? | 2:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I didn't say nothing. Nothing for me to say. I done said too much then. Wasn't nothing for me to say. But they ain't going to turn their face around for me. Mm-mm. They ain't going to do that. That's their medical way of doing. And it was best, I guess. You know what I mean? Anybody can [indistinct 00:03:02]. | 2:40 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But that's all I ever wanted to do. I really did. It's all I ever wanted to do. | 2:58 |
| Speaker 1 | Hi, [indistinct 00:03:12]. | 3:12 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Fine, thank you, how are you? And so— | 3:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, what were the signs of segregation in New Bern? | 3:20 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Huh? | 3:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Where could Blacks go and not go? | 3:26 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, now, listen. I don't go by [indistinct 00:03:32] growing up. Because I don't remember that long, see. But I do remember one time getting behind the—Was the track right here. Going and coming. What would they call that? I don't know—recall. I forgot what they called it. | 3:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, but it was the railroad track? | 3:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. Mm-hmm. And what would they do? They would want you to get in the back of the seat and sit down. They wouldn't let you come in the front and sit down. Now, what difference would that make? | 3:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 4:12 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They [indistinct 00:04:15] then there's no difference. Mm-mm. Because the same blood I got, you got. Father was the same Father, whoever. And your blood is in Him, and His blood is in mine. So what would make us so different? Now what I call makes a person different is this. That I'm trying to live the best I know how to live, and then I [indistinct 00:04:42] junk all the time. Well, I can't do that. I'm going to follow the two thing I'm [indistinct 00:04:53] as I run to the—I'm going to be—if I [indistinct 00:04:53] if I'm the strongest, I'll lead the weakest. But the weakest, they seem like to me, make it possible for you and easier for you, so you stick there. | 4:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's what I called—I think you ought to leave that kind of person alone. But not the colors or nothing like that. But for your principle and your disposition. And mine is different from yours. And I want to do right, and you want to do wrong. And then the wrong wants you for a buddy. Ain't going that to any case, make you [indistinct 00:05:24] for you to have you for a [indistinct 00:05:27]. So that's it. Now, that's what I think is separation ought to be. | 5:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when you were growing up, do you remember White people ever treating you or your father with disrespect? | 5:34 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I haven't heard my father say, not for my part. They didn't want to pay us now. That's the only thing I didn't like about the way. They wanted to work you to death, doing everything that they do, and didn't have no feelings for you. How about that? But far as having respect, I can't say nothing. They treated me nice. That's the truth. | 5:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And always telling about, "Lord, how come you come here every day so clean?" I always loved the aprons. And I do today. I think I where them to church because when they have dinners down there, and they have them in the basement [indistinct 00:06:17]. So I still puts on apron today. When I get up [indistinct 00:06:20] first thing I want to get is [indistinct 00:06:25]. That's the first thing I want to put on, after I wash or put my clothes on. | 6:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now, I'm telling you. And go to cooking for the children and them. And I tell you why. Because whenever I get ready to go anywhere. | 6:30 |
| Speaker 2 | Hello. | 6:38 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Hello, how are you? | 6:39 |
| Speaker 2 | Good, how are you? | 6:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Fine, thank you. How are you? If I was going to go anywhere, all I got to do, I say, "Wait a minute." Take my apron off. She [indistinct 00:06:50] reach no way around. See what I mean? That's all I like it for apron, and I do today. This day, I will say. | 6:40 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And if I ain't got 20 in there, I ain't got none. I was them this evening before I pull up [indistinct 00:07:11] anything. That's right. That's right. Make them mine [indistinct 00:07:11]. But you make them [indistinct 00:07:11] if they come in [indistinct 00:07:11] they wouldn't have been out there. | 6:56 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now, see, there's the shoes. That's why I'm not having you children in front of you. Now, that man was nice. That woman, I think that was a woman, though. You see, now he going to get ahead of them too, then make them get ahead of him. Now, see that. Now, he's leaving them behind, and he's looking ahead. Going to make everyone of them get ahead [indistinct 00:07:42] and then he can see what's going on. | 7:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's what I used to do when I had my little sister because stay ahead of me. You going to church to get ahead of me, and I can see anything in front of me because I got my eyes on you. That's the way I see it. You can't [indistinct 00:07:57] till you going straight ahead. And they step behind you. Maybe they going to turn a corner on you. | 7:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Look at there. Now, look at that. One of them, they got [indistinct 00:08:10]. But when he got there [indistinct 00:08:11] he don't want them to come down. Some of them have more fear for the father than they do for the mother because the mother crying so much. A man has to go [indistinct 00:08:21] makes a whole lot of difference. | 8:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when you were growing up and you went to take care of your brothers and sisters— | 8:23 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I didn't go nowhere. I stayed right here with them. | 8:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 8:26 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But when I cared [indistinct 00:08:34]. That's what you wanted to say. If they didn't mind me, I whipped them, and they tell Papa. He said, "I told her, said if you didn't do what you said to do, whip you. Now, don't come telling me no news, just do like she tell you to do." That's all. | 8:26 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And by him letting them know that they got to come to him with it, but they going to let him know that they must appreciate me and mind and respect me as they do him. So we didn't have trouble. They [indistinct 00:08:57] said [indistinct 00:08:57] bit of trouble. | 8:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But see, when you agree with your children, even they doing wrong, and you got a sister that they don't like or something like that, don't take the children's word. If you want to do that, come here. Sorry, [indistinct 00:09:17]. What have you done today that my sister is telling me that you done? You tell what you done yourself now. Tell the truth because I know if you're lying. That's what they do to them. | 8:56 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Okay, now he can just go down where you ain't. You got your own child, you don't even know whether they're lying or telling the truth. So the thing you do, just pay attention to your children. Yeah. Now, you tell what you done. Now, is that so, sister? Now, don't call my sister no liar, she ain't tell me the truth. If I don't appreciate it. All right, they'll know they're lying, they going to say it. I don't know. Then quit talking about it and all that kind of stuff. | 9:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Lord have mercy, these [indistinct 00:10:03]. I have been in no training school, but just like I had never taught too, but I have—what I want to say? The teachers there, now I can't call [indistinct 00:10:25]. I can call her name was Ms. Todd. But I can't call what I done. But anyhow, I take care of the [indistinct 00:10:30] just when they gone for a few minutes, you know what I mean? Out there. Have a [indistinct 00:10:35] that. They thought I was a angel. They thought I was the angel, honey, to tell you the truth. Yeah. | 9:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, talking of school. You went to school. Where did you go to school first? | 10:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I went to school [indistinct 00:10:50] that school right here. | 10:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. The West Street School? | 10:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I went round the Sutton School District a little while. I didn't like it over there, so I come back on my side of the street. [indistinct 00:11:00]. | 10:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | And what was that? It was called Sutton? | 11:00 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Over there. I didn't go [indistinct 00:11:04], you can put it down. But yeah, that's right. Sutton School. | 11:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | And that was the first school you went to? | 11:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, it ain't the first one I went there. [indistinct 00:11:39] school right there, but just [indistinct 00:11:39] I thought I'd like Sutton School the best. And that's how I come I went over there. But I didn't. I found out it was better on this side the street. Mm-hmm. | 11:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | So why didn't you like the Sutton School? | 11:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Because I didn't like the way some teachers did. I have a lot of [indistinct 00:11:44] then. | 11:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Sorry? | 11:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I saw a lot of [indistinct 00:11:44] then. And have the respective children to do this [indistinct 00:11:44] done it like [indistinct 00:11:44] do. | 11:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 11:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And just want to talk about another child or that child, call the child in the room and asked what happened. Let the child tell you that. But don't you fool with that. Because you be doing the wrong thing because all children be pulling mischief. No one's perfect. So now, what you going to do? Change seats with them in the classroom. | 11:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now, if you ever had talk [indistinct 00:12:00] they say, "Yeah, and I'm a whip both of you." I said, "You're not [indistinct 00:12:02]. You a substitute." This would feel [indistinct 00:12:05] little while, while they going downtown. That's what they could do, and that's the truth. So they— | 11:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, how did the teachers show partiality? | 12:12 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, they show, because I don't know how they showed it. They showed it by treating you better than you do me. | 12:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. And who were they partial to? | 12:19 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | The one they like. | 12:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah? Who were they? | 12:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, I don't know. I don't know no names or nothing like that now. I just assume that's the difference why you don't like [indistinct 00:12:30] school. Because them teachers have preference. It's wrong to have. It's not wrong to have. Have them if you want them, but not in school. | 12:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now, did you like school, generally? | 12:28 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I liked school fine because all the teachers thought I was an angel. I told you. Uh-huh. [indistinct 00:12:46]. | 12:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you ever disciplined in school? | 12:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Huh? | 12:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you ever disciplined in school? | 12:56 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Never in my life. | 12:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 12:56 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Never in my life. The girl that, you know you had talked of West Street School right here? | 12:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 12:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, do you know [indistinct 00:12:59] Barber? You ever talked to her or been to [indistinct 00:13:00]? | 12:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, no. | 13:00 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But she's dead. But she's a teacher there, and her father was the principal. And she and I was buddies growing up together. And she would tell you [indistinct 00:13:13] because she can't tell you now, because she dead and gone. But we was ready to go in the classroom. [indistinct 00:13:19]. No. And spitballs. They used to throw them in school, yeah. | 13:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you ever do that? | 13:25 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Uh-huh. | 13:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | You did? | 13:28 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Uh-huh. [indistinct 00:13:28]. | 13:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you weren't really an angel? | 13:28 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, no. I know that's when I first started. When I got older and up the classes, I got as far as second year high school. But then I went, my father got sick, and I had to get out, then come here. Stay here till he got better. So I was there, but I was doing that in 1st grade. Went down in [indistinct 00:13:52] that's bad [indistinct 00:13:54] you know what I mean? Yeah. Yes, I'll tell you. | 13:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you— | 14:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | What did that mean? | 14:01 |
| Speaker 3 | I don't know. | 14:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, you better give me a signal. That's my brother in the Eastern Star. | 14:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. You belong to Eastern Star? | 14:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 14:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 14:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, [indistinct 00:14:15] and everything comes out there about. I'm a tell you. I've been in Eastern Star about since I was 18 years old. See, my father was there and 3rd degree Mason. And he [indistinct 00:14:27] me right in, soon as I got up to 18 years old. So I been a Star since then. I can't tell you nothing about our society now. | 14:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, I know. I know. I won't ask you anything. You can't tell me that. | 14:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, uh-uh, no. | 14:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | What is it, though about, why did you join it? | 14:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | It ain't [indistinct 00:14:47] because I [indistinct 00:14:47] know what I was even going in for then. You know what I mean? That's my father's, what he was doing. Because he felt like that I was just—I, in fact, I guess was at that time [indistinct 00:15:00] enough to join. | 14:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But you can't tell nothing about—oh, this, you get this. Oh, this, you don't get in there at all. | 14:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Pardon me? | 15:11 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Disobedient, you can't get in at all. No disobedient. Why they going to come in there and [indistinct 00:15:20]? Yeah. No, no, you can't [indistinct 00:15:24]. | 15:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | What kind of people became Eastern Star? Who could join the Eastern Star? | 15:23 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | If your father was a Mason. If your mother's a Mason. If your aunt's a Mason. If your brother's a Mason. | 15:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you have to have a— | 15:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Your sister [indistinct 00:15:38] is a Mason. You go [indistinct 00:15:41] that like that. You can't just walk right on into the Mason if you ain't got no relative or nothing like that. They're very [indistinct 00:15:49], you know what I mean? Mm-mm. Yeah. | 15:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | What has it meant to your life to belong to the Eastern Stars? | 15:58 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, all right, if I get down here sick, they're going to come and see if I need any money. They going to come see if I'm hungry. And if I get in jail, they're going to come to my rescue at any time. I don't care what time of night, if it's 4 o'clock in the morning. When I come here and give you the signal, you got to open your door. That's all I can tell you. | 15:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Does the Eastern Star do any community work? Any charity work? | 16:23 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, not necessary for that [indistinct 00:16:37]. Mm-hmm. | 16:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. But just for each other? Just for the other members? Or for the community? | 17:12 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, I don't know about the community [indistinct 00:17:13]. I don't know about the community. But yes, because I would. I wouldn't go there because you not a Star. If you were hungry, I'd go there and feed you something to eat. Because I'm showing my Christianity and my religious part of me. No, no, you right. Mm-mm. | 17:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, no, you ain't got to be a member. You can just be a neighbor of mine. And I heard you say you was hungry. I heard you say you need some clean bedclothes or something. That's my business to go in there and do that. Regardless of whether you're in the relative. Now that's, God says that. Mm-hmm. That comes in your heart. See what I mean? Now from your position. No. Mm-mm. | 17:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, that come from your heart. No, no, I wouldn't stop because you ain't no member of the [indistinct 00:17:24]. Somebody told me you was over there sick and somebody told me you need something to eat and you need some clean clothes. I say, "Let's go ahead and see what we can do for her." See? And then that'll encourage you to want to join the Star when you get up. See what I'm trying to tell you? | 17:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now back to school for a minute. | 17:38 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. I'm telling you a whole lot, ain't I? | 17:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | It's all right. That's all right. That's what I'm hear for. | 17:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, my Lord have— | 17:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when you were in school, how much education was your father able to get? Was he— | 17:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I know my father, he had to work hard when he was young. He went to school, now. But until he got out the grades. And then that was the rest of it, yeah. | 17:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 18:19 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. I think [indistinct 00:18:19]. Yeah. What did you say? What did I say [indistinct 00:18:23]? | 18:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Your father got a little bit of school. He went through the grades. | 18:23 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He went through the grades, yeah. He went through the grades. | 18:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | And then he— | 18:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He took care of his mother. See, her husband died. His father died, rather. And he just took over the home. I think he was the only [indistinct 00:18:47], I believe. The only son. Something like that [indistinct 00:18:47]. I think he was the only one. And so then, he took care of them, raised them all up. The man told me that he's dead and gone though, now. He's dead and gone. Now, he wanted me to go in there and see his man that just stayed there. Named it after his mother, this day, and everything. | 18:45 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But I didn't get out there. And he's gone now. but he told me that my father was a good son to his family. Said he was darling to his mother. He [indistinct 00:19:11] his children. I ain't seen them. Such as we could get them have, I ain't seen nothing we didn't have. I'm telling you. No, he wasn't no rich man or nothing like that. But he knew how to provide for a family. And he did it. He did it. | 18:56 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And then too [indistinct 00:19:28] I didn't stick with him. I didn't put my father into no home and do nothing for none of the rest of the family that lived. I stayed here with them all until the Lord took them. Put no one in no home. Everybody said, "Lord, you look good and you done this. As hard as you work." And I said, "Well, now, somebody got to do it behind me." I said, "That was my family." And she tell me, "You so tender-hearted." I said, "I don't want to be tough-hearted." I don't know want to be. What I want to be tough-hearted for? I said, "Because I need somebody's help all the time." And I said there, "And if you treat other people, the Lord going to send somebody by. Maybe the one you [indistinct 00:20:08] ain't going to get nothing. But he's got a hundred, he's got thousand children, and he know which one to send to my house." | 19:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And then somebody going to wait on you. I can act nasty with you all I please, but somebody's coming to you. And I'm the one going to hell. Because I'm not doing as He told me to do. If you done something wrong to me, this evening here. If I do something to you wrong this evening. What we going to do is forgive each other this evening. And if you don't, you go home and say, "[indistinct 00:20:42] not [indistinct 00:20:42] home." And I thought if I said this to you and I done this to you. So I come back to tell you I'm sorry. But I'm not a Christian if I'm going to say, "Well, that's all right." You forgive me and I forgive you. And then that's these sisters [indistinct 00:20:52] right on. | 20:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | In any fraternity, even if there's [indistinct 00:20:54] there. You can't say you [indistinct 00:21:06] on live on other side of the street. Oh, I've learned a lot by being motherless. And my father died, and this did made me, [indistinct 00:21:06] ask him, these religious old people. Them is religious old people back in there, girl. And honey, they just taught me what I should know, and I'm in it. I'm in it today. I sit back here, and they said, "Well, I don't know how you get by." I said, "I know how I get by." I said, "It ain't money gets me by." I said, "That ain't it." | 20:51 |
| Speaker 4 | Hey. | 21:31 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | All right, how you feeling? I said, "It ain't money gets me by." I says, "It's knowing how to treat one another." That's what I said. That's what helps you to get by. I said, "Because Peter don't like you. Everybody ain't going to like you." They hated Jesus, so who is you? They hated Jesus. So think about it. You say, "That girl that hates me, and I don't know why she hate me, because I ain't done nothing to her." Don't worry about that girl. Because they hated Jesus Christ before your time. And they hated Him. And they hated Him. But that don't hurt you. | 21:32 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-mm. You ain't done nothing to me. And if I done anything to you, we [indistinct 00:22:07] together. And I tell you I'm sorry because I'm [indistinct 00:22:13]. So then I tell you I'm sorry. And we'll all get together like that. But you can't die and go to Heaven with malice in your heart. And I tell you, true. I go to bed every night. I try to not be mad with nobody. And that's the truth. And then the neighbor on the street's going to tell you that I bother him. I said to him, "I been speak to my [indistinct 00:22:38] friendship now." | 22:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Because I told the girl yesterday, I wanted to go to the store, yesterday. Her car was sitting out there in the street. It's like it's sitting out there right now. And I said to Cora down there, and I said, "Your daughter home?" She said, "Yes, Ms. Mamie. She's here." I said, "Tell her I said I want to [indistinct 00:22:58] the store." I said, "My ankle's hurting so bad." I said, "I don't think I can walk." And I said, "Because it's hot." And I said, "I might fall out in that heat out there." And she said, "All right." She said, "She's eating dinner right now, but soon as she get through eating dinner, she'll come and carry her." Her niece come up there and got the niece to come and carry me to the store. | 22:03 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So that's what it pay you to be nice. It pay you to be nice. It ain't money makes you get up in this world. They all need money. They all got to have money. But the thing with it is, don't forget the man that has the money and don't forget the man that has it, they won't help you. He's going to Hell. Because he blesses you to have a car that I may able, you may. I said, "I got to go to hospital." You say, "Well, I can't go right now. When I'm doing such and such a thing but I carry you this evening." But don't sit there, "No, I can't do it." Knowing too you can, but [indistinct 00:23:57] time. Well, if I can't wait till then, then I say, "Well, thank you, but I'll go get somebody that can go right now." But you can be nice about it. I tell you. Be nice about it. | 23:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now back to school again, to education. Did your father, did he think that education was important? | 24:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know [indistinct 00:24:17] had nothing against it. He's always been a [indistinct 00:24:19]. He's always been [indistinct 00:24:24]. I never heard anything against it at all. | 24:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, did you ever think of going on in school? | 24:25 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. | 24:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | No? | 24:28 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know why. I think I had a mother or something [indistinct 00:24:33]. A mother's not like a father. | 24:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, now how are they different? | 24:32 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | The difference between them is they don't think about you. [indistinct 00:24:41] he's a man, and he's thinking about how to take care of family. And mother's taking care, showing the child how take care of themself in the world. See what I mean? And they can become this and become that. And if you don't do it now, it be too late later on. See what I mean? Now, that's the difference between the mother and the father because a father got another heart, and his mother got this one. [indistinct 00:25:04] father wanted to beat you for everything. The mother said, "Don't beat him all the time. Talk to him." See what I mean? Okay. I been through so much [indistinct 00:25:11]. That's all there is to it. | 24:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you miss having a mother when you were growing up? | 24:52 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I miss her to today, and I ain't never seen her. But when I read the Bible every morning. I love to read the 27th Psalm. I love it. I love that. And when I read that, I say, "Mama—or Papa." I got his picture. I didn't have my mother. I don't know how Papa didn't get any picture [indistinct 00:25:36]. Well, unless somebody took it away from here before I got [indistinct 00:25:41] thing. I ain't going to say he didn't do it. Because that I wasn't in the roundabout. I don't know. | 26:46 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And have a picture made of him. And something to remind you of your—I say to him every time I read it. I got his picture in the Bible. And every time I read it, and I read it, and I say, "Lord." I say, I told Him, I thanked the Lord for letting me get up in the morning. To let me see another day. That's how I says it. For let me see another day. And I said, "Thank you for that." I said, "And thank you, Jesus, for letting me have the breath that I got in my body because it wasn't for You, I wouldn't be woke this morning. I'd be still sleeping in slumber." | 26:46 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And then I get back over here. I'll say to my father, then I got [indistinct 00:26:37]. Jesus. His picture's not there, but I imagine him on this side where I read the 27th Psalm. And the Father's over here on the clean side. I say, "Papa, maybe I'll see you one day and my mother too." I seen him. But I said, "I hope you're resting." That's how I said. "So that I will see you another time." That's when I say, "And my mother one day." Because I wouldn't know if I seen her walk up here right now. I was too little and too young when she left. I don't know one from the other. Yes, I do. I know my father because he stayed [indistinct 00:27:08] me [indistinct 00:27:10] growing. Yeah. | 26:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when you left school, you left school to take care of your father, when he got sick? Is that right? | 27:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-mm. No, I didn't need no school then. Because I told you, that's probably when they accept me like that, you know what I mean? [indistinct 00:27:26] talk too much and said the wrong thing. But if I guess, maybe they know [indistinct 00:27:30] showed up anyhow. That I was afraid. Had fear. Well, you got to do your [indistinct 00:27:37]. | 27:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | But you said, it was in your second year of high school that you left school? | 27:38 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | When I left school here, yeah. | 27:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, you left school in the second year of high school? | 27:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. | 27:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | And you did that to take care of your father? | 27:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, he was sick, and there wasn't nobody else to do it but me. So I wasn't going to put him in no home. | 27:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you feel bad about leaving school? | 27:52 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, no. He was [indistinct 00:27:59] I had to feed him. No. Uh-uh. He came around. He [indistinct 00:28:05] be putting them [indistinct 00:28:05] in the home. Shutting them up. I [indistinct 00:28:08]. Unless they get [indistinct 00:28:10] take a needle, or they got to do something you don't know how to do. Now, if you don't know how to do that, don't throw them [indistinct 00:28:18] right there because all right. You go every day. And three times a day to see how they getting along because they shut up in there by myself. Sitting there three times a day will pull you down. | 27:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But the thing of it is, just let her know that somebody still loves her. That's what it is. Because honey, let me tell you thing. When you got somebody still loves you, it makes you feel good. That's the truth. | 28:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Now, when you left school, and you took care of your father, were you working as well? | 28:41 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Huh? | 28:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you work? | 28:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, let me [indistinct 00:28:50] I was. | 28:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you got out of school. | 28:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. Maybe so. I don't know. Right now. Maybe done something else. I don't know. I may have been away. That's the truth. Because yeah, I went in New York and Philadelphia. Not Philadelphia. Why I'm saying Philadelphia and I don't even like Philadelphia? Brooklyn, New York. | 28:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | New York? | 29:09 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Brooklyn. | 29:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Brooklyn, okay. Now, you did this while you were taking care of your father? | 29:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. | 29:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was that [indistinct 00:29:21]? | 29:20 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Papa was already up in the [indistinct 00:29:22]. I went to do that just to be going up there, so I can have some money of my own then. I was grown then. Have some money of my own. | 29:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. So you considered yourself grown when you left home? | 29:30 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, Lord, I thought was grown then. I could do what I could please. But it ain't no pleasure to you. You think you want to do all this and do it. But you don't. But probably [indistinct 00:29:39]. And you want to do a whole lot of things, but you find out in that end, it's no good for you. You change your mind. But when you get lose, then find how hard it is for you. Hello, darling. How are you? | 29:33 |
| Speaker 5 | All right. | 30:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Why'd you stop that car right there? | 30:04 |
| Speaker 5 | Huh? | 30:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Why you stop that car right there? | 30:07 |
| Speaker 5 | [indistinct 00:30:10]. | 30:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Because— | 30:08 |
| Speaker 5 | [indistinct 00:30:12] down there. | 30:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | All right, it's all right. It's all right. | 30:08 |
| Speaker 5 | [indistinct 00:30:17]. | 30:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Sitting there and putting there. I be seeing him there putting [indistinct 00:30:23] my daughter putting them [indistinct 00:30:23] when I was in the house. The house was here. When they growing up. And all this. She said, "Mommy, you going to need some shading come in your house." I was talking to her not long ago. And she said, "Yes." And I said, "No." I'd like to ask her for what. But now I know for what, now. Yeah, I know for what now. There's two brothers right there. They're undertakers. Because [indistinct 00:30:50]. | 30:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. When was the fire? How old were you when the fire came through? | 30:53 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know, honey. But I know [indistinct 00:30:57] in the fire. but I know I was going to school. And I wasn't no child. I was in my— | 30:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | In high school? | 31:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, no. I wasn't in high school. But I was going to school. But, no. All that kind of stuff [indistinct 00:31:16]. And I can't talk about it because I wasn't thinking about that. That's the truth. All I know, I was going to school. And I stayed in school. I didn't go to school that long because I stayed in school until I could help these things out. But the fire started up on [indistinct 00:31:31] Street. Up there in the projects, that West part [indistinct 00:31:35]. I didn't think the fire would come this far. | 31:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | It jumped over all these houses—[indistinct 00:31:48] call my name, speaking to me. All of these houses. It went right on. And I said, "Lord, I got this stuff sitting out here." And here, the fire's going over my house. | 31:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. So did your house catch fire? | 32:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. | 32:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | It didn't? | 32:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | All this leaped from uptown. I'm telling you. It leaped over all these homes. Sure did. Didn't do nothing to nothing from that [indistinct 00:32:17] house down there. And no, they all dead, yeah. Where the fire started at. They ain't all dead. There's two of them living. Now, that's right. I'm telling you. But I thought the fire was going to come here. After I seen it floating so. I got scared. It was [indistinct 00:32:34] over and over and over and over [indistinct 00:32:34] down. | 32:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. So what happened to other people in this area? | 32:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | See, I don't know. It wasn't there on that side. It probably looks like it was over here. [indistinct 00:32:51] made me jump so. They didn't see nothing over there [indistinct 00:32:54] nobody. The fire, it wasn't, you say, a wide blaze coming down, you know what I mean? So I stopped, and I said, "I ain't going to do nothing." I said, "It's [indistinct 00:33:08] house." And I seen it crossed over and went down to [indistinct 00:33:11] church. Mm-hmm. | 32:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | So it burned your church. | 33:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, it got a new one sitting up there. | 33:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, what happened after the church burned? Where did you have your service? | 33:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, I don't know. We went around different places. Yeah. | 33:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | And how did you rebuild the church? | 33:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | To our money and people I guess helping too. And they did borrowing money and [indistinct 00:33:37]. All that had to be in it. And building a building out there, they had to be [indistinct 00:33:42] out there. [indistinct 00:33:45] and you being able to borrow so much money. | 33:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 33:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And so when I figured, that's how we got together. | 33:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now, what effect did it have on the community here, having the fire? | 33:56 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Hm? | 33:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | What happened to people whose houses did burn down? | 33:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know, honey. They don't got shelters back then. I know that. I don't know what happened. But they got some help, I'm quite sure. Yeah, I'm quite sure they got some help. | 34:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember helping people out? | 34:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I didn't do a thing in the world but give my money in the church and there. That's all. Mm-hmm. That's enough. That's what it took, is money. And I don't know nobody else about it, but everybody give [indistinct 00:34:35] to have, anyway. Because you got to [indistinct 00:34:39] and you just don't know what's going to come, you know how. That's the truth. | 34:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | All right. So sorry, that was a little diversion there. So you went to New York City after you— | 34:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, that was Brooklyn, New York. No New York City. I don't like New York City. | 34:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. And you went— | 35:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Too fast for me. It's uptown. | 35:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | And why did you decide to go there? You wanted to make some money? | 35:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I had a sister-in-law that was up there. | 35:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | A sister-in-law? | 35:19 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Uh-huh. And I just went there so I could make me some money. Mm-hmm. | 35:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | And this was after your father had died? | 35:20 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. Uh-uh. He was living. I didn't stay long, though. But I been back since then. Then, that time, my father was dead. That's when I [indistinct 00:35:36] home and do the best I could for it then. That's when I did that. And then I come in and got jobs here and worked. I told you these people are dead now. They're now dead [indistinct 00:35:43]. And yeah, I went up here [indistinct 00:35:43] the day. I said, "Lord, I found a picture. And I can't [indistinct 00:35:53] right now." | 35:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But she was nice. And when I go by her house downtown, I think about her. And so that's just the way it was. Yeah, honey. I didn't have no hard—I didn't have to go there, when I just wanted to go. Because I could stay in this [indistinct 00:36:14] no money then in the world, when I was growing up. And I'll tell you [indistinct 00:36:19]. I could have stayed right here. But no, I didn't stay. Oh, no, I wanted to go. I want to go see what I could do. | 35:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So you were married when you— | 36:26 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I didn't marry up there. I married right here in New Bern, North Carolina. | 36:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh. Okay, but were you married when you went to New York City? | 36:31 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 36:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah? | 36:35 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | My husband dead. | 36:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. Now, how did you meet your husband? | 36:35 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. Going to school, and he lying all the time. "Oh, you so good looking. You so this." And I didn't have no sense. Going to school. Cutting [indistinct 00:36:52] and leaving everywhere to say. And Papa would ask me. He said, "You like him, don't you?" He said, "But you ain't [indistinct 00:37:00] nothing." He said— | 36:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | You like what? Sorry? | 36:55 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He said, "You're not blocking anything. Going to do you no good." I didn't want to believe that really because that's the person then I was seeing. I didn't like him. It wouldn't have been like me [indistinct 00:37:12] right here and watching me, following me. I took a chance. His mother is nice [indistinct 00:37:14]. Did you ever know [indistinct 00:37:14]? | 37:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-mm. | 37:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He was the principal of the school there. And anyhow, I married in his family. And he told me, he said, "You married in my family. I know that." He said, "But I ain't saying nothing about my people." Say, "But you haven't been treated right." Said, "But I can't do nothing about it." But he couldn't. | 37:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | You weren't treated right? | 37:50 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. | 37:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why not? What happened? | 37:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Why, because he was too lazy to work for his family. Why not? That's enough right there. He didn't do no more. And beat me. He did not because I never had a lick from my father in my life because I always tried to do what he say do. And [indistinct 00:38:05] he scold me. | 37:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, your husband? | 38:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | My father. My husband wasn't in it then. My father, he just told me about what he tried to tell me. And I wouldn't listen. That's what [indistinct 00:38:17]. He seen what I didn't see. Well, I was too young. I didn't know. I just [indistinct 00:38:23] I didn't see no men. That's all. And I [indistinct 00:38:26] happened to know too much and didn't know nothing. | 38:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | So your husband was not a good— | 38:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I had to work hard. You see, husband [indistinct 00:38:33] away. I didn't want my father to do everything. But he did it anyhow. He took care of them children. Hello! He took care of them children, honey. Hello! Yeah. | 38:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | These were your children? Or the children— | 38:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, these my children. | 38:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Your children? Or your father's children? | 38:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, my children. Papa took care his old children, his own self. I didn't have a [indistinct 00:38:55]. He took care of us all, honey. | 38:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. I don't understand quite here. So you say your husband— | 38:55 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, that, I been putting down the father down. That's out of it. I'm telling my father [indistinct 00:39:11]. I mean, my husband and me now. | 39:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, and he was— | 39:12 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | My father ain't got to with nothing of that. Mm-mm. | 39:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | But your husband, did you separate from your husband? | 39:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 39:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. Why did you separate? He wasn't treating you right? | 39:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Why you think I would separate? | 39:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 39:21 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Because I told you, he didn't take care of family now. And I'm not going to work for no man taking on family. You hear what I say now? You [indistinct 00:39:31] even ask me that, because I ain't [indistinct 00:39:32] no man. Some women love [indistinct 00:39:35] that well, but I don't. I just [indistinct 00:39:37] go to work. Don't need [indistinct 00:39:41]. I'm not going to see my children suffer. | 39:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. Yeah, yeah. So your father took care of your children when you went to New York City? | 39:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | [indistinct 00:39:49] all right. | 39:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. And was that the first time you went to [indistinct 00:39:51]? | 39:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Hope you ain't got New York still in that paper because I ain't— | 39:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, I'm sorry. Brooklyn. I'm sorry. | 39:50 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I aint' go to New York. | 39:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Brooklyn, right. | 39:50 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't like New York. New York's too fast for me. Brooklyn's nothing like here [indistinct 00:40:03]. It sure is. And if the people there like you, ain't got to worry about nothing. If they got their children and they like you, you ain't got to worry about a thing. I work for them [indistinct 00:40:13] was crazy about me. But the mama's husband died. And they wanted to divorce [indistinct 00:40:18] back door knocking. And the boy and girlfriend [indistinct 00:40:21] to the front door knocking. I told them, I said, "Look, here. Your mama told me." She told me what he was doing to her. And she believed in me. She said, "The children love you. Now, you tell them, listen. Tell them I need some companionship." | 39:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They just said, "Oh." They want me to [indistinct 00:40:39] and just hold my hands up. And she said, "I'm not going to do it. And they keep on pushing me every night [indistinct 00:40:39]. When you going to sleep." I stayed [indistinct 00:40:39]. And them children say—I say, "I'm going home." I said, "Because I got to go see about my children." | 40:35 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | "What you going home for? You can't go home here now." I said, "Who can't go?" I said, "I sure can because I'm tired of sitting out here and can't get no company and suffering, and nobody come to see her. You [indistinct 00:41:05] company." | 40:40 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | "Who told you that I said—" | 41:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | "Don't worry about who told me. I'm sitting here looking at you. I stay here." Mama was telling me [indistinct 00:41:13]. I said, "I stay here." She ain't had to tell me nothing. Well, Lord, have mercy. I guess you have to get [indistinct 00:41:22]. Your mama's [indistinct 00:41:23]. You raised her. You didn't raise her. And honey, I thought he going to tell me got to go home because I was ready to go anyhow. Mama told me. I told her I was ready to go. She said, "Well, I don't want you to go." They like you. they like you. I done told you. | 41:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Because them gals liked me and the boys too because they don't like you, you ain't going to work for the mama nohow. And so I said, "You ain't going to get no job now." You sure don't. And they got me there, and they could see what I was going to do. I said, "I'm going home, then, if that's what you going to do your mama. Because I don't like to be here [indistinct 00:41:56]." I wasn't wanting to be lonesome. Not in [indistinct 00:42:00]. And I said, "I know you don't have girlfriend [indistinct 00:42:04] so you [indistinct 00:42:05]. They sent him to the back door, you to the front door." Them gal. | 41:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And honey, he [indistinct 00:42:11] all that [indistinct 00:42:11]. I got the [indistinct 00:42:13] may be dead by now, though. Been so long. | 42:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | This was the person you were working for? | 42:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. | 42:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 42:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Working for the mother. | 42:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you living with them? | 42:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, stay in the same house. That's how I know so much about how she was telling the truth. See what I mean? They asked me, "How you know?" I said, "I live here." I said, "I listen. I listen to all of you." I said, "[indistinct 00:42:39]." He said, [indistinct 00:42:39]. I said, "I don't like nothing. I'm going home." I wasn't ready to go home. I hadn't even finished what I wanted to do. But I went [indistinct 00:42:47] kind of letting them know I go home. "No, don't you go home. No, sir, don't you go home." | 42:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Go home to come home to North Carolina? | 42:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Come here. I said, "But I sure ain't going to same here." [indistinct 00:42:59] another job. I said, "I like this one." But they're dead. Because all them was nice to me. That's the truth. And they said me [indistinct 00:43:07], "You love my mama, don't you?" I said, "You should love her too." They loved her. They just wanted to cuddle up. And I got them all. Because she said, "I ain't got nobody." They scared she getting married, I think. But I [indistinct 00:43:21] got married. She ain't got married that I know of. | 43:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I just sitting here thinking about her. [indistinct 00:43:25]. Maybe I get [indistinct 00:43:28] right too. See what's going on. If I got the address. It's been so long. But I got along fine, then, tell you the truth. I got along fine then. | 43:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when did you come back from Brooklyn? | 43:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Lord, I don't know. | 43:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, this was when your father passed? | 43:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Huh? | 43:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | When your father passed? | 43:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, no. I was home [indistinct 00:43:54]. | 43:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. And you decided to come home after you worked for these people? | 43:54 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Say what? What you saying? | 43:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | When did you come home for good? When did you come back home? | 44:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know when I come. After a long time. Yeah. | 44:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So you were up there for a long time [indistinct 00:44:13]? | 44:11 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, after I stay there a long time. After that. I just let them know I wasn't going to jump right up and leave. And I stayed too, I made satisfaction. Tell you the truth. And I don't know how long. That [indistinct 00:44:26] was a good while. And after they all got happy, then I did come home then. "I wish you didn't have no house to go to." I said, "How come you wish I didn't have no house to go to?" That's the mother now. "I wish you didn't have no house to go to." And I said, "Why?" | 44:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | "So you wouldn't have nowhere to go when you left the job." I said, "No house [indistinct 00:44:48] except mine." That what I told her. But she didn't want me to leave her. She wanted me to stay till my lifetime. Well, I couldn't do that. I had children here. Yeah. | 44:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, how much contact did you have with your children? Did you come down here every year, or how often did you come down? | 44:59 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I come down and see them. | 45:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | How often? | 45:06 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I know every summer. Not summer, I come in the winter. No, summer. I come in the summer. | 45:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | In the summertime? | 45:06 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I'd rather be up there in the cold weather. I don't like to travel in cold weather like that. Yeah, I come home in the summer. | 45:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | And your father was taking care of your kids? | 45:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, yes, oh, honey. They going to school. They going to school too. Mm-hmm. | 45:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So they were raised down here? | 45:24 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Raised right here. This house. Woo, they was good to our girls. Mm-hmm. | 45:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when you came back here, where did you work? | 45:32 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Nowhere. | 45:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | Nowhere? | 45:35 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. [indistinct 00:45:39] nowhere. Worked nowhere. | 45:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. So how did you support yourself? | 45:41 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | By saving my money. And I don't want [indistinct 00:45:47] have me plenty clothes. I had plenty food. That wasn't hard to get. It was cheap at that time. And clothes cheap at that time. And I didn't have to buy no clothes. So Papa wanted to do that, but he'd done enough by taking care of my children. | 45:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. How about after he passed? Did you work then? | 46:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, no. Mm-mm. | 46:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. So after you came back from Brooklyn, you never worked again? | 46:09 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, I did. And I got [indistinct 00:46:13] Brooklyn again. Oh, no, I must have [indistinct 00:46:18]. Yes, because I working in people I told you right now. I couldn't think of their names. | 46:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Here in New Bern? | 46:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. I didn't work that long, though. I just wanted to get out [indistinct 00:46:29] because coming back here, sitting right down holding my hand. I couldn't get satisfied. And [indistinct 00:46:37]. I didn't have to work nowhere. Then I got onto Social Security too. | 46:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. Now, you were working in service, right? | 46:41 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. | 46:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Which of these jobs did you like the best? | 46:45 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I liked [indistinct 00:46:49] everything. I tell you I did change. I just told them I was going to change. I told you. You pay for your job. That's what I do. So you get nothing. I don't have to work with you if I don't like you. See what I mean? And if I don't like Sally, I don't have to stay there. And [indistinct 00:47:04]— | 47:00 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | —my home people, but I didn't like the way they paid you. They didn't want to pay you nothing. | 0:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember a point at which Black people were paid more here, when that kind of thing changed? | 0:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | What say? | 0:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was there a point at which there were more jobs for Black people, different kind of jobs that paid better? | 0:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I don't about the jobs that paid no better, but I do know they hired them though, in jobs they want them to have. | 0:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 0:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 0:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you— | 0:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And there was a lot of people who only had their own jobs, and their own thing. You know? | 0:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | I know. | 0:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Their own cafes and had their people hiring them. | 0:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 0:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And some people paying them good, and some paying them not. | 0:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Everybody had their parts. | 0:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 0:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. I didn't have [indistinct 00:00:50] tonight, not [indistinct 00:00:51], but then somebody can come back better than me, say, "Well, I got this here picture. Then you'll give it to me." You have to pick me, but maybe I wasn't decent enough, or didn't talk nice enough, or something wrong, you'll say, "I don't have anything." And you'll give it to Sally. | 0:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 1:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So that's how that goes. | 1:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 1:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But I tell you too, if you don't belong to this guild, people [indistinct 00:01:15] in trouble, because you like them. You'll do more for people who you like, naturally, you will. But you [indistinct 00:01:24] looking on the side it's on. | 1:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 1:19 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I haven't got this dress and apron to put on. And the clothes I got on. Well, you say, "Well, she needs something more than that café does. I'm going to give them to this child don't have nothing." Well, that's where your blessings come, right there. | 1:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 1:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | To the child who has nothing. | 1:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 1:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And you change your job. Because I was nasty acting, when I'd go home, I'm going to change my attitude, because I say, "You know, I went to scrap houses today, and I didn't get nothing." And I stopped, whatever your name is, and she give me all these clothes, [indistinct 00:02:03]. What's his name? Everybody want to know where he'd been, what's his name, and who he was and everything. See what I mean? You'll never be forgotten. | 1:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 1:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And the Lord ain't going to forget you up there either. | 2:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 2:11 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So that's where that is. | 2:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 2:11 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | You do for the person who really needs you. | 2:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:17 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They don't act right, they won't do it right, but let me take care of that. | 2:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 2:17 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I ain't talking about me now, the Lord, He's the boss. | 2:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:17 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | See, let Him take care of that. He'll do the punishing. | 2:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:28 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And don't you think I can see [indistinct 00:02:30] on your day and get by, because I can't. You may think so, but I cannot get by. Mm-mm. The main masses don't sleep and eat though He slumber. He don't sleep, neither does He slumber. | 2:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 2:45 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And whatever I do and say today here, or anytime, He knows about it. | 2:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 2:52 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So that's just the way it is. | 2:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:52 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now, I don't know why they want to know all these here things. [indistinct 00:03:00] ain't gathering nothing. It ain't going to help me a bit. [indistinct 00:03:05] | 2:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well— | 2:58 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Just somebody to talk about? | 2:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 2:58 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't see what for. That ain't no good. Now, y'all need to pay me off. | 3:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 3:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I [indistinct 00:03:19] I said [indistinct 00:03:21] ain't no profit to me. | 3:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Not a bit of profit in the world to me. And it ain't going to be no profit to nobody to know how I got along. Of course, that was another day. See? This day is a better day than that day was. See what I mean? | 3:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 3:34 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Than my time was. | 3:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But I was in hard times. | 3:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 3:40 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | The parents get little money, and all that kind of thing. Now, this day here, everybody's making it. | 3:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 3:45 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Wages is going up, and it's been more practice set up and there's nursing homes and there's just everything for you now. | 3:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you remember when Cherry Point opened up? | 3:58 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 4:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you here, living here? | 4:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Cherry Point, yeah. | 4:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Did things change when Cherry Point opened up? | 4:04 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | It made a whole lot of difference to people. | 4:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | How so? | 4:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Get more work to do, and there's so many soldiers out [indistinct 00:04:12]. And you got to [indistinct 00:04:13] there. | 4:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Right. How about your own children, did they work there? | 4:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I didn't have any went in the Army. I had a grandson that did. | 4:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 4:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I had no children that went in the Army. None. | 4:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did any of them work at Cherry Point? | 4:24 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. No, I don't know. Cherry Point? I don't know, because he's somebody that [indistinct 00:04:32], but he's always going out of town, catching a plane. Catching a plane, you know? Yeah, but he's dead now. I got his picture now. Everybody loved him, and I loved him too. His picture's [indistinct 00:04:57], and my picture's side of it right now. He was [indistinct 00:04:57]. I'd say, "Let me put my teeth in my mouth." [indistinct 00:04:57] now. But his picture's in there on the wall right now. And his too. | 4:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 4:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. That's the truth. Yeah, he had a lovely reputation in the service. | 5:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 5:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. I love it. | 5:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when your father took care of your children, was it just him taking care of them? | 5:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, no, not no Army. He didn't do with that. | 5:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Pardon me? | 5:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He never did the children in the Army, nothing like that. | 5:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | No, no, no, but— | 5:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He took the children the time I told you, when I went off after all. | 5:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. And did he take care of them by himself? | 5:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, he brought there who he need. They were our children. | 5:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Oh, okay. | 5:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He needed his children [indistinct 00:05:37]. I can't leave no babies here. | 5:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 5:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | My children was going to school, Lord, girl. Yeah. | 5:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 5:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. I would never leave them here like that. | 5:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 5:42 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He got to work. | 5:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 5:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And they learned to wash for theirself and do for theirself and everything. | 5:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 5:50 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But they were going to school. | 5:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | So how old were they when you— | 5:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know about the ages of them either, but they were in the grades then. | 5:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 5:54 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | In the grades. Down in the grades. | 5:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | So that was the first time that you went to New York City was then? | 5:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | First time, mm-hmm. And first time I went to Brooklyn. | 6:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Brooklyn, I'm sorry. Brooklyn. But you were in New York City before? | 6:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. | 6:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 6:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-mm. | 6:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, you said you belong to the Eastern Star. What other organizations have you belonged to? | 6:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, a whole lot of them. | 6:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 6:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, I got to fix some dinner here. Somebody left a letter here for me, telling me I had to get [indistinct 00:06:23] what that is. I'm supposed to send some food, I believe. And I'm supposed to be the heading of it, but I just got the letter Saturday, and I think the date's wrong. | 6:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:32 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. | 6:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | You have to finish up then? | 6:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I'm going to tell it's too late. | 6:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 6:35 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | If you want me to do anything, tell me in time. | 6:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 6:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Of course, then I'll do it. Makes it easier for me to do. | 6:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. | 6:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, these organizations, what organizations other than the Eastern Star have you belonged to? | 6:45 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I ain't going to tell you no more now. | 6:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | No, no, but other organizations, not the Eastern Star. | 6:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, I belonged to a whole lot of things. | 6:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Like what? | 6:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, what do you mean like what? | 6:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, what do you belong to, a church? Or do you belong to— | 6:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I told you, I was born in St. Pete—well, but I wasn't born in St. Peters. | 6:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 6:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So my mother carried me [indistinct 00:07:08] to the last minute. | 6:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I was born right down in there, just right down the street. And if they ain't—they got the book when I was born. They got a record of it. In fact, I'm sure they got a record of it. | 7:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. But what about—other organizations like the Eastern Star. Did you belong, say, to the Climbers Club? | 7:20 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I do belong to the Climbers Club. | 7:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. All right. | 7:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Belong to the Golden Circle. | 7:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 7:34 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | What other club you just named just now? | 7:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | The Climbers Club. Eastern Star. | 7:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And another one. I can't think what it is right now. | 7:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. | 7:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's just a club meet. Just a little club meet. Nothing I don't have to go to if I don't want to. But Eastern Star, I do ought to want to go there. | 7:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Which one of these organizations was the most important to you? | 7:53 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Eastern Star. | 7:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. And why is that? | 7:58 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, I suppose something behind it. | 7:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 7:59 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 8:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why did you join these other organizations? | 8:06 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Just because I was a member of them, and they're going, and some association. | 8:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Right. | 8:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 8:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | How about a church? What did you belong to at church? | 8:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Why did I belong to a church? | 8:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, what kinds of organizations did you belong to at church? | 8:28 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I was president of them, and that was for 15, 16 years. | 8:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 8:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I'm [indistinct 00:08:36] the Trinity Church, [indistinct 00:08:37] today. They haven't did anything since my time of doing it. And I've sang in their choir 50 years, over 50 years. | 8:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 8:45 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I don't know. Just everything. | 8:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. And why did you join all those organizations at church? | 8:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Because you belong to help in the church. You belong. That's your business. You belong to do that in the church. | 8:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | So it's your duty to do— | 8:59 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. Uh-huh. If they call on you. You don't put yourself on nothing. | 9:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 9:04 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They see fit like you're qualified enough, why they take and use you. | 9:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, what is this belonging to these organizations, what has it given you as a person? | 9:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They don't normally give you anything. | 9:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. No, but, not necessarily give you anything, but help you as a person. | 9:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They don't normally help you until you have need of it. | 9:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 9:32 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-mm. No [indistinct 00:09:35] help you until you have need of it, then you can tell what good they are to you. But you stay there and do the best you can. When you die and leave this world, you leave a record of being a swell member yourself, and helping somebody else. | 9:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 9:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, this is what I don't love to hear. | 9:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, so you were talking about belonging to these organizations at church. | 9:53 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. | 9:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | That they would know that you're a good—that the Lord would know that you're a good person— | 9:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, the Lord doesn't know you're a good person at the start, because He made us, you know? He know who's who. He knows who we are. But He'll see that you show in your love and care for Him. | 10:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 10:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But I go into the church and obey what's to be done, to be done. See, look, if you belong to read the Bible, or you belong to—I'm going to get me another Bible now, before I go down—get that slow down there. I want some bigger letters , you know? | 10:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 10:25 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I want to get me a Bible so I can keep it with everything, and read about what goes on. See, now you got to learn of Him. You hear, but you got to learn of Him. | 10:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 10:38 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And you're writing all this down here so this can be repeated again for some reason. | 10:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 10:46 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And that's what they do with the church. | 10:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 10:52 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | See what I mean? Whatever your record is is in the church. If you got a bad record then they's in there. | 10:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 10:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And if you've got a good record, it's in there. Or wherever you go, you leave a good record. | 10:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 11:03 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | See, it's up to you and how you do. That's right. But as I was saying, I'm not saying today of no—everybody tells me who my family—I said, "I feel bad today." I said, "I feel like I'm—" I do sometimes. I feel like I'm going away from here. It's so hot, girl. I was fixing something to eat. You know? And the family's going in the room. And the full fan's going, and I said, "Ooh, [indistinct 00:11:30]." But I didn't open no windows, because I forget to put windows down at night, and then the house would really be cool. | 11:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 11:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But now, that one in there right now, you go in there, you'd feel like you're going in a cool box. There's two of them you can— | 11:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. Is that your phone? | 11:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, grab it for me, please. Right there. I'm coming right over. | 11:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | You want me to get your phone for you? | 11:40 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 11:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Where is it? | 11:40 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Right there in the hole right there, hon. Ooh. They stopped the ring. Huh? | 11:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Stopped ringing. | 11:40 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | It stopped ringing. | 11:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | I'll get it for you the next time, if it calls you. | 11:40 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Okay. All right. Okay. Ooh. Oh, Lord. Yeah, I thought I heard one ring. Yeah. | 11:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 12:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So that was it, honey. | 12:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, what kind of people belong to St. Peter's Church? | 12:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, all Methodist. | 12:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 12:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Far as I know. | 12:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Right. And what do they do for a living, most of them? | 12:23 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, honey, they're practically all teachers. | 12:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 12:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They're practically all teachers. Practically. Now, they're all or not now. But some of them are dead. We just lost some last month. | 12:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 12:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mr. Smith, we lost him. | 12:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 12:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And, oh, we lose a lot of them, honey. Yeah. | 12:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Have the kind of people changed during your lifetime? | 12:46 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | What people changed? | 12:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | The kinds of people who came to your church, have they changed during your lifetime? | 12:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, them kind of people didn't go. | 12:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 12:58 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Them faithful old people. Oh, my. Them faithful old people been going. | 12:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 13:04 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's what keeps me going. One of them faithful old people my daddy. You know? | 13:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 13:09 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, yeah. Oh, they going. Every time the church bell ring, they there. | 13:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 13:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I am too. And it wouldn't be me there every time it ring if it wasn't for him, or [indistinct 00:13:22] I would too, a lot of time, when I was younger. You know? | 13:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 13:21 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now, I don't feel that way now. | 13:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 13:21 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't feel that way about it. | 13:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Your father was very religious— [indistinct 00:13:31] | 13:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, honey, yes, honey, yes. Can't say no other about it, because [indistinct 00:13:35] and got little [indistinct 00:13:38], you got to be put in a home, some of them. | 13:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 13:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And they got everybody just hungry, out in the street getting drunk, or doing stuff. Nobody to tell them to go to bed. I'd say no, no [indistinct 00:13:49]. If y'all didn't stay looking good yourself. And you're feeling hungry, and you ain't got nothing to eat, and you out looking for men and drunk and—we didn't have any girls like that. | 13:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 13:55 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-mm. Didn't have [indistinct 00:14:04]. | 13:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Your father was a different kind of person. | 13:55 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yes, altogether. Altogether. Altogether, honey. Altogether. I'm telling you too, he done any wrong—I know he would've done wrong. I know that. But he didn't question nobody else. | 14:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 14:24 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But now I'm talking about how he treat the children. | 14:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 14:24 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. I ain't putting him in heaven, only where we're coming there. | 14:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 14:34 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's the truth. He didn't go out here and leave us in the bed and nobody here with us. Nothing like that. But he'd tell us, and he'd leave here nights and go out, have his fun with his girlfriend. He said, "I'm locking at the door." | 14:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 14:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Don't open the door until 8:30 or 9:00. And we'd get ready for school. School was the next day. That's what we had to do. That's exactly what we had to do then. But except for he'd be mean, no. Because I done left myself. I wouldn't [indistinct 00:15:09]. I wouldn't. My children neither, not if this thing had gone on. | 14:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 15:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I mean, I got children, but I mean before I did have some children. You know? I would've went right on. Yeah, that's right. Because I'm not a lazy woman at all, honey. I work for mine. Mm-mm. I ain't taking nobody's trash. | 15:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 15:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I ain't ashamed to work. Mm-mm. No sir. And then he worked—hello, darling. How you doing? | 15:28 |
| Speaker 1 | All right. | 15:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's good. Now, that's that one I was talking about. See. | 15:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah, so what was I saying? | 15:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, I think I'm pretty much finished with my questions. | 15:48 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Honey, my gosh. She [indistinct 00:15:52]. They sent the right one here, because she's something else. [indistinct 00:15:55] person. What they going to do for me? | 15:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, we— | 15:59 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | What they going to help me to do? | 16:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | It's not going to help you, but it will help other people. It'll help children to learn about what it was like for you coming up, and that kind of thing. | 16:04 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, but you see, my parents, if they're coming to your parents, what thing [indistinct 00:16:12]. | 16:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 16:11 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | You see? You know? What kind of parents you got. I had good parents. | 16:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 16:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But some of the children [indistinct 00:16:19] have a hard way to go now. People who their parents love liquor and stuff. | 16:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 16:22 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But you ought to have something behind this now. | 16:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 16:26 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | You ought to have something behind this. Because y'all get paid for this, but I ain't getting nothing sitting here talking my tongue dry. I tell you the truth. | 16:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | We're interviewing 3,000 people, so we can't— | 16:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | 3,000? | 16:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 16:58 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | You want something cool to drink? | 16:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | I'm okay. I've got—I'll be fine. And what's your full name? | 17:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I'm going to give you some tea [indistinct 00:17:11]. | 17:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | You want to? | 17:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I'm going to stand and get some. | 17:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | You want me to go get you some? | 17:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, I only—No, you tired, I reckon, talking to me. | 17:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | No, it's all right. I can do that for you if you want me to. | 17:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, [indistinct 00:17:11]. | 17:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, when I leave I'll go over and get you some. | 17:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They make some good tea. No, that's all right. That's the best tea I ever drank in my life. Oh, yeah. I never drink no tea like it in my life. I'll probably stop drinking because it's too good, make you drink too much of it. It really do. With that caravan. Whoever makes it know what they're doing. | 17:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 17:21 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Go from A to Z right now. | 17:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 17:26 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Uh-huh. Because on account of the big—I don't know how many roasts you got in the kitchen, but I got some stuff that's pretty good. Getting them out. But I don't like that. No. | 17:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, do you remember when your husband was born? | 17:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. | 17:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | No? Okay. | 17:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I ain't worried about that. That part I ain't never asked about. And he ain't never asked about my age, but I was a young woman. | 17:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 17:53 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Going to school. | 17:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, what was his occupation? | 17:53 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. What did he do? I don't know. He worked to the [indistinct 00:18:02] factory, I'm thinking. | 17:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | The what? Sorry? | 17:59 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Baby, don't rush me now, because I done forgot all that mess. Wasn't no good to me no way. [indistinct 00:18:10] drinking. And I don't know, especially [indistinct 00:18:14] where he worked now. Because I didn't care. [indistinct 00:18:17] I know where I'm being taken care of, right here in 805 Green Street. | 18:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 18:21 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So I wasn't going by whether he worked or whether he didn't. And I didn't go back to him no more. When I leave here or get rid of you, I don't want you no more, because you're who you are. I'd be going right back to the same thing. Oh, he tried. Oh, boy, he tried to get me back, but did he? | 18:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | No. | 18:38 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | When I stayed there to 10 years, longer than that, I'm just saying 10 years, longer than that, and then you ain't been nice to me in 10 years, and proved yourself to be who you are, what am I going back to you for? | 18:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 18:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | You're who you are. I'm who I am right here this morning. | 18:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 18:55 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's right. And I'm not going to change. I've just got to be who I am. | 18:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. | 18:55 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | He wanted to get me back, because he said I was the best woman he ever had in his life. | 18:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 19:10 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And his uncle told him, he said, "I'm here principle." And he got children, and he got a wife better than you are. He said, "You're going to just come over here and missed a good woman, cutting the food with liquor." He said, "And I been knowing her a long time." That's what he told me. Because he's related to me. | 19:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 19:28 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And he said, "I've never known her do nothing but be a lady." | 19:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 19:30 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And her family before. I said, "Oh, he going back in—" He know my mother and father before I did. You know? | 19:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 19:38 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And so that's just the way that was. I never worried about him. Taking care of me is on my part. I was [indistinct 00:19:45]. And he wanted me back so bad he didn't want to [indistinct 00:19:51]. He ain't never had no woman like me. Mm-hmm. | 19:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was your mother's name? | 19:56 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mrs. Florence Moore Jones. | 19:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. So Moore was her maiden name? | 20:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. | 20:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 20:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now, I don't know about her back then. I don't know about her back then. I really don't. Only what I know about her. Because she's my—see, she died and everything, so I ain't got—my father told me all this. | 20:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | And was she born in New Bern? | 20:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. | 20:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right. | 20:19 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. That time, I'm afraid I could maybe say, I don't know if I'd be telling right or not. | 20:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | How about your father's name? | 20:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Name is William Edward Jones. | 20:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 20:34 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | W.E.M.E. Jones is what we call him. Everybody calls him that. | 20:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | And do you remember when he passed, how old you were? | 20:41 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Uh-huh. No. Mm-mm. | 20:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 20:46 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I ain't had a thing to do with how old I was, all I know I was grown. | 20:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was he born in New Bern? | 20:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. Now, you see, you asked me the history of something that I ain't paid no attention to. | 20:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | That's all right. That's all right. | 20:54 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's the truth. | 20:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Just if you know. | 20:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Really, I could tell you [indistinct 00:21:00], ask somebody. | 20:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 20:57 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Of course, I ain't asked him, and I don't know. But I know he wasn't born in New Bern. | 21:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, what are your children's names? | 21:09 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | My children? | 21:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 21:12 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | What are you going to do with my children now? | 21:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | I'm just putting them down for the record here. You don't want me to do it, I won't put it down. | 21:14 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, what are they going to do to them? | 21:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, it's just information so people know how many children you've got. | 21:21 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Well, I ain't got no children now. I don't want to bother them. [indistinct 00:21:28] something they don't know, because you might ask all these things. I know they can't tell you. | 21:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | That's fine. | 21:31 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | They can't tell you to ask them. | 21:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 21:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But all this is before their time. | 21:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Okay. | 21:36 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | See what I mean? | 21:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | How many children do you have? | 21:39 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Two. I have two. | 21:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Two? Okay. A girl and a boy, or— | 21:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No, two girls. | 21:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Two girls. Okay. All right. And you've got how many grandchildren do you have? Do you know? | 21:50 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Now, you're going to put all that down. You're getting that much out of me. So I tell you their names. But don't ask them. What am I supposed to do? | 21:52 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Hi there, honey, how are you? They ain't going to know about all this I'm telling you. | 21:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | I just want to— | 22:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's before they time altogether. | 22:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. But you do have grandchildren. | 22:04 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, I can't go get all their names of them. | 22:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | No, no, no, you don't have to. I just wanted to know whether you did or not. | 22:08 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Yeah. Yes. Yeah. | 22:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | You know how many you have? | 22:12 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, girl, no. I ain't even thought, because there's too many for me to think of and remember their names. | 22:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | All right. | 22:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | There's a gang of them. | 22:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 22:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Great-grands too, as far as that's concerned. But I can't feel like naming them. You have to come another time, when you come, and you'll get all them names. I hope I'll be living. | 22:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | And how old do you think you were when you went to Brooklyn for the first time? | 22:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know that. | 22:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 22:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I was a grown woman, I know that. I didn't go there any child. I left my children right here. I didn't go there any child. My children was going to school, so you know I wasn't no girl. | 22:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 22:49 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I wouldn't go no [indistinct 00:22:52] the work. And they don't take you if you're not old enough. No way. | 22:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. And how long do you think you were there for? 10 years? 20 years? | 22:56 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Uh-huh. I don't stay nowhere that long, but right here in this house. | 23:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 23:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I told you I'd be home every summer to come to see the children. | 23:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 23:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So you know I didn't stay there. I just stayed on a lot when I was up there. I stayed in New Bern. | 23:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But I was here every summer. | 23:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Stay here [indistinct 00:23:19], and go back, and come back every summer again, unless something happened to them. But didn't nothing so far happen to them. You know? And I didn't have a need to come back. It takes money running up and down the road, just to be running up and down. I come to see them, bring them something. Give them some money. See that you're getting on all right. | 23:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And now there's a telephone in there. If they want to call me, or things happen, call me, and I can turn [indistinct 00:23:44] and come on back here. But that's the way I took it. You know? | 23:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 23:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So I didn't come home till there was summer. | 23:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Okay. | 23:50 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I think I stayed there up North like that about four years. I didn't make no home up there. | 23:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 24:03 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Didn't [indistinct 00:24:04] but stay on the lot. | 24:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 24:03 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | If I intended to make a home there or anything, I'd have got me a house. | 24:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 24:07 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But the woman was so nice to me. She'd say, "I want you to stay here with us. You know you can stay on longer if you want to." If they liked you. | 24:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 24:15 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | You can stay on the lot. | 24:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | All right. So you went to the West Street School? | 24:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Uh-huh. | 24:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | And until what grade did you stay there? | 24:23 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I told you, second year. | 24:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. Of high school. Okay. | 24:26 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Uh-huh. | 24:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | When did you go to the Sutton School? | 24:30 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. | 24:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was that— | 24:34 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Didn't go there enough to talk about it. | 24:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 24:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Didn't go there enough to even talk. I told you, I just went on there, trying that out. | 24:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, I'll just leave it. | 24:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I told you, just trying that out. I can't say I even went to Sutton School. Only go up there, see, did I like it? | 24:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 24:47 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I told you, no I didn't. I come back over here to this school. See? | 24:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 24:50 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | So I don't [indistinct 00:24:52]. I thought that somebody [indistinct 00:24:54]. I put my hand, and then you think somebody was there. They no record of me over there. Oh, they got a record of my name, you know, because I went there. You know? | 24:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:03 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | But I mean, so they can't give me no record or nothing like that. | 25:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 25:03 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Because I come back here to West Street, where I wanted to be, but I didn't know it. I thought I wanted to be at Sutton School. | 25:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | When I got over there, I found out I didn't like it. | 25:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 25:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I come on back over here. | 25:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:18 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And this was where I stayed, over here, on this, all the time. | 25:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, have you received any awards? | 25:25 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, I got so many of them on the wall in my house right now till it ain't funny. | 25:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 25:31 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | This wall was loaded with them. | 25:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Are there some that you'd like me to put down here? | 25:34 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | I don't know. I don't know. No, I don't care about them being down there, but I don't feel like going messing with them. | 25:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. So were they church awards? Is that what you've got, or what kind of awards do you have? | 25:44 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | No. No, I don't need to get no awards out of the church when I was coming up. You just done your work in there, and paid your money. And they kept people up, and the bills and everything. Really. [indistinct 00:26:02] no awards back in the day. Until it got—everybody bragging, ask—[indistinct 00:26:08] or something like that. | 25:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 26:09 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And then you—the schools, they give the awards. You know what I mean? Still, it wasn't us giving them. You know? | 26:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. But what kind of awards have you received then? | 26:16 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, I don't know, honey. There's plenty of them in there. | 26:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 26:21 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | There's plenty of them in there. | 26:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Would you like me to go in and take a look at them and write them down? | 26:23 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Oh, what you want to write them down for? | 26:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, just so that we have an idea—a better idea of who you are and what you were doing in your life. | 26:29 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | You can't tell who I am [indistinct 00:26:34]. | 26:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 26:31 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | You can't tell who I am. You know how you can tell who a person is? You can have a good judgment of them. | 26:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, well, but just to know what you've done in your life. That's what that's for. | 26:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | See, all this here is a lot of work, and I need [indistinct 00:26:47] today. All this is a lot of talk, but there ain't nothing to it. Ain't no profit in it to me at all. | 26:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. | 26:54 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | And I don't see any need telling you all this stuff. | 26:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 27:01 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | It ain't going to help nobody. What it going to help them to do? | 27:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, just help them to remember this history. | 27:02 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. Help who to remember? My children? | 27:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, your— | 27:05 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | What, you're going to give it to them, then they need that then. | 27:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | No, but other people. Because it's going to go to the same [indistinct 00:27:14] Historical Society. | 27:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | That's what my church need. They need all that too. People out there ain't studying it. | 27:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 27:13 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Or they don't want to do no—they ain't going to do it, you know. You know they ain't going to do it. | 27:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | All right. | 27:20 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Anything they don't want to do, they ain't going to do it. | 27:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. So you said you belong to the Eastern Star and the Climbers Club? | 27:27 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. | 27:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Golden Circle. | 27:33 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Mm-hmm. Yeah. | 27:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Anything else? | 27:37 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Ooh, Lord, you're going to keep on till you get me up to go in the house. [indistinct 00:27:42] | 27:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, okay, I'll stop. | 27:43 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | Come on now, you done start. Now, come on. I don't need to be bothered with all this stuff, because it ain't no profit to me. | 27:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 27:51 |
| Mamie Jones Barrett | If there was any profit to me, it'd be different. | 27:51 |
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