Mary Dent interview recording, 1993 July 26
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| Karen Ferguson | Begin by you telling me a little bit about where you grew up and the community in which you grew up. | 0:00 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Almost in this same community I'm in right now. | 0:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | All right. | 0:06 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Because I was born a few blocks around the street there. And then when the fire came, we lost our home, in the big fire. My parents at last, they had lived two, three other places since then. And then the housing project took the last home that we had. | 0:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, that was in— | 0:34 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And that was in '52. | 0:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 0:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Craven Terrace. | 0:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 0:38 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | At that time, I was working and I bought this lot. My father and my sister had died, but my mother was living. So, I moved here in 1952, October the fifth, 1952. My mother and I moved here. My mother died in April '67. So, I've been living here since then. | 0:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I said I was born a few blocks over there. After the fire, the big fire, we had tents. All this was tents along here, and I lived just about in the same spot. | 1:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Really? | 1:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | My family, my mother, my father and sister and all of them lived in this same spot, just about. So, I was lucky enough to get a lot around here. And I worked for 37 years in New Bern City schools. | 1:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Were you teaching? | 1:40 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Primary teacher. I retired in 1973. | 1:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, you say you were born a few blocks away. | 1:53 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I was on a street called Willis. Willis Street. | 1:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Willis Street? Okay. Were your parents born here, too? | 2:02 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | My mother was. My father came from Baltimore. | 2:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 2:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But I never met any of my father's people. Because at the big fire, he was going around trying to help some of my mother's friends, and had a friend who went back in the house to get her money. She was heavy and my father was the only one man around at the time, and he tried to pull her out. He got home to us, he wasn't able to move a thing. Because I had gotten my pocketbook and left home. | 2:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. So, this is during the fire? | 2:39 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, at the big fire in 1922. You've heard of that, I know. | 2:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, I know. Yeah. | 2:41 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | That's the one that all of this was burned down. | 2:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. So, your father was trying to save her and she— | 2:53 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, she went back to get her money. | 2:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, and this was one of your mother's people? | 2:57 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | One of my mother's friends. | 3:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 3:00 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. So, then when he got home to us, he couldn't do anything because I think somewhere he sprained his back. He didn't live too long after that. | 3:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. Now, what did he do for a living? | 3:17 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | My father? | 3:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 3:20 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | He was a carpenter. | 3:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Did your mother work? | 3:22 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, my mother was a teacher. | 3:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | A teacher. Where did she teach? | 3:27 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | In the county. In Craven County. | 3:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why did your father come here from Baltimore? | 3:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Now, I've heard my mother say that he came with the people who set up the national cemetery here, and he came with them, and he stayed here and he married her. Met her, married her, so he stayed here until he died. | 3:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. What's the national cemetery? | 3:58 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The government cemetery where they met. | 4:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh okay. Okay. | 4:02 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | It's right straight up this way. | 4:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | So, did he work there? | 4:06 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, he worked there, I guess he did. I was very small. He worked then there at the cemetery. I don't know just what his job was, but he was a carpenter, too. | 4:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Were there a lot of Black carpenters in New Bern? | 4:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | One time, there was. We really had a lot of them. But it's gone down now. | 4:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Were there White carpenters here, too? | 4:29 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Really are. No problem. So, for that reason—and my sister died, so that left just my mother and myself. | 4:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Do you remember your grandparents at all? | 4:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Never. Never saw a grandparent. | 4:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 4:51 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. | 4:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did your parents talk at all about their parents? | 4:55 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, they didn't. But I'll tell you the truth, and my father died, that was just my 7th year in school, the 7th grade. He died right after that. So, really, there was no one then but my mother, because my sister died just about that time too. She died a year before my father, so that just left the two of us. Of all of us, she was the oldest one of the children and she had reared the other children. But no one stayed in New Bern but she and one of her brothers. And he died and he was 90 something. | 4:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Where did the rest of her brothers and sisters go? | 5:37 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Somewhere in New York and around like that. | 5:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. How many people did you grow up with? How many children were in your family? | 5:46 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The twin to me died in infancy, so my sister was three years older than I was. That's the only one I grew up with until I got in 7th grade and she died. | 5:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | And you didn't have any other brothers and sisters? | 6:02 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. No. | 6:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did your mother help raise any other children? | 6:05 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | She raised one of her nieces. | 6:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | And was she about the same age as you? | 6:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | What? When she died? | 6:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Your niece. Her niece. | 6:13 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Her niece? | 6:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 6:13 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, no. Hey there. | 6:19 |
| Speaker 1 | Hey. | 6:20 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | She was younger than I was when she left my mother. She went to New York. She found out where her mother was, so she went to New York to her mother. | 6:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Was that a common thing, for people to raise their— | 6:29 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. And I guess Mama, being the oldest one of the children. That's the way it happened. They all joked with me and tell me I'm going to live a long time, because one of my first cousins, I just buried her two years ago and she was 91. She was my 4th grade teacher. She worked here at New Bern. And I'm 81. 81 the 13th of April. Mama was in a few days of being 97 when she died. So, it kind of looks like we working around the nineties. | 6:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | Can you tell me a little bit about the community on Willis Streets before the fire? | 7:20 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, really, I was so small then. Not too much I can even tell you about that. I remembered this way because I'd have to come right straight down that street, which is Cypher Street. Then I'd turn this corner and go through here, called Smith Street, and go on. I went to West Street School, what is known as F.R Dunning School. I finished the West Street School, the high school. | 7:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Over on Willis Street, can you tell me a little bit about the people there? What did they do for a living on your street? What did people do? | 8:03 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, most of them worked out. Some of them were domestic workers and storekeepers and things like that. That's what we had. | 8:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Was it a close-knit community? | 8:29 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Very. Very. Just like a big family almost. That's the way we almost around here on this street. It's one big family. | 8:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. What would people do for each other? | 8:41 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, if you got sick, don't worry, they'd be there. Going in, I know Mama would cook so much and carry it to people's houses who were sick or something like that. I never will forget that. When the fire broke out, Mama turned around. She said, "Did you bring that dress?" I said, "No." She said, "You don't have a thing to put on." My sister and I had to stay in the bed until some of the friends brought us some clothes. | 8:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Because everything had been burned up? | 9:15 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. I wouldn't think I was just, as Mama said, I had always been crazy about a pocketbook. And, honey, I got that pocketbook. I think I had nine cents in it. I left home with my pocketbook. | 9:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | So, when you had to leave for the fire? | 9:30 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | From the fire. | 9:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 9:35 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | What you mean? | 9:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | No. What about this pocketbook? Sorry. | 9:38 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I got my pocketbook out of the house where we were living, and I left with my pocketbook. Didn't have a thing to put on but what I had on my body. | 9:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 9:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, sir. | 9:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Could you tell me a little bit about the day of the fire? What happened? | 9:54 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Early that morning, I guess it must have been around, I guess about 7:00, maybe. Mama was combing in my hair and I had a lot, because several children in our neighborhood, and they came along calling the different children. Mama said, "Uh-oh. I know you want to follow the crowd." Well, my sister was going and she was three years older and I thought it was right for me to go. So, Mama hurried up and combed my hair and we went to the mill. The fire was over at the mill over there. | 9:58 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Before we could get back home, this other fire had broken out way over this way. So, when we came from the fire over there, we decided we'd walk on around this way. I knew she was going, so I followed the crowd. We went over there from that fire over here on Kelmonick Street, it was called. That's the fire that spread all over here and burned all these houses down. Honestly, I saw a piece about that large. I saw it when the wind just carried it right at the top of our house. | 10:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. What caused the fire? Do they know? | 11:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | They said these folk were, I don't know if they were burning something out in the yard, burning trash or what they were doing. And it just spread in the wind or something. Yes. We got mad because the school didn't burn down. All them said that means we got to go to school. | 11:14 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Honestly, we had us a time that day because, well, everybody was all worked up because people were trying to get what they could out and like that. And their friends coming to help them, their family coming to help them. My mother's brother lived right up the street here, so that's where we all stayed. One of his daughters and her husband and child got burned out, so all of us were there in the house together. But everybody just helped each other. My church burned, too, in that big fire. St. Peter's AME Zion Church. | 11:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did they rebuild it? | 12:16 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Yes. | 12:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | How did they rebuild it? | 12:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, we worshiped around in the schoolhouse a while, and then they fixed the basement. We worked then in the basement and then we worked on the auditorium until we got it up. So, we have a church. It's down in front of the cemetery. That cemetery around here. | 12:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So, the congregation paid for it? | 12:40 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, the congregation, we worked and —we, because I wasn't working, but my parents and all worked until we got it up there. | 12:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now, were many people— | 12:49 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The conference was here at that time, our annual conference. It meets every year in November. It starts around last week in November and it was right on over into December. So, they were here. | 12:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So, were many people killed in the fire? | 13:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. I guess it was the first time they had ever seen a thing like that here, and just people were in the street getting them. The cemetery right up here on the corner, people were in there until late that night because they were trying to find places. Some of their friends and family was off working, then they didn't know what had happened to them and they were all around looking for them. But no one had to stay out that night because I think everybody had a place to stay. | 13:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Yeah. Were fires a common thing in those days? | 13:48 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, they couldn't see. At that time, people used so much wood and coal and stuff like that. | 13:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember other houses burning down? | 14:02 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, but just like I said, not—this section in here was just about as strictly populated as it is right now. | 14:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | Really? Okay. | 14:15 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And everything burned down. | 14:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, did they have a fire brigade or fire— | 14:17 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yeah, the fire trucks and all were out, and from nearby places they came. | 14:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Were they able to save anything? | 14:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Not too much. No. Because our church, the whole top just fell right in. | 14:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, was it a brick church? | 14:47 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Yes. Brick church. Is this your first time to New Bern? | 14:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yes. | 14:56 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Is it? Where's your home? | 14:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | I'm from Canada. | 15:00 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh. | 15:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Originally. I came down. I'm getting my PhD at Duke. So, that's the reason I came down. But I really like it. | 15:02 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | You do? Yeah. Oh, that's nice. | 15:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 15:11 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | What part of Canada are you from? | 15:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | I'm from Toronto. | 15:16 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Uh-huh. So, you'll be down two more weeks, you said, down here? | 15:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. | 15:23 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And you all will be right in New Bern for two more weeks, you think? | 15:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | We're going to be interviewing in New Bern and in James City. And then we're also going to try to get out into Craven County. | 15:31 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Uh-huh. Uh-huh. | 15:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | A little bit just into the county. | 15:39 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I see. That's wonderful. It does give you a chance to get around. And don't leave that [indistinct 00:15:53]. | 15:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 15:53 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Did you—no, Myrtle wouldn't even know, though. You didn't interview a Myrtle Downs, did you? | 15:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, we've just started today, ma'am. So, we haven't really— | 16:01 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, I don't even know. Well, she could know by reading, but she wouldn't actually know because she wasn't over there then. | 16:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Could I ask you a little more about the fire? What happened? You said there were tents? | 16:14 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yes, they built tents for us to live in. | 16:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Who built them? | 16:21 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The government. | 16:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | The government built them? | 16:24 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The government built the tents. | 16:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | How long did you live in them? | 16:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | You'd have two tents. One, you cooked in and ate in. The other one, you slept in, entertained in. | 16:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 16:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, they were just as thick around here as these houses. Thicker, because we have quite a few who still live on this street who lived here in the tents. And as far as you could see. They called it Tent City. Tent City. | 16:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, you lived in a tent? | 17:05 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. | 17:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah? | 17:09 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, we did. | 17:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | How long did you live in there? | 17:09 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, we lived in the tent until the spring, because see, that was in the winter. So, we lived in tent until the spring. It was nice and warm out here and everything. | 17:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. So, it wasn't cold living in the tents during the winter? | 17:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, because the way they had the tents covered on the side, the boards and all up on the side, and then the canvas and all the—then you'd fold that over and tie it, and had the little heater in there, it was very, very comfortable. | 17:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, had your parents owned their home? | 17:38 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. | 17:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | They had. | 17:40 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. | 17:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | So, they lost that. | 17:41 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | They lost that. | 17:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Now, were they able to rebuild a house? Or were they— | 17:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. | 17:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | No? | 17:49 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | They took the property mostly around that way and made a cemetery. | 17:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, so people lost their property. | 17:57 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Some people lost their property, too. My parents lost theirs. | 18:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 18:05 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The next place we bought, that my parents bought, was up on a street called Ash. Ash Street. They built Craven Terrace there, partially. They took about 100 feet down our street and said they weren't coming any farther. I don't know, I just said I was going on and buy this lot because I wanted it. It was a good idea because after that, the next year they came right on to the end to Cedar Street down there. That made them include me then. So I told Mama, I say, "Well, I have the lots. I just will build over there." | 18:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So, what do you think the effect of the fire was on the Black community in New Bern? | 18:44 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, I'll tell you what. It scattered a lot of them because they left. They had friends and relatives living in New York and around different ways, and some of them had never come back. Because they had to have some places to stay and we didn't have accommodation here. So, they had to go where they could be helped. So, some of them have never come back. We were just talking about that house over there. That family just died out. | 18:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now, do you think people, how about the prosperity of people? Were people able to rebuild their lives, rebuild their homes? | 19:21 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Some of them were. Some of them were. Some of them who had such large families just couldn't make it. Maybe part of the family would go to New York at that time and then the others would follow. Kept on like that sometimes until the whole family moved away. | 19:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did any of your relatives have to move? | 19:56 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. No, because there was no—Mama had a sister living here, but she died. So, that was all we had here. | 19:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. When did you have to leave the tents? | 20:13 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The tents? | 20:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | In the springtime? | 20:16 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | In about the spring. We stayed until the spring. | 20:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | And you had a place to go? | 20:19 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | At that time, there were houses that you could rent. Some people had built houses and like that. And so, we were able to get a house. | 20:21 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Hello, there. | 20:35 |
| Speaker 2 | Hey there. | 20:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | All right. | 20:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Can you remember people in the community, both before and after the fire, who you really looked up to? Adults that you really admired or who looked out for you especially, at all? | 20:41 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, because I had always—I'm at the same church I was, as Mama says, six weeks old, when she had me there. So, I'm still at that same church, St. Peter's AME Church. We had folks there, how you really look up to them because they were older than us and such good leaders and everything. | 21:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why else did you admire them? What did they do that made you feel that they were leaders and you admired them? | 21:34 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, because they took up so much time with the younger folks. They worked there with the younger folks and trained them and all. So, I don't know. Well, one thing, I've always loved children. So, then as I grew up, I worked with the children. I worked from the babies and then I worked on up in Christian education. I've been to the Virgin Island twice. | 21:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh really? | 22:08 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Mm-hmm. For the conferences, Christian education. So, I've retired now. I've been retired now about 10 years. | 22:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you were a girl, some of these people like you who were helping the young folks, what kinds of things did they do to train them? What example did they set or what did they teach you? | 22:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, some of them I can remember because they really gave me that religious training. You know how children are. When somebody's taking up a lot of time with them and training them and doing, and kind to you, that gets you for the children. These people really worked themselves. See, it wasn't to say they were telling you what to do and they not do, but they were working themselves. And then my mother worked, was a lead in the church. She worked real hard in the church. | 22:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, did your father attend church? | 23:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, but not like Mama. He said Mama went every time she thought the door was going to be open. So, we used to laugh at Papa. But I liked for Papa to stay home, because Papa liked to cook and Mama didn't. | 23:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh really? So, did he do the cooking at home? | 23:30 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Especially on Sunday. | 23:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | Really? | 23:35 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah. He wasn't going to church that much. When you all come in the gates, you could smell the dinner. | 23:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | What would he make? | 23:44 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, the first potato pie I had ever eaten, my daddy made it. I had never had one. But, honey, Papa could cook. | 23:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. He learned from his mother? | 24:00 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I guess so, because I never knew anything about his people. | 24:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, was that unusual for a man to cook? | 24:06 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. Older people, we had so many men around here cooking. We had a lot of chefs at the hotels and different things around here, the men were working. | 24:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. But how about in their homes? If they had a wife, would the husband sometimes cook like your father? | 24:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yes. Husband did more cooking than the wife did. And my daddy enjoyed cooking. | 24:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Now, you said he died after the fire, right? | 24:35 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. | 24:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | What happened to the family after that? Was it hard financially for your family? | 24:42 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, no, not too bad because my mother was working. | 24:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | And she was teaching? | 24:52 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, and then my sister was three years older than I was, so we made it. After that, of course, wasn't too long after that we got another house and lived in that. | 24:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | And that was on Ash Street, you said? | 25:08 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Ash. Mm-hmm. | 25:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, would you say that your family was a little better off than some of the other families in your neighborhood? | 25:16 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, I will say that. They were, better off than some were. | 25:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. How did that show itself? What could you afford that other people couldn't? | 25:27 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, so many people had a hard time finding some place to stay and about work. Having work enough to do so they could pay the rent and like that. My father became ill after that, with that back of his, and he was down almost a year. | 25:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh really? | 25:56 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Mm-hmm. | 25:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, was he in the hospital? | 25:59 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, right at home. Right down this end of this street, [indistinct 00:26:05] Street. We were down at that end, renting a house down there. | 26:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, who took care of him? Did he get medical care? | 26:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, he took care of him—Mama did and her family helping him out and like that. | 26:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Did he see a doctor? | 26:20 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yes. | 26:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah? | 26:24 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Had regular doctor care. | 26:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Was it a Black doctor or a White? | 26:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. | 26:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | You had a Black doctor. | 26:29 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 26:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember his name? | 26:30 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Dr. Fisher. | 26:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 26:39 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Uh-huh. | 26:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, was he the only Black doctor in town? | 26:40 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, we had Dr. Fisher, Dr. Moore, Dr. Mann and Dr. Martin. He was our last doctor. | 26:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did they practice together or did they have their own offices? | 26:56 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, they had their own offices. | 26:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 27:00 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And they would go to the homes to visit the patients. | 27:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did most people have a Black doctor in the Black community? | 27:07 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, some did and some didn't. Later on, before my sister died, she was sick and we had a White doctor then. He remained our family doctor until he died. | 27:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | How did you choose who your doctor would be? | 27:27 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, someone maybe would tell you about so-and-so and they had him and he was so nice, or something like that. That's the way it worked. We really needed a little—I can't say. We had been full of doctors, but we don't have the Black ones that we used to have. | 27:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when you were growing up, were there any burial societies or any kind of self-help societies in the Black community? Can you remember that? | 27:54 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Some churches used to have a little society called Pound Society and like that. They paid a small burial fee. But you see, it didn't cost that much then to bury like it does now. | 28:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. | 28:16 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. It's terrible how they charge now. | 28:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was there anything else? Did people buy insurance? Did they have [indistinct 00:28:29]? | 28:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yes, yes. Had insurance. But you know, having insurance then, if you didn't keep it up or add to it, it's not a drop in the bucket now. Wouldn't even buy the flowers to put on the casket. | 28:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Yeah. | 28:44 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, I'm telling you, it's something, the way things are going up. | 28:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Were there any mutual aids? Where would people buy their insurance? Were they society [indistinct 00:28:59] societies? | 28:50 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, there would be agents going around, White and Black agents going around for the home visits in the homes and like that. | 28:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | What companies were these? | 29:07 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | North Carolina Mutual was the main one, and Metropolitan. That's been in existence a long time. | 29:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Were there any mutual aid societies which provided insurance to their members that weren't companies? Or was it mainly companies that offered the— | 29:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Just like I said, one or two churches had some kind of a little society right at their church and people could join that. It was a very small fee. So much for a monthly fee. The benefit wasn't much, maybe $50. See, $50 in that day, you could do more than you can do with $500 almost now. | 29:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Right, right. | 29:52 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I don't know where we going now. | 29:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. You said it was called the Pounds? | 29:56 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | It is called Pound. | 29:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | P— | 30:00 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | P-O-U-N-D, Pound Society. | 30:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 30:04 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I do know, because I think since someone got sick, each member carried a pound or something. | 30:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. Okay. | 30:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah. Because my doctor charges me $63 just to wrap my legs. I mean, he hasn't given me a tablet, he hasn't given me not one thing. And I can't wrap my feet, I can't get in the tub, I can't—one time, I said to him I had a cyst on my back. First time I ever had a cyst. I went to the doctor, it was hurting me so bad. I said, "I need to go see what's wrong with my back." He said, "Ms. Dent, how many cysts have you had before?" I said, "This is the first one." He said, "What?" He said, "Well, you still got a good one." He said, "It's so deep." All they went down in there, cutting. I hollered. Two weeks later, I had to go back and they had to cut again. So, now Dr. Blackaby jokes me, "Come back such and such a time so I can holler again." "Yes, sir." | 30:20 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But you know, sometimes they stick that first needle in there, it just stings a little bit. But, oh Lord, when they put the second one in there. He's trying not to cut me again, but he's treating it with some kind of medication. I had to go this week because it's getting tight on me. I had a friend said she had to go seven or eight times. This first one I've ever had and I just had it last year. But it hurts like I don't know what. | 31:21 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But the nurses come in and if you're living by yourself like I am, then the nurses come and take care of it for a certain length of time. Because if it was over on this shoulder, and it was hard for me to do anything. So, they turned the nurses off because they said I was doing all right, and had turned around and get them back. | 31:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, yeah. | 32:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But so far, I've gotten along fine with it. | 32:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there public health nurses? | 32:19 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. | 32:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up at all? | 32:20 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. They had wonderful school nurses and like that. | 32:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | School nurses. All right. | 32:27 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, school nurses. | 32:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things did you have to do? What kinds of chores did you have to do at home when you were growing up? Or did you have— | 32:32 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Honey. Clean the lampshades was one thing. I used to fuss all the time. I said looked like to me, the week I had to clean they were very, very dirty. And the week my sister had to clean, it didn't look to be so. | 32:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | So, you traded off weeks? | 32:56 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Lord have mercy, I used to cry, cry, cry again. I just hated to clean the lampshade. | 32:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. And this was before? These were kerosene lamps? | 33:04 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, indeed. Yes, Lordy. A friend of mine was talking not too long ago, and I said something about lamps. She said, "Oh, Mary Jane, you don't know anything about lamps?" I said, "Yes, I do. I went to your house and you had lamps in your house, and I went in my house and I had lamps in mine." She said, "I don't remember." I said, "Well, I do." I'll always remember that. Oh, Lord, help me I pray. | 33:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, did you— | 33:38 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And you see, they didn't have a running water, the sewers and things you see. And they had those little outhouses. Ooh, that was another thing. You had to scrub them. I don't care what you say. Honey, you had to go in there and scrub them clean. They'd come and look at them to see if you had scrubbed them clean. | 33:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | So, this was the outhouse? | 34:00 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, yes, that you had to use. And then Mama would, and probably put the lime and stuff around that to keep the odor down on that. I said, "Lord, honey, I know all about it." But I appreciated it. You had to work. That's why I say about these children now. I notice on this street. I don't know why it's so quiet today. They're about six or eight little ones, ride all out there, the cars have to stop for them. Some of them in little kindergarten and like that. You see, it's so dangerous because sometimes people come down here like it's a racetrack. And I say, "Lord, I need to go in the house. I don't need to sit out here. This is a little bit too much." But I think every child needs something to do when he gets home, rather than run the street all the time. It's so bad. | 34:01 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Of course, I enjoyed teaching. My little 1st graders. I saw a boy just a few weeks ago, he went over to visit this lady. He came out the house and he said, "Who is that over there?" He said, "It looks like I know her." She said, "Miss Dent." "Oh," he said, "That was my 1st grade teacher." I hadn't seen him I know in over 10, 12 years. So, he came to speak to me. I went right to the doctor the next week and his mother was at the doctor's office. | 35:01 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But now, I notice in our paper this morning, this is jumping from what we were on, the paper a few minutes ago. They picked up a lady last week. Her 15 year old son had this loaded gun. Now, she claimed she knew he had it. Well, why didn't she encourage him to leave it home? Where are you going with a loaded gun? And they had been saying over and over that they were going to begin picking up the parents to see if we could break up some of it. | 35:35 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | So, she got mad, mad, mad and she had an attitude. She was answering him back. Now yesterday, they picked her up because he broke curfew. Now, she knew what time he was supposed to be in. And then plus, he had marijuana. So, she said the other day, "Well, you know, when one thinks he's as grown as you are, there's nothing you—", oh yes there is. You can work with them but it takes time, it takes patience and it takes prayer. | 36:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Now, what did your parents do that made it different back then? Or what did parents do back then that made it different for children? | 36:51 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well see, Mama said when you come home this afternoon, you get those chips together out there in that yard and pile them up and put them whatever. And [indistinct 00:37:11] were talking to us, there was a man used to carry strips about long, like that long. We call them strips. Little pieces of wood, thin pieces. Well, your parents used it for dry wood to start the fire. And it looked like to me he put more on his wagon than anybody else, and it was the very time you wanted to go somewhere. You had to move every strip before you went to the party or anywhere else. And, honey, we had a time. He brought you a load. You talking about everybody tried to buy from him. But, Lord, I hated to see him. But when they said move it, you better move it. See, these children tell you now, "I don't want to." | 36:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. What would happen to you if you said no? | 37:53 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I got a good beating. I better move them. I better not tell her I didn't want to move them. No. As I tell the parents now, I said, "Don't tell the child you're going to kill him when you know you're not killing him." | 37:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 38:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I said, "You're not going to kill him. You're going to punish him, maybe." Now, just a lady down the street, I spoke to her about it the other day, about her son. He lives across the street, but he brings the children on this side to a lady's plum tree. I said, "Now, that tree isn't his." Then, if one of them gets hurt, you want her to do something about it. "No, I told her if she saw my son there again, just let me know and I was going to punish him. I was going to make him clean up her yard." I said, "Beg your pardon. That isn't a punishment." Yeah. I said, "Now, what you should do, teach him that is not his yard and neither is it yours. If you want to go in and get some plums, ask her." | 38:13 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The other day, the boy was out there throwing pieces of wood about big as that up in the plum tree, and the cars were going by. I said, I got strong, so I told her. I said, "If you just trained the children not to go in the lady's yard over there unless you ask her." That badger little boy over there was here visiting. So, I just happened to go in my dining room on Sunday and I looked out there and I saw these two children over there, great-grans. I said, I wonder how they got in my yard. I said, I'm going to watch him. I'm going to stay and peep after him. | 39:05 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | One three and one five. So, I knocked on the door. I said, "What are you doing in my yard?" "Getting our toys." I said, "Okay." So, I kind of stood back. Really, the little five-year-old, he went right over the fence. See, I didn't know they had been climbing the fence. The little three started over the fence and his little foot got caught in the wire, so I rushed and called his grandmother. I said, "You go out there and see about my boy," because she said I told her. I said, "As long as you rush out there and get him." | 39:40 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | She said, "Daddy sitting right here doing nothing." I said, "That's all right, you get him." So, when I saw him again, I said, "I thought your mama told you not to go over my fence." "But my toys is over there." I said, "I tell you what. I think the next time you go over my fence, I'm coming out there and throw you back over there just like you throw your toys." He said, "Oh no you won't." I was so tickled I didn't—see, they have an answer for you nowadays. | 40:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. | 40:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And it isn't evident, they just being frank. They don't know. But I'm telling you, these children have nothing. I asked a little boy once. I said, "What are you doing over here?" He said, "My mother won't let me do anything. She won't let me empty the waste basket. She won't let me sweep." Well, that's bad because you don't know what might happen to you, and somebody may take that child and going to work him the death almost. And he can't understand it. No, honey. You didn't stick your mouth. If you're stuck it out, you didn't let them see it. | 40:46 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | You have any brothers and sisters? | 41:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | I have one sister. | 41:22 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | One sister. No brothers? | 41:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Like you. | 41:30 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Lord have mercy. I bet you rotten to the core. Are you the youngest? | 41:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | No, the oldest. | 41:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Huh? | 41:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | The oldest. | 41:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The oldest? | 41:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 41:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Where are they going to school? | 41:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | My sister went to school in Toronto, to a university there. | 41:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, how have you up and leave? | 41:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | How did I leave? | 41:50 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Uh-huh. | 41:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, I got a scholarship to come. So, that's [indistinct 00:41:59]. | 41:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, you were saying your mother was at work all day, right? When you were growing up? | 41:56 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, but she came in the afternoon. She wouldn't be too far, but I wouldn't be too far behind her coming in. | 42:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, okay. | 42:17 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah. And see, my sister three years older was there. | 42:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So, she would take care of you when you— | 42:21 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And our aunt stayed with us a while. And the neighbors, honey. Lord, have mercy. Because they used to have me marking a line across these older children and my sister. "Mary?" I said, "Yes." "Run down there now," like that corner, "And draw this line. Take this stick and draw the line across." Oh, I thought it was fun, so I'd take the stick and run across there. So, Mama caught me one day. She said, "Come here, Mary." She said, "Who told you to go out there and do that?" I say, "Laura." My sister's named Laura. I said, "Laura and Simonella." She said, "Uh-huh." She said, "Now, the next time, don't you go here." She said, "They know why they're doing it." | 42:23 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, you see, I didn't know. Then they'd say, "Go to the next corner and draw a line across there." Well, this old lady would go around to tell on the children, what the children had been doing that day. Because I stayed on the pump, and she come and tell about me staying on the pump like that. | 43:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | What does that mean? | 43:32 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Just pumping the water. | 43:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 43:33 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Pumping the water. They'd see her and they'd know. So, Mama told me not to do it again, so I didn't do it. I thought it was fun. I enjoyed running and drawing the line. | 43:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, why were they drawing the line? | 43:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | She wouldn't go across it. | 43:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 43:51 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | So, she couldn't tell your mama on you. | 43:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. | 43:53 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, these children. I said children been children all their life, haven't they? Same thing. | 43:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, when you were growing up, what kinds of things did you do for fun? Playing and that kind of thing. What games did you play? | 43:59 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, like rope, jumping rope and skipping, and different little rings, play around like that. Yes. So, we had a nice little crowd in our neighborhood, almost like a big family. And time we get together, that'd be enough right there in that neighborhood. Yes, sir. Looked like me folk had more love, real love at that time. And you played together. The parents, the older people were more together. | 44:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Did your mother have many friends in the neighborhood? | 44:41 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, indeed. Yes. | 44:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did she do with them? | 44:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Huh? | 44:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did she do with them? | 44:47 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, she had some older people that she would take at home to help teach them. Because I remember one lady in particular, this lady's son was in service, and Mama would take her and train her. Taught her how to sign her checks. | 44:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh okay. | 45:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | So she could get her money. Mama would take her to the bank, and worked with her until she could sign. Get to a place she could sign her checks, because it was— | 45:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did she just work with one person? | 45:24 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, she worked with several of them. No, they didn't charge anything. They just did it to help you out. | 45:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Did your mother just do this on her own or was there— | 45:32 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, that was on her own. That was on her own. | 45:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. When your father was still alive, who was boss at home? Who was in charge of things at home? | 45:51 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, by the time he got home, everybody was home because he didn't get off until around 6:00, 5:30 or 6:00 in the afternoon like that. But if Mama said, "Go in that yard and stay," you went there and stayed. | 45:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. So, did she discipline you or did your father? | 46:19 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | She did more discipline. | 46:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 46:21 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah. | 46:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Could you tell me a little bit about your parents as people? What kind of person was your mother? | 46:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Very strict in her way, I feel like. But mostly everybody who knew my mother liked her. In the church, out the church, anywhere. They really liked her. She down and out— | 46:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, I don't think so. Because we had a few others in there who weren't teachers. And then Mama also came in contact because she sewed a lot. She did. She sewed a lot. She almost lost her life trying to save her sewing machine. | 0:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | During the fire? | 0:25 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And we never knew who this man was because this man was standing—Mama was standing at the door and the machine is still here, Singer. And she was standing there, and this man happened to see her and he went there and pulled her off the porch and pulled, then ran back and pulled the machine. And he says as soon as he did the top fell in. Yes. Oh Lord, did I do—what'd I do? | 0:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | You can just leave that. That'll be fine. | 0:56 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | So she mingled quite a bit. We had, that's one thing about it, I've always been used to people coming in and out of our house. Always. | 1:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | So did she have little parties or what kind— | 1:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. And then a lady belonged to our church, used to have candy pullings. | 1:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 1:17 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, Lord, my candy used to be black when I got to—you'd have to make this candy and give your ball, and see, you'd have to pull it and—taffy. Make this taffy candy. And honey, we had some black shit. But it was good though. | 1:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 1:37 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. There'd be so many children, mama be there helping them doing. And we enjoyed that. I'd like to see a good old candy pulling one more time. I don't even know how to make it myself. I used to know, but I don't know how to make it now. | 1:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | How about—oh, sorry. | 1:54 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | This lady had a lot of children of her own and she just have us all around there. I think it's 5 or 10 cents to go to the candy pulling. | 1:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now what was your daddy like? What was his — | 2:04 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well Papa was kind of quiet. Mama talked. Mama talked like she talked all the time. But Papa was kind of quiet and he didn't mingle with as many people as Mama did. Because usually when he, sometimes he'd be working in New Bern and sometimes he'd be working out of New Bern, and just come in weekends. | 2:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Now, did he work for a company or did he work by—was he— | 2:37 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Worked by himself. | 2:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 2:42 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Mm-hmm. Yeah. | 2:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, did he work for White contractors? | 2:44 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, sometimes White. Sometimes White ones. Yes. | 2:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | And he built houses? | 2:55 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Built houses. And Mama used to let me carry his lunch to him, he didn't work too far, and she fixed his lunch and she'd tell me, "Now," sometimes she'd tell me, "Now you can stay about two hours and then come on back home." So I'd stay there and he'd let me take the little pieces of wood in the nails and give me a little hammer, and I'd be out there doing too. | 2:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | After he died, did you have a father figure in your life at all? | 3:30 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. | 3:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | No? | 3:35 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Uh-uh. Uh-uh. No, it was just my mother, my sister, and myself. | 3:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things did you all do together, the three of you? | 3:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, we stayed on the go quite a bit, going to different things for the church. | 3:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:54 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The different churches. See, people didn't just stay at their own church and work, they just worked in the community. | 3:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 4:00 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Going on picnics and different things. | 4:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 4:06 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes sir. | 4:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things did people do in your church for the community? | 4:11 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, we had, I know sometime they'd make clothes. Somebody was in dire need, that one group maybe would make up clothes and then they would carry in and others would carry food to them or do things like that. And we had several people could crochet and knit real well. They would make little sweaters and things like that. | 4:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, your mother, when she did her sewing, was she a paid seamstress? Did she make things for money? | 4:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, they didn't do much charging at that time. They just did it. | 4:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | So even when your mother was just doing sewing at home, she just did it for the family? | 4:57 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Just did it for—or did it for some friends and like that. | 5:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | How much contact did you have with White people when you were growing up? | 5:07 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, tell you the truth, I was kind of around White people most of my life. | 5:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | How so? | 5:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Because so many White people knew my mother real well. | 5:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Why was that? | 5:23 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And because she was in and out different, sometimes she would go and stay with some, when school had closed, maybe she would stay with some of the older White people that when their sons and all had to go off something, she would stay with them at night. | 5:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 5:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | See, and I either go sit with them days and so many knew Mama. So really, tell the truth, when it comes to the White, I've been in and out with them all my life. | 5:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now, did you have any contact with White children when you were a girl? | 5:54 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Because really we weren't too far from the White children. | 6:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | So did you play with them? | 6:07 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. | 6:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah? | 6:09 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Had a big time. | 6:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did you do with them? | 6:09 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Just like the games that we play with the others, we play with them too. | 6:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah. | 6:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, did you ever go to their homes? | 6:20 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Sometimes. They'd come to mine. | 6:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Would you sit down at the table together to eat? | 6:25 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes sir. Mm-hmm. | 6:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Even over at their houses? | 6:31 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, over to their houses too. | 6:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 6:35 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And they'd come and sit at our table too. | 6:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:37 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, because if you were eating, getting ready to eat, you'd always invite them to eat with you. | 6:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | And sometimes they invited you? | 6:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | That's right. | 6:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 6:46 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | So really, I mean, so far as that I've gotten around because that next street over there is George Street and White people used to live on George Street right over there. And I lived across George Street right on the next street, which was Willie Street, where I was born, and they were all mixed up there together in there. And around there, one time my father was keeping a market, and doing work. And his market was there and the White man's grocery store was here. So these two families grew up together just about. | 6:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So what did he sell in his market? | 7:33 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, he sell meats. I got a place I could, he'd have to put the pig on the block for me, but I could cut up a pig almost like my father could. | 7:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | So he would butcher all— | 7:48 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, that's right. | 7:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did his own butchering. | 7:49 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, indeed. | 7:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when you said people were growing up all together just a couple blocks down here, would White families and Black families live right next to each other? | 7:54 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Just about. | 8:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 8:03 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | On that street, George Street out there, they had White and Black [indistinct 00:08:11] yeah. | 8:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, at what point did you stop playing with White children or stop associating with them? | 8:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, I don't know because we were in and out with them all while we were—of course all of the schools weren't integrated, but you lived in the neighborhood with them. And up this way we did. And of course, you been used to them all your life. | 8:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Now, would you still be friends with them when you were a teenager? | 8:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yes. If you knew them then, you would still, you know. | 8:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 8:51 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, sir. I went to get my, have some dental work done, well, I guess about five years ago, no longer that, because I've been retired about 10, over 10, just about 20 years. And this person said to me, when I went there, the dentist that I was looking for wasn't there. So I knew him because he had worked in the school. He was the dentist at school. So the girl said, no, he wasn't there. She said, but the lady, Dr. Warren is in. I said, "I don't believe I want her. I know if I was hurting so bad, I didn't want nobody—I knew his work, what he could do." So she said, "Well, Ms. Dent, go and try." I said, "She's very nice." So I got there, she said, "Uh huh." Said, "My mama went to the school and begged the principal to put me in your room." I said, "My room?" She said, "Yes." Said, "And he said he had so many on the list for Ms. Dent's room, he couldn't put them in there." | 9:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 10:07 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | She said, "Well, I got you now." I said, "Oh my Lord." | 10:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | So this was one of your— | 10:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. So she began naming some children, some of them right in my school, my church, and all. | 10:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 10:19 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But she said that, I mean, she was with, and they used to talk about. One lawyer told me he got mad because his friend, his best friend was in my room and he couldn't never understand why he could get—I said, "Honey, we don't have a thing to do, but take the paper they give us and use the children on that." He thought that—yes. And well, it's always been a friendly attitude quite a bit here in New Bern. | 10:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. So what were some of the signs of segregation though, in the city? What couldn't you do? What couldn't Blacks do? | 10:48 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, so many, you know how it is in all places, some folks, you can't hardly let them go any place. And before, you'd see them sitting around and talking and like that, or maybe at some meetings or something, but it just got to the place when they had to sit-in. New Bern was one of the places they had a sit-in. | 10:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 11:25 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | At Crest Store. And the pastor of our church, Reverend G.J Hill, was one of the leaders of that. And when they went for trial, we went on down courthouse and had trial that morning but didn't finish, and we had fell out for lunch. So when we came back after lunch, we were sitting there and a boy, little boy belonged to my church, he lived right down the street, there was about five or six of them that came in together. So this one was looking all around for a chair, seat. Well, there was a seat right on the other side. | 11:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | On the White of me side? | 12:08 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But this White man was there. | 12:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | This was in lunchroom or the— | 12:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. No, in the courthouse. | 12:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, in the courthouse. Okay. | 12:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The courthouse. So I said to him, I said, "Pop?" He said, "Yes, Ms. Dent?" I said, "Here's a seat." So the man looked up at me as if to say, "Well, I don't intend to move." So I said, "Pop, did you hear me? Here's a seat. Come on and sit down on my tax money because I pay taxes here." | 12:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 12:35 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | So the man looked up at me and he knew, little pop came over like he was afraid. I said, "Sit down, honey because we're going to start court now." And he sat down. But some of them, you could tell they had so much in them until they really didn't want even be bothered. I said, "But you can't do that. We've got to get out this mess." | 12:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 12:55 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Because we all here paying taxes and everything, and we just well live together, got to stay til you die, unless somebody kills you. But we got along fine at that meeting. We went to several meetings. And they probably—Reverend Hill was one. He came here from Mobile, Alabama, I think. And he was our pastor for nine years. And the children, really he was a born leader. Now, whatever he told us, he wasn't going to tell you anything wrong to do, whatever he told you to do and told you the reason why and let you know why you're doing it, and don't come with that nasty snappish attitude. Treat them like you want to be treated. And they got along fine. And he told the boys, "Now look, don't come here that morning, when you going to court, with a dirty shirt on or socks or—uh-uh, you be dressed just as if you are going to church. Because I'm going be dressed too." And I mean, our children were really dressed that morning. | 12:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now were all the people in the sit-ins, were they all from St.— | 14:07 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | St. Peters? | 14:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | St. Peter? | 14:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, no, no, no, no. They were from all different churches. Different churches in the city. | 14:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | But Reverend Hill— | 14:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | G.J Hill. | 14:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was his — | 14:22 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | He was Pastor at St. Peter's. | 14:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. And was he— | 14:23 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | He was one of the leaders in this segregation. | 14:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, had you ever had a minister who talked like him before? Who talked about equality? | 14:31 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. But really at our church we had, and some of the other churches around here, that's one time I must give it to them, they really worked together. | 14:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. The churches worked together. | 14:41 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. You have to. | 14:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Were there other times when the churches didn't work together very well? | 14:46 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, they didn't work too much. But after this came about, that segregation, some of them got closer and closer. Because they didn't worry about denominations, they just worked together. | 14:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. But how about before the Civil Rights Movement, there was some competition? | 15:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. There was a little, they didn't go together working, but we got the place one time out here, the Blacks would go to the White churches, the preacher have service and vice versa. | 15:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | But how about within the Black community, before the Civil Rights Movement, was there some competition between churches? | 15:33 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | There was, because some of them were so bent and bound on denomination. Oh, they felt like if you were Baptist, stay over there in the Baptist. If you're Methodist, stay in the Methodist. But they sure got out of that. But I guess that that's the way they were instructed when they came up. Because at that time, I guess the parents were that way and that's the way they felt about it. | 15:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Now you said that, so some of your ministers before Reverend G.J Hill talked about racial equality. | 16:04 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Mm-hmm. | 16:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Could you talk a little bit about that? | 16:15 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, sir. | 16:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | What would they say? Would they preach about it? | 16:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Yes. They'd preach about it. | 16:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | What would their message be? | 16:23 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, the message was come together and work together. Because in unity, there's strength, and you can't live by yourself. No way. Yes, because I know, and in this Christian education work, we'd have White ones coming in, speaking and doing like that, see, with the children and all. | 16:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, was this before the Civil Rights Movement? | 16:55 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. This was right at that time. | 16:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | But not before? | 16:58 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Because I had just moved in. I moved in '52, and this is where I was living, because when we had to go down to downtown for the Reverend Hill was our pastor, that we had to go down. Because, see, they tried those boys for sitting in at Crest Store. But everybody got out and things worked out nicer. But you're always going to have some showoffs and everything. | 17:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 17:30 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Some of them, I think some do. And some small children are like that. They have the idea, "The louder I can be, you can see me better." | 17:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 17:42 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But I tell them, "No, we can see you anyway." See? Because sometimes you mess yourself up by opening this at the wrong time and saying the wrong thing. | 17:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember when you were a young girl, do you remember people ever opening their mouth up at the wrong time and getting in trouble for it? | 17:54 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Because at one time our young folks were criticized looked like for just about everything they did. And I used to say to them sometimes, "Now, you haven't thought it through, you just heard somebody say such and such a thing. You don't know that it's true." Wait and see what it is, what's behind it, and figure it out for yourself. But don't just open your mouth cause somebody said something and give an answer because you get yourself in trouble sometimes. It's that old expression about silence is golden. | 18:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 18:50 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I have a friend, I've been trying to preach that to her for all these years, but she just has an idea, whatever she wants to say, "Oh, I can't help what you say then, I'm going on and say it." I say, "But sometime down the line, you wish you hadn't said it." | 18:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you remember people ever saying the saying, just opening their mouths and saying things to White people that got them in trouble? | 19:08 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yeah. Yeah. | 19:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Can you remember any incidents of that? | 19:25 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, actually. Because even when we were working on the, in the '60s, trying to work on that movement, a lot of our folks were so sorry for things that they said. I said, "But you see you're trying to follow Tom, Dick and Harry." | 19:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. | 19:37 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I said, "I'd rather sit there and just listen." | 19:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. But how about before then? How about before the Civil Rights Movement? Do you remember when you were younger? | 19:41 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, tell the truth, I've never done too much traveling. Because most of it was right here. And see, we were just almost—there weren't too many strangers look at me, these same people mostly were the ones right over here in New Bern, over, and over, and over. | 19:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember people ever getting in trouble with the police? Black people getting in trouble, being harassed by the police? In New Bern? | 20:05 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes sir. I never will forget, one night Mama had taken us to a meeting, my sister and I, and my daddy was at the market. And when we looked down George Street, we were coming from that way over on George Street. My daddy was coming to meet us, so Mama said, "What's the trouble?" He said, "I came to get Mary Elizabeth." He always called me my full name, Mary Elizabeth. So Mama said, "What's wrong?" He said, "I wanted to show her something." Well, he used to tell me about running my mouth so much when I was little, and what I was going to do, and this thing and all this. So I said, "Papa, what is it?" He said, "That's all." He took me up in his arms. He said, "Come on." | 20:17 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And a fella had gotten killed right out near his market. And he had come to get me because he used to tell me this, "Bullies, all bullies will die with their shoes on." And this man, that's why I couldn't understand why nobody had killed that man, because he was always cursing and the police were always running him and everything. So Papa came that night to get me to show me. He said, "Now you look at his feet." So I looked down his feet, and sure enough, his shoes were on. That stopped me right then and there. Because he had said bullies would die with their shoes on. I said, "Shucks, [indistinct 00:21:46] but ain't nobody killed that man." But they got him that night. | 21:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, who killed him? | 21:50 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The police. | 21:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | What had he done? | 21:53 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | He was big, he was about one of the biggest liquor dealers around here, whiskey dealers around here. And he was always in trouble. | 21:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 22:05 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Always. | 22:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you remember what the reason was that night that they— | 22:06 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | They had been trying to catch him for selling it. And he used to sleep, his wife said this, he sat slept right with his head in the window. So he hear the police coming, he could jump and run out. And they couldn't get him, they couldn't catch him. But they got him that night and killed him. | 22:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did they shoot him? | 22:31 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah. They shot him. | 22:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember other people being hurt by the police that way? | 22:37 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, yeah. Yeah, a lot of them were killed by the police like that. They had so much trouble. One thing right in—no, wasn't in adjoining county, right here in Craven County, they said that's where they made, maybe you never heard the name of White Lightning, that white whiskey that they buy, they make it out in the woods. And a lot of people down that way did that. And they were always trying to get them for selling it. I said, "Well, I've lived here all my life and I've never seen a still yet. They said, "Mary, then don't go because that may be the very time that the revenue may come up, the time that you get." But I really would like to see a still in operation. I've never seen one. I've seen pictures of it, but to just see them I've never seen them. | 22:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Were there a lot of people making White Lightning? | 23:29 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. My Lord. Not directly right here in New Bern, in Craven County, but some of them were in their adjoining counties making it. | 23:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. Now, were there places where you could buy this? | 23:41 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yes. Yes. My Lord. Yes. I got to tell you a joke on my mother, when we were living up on Ash Street, this particular day I had come in and I heard Mama hollering, "Put it over here, put it over." I said, "What the heck is Mama talking about?" Because I didn't see the police car out there, and they're raiding the house next to us. | 23:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 24:21 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And Mama out there hollering, "Put it over here, put it over—", I said, "Mama, Mama, come here. Come here." "No, no. See, they know we don't sell it. And I let them put it over." I said, "No you don't. You come in," [indistinct 00:24:38] "You come on in here," I said, "They don't know whether you sell it or not." I said, "You out there hollering?" "Well, I didn't want to get her." I said, "But they get you and push you." | 24:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 24:47 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Lord, my mama said she just didn't think. But she hated to see him take this old lady. She was a very old lady. I said, "Well, honey, I wouldn't want to see them take you either." I said, "But honey, they'd put you in jail." She said there was a door outside was sitting up against the fence and she was going to let them stick it under there. I said, "Uh-huh. No ma'am." Yeah, I lived in a neighborhood once where they sold it quite a bit. | 24:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 25:19 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But I always said, I said, "If I sold it and they poured it out one time, they'd never pour it out again." | 25:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Yeah. | 25:23 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But I guess that's where a lot of them really made their money and was able to build a house again and do— | 25:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. So this was a way to rebuild after the fire. | 25:32 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, honey. | 25:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, were there bad parts of town where you weren't allowed to go by your mother? | 25:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, honey. Plenty of them. But the folks didn't bother you too much unless if I was—you know how some of these meddlesome from people are just wanting to do something to get in trouble. | 25:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 25:50 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, because we had several places. | 25:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Can you remember any of them? | 25:50 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But I know one thing, we didn't get didn't go up that way. You didn't go by there. But that rough crowd did, this place they hung out. But looked like they knew who to bother with and who not to bother. | 25:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Who, the police? | 25:50 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Some of the places the police didn't bother too much. | 25:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. They were rough places? | 25:52 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, they were rough places. And then usually it was where they sold this whiskey and stuff. | 26:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Did your neighborhood have a name? No? | 26:32 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Uh-uh. They didn't. | 26:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did any of the Black neighborhoods? | 26:35 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. No, we didn't have a name. | 26:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 26:39 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Uh-uh. | 26:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, do you remember White people ever showing disrespect to your mother or to your father? | 26:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. I remember a man came to Mama's once for something. To get something, it was, and he called her Auntie. And I said, "Who's sister is she, your mother or your father's?" And he looked at me. He said, "Oh." He said, "I beg your pardon." He said wherever he came from, he did say where he came from, "We call that respect." | 26:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Wow. | 27:24 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I said, "Oh, well where you are now, we call it disrespect. So you don't have to call my mother Auntie. Just go right on." So he said, "All right. I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon." But I don't know, some people were just so friendly together until you couldn't hardly tell them apart. | 27:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 27:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But I've enjoyed my 81 years here. | 27:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | So what now, so people wouldn't, in New Bern, didn't call Black people, auntie and uncle? | 27:51 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yeah, a lot of them did. A lot of them did. Because, you see, tobacco was grown here too. | 27:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 28:00 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And people would go and work on the farms. White people would have the farms mostly and the Black people would go and work on the farms. And they call them aunts and uncle and all like that. | 28:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So but in New Bern, they didn't call them— | 28:15 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yes, they did. Some of them right around here called, mm-hmm. But some of them were so friendly, you couldn't tell what was what on it. | 28:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. So people in New Bern went to work on the tobacco field? | 28:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yes. Yes. | 28:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Would they go every day? | 28:32 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, you used to go, sometimes you'd go every day, and that was especially in the fields. | 28:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:38 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | See. Have you ever seen any tobacco grow? | 28:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | I have. | 28:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Have you? | 28:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you ever have to do that? | 28:46 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. | 28:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah? | 28:48 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Mama said she didn't want me to go, but I wanted to go for the fun of it. | 28:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Oh, yeah? | 28:53 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I had fun. I had me a good time. | 28:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | So how did you get these jobs? Did they come pick you up here? | 28:57 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. They'd come pick you up. And sometimes there would be someone in New Bern would just pick us all up and take us to the farm. | 29:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was there a place where you'd wait to be picked up? Or I mean— | 29:08 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Sometimes. Sometimes they'd come to one house and we all would be there, and they'd take us out. | 29:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 29:16 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes sir. | 29:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | And how— | 29:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But I'm telling you it's kinda hot out there in that. Oh, Jesus have mercy. But I did the handing, handed tobacco quite a bit. Because then that was out there in that sun all day. | 29:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 29:34 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Green tobacco. I don't honestly see how some of them could work out there. | 29:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 29:44 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Ooh. It was so hot. But you had to do it, so that was it. | 29:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | How much were you paid? | 29:49 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh Lord, sometimes it was a dollar a day. And sometime a dollar and a half or something like that. But later on they got to the place that some of the people were making, for tying tobacco, some of them got up—one time, the last time I was talking about it to someone, I think they said they were paying $10 a day then. | 29:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 30:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And then $15, because that's tying it on the stick so it can be hung up in the barn to dry out. | 30:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now the money you made doing that, did you keep it? Could you keep it? | 30:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, you could. Mama would give us some of ours. And then you had a little bank and you had to put your money in the bank. | 30:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there some people who were better to work for, some farmers? | 30:41 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yes. Yes. Some of them were very nasty. | 30:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. How were they nasty? | 30:46 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | By the way they talked to you and didn't want you to stop, like you going to fall out almost sometimes because it would get so hot out there. | 30:49 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 30:57 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But honey, one day I said with my mouth, "Yes, I want to suck a tobacco." I didn't know what they was talking about because I had never sucked on any. Lord Jesus. I ran out there, some of them told me, said, "Mary, you going to wish you hadn't gone." When I came in from sucking on that tobacco, you could tell where my sleeves stopped on the little dress I had on. | 30:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 31:22 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, I bet I didn't suck on it no more. | 31:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now was that because of the sun? | 31:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | The sun. Oh yes. And sometimes the roads would be as long as from here, not to that corner, that ain't no—down to that corner down there, and you had to go all the way down that road and come back. Jesus have mercy. But I stayed. When you handed you were under a shelter and you just hand two or three leaves to the person who's tying. | 31:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Now when did you do this? Did you do this during the summer? Or when— | 31:51 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, that's when tobacco's in, the summer. | 31:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you never went to there while you were in school? | 32:01 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, no, no, no, no. No. They have to use the—they do the dry tobacco during the winter sometimes. | 32:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 32:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Tying it up to send to the factories to be sold and like that. But that's during the winter. | 32:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 32:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh yeah, a lot of us used to go. We'd get together, honey, and go have a, just make a picnic out of it almost. | 32:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Now, did they serve you lunch? | 32:27 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Sometimes. No, we'd mostly carry our lunch, but sometimes you'd be with a nice family and they'd have somebody to cook and they would cook enough so everybody could eat. | 32:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you ever work for Black farmers? | 32:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Yes. Mostly, I worked with the Black ones. | 32:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 32:51 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I worked with one or two White ones. | 32:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you notice any difference between Black— | 32:56 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. We all got along fine, like one big family. | 32:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Maybe we can talk a little bit about school now. Where did you start at school? | 33:05 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | West Street. | 33:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | West Street? Right. | 33:11 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | West Street School. | 33:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | And was your mother teaching there? | 33:16 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. No. She was in the county. | 33:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. County school. Did you like school? | 33:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, I've always liked school. | 33:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did you like about it? | 33:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I guess I just liked being with the crowd myself, for one thing. | 33:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Did you have any favorite teachers? | 33:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, I guess everybody almost picked their 1st grade teacher. Yeah, she was very nice. She was friendly with Mama too. | 33:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. So was she someone who would come to your house? | 33:50 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, and I noticed Saturday, I was at a meeting, Climbers Club meeting of Federated Women's Club and we had the executive board to meet here. And so Eva said to me, said, "Dent, I bet you don't know who that person is sitting over there." I said, "No." Said, "You remember Mr. Thompson that taught here?" I said, "Yes, he taught me in high school." Said, "That's his daughter over there." So she brought the lady over to speak to me because they used to live around the corner there. | 33:55 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No, I really liked school. I liked going to school. And of course you had to go. If you stayed at my house, you had to go. Wasn't saying, "I don't want to go." | 34:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. | 34:40 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | You got up and went. | 34:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. So your 1st grade teacher, you were friends with her, and then there was this man in high school? | 34:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | That's, had this man in high school and all. | 34:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was it about these teachers that you liked so much? | 34:59 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I liked him, [indistinct 00:35:04] for him, he was kind of comical. And the children would laugh at the way he dressed. And when he was at the blackboard, Lord, he had a funny head and all. But he was a good teacher though. He took up time with you to see that you really got it. Yes sir. I said, "Well." So, but I mean, I knew just about all my teachers. | 35:06 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | My principal lived right there. He died there. He and his wife? Yes, wife both. She was my teacher, one of my teachers in high school. And then he was working there and then he became principal of school. And then when I finished school, I went to the same school to teach and I stayed there. And then with integration, I had to go down to Central School. And from Central School I went to a school called Trent Park School, they were all integrated schools, and I retired from Trent Park. | 35:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. So you went back to the same school you were— | 36:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Same school. | 36:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, what role did the school play in the community back then? The Black schools, what role did they play in the Black community? | 36:20 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, they had their different meetings. It's like we call it, they used to call it PTA, then they got all these other names after that. But it was just about the same thing. The principals and the parents working together for the betterment of the school and for the children, and all. | 36:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were all parents involved in the PTA? | 37:02 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Just about. We had one parent had, I believe she had 10 children. And Lord no knows, we used to laugh at her because when they'd be calling the roll at the PTA meeting, every time they'd call 1st grade or 2nd grade, she would have to jump. She'd say, "My God, I have to give more than anybody else in here." But she had 10 children. They were a poor family, but out of class, she certainly brought them up, she and her husband. People would help them and all, buying them clothes and giving them money and food and stuff. But they worked hard and kept them together. I never heard of one of them being in trouble. When the grandchildren came along, there were one or two of them got in trouble. But that direct family, I never heard of them getting into trouble. | 37:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | So it was all, even if you were a poor parent, they would still— | 37:58 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, that's right. Yeah. | 38:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, when you were at school, were you ever disciplined by your teachers? | 38:06 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah. For talking. | 38:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | For talking? | 38:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Uh huh. | 38:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | And what would they do? Would they — | 38:12 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Make you stay in. That's the biggest thing. | 38:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 38:13 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | At that time. But Lord knows it's getting terrible now, you can't even look at the child hardly now. | 38:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 38:30 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | It's pitiful. And I mean, the children know this and some of them are taking advantage of it. And I remember down here at Central School, I saw this, I kept seeing the bottom of a skirt out in the hallway. So I said to one of my little ones, I said, "Look out there please and see if there's someone out there who wants to see me." So when she opened the door, it was a little White girl's mother. Oh, this little White girl was something else. And I said, "Oh, come in. I didn't know you were out there." She said, "Yes, I'm glad I was out there." She said, "I heard you say, 'Delia, where are you going?''" She said, "You didn't hear the bell, Ms. Dent. It's time to go home." | 38:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Is that your phone? | 39:17 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Is it ringing? | 39:25 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | What did I tell you? I told you the next time you don't finish your work, I'm going to let the children go home and let you stay here and do your work. | 39:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 39:34 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | She said, "I got so tickled out there, I didn't know what to do." She said, "But I'm glad I was out here and heard it." | 39:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 39:42 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | So I said, "All right then." I said, "But I'm sorry, Delia, but that's what you going to have to do today." And then Delia had an ugly habit of taking her pencil, she didn't do it too much to the White children, but she'd do it to the Black ones, go across and mark across that paper. "Ms. Dent," I said, "How many hands does Delia have? Two. How many do you have? Two. All right then." | 39:43 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | And so when Delia's mother came on in and talked with me, she said, "Where you going?" I'm going. She said, "No, you're not going home with me." She said, "I heard Ms. Dent says," and she said, "I want Ms. Dent to keep you here." And said, "When your sister gets out of school," sister was much larger. Said, "When your sister gets out school." | 40:09 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Hey, there. How you doing? | 40:28 |
| Speaker 1 | [indistinct 00:40:32]. | 40:28 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | So I showed her mother what she had done. Oh, she cried. She cried. And my yardstick was on the board, and she reached, I said, "What you want to do with my yard stick?" She said, "You always telling about what you are going to do, but you don't give them but one lick. That ain't nothing." She said, "If she don't show, I'm going to take you." I said, "Don't you break up my yardstick, it's the only one I have." | 40:34 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Delia screamed. I think there was, I don't know how many years between Delia and the other child. And Delia was just rotten. Her daddy thought she was the cream of the crop. She said, "Ms. Dent?" I said, "Yes?" "Now when you get ready to leave, let Delia go home. Send her home. The police are out here in the street, they'll get her home if she doesn't get home some kind of way." That was the mother talking. Delia was about to die, but I tell you one thing, I didn't have another day's trouble with Delia about marking up papers and doing— | 40:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. | 41:30 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But I said, "Delia, how'd you get out that night?" "My mama beat me good." I said, "It hurts Mama to hear how you're coming to school acting and she's trying to train you at home." "I won't do it again." I said, "All right," and Delia didn't. | 41:32 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But you see, some of them, they don't want to come to school. A little boy told me one day, "Ms. Dent?" I said, "Yes?" "My mother said you can't keep me back in 1st grade." I said, "What? Did she tell you that?" Yes she did. I said, "I wonder why." Said, "She said you don't keep children in 1st grade. So you have to send them on the 2nd grade." I said, "I'm going to send your mama a message. I'm glad your mama can't sign your card." So the boy went home, told his mama. I know he never told me another time. My mama said, "Uh-huh, she can't sign my card." I said, "That's right. So Ms. Dent's got to sign it. And if you haven't done my work, I can't sign your card." I cleared that up from there. | 41:48 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But you see, you used to say that, but now you have all these kindergarten nursery schools and everything. So you don't need to do that. So stop telling the children those things. And then if you start at home all well and good, you can go on. | 42:45 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But my little godchild, she's in California, we were sitting here and I don't know what her mother said to her. I was over there in the chair, but she hit her mother. And I said, "Shaundra," her mother named Shaundra. She said, "Yes, Ma Dent?" I said, "Don't let her do that, please." I said, "Because you may be someplace and she hits you and it will embarrass you. So stop her." I said, "Ashanti," she turned around and looked at me. I said, "Please don't hit mommy." I said, "Little girls can't hit mommies." She looked right straight at me, she didn't blink, looked at me that whole time. Do you know what she did later on? I wasn't looking, she thought, and she raised her hand. Shaundra said, "If you do, I'll tear your butt up." She put that little hand down just as nice and didn't try it again. | 43:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. There goes your phone again. | 44:05 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Lord. So I don't know, I think we are going to change up and get—but it's gotten to the place now, with the police behind you, the law saying, "If you do this, your children can have you up for abuse." And it's terrible. You don't know which way to turn. Because they got to listen to someone. The boy told his mama one day, she said, "Where have you been? What you doing so late coming home?" "Well, I tell you, Ms. Dent was there by herself and I didn't want to leave her by herself. So I stayed there with her." Well, his mother said she turned her head to keep from laughing because she knew what was behind it. She knew I had kept him in, see. But that was his excuse. So I just let it go right on as if that's what he did, he stayed there with me. | 44:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now when you were in high school, were you involved in any kinds of extracurricular activities? | 45:05 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, Lordy. Girl, that's been a long time ago. I finished high school in '29. | 45:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 45:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | 1929. See, at that time you used to have dramas, these different plays in school and like that, and Glee Clubs, and things. | 45:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now did you belong to that? | 45:37 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, I was in Glee Clubs and the plays, and different things. | 45:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. What kinds of things did you do for fun when you were in high school? | 45:44 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, I guess just about what some of them doing now, I guess. Some of the same things, extracurricular activities, going on trips and things. | 45:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you go to the movies? | 46:06 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, Lord. And I had it so fixed one time, every Monday I'd go to the movie before I'd come home. I really liked the movies. | 46:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you allowed to go out with boys when you were in high school? | 46:25 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes. Yes. But you didn't, when they said be back at a certain time, you better be back in there. | 46:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 46:36 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Oh, we'd get together now and laugh about you'd watch the sun out there and everything to go off playing. Be here before the sun— | 46:37 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | These days. | 0:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:02 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Because it seems that every—well, they can't help it because every time you turn on something on the TV, sex is involved. And at that time there's more things to be done than you did sex all the time. But neither that, to me, that's all you think. | 0:02 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I had a little girl here with me keeping her, her mother was working and she was here with me and I thought she was reading a little story book and drawing something, and I was reading and this program was going off. And you know how it goes down like that. She got to be looking at, she got, she said, "Nona?" I said, "Yes, baby." She said, "They making love now." I said, "What?" I said, "Okay then." And I cut it off. But I was so tickled that she watched it. It looked like it was going down in there. And she was just as seriously, "Nona, they making love." Now. I said, "All right, honey." | 0:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, did anybody teach you about sex? Did you have any sex education? | 1:02 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | No. I ain't heard that much. About only being around the larger children. The older girls and all. | 1:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 1:10 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, so. | 1:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did any girls get pregnant in high school? | 1:14 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, Lord. | 1:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | What happened to them? | 1:18 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, a lot of left home or was put out like that. | 1:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, they were put out? | 1:23 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Mm-hmm. | 1:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did they do then? | 1:26 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Well, some of them, most of them left town. They didn't even stay around after that. | 1:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Really, really. | 1:32 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Mm-hmm. I hope that wasn't Johnny. What time is it? | 1:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | It's 3:00, it's 10 to 4:00. | 1:40 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | 10 to 4:00. Oh, that may been Johnny. | 1:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. If he phones again. I'll ask him. | 1:47 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | There he is. They're here. | 1:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | All right. Now do you have to finish up soon? | 1:49 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | I'm going to see—I've got the bank call him. I got to go to the bank on some business. | 1:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 1:59 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | But he had said around 4:00. | 1:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 2:01 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, he's turned around to come back. | 2:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Well let me just ask you what happened after high school? What did you do after high school? Did you became a teacher? | 2:09 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | After high school I went to Federal State University and I finished that. And then I came back and taught at the school I finished. | 2:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 2:27 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yes, that's what it is. I stayed. And as I told you, integration came in. So I changed, had to go to two schools, two other schools. And from there I went right back over here and taught and stayed there until I retired in '73. | 2:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you have to finish up now? Do you have to go now? | 2:47 |
| Mary Elizabeth Dent | Yeah, because the bank I think closes. | 2:51 |
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