Myrtle Downing interview recording, 1993 August 05
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Chris Stewart | I could just have you state your name so that I can get a voice level on the— | 0:02 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, okay. Myrtle Davis Downing. Can you hear this? | 0:06 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, we are set. | 0:13 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Okay. | 0:17 |
Chris Stewart | Have you always lived here in James City? | 0:18 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | All of my life. All of my life. I used to live in the old homestead, my mother's house that she lived in when she was a child, that my grandfather built, reconstructed around the little house. It started out as a small house, and then according to her, he built a bigger house around it. So I grew up in the old homestead house that has 16 rooms. I guess by the time I turned seven, my father decided that he couldn't live there anymore with her brother who used to raise cane every weekend. So he decided to build his own house. This is a house that he built that has, I think this house has about 12 or 13 rooms in it. | 0:19 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 1:02 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | For an only child, it's an awful big house. Put it that way. Awful big house for an only child. I think they expected a houseful of kids and that just did not happen. Anyway, I've enjoyed it. Being an only child is not a whole lot of fun. I kind of grew up with my cousins. My mother's nieces and nephews came to live with us in the old homestead. By the time we moved out they were still there, and she had a tenant house right across the track. In fact, you look out that window and see it, that she used to rent, and she had them to evacuate. She put her niece and nephew over there and left the big house for her brother and his girlfriend, so to speak, until they died. Then the house began to deteriorate. After that, her nephew, Dr. Elliot, had it destroyed because it would cost too much money to renovate it, like 300-some thousand dollars. But it would have made a beautiful museum. It was pretty, it was really pretty. I enjoyed it. | 1:04 |
Chris Stewart | What do you remember about your neighborhood? | 2:11 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, let's see. I can remember, before the highway was put in, Old Cherrypoint Road and the little ridge that used to go across to New Bern before the bypass was ever put in, very vaguely, because that was when I was real young, I think in the early, early fifties. By my house sitting on the hill over here, that street used to have a slope to it. Therefore the old homestead [indistinct 00:02:41] white house on the hill. I used to ride down the street to Miss Annie's store. My dad thought I was old enough to go by myself, and across the highway. Used to be a lot of trees, a lot of kids in the neighborhood, a lot of kids in the neighborhood. We had the service lane over here on the other side of Highway 70. There used to be a skating rink over there where the BP station is. | 2:13 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | We used to go over there and skate every Friday and every Saturday night, all the kids in the neighborhood. There were lots and lots of children all the time. At Christmastime you'd see children all over the street with bicycles, with scooters and whatnot. A family that lived on this corner, in this corner house over here, there were eight of them. They had two bedrooms, eight children, a mother and a father, two bedrooms, a grandmother, a niece, and two nephews. I used to go over and play with them. They were my playmates. Like I said, I was by myself and we played down that little alley, played softball all the time. They had enough kids over there to make a softball team when I went along. But it was fun. We would skate up and down the street. | 3:03 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Kids knew how to play and have fun then. We didn't have a lot of electronic toys and this, that, and the other, the computer toys that the kids have now. But we would play marbles. I used to play marbles with the boys right out here in my mother's driveway and beat them. The guys would get angry and because I beat them and take all their marbles, they can't have their favorite marbles. We would play Double Dutch in the street. We played dodge ball, and we'd roll tire rims down the street as a way of recreation. We roll tires, old tires off cars and have little races down. We used to have a lot of fun. We used to have a lot of fun. When I used to go around to Browns Drive when that street was open, we'd just ride around the block. I can remember once when my mother told me, every time my mother told me not to do something, I would do it, because I wouldn't believe anything she said. | 3:50 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I'll never forget. Started over here at the old homestead. She had burned some trash for Saturday, right? She said, "Myrtle, don't go out there and step on the ashes because they're hot." I said, mm-hmm. So I sat on the porch and I looked and I said, "Don't see any smoke coming from the ashes so they're not hot." I had little black patent leather shoes. I went out there and I stepped in the ashes and I stepped a little bit more. Those hot ashes fell in my shoes and burned my heel. See that scar right there? Burned my heel, and I was screaming [indistinct 00:05:14]. She came out. "What's the matter, what's the matter?" I was standing out there just jumping around like a Indian, she said, "Well, get out the ashes, get out there." It was terrible. It was terrible. | 4:44 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | But I've had my share of accidents for being hardheaded. I was known as a hardheaded child. I just wouldn't listen. I wouldn't get in real bad trouble, but I just wouldn't listen. My mother, we had a housekeeper that kept my mother's parents when she went to school at Vanceboro. I'll never forget one day. The housekeeper was my ex-husband's grandmother, Lavinia. Lavinia [indistinct 00:05:47]. One day she called me, I was out on the back porch. I don't know what I was doing, whatever, I must have been doing something that I thought I had no business doing because when she called me, I went to run and fell off the porch and cut my leg. Cut it real bad. She came out, she said, "What's the matter with you?" Honey, she saw me. "What you running for? You must have been doing something you had no business doing." I don't know what I was doing, but I must have been doing something. | 5:23 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Then where our cousins was living with me, we used to go outside. We had this huge pecan tree. I'll never forget. We were picking pecans, Shirley and I. We saw the same pecan, one pecan at the same time. I went to reach for it, and she stepped on this piece of tin. She stepped on the tin, and the tin cut my finger right here, from me sticking my hand down under the tin. And I mean to tell you, we had some times. Every time you turn around, Myrtle was getting hurt. One Saturday, another Saturday we were out in the yard playing, and I had on this cute little yellow flowered dress. And my mom said, "Time for breakfast." We went racing in the house to go get breakfast. We had one of these swinging glass doors like this one. Honey, we ran through the hallway, and my cousin Shirley got there first. [indistinct 00:07:03] to get her caught in the door so she'd back out the way so I could go in first. | 6:12 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I missed the glass. I missed the wood part and went right through the glass and sliced up my wrist right here. Had a hundred and some stitches. Yes, I did. Had to have a blood transfusion and everything. I was a wild little girl. That's all I was. I was just wild. I was wild. | 7:06 |
Chris Stewart | Where do you think you got that wildness from? | 7:25 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I don't know. I guess being an only child and not having anybody to play with and whatnot. I was very tomboyish. I would climb trees like the boys, jump ditches like the boys. When we moved out of the old homestead and moved over here, I had one of those old-fashioned Schwinn bikes, and they had a real sharp point on the end. Mother said, "You can't take the bike out now because it was storming." "Shucks," I said, and my cousin was over here and of course me being the oldest, I had to show off. | 7:28 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I took the bike out. I said, "You guys be quiet, I'll be right back." I took the bike and rode around the block all the way up Brooks Drive down around Brown Street. On the corner down by Jones Chapel Church was a huge hedge bush. Little Jerry Kennedy and his cousin Peggy were playing down around the hedge bush, running back and forth in the street. So while I was riding around there, Jerry, I saw him playing. I was riding around. Jerry, the last time I went around that, Jerry ran out in front of me, and when he did, the fender of the bike went right into his thigh and took a big chunk of meat out of it. And I grabbed the, he grabbed the handlebars and I looked at him and he looked at me, [indistinct 00:08:34] say, "What's happening?" And I looked down at his thigh, said, oh, and I knew. I said, "Oh God, I'm in trouble now. I'm in trouble now." It was cut so deep, it didn't even bleed. Honey, I hightailed it back home, put the bike up like I hadn't done a thing. | 7:54 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, his mother come down the street yelling and screaming, "Miss Davis, Miss Davis, look what your daughter did to my son." Honey child, my mother said, "Oh my god." The child was bleeding everywhere. She got a switch, and she hit me one time because she didn't have time to whip me because she had take the child to the hospital. So that's what she did. She took the child to the hospital. She said, "I told you not to take that bicycle out." But it seemed like every time she told me not to do something, I did it and got in trouble. She told me not to go barefoot. So I never started going barefoot until I got grown. | 8:45 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, I went barefoot over here at the Heidelbergs' house, little Georgia, and in fact Georgia is Grace's cousin, right? And there was so many kids that there was no grass in the yard because they killed all the grass mostly. There was this Clorox bottle top. At that time, Clorox came in a glass bottle, and the neck of it was broken off and it was laying in the yard. I ran around the house barefoot, we were chasing each other. I saw that glass, and I just kept running around there, kept looking at that glass. The last time I ran around the house, I stepped on it and cut my big toe under the bottom, almost off to the point where it would fold back on top of my foot. | 9:13 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, my gosh. | 9:47 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Everybody, all the kids got scared and they went in the house, they closed the door, they didn't know what to do. Honey, it's just as hard up under there right now. So I went hobbling home, bleeding like crazy. My mom said, "What's the matter? What's the matter?" Aunt Bea said, "Oh, gosh, you done cut a big toe off." So what they did, they used old-fashioned remedies. Wasn't running to the hospital all the time. They got a piece of fatback meat and a penny and tied it on my big toe. That's how my big toe healed. | 9:49 |
Chris Stewart | You never went to the doctor? | 10:21 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Never went to the doctor. | 10:21 |
Chris Stewart | For that one. | 10:21 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Not for the big toe, no. But I went for the wrist. | 10:21 |
Chris Stewart | [Indistinct 00:10:26]. | 10:23 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, the only time I went to the doctor, only thing I can remember as a child going to the doctor for was my wrist. I never had any broken bones or anything. But when I lacerated my wrist, that was the only time I had ever gone to the doctor for myself. I remember going once as a child with my mother because my dad always took me to piano lessons. I was saying that Saturday, "Shucks, I don't want to go to piano lessons now. I'm sick and tired of piano. I wish something would happen so I wouldn't have to go." Sure enough, just before my mom and I, we moved in this house, it had rained and the door had swollen, so my mother thought. She went to pull it and she slipped and fell backwards down the steps and broke her leg. | 10:25 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, I didn't go to piano lessons for sure that day. I sure didn't. I was kind of sorry that I said that. But anyway, I don't know, things like that happened. Like I said, I was a wild kid. I was one of the tallest kids in the neighborhood, especially for a girl, and wasn't afraid of anybody. I didn't get in fights deliberately, but I just wasn't afraid of anybody. I did get in one fight with this little boy, his last name was Shepherd, and he was a mean little boy. He came from big family too. They weren't as fortunate as me. In fact I always felt, I felt like the most fortunate child in James City at that time, because my mom and dad —oh, that Mr. Blue, Gary Blue. Okay. I don't know. I was telling a story a minute ago about, I forgot what I was telling the story about. I done cut the big toe and stuff, right? | 11:00 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, you talked about the big toe. Okay, I have a question for you. | 12:00 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Okay. | 12:01 |
Chris Stewart | What about people in the neighborhood? Were there people that spent more time with you, say, than other people besides your family? People that were important to you. | 12:03 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, let's see, I don't know. I considered myself a very sheltered child, and it's a shame because I didn't even know everybody in James City growing up. I didn't know the people across the highway. The division of the highway really split us, and most of the children that lived on this side stayed on this side. And most of the kids that lived over there, stayed over there. I didn't know most of the kids across the highway. When people, even now in conversations with folk, with other adults from my age and whatever, asking about so and so, and say, "Don't you know—?" I tell them I don't know them. "How you not know them? You lived here all your life." I don't know them. I don't know them. Then when I went away in college and after I graduated I went away and stayed for 17 years. They grew up and I just didn't know who they were talking about. | 12:14 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | See, this community has lots of foreign nicknames. If you don't know the real name—we had a resident that used to live at the end of the street. His name was Tato. The man died before I ever knew who he really was. I never knew his real name. It was Tato. My uncle, my mother's brother, was called Chili Man. Then, I mean, there's so many nicknames that people—I said, "Well, who in the world are they talking about?" Then when they tell me who the real person is, I say, "Okay, I vaguely remember that name." But there was no one particular person that I was very close to as a child. But I found myself being around older people. I used to go and visit Mama Ludie over here, the Fishers. I would go and visit the Spears, Mr. and Mrs. James Spears, I think the name was, they were older people. Or I'd go and sit around Cousin Violet. Her old homestead still stands, it's still there. I sat around older people, more so than I did young folk. | 12:59 |
Chris Stewart | What did you do with them when you were with them? | 14:02 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | We just sat and we just talk and sometimes either keep, I kept them company or did little things for them. I just enjoyed being around them. I guess it's because my parents was as old as they were, and my grandparents were, let me see, my grandmother died when I was about six and I vaguely remember her. My grandfather died when I was seven. My father died when I was nine. Basically that's what I did. I mingled every now and then with folk here on this street. It was a good while before my mother even allowed me to cross the highway. I was about 16 years old before I crossed the highway. When I went over there, because we used to go to the old beach, it was called the beach. We had our own community beach. The kids would tease me, say, "Rebecca let you out of the house. Look here, she's done crossed the street by herself." | 14:05 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | But I usually appease myself as a teenager growing up by sitting on my porch, watching what was happening in the neighborhood or sitting at the piano. I didn't have a boyfriend, never had a boyfriend the whole time I was in high school. Never. I was a sophomore in college before I ever went out with a boy. When I went out with one then, I went with older, the upperclassmen, but I just really never had a boyfriend. I was about 21 years old before I even really knew what a man was like. I was. I mean, I was 21 before I grew up. | 14:51 |
Chris Stewart | That's good. 21, you don't want to have to— | 15:21 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah, before I even really grew up. But I must have been in junior high, or seven, eighth grade before I even went around that corner and went down by the old James City school by myself to ride. Then as time went on in high school, I would ride down to Green Spring area in the White neighborhood. At that time, it was during segregation, and they would sic the dogs on you. Black kids coming through that neighborhood, they sic the dogs on you. Honey, you'd be riding for days trying to get away. | 15:22 |
Chris Stewart | Were there any rivalries between the White kids down in that neighborhood and the Black kids? | 15:51 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Not really, because they just did not associate. They did not associate. If you went down there, you might find one or two kids that would give you some lip, call you a bad name or something like that. But other than that, they stayed on their end, and we stayed on ours. Now I did associate with White children in New Bern because my father was a contractor, and he built and repaired a lot of the old historical homes over there. So therefore he took me with him. I think he wanted a boy. He took me with him. And like I said, he taught me how to recognize different sizes of nails. He taught me how to mix cement. He taught me how to mix mortar. He taught me how to lay brick. And he wanted a boy. So he made me a tomboy, so to speak. | 15:54 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I'll never forget, my dad taught me how to braid my hair. He taught me how to make my bed. I spent more time with my father than I did my mother always. | 16:35 |
Chris Stewart | How did your life change then when he died? | 16:45 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, let me tell you something. My father and I were so close. I used to wonder, let me tell you a story. I used to wonder why I was so much more fortunate than all the other kids in James City. Because I lived in the biggest house in James City as a child. There were no money problems in my family. My mom and dad both worked. My mother was a teacher, and she taught half the grownups in this neighborhood. My dad always took me for Sunday drives every Sunday afternoon, he and my mother both. And he said you could take any kid in the neighborhood you want. I used to take a little girl that used to rent from us. Her father used to rent from us. Her name was Pudding, but her real name was Josephine, and her name was Pudding. She had a sister named Doll, they call her Doll Baby. See all these nicknames? | 16:48 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, I love it. | 17:31 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah. So we'd go out for Sunday drives, and then I can recall every Easter my dad would take my mom and I to the studio in Five Points to have our picture made. But he would never make one with us. He would never make one with us. He always let us take—I have a picture of us, my mom and I together one Easter, and he would never make one with us. But it was like there was so much love between my dad and I. The bond was so strong. My mother, by her teaching school, I saw her very seldom. I went to school with her. But as I was growing up, I didn't see her in the morning and I didn't see her at night because our housekeeper, which I called my nanny, took care of me. She practically raised me. | 17:32 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | It got to the point, my mother said, I used to call her Mama. My mother got upset. She said, "She's not your daughter, don't let her call you mom." She said, "Well, she doesn't see anybody but me." Then I began to get suspicious and wondered if I was adopted. So my aunt said, "Who told you you were adopted?" I said, "Nobody." But I just say, well, why me? Why am I so blessed? Most of the other kids were less fortunate. Some of them were really, really poor and whatnot. I found out later on that I was. I found out later on that I was. But my dad would always say, "Nothing is too good for my baby." When he died, he's been dead now 36 years, and I still remember him as if he only died a few years ago. | 18:14 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | That's how strong the memory is. Because I remember all his favorite foods. He loved ginger snap cookies. He swore that Dr. Pepper had medicine in it, and it probably did. He just had his favorite things that he did. He used to buy all of us animal crackers every Saturday, bring them home every Saturday. Then he used to tell me, go in his pocket and get money. He never carried a wallet except on Sunday. I would go up, run my hands in his pocket, and all the money I could hold, he'd let me have. My mother would get upset, "Why you giving that child all that money? She doesn't need that." I had a big floor model television in this house, that size, that he said, "If you make your grades in the fifth grade, I'll buy you a TV." | 18:58 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | My mother said, "Why? I'm not going to watch TV." He says, "Well, I'm going to buy it for my baby." He did. He lived in this house only four months before he died, after he built it, only four months. | 19:34 |
Chris Stewart | How did he die? | 19:43 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | He had a massive stroke of the brain. It was really something because when he got ill, my mother was teaching in Vanceboro. I was in fifth grade, and I could drive because he taught me how to drive when I was nine years old. We drove a truck, stick shift. Yes, indeed. Taught me how to drive a truck. I was driving two years before my mother found out. When she found I could drive, I was 11 years old, and she didn't know. She went, "Now who taught you how to drive?" Anyway, when he got sick, there was a daybed that sat right over there, and he took sick on the roof of the garage outside. He was working. Mr. Doc [Indistinct 00:20:19] drove by. Doc had [indistinct 00:20:23] something. Anyway, he happened to drive by, and he saw my dad hammering, but he was hammering in space. He wasn't really hitting anything. So he backed up. There was some more people on the roof working with him. He got out the car and ran, said, "Lacey, something's wrong with Lacey. Get him down, get him down." He'd evidently had the stroke on the garage or whatever. | 19:44 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | When they got him in here, he was going into unconsciousness. But he managed to tell my aunt, who was still the housekeeper at the time, from the old house to this house, to get his medicine. They said by the time they got his medicine, he had completely gone unconscious. He couldn't swallow. So they called my mother in Vanceboro, and a lot of the neighbors came. At that time they really didn't know what to do for him. They didn't know whether to take him to the hospital, whether to leave him here or what. They didn't take him to the hospital. They called my mom, and my mom was kind of quiet and she wasn't one to cause trouble. She told the principal she needed to go home. He said, "If you go home, that's your job." The principal was J.R. Hill, Senior, in Vanceboro. | 20:42 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Mm-hmm. He wouldn't let my mother come home. I hate to say it, but I used to hate him. I used to hate him for it because being young, and then my father died the same night. Because we didn't get home till 5:30 that afternoon. He'd had the stroke early in the morning, and he wouldn't let her come home. So I said, "I don't ever want to go to that school again. I don't want to go back." My mother said, "You have to go back." So she taught there almost 10 more years or more after my dad died. It took me years and years to forgive him for that, because I felt like my dad might have lived through the night, might have lived the next day or another week, another year. You never know. But he was so adamant, and he was mean. He was really mean. I remember him as being mean. He passed away. I've never really gotten it out of my heart that he was the cause. Being a young child, I just blamed him. | 21:25 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I don't know. I really don't. But I realize now that I'm not one to judge. I can't, you reap what you sow. Maybe he realized in his later years that, "If I had just let her go home, her husband might lived through the night." Maybe he thought that way. I have no idea. I really don't. | 22:18 |
Chris Stewart | How did your life change after your father died? How did you feel? | 22:38 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, I felt like I had been robbed of something very precious to me. I felt like unjustice had been done to me, and I found myself questioning God, which is something I shouldn't do. But being young, I did not know, and I wondered, "Why me? Why my father?" He was a good man. He was a good provider. Why not some of these other people who don't do anything, who drink and hang in the street all night long, who don't provide for their family? Why my father? I just felt like it was so unfair. I really felt like it was unfair. But it brought my mother and I closer together. Because we used to find ourselves waiting for him to come to dinner and realize after a few minutes, "Oh, he's not coming back to dinner." | 22:43 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I have just never, there's not hardly a day that goes by that I don't think about my dad. Now even when I think about things that I want or need, I say, "Gosh, if my dad was living —" Even now I say that. "If my dad was living, I wouldn't have to do this or that. He would do it for me. He would fix my house up for me, or he wouldn't let me live like this or whatever." I find myself still talking about him as if he only died a few years ago. But it's been a long, long time. I guess I really miss him. I know I miss him. I must miss him to keep talking about him like I do. I really must miss him, because he just left such an impact on my life. He was just such a good man. He was short. I was taller than my mom and my dad by the time I was nine years old, already taller than both of them. | 23:27 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 24:12 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I sure was. Folks used to think, said, "Miss Davis, what you doing? Putting fertilizer in that girl's shoes?" They sure was. They put fertilizer in her shoes. And they'd say, "No, she just, she's a big eater. She eats good." I did. I ate good, honey. I mean, I'll tell you, I would eat a half a dozen eggs and six slices of bacon, six slices of toast every morning for breakfast and stay skinny. I stayed skinny until I was about 26, 27 years old. Sure did. It would go right straight to my feet. I'd go straight up. I sure had a big appetite. Still got a big appetite, but it's beginning to show now. | 24:13 |
Chris Stewart | Did you have relatives who lived with you in your house after your father died? | 24:49 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | No, just us. | 25:00 |
Chris Stewart | Just the two of you. How was it living in such a big house with just you and your mom? Did you have a nanny, Nana as well? | 25:00 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah, she stayed with my mother right up until she became ill. I think she stayed with my mother until I about finished high school. She loved me like I was her own. She wouldn't let anybody talk about me, anybody do anything or say anything bad about me. Honey, she'd [indistinct 00:25:20] you out. "Don't say nothing about Myrtle. That's my baby. Don't you say anything about Myrtle." She would. That's just the way she was. She was one that I considered, she gave me all the maternal love. My mother, I look at her as giving me all the financial support and whatnot, because I was with Aunt Beanie more than I was with her. When she passed away, I was living in Baltimore, and my daughter at the time I think was about three months old. I told my husband, which is her grandson, I said, "If I have to walk to New Bern, I am going to the funeral." I says, "No way they're going bury her without my seeing her one more time." | 25:03 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | But I used to visit and she became senile. It hurt me to my heart because I was the last one that she forgot. She forgot her own children. She forgot her own children and her own grandchildren. She would not remember them. But she remembered me, and she remembered my first son because she said, "Oh, that's a pretty baby. That's William's baby." I said, "Yes, Billy's baby." She said, "Oh, can I have him?" And then after a while she'd forget that I had been by. I'd tell her I came by yesterday, and she'd say, "No, you didn't come by yesterday." Then all of a sudden she began to forget me. When she began to forget me, I told my [indistinct 00:26:34], I said, "I can't take it anymore. I cannot stand to see her like that." I just could not face the fact that senility had set in just that bad. I didn't want to visit her because I knew she wouldn't know me. | 25:57 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I'd come back because he would come home, and I'd go by there and visit. But when she passed away, I had to get over that. I really did. I'll never forget, I got sick once right here in the house. I snapped my neck, and she walked to New Bern to get my cousin [indistinct 00:27:03] at the courthouse, because she was working at the courthouse then. She went all the way to New Bern and got her and brought her back here and said, "Something's wrong with Myrtle." They took me to the doctor and I had snapped my neck. But there was nothing that she wouldn't do for me, nothing. | 26:46 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | If I wanted something and Mother didn't give it to me, she'd fuss with her, "Sister, now you know better. Give that girl so on, so on." She would never let me wash dishes. I never washed dishes. I never made beds. I never swept, I never cooked. I didn't do any domestic chores at all as a child growing up because she did it all. She would serve us dinner, and she would not let me do anything. So therefore when I grew up, went to college, I didn't know how to wash my clothes. And I got married. I didn't know how to cook. I mean, I was about ninth grade before I knew how to fry egg. I sure did. | 27:18 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | She used to tell me, she said, "You grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth." I never knew what she meant, until I got older. And then I realized, a silver spoon, no kidding. But I was a very fortunate child. Had a very fortunate childhood. | 27:51 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of values do you think that she gave you to— | 28:03 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, my, she taught me how to love. She taught me how to be trusting, trustworthy. She taught me a lot about motherhood because I learned from her what it was like to be a mother. | 28:09 |
Chris Stewart | What did you learn? | 28:21 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, just how to be loving, how to take care of, I don't know, as far as children go, how to take care of a child, how to love a child. Maternal love to me is a lot more than material things. It's not what you give or how much you put into it. It's the way you give it. Now she didn't have a lot of money. She didn't. But it was what she had inside that she gave and shared with me that made me just really love and just miss her so. Just miss her so. Her husband bought my first watch. He did. Because they rented from us too. They paid $20 a month for rent. He bought my first watch and taught me how to tell time. When my mother would go off to school, like to Fayetteville when she was teaching, or she would go back to summer school to renew her certificate, she would take me, they'd pick me right up out of my bed and take me and put me between Uncle George and Aunt Beanie. I'd wake up between those two. I was just like being with mom and dad again. Yeah, it sure was. | 28:22 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I used to get so jealous of her family. Her family, when her grandchildren would come over, and they live out in Columbia Town. It was called Columbia Town then, but now it's Perrytown. And every Sunday she always cooked a big dinner. I'd go around there after church because I always say, "My mama can't cook. [Indistinct 00:29:41]." I'd go around there, and they'd be there. I used to look at them and stuff and I'd say, "Aunt Bea, what they doing here?" She said, "What do you mean? They're my grandchildren." I said, "But they're not supposed to be here. I don't want them here." She said, "But Myrtle, they're my grandchildren." I said, "I don't want them here." I would get jealous, but I'd go around and eat dinner with them, walk round and eat dinner with them every day. I sure, I would get so jealous of them. But anyway, she had a large family. Her son had about six or seven children, and they were a loving family, very close-knit family. Today they're the same way. They are the same. They look out for each other no matter what. | 29:22 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I was just envious, I guess. Because I was the only child. Had nobody to share anything with, nobody to share my toys with. I found myself being very free-hearted. Now some children, only children they say are selfish. But I was not. I was not. I was very free-hearted. I found myself trying to buy friendship. I'd offer children toys or I offer children cereal. I used to get these cereal boxes and I said, "I'll give you some cereal. I'll give you some so-and-so if you play with me." It was kind of sad to me to have to do that because sometimes they get right snobbish and they look at me. "Oh, you think you this because you so and so and so." I'd say, "Well, I can't help that if I live in a big house or if I'm fortunate enough to have this, that, and the other." | 30:18 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | But I would. I was very, very free-hearted, very giving. Even now I am. I just can't understand how people can say only children are selfish, but they're not. I wasn't. They're just not. They just love to share. I used to go over to Little Georgia, that was her nickname, called her Little Georgia. Her name was Georgia, but we called her Little Georgia because she was named after her mother. I offered to help wash their dishes, help to wash windows because I never did anything. I wanted to do something. I would simply have liked to wash dishes or sweep a floor or make a bed. To have somebody to do it for you was good. But gosh, it didn't teach you how to be a good housekeeper. So I couldn't cook when I got married. | 31:00 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | My husband, oh, man, one of the best cooks you ever wanted to run across. He could have had his own restaurant if he wanted to. He was a very good cook and a very good housekeeper. | 31:41 |
Chris Stewart | It's good someone in your family was. | 31:50 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah. Because they'd have starved if they depend on me. | 31:51 |
Chris Stewart | You picked a real good man. | 31:51 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yes. I tell you, when we got divorced, I lost my housekeeper and my cook. | 31:57 |
Chris Stewart | Did your mother travel? Was she away from home a lot when she was teaching? | 32:01 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, going to different meetings, teachers, or usually when she went to teachers meetings in the county after school, I always went with her. Like in Pleasant Hill. That's where the county, seemed like all the teachers in the county met in Pleasant Hill. I always went with her. I'll never forget one time we went, and we left, leave Vanceboro consolidated and go to Pleasant Hill through Vanceboro, across a ferry. There was another teacher on this ferry, her car was on this ferry. They're both big cars. The guy didn't chock, old White guy, didn't chock the wheels on our car. All there was chain on the back. Well, her car was big. The lady in front of us had a big car. My mother had a big car. And so we went across, the ferry took us across to the other side. The lady's car pulled off. When her car pulled off, the ferry went [indistinct 00:33:01] like this, and it went up, and the back dropped, and the tires of the car fell off, the back of the car fell off the ferry. But it was caught by the chain, and the thing was dragging. | 32:06 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Honey, there we were sitting like this, and everybody hollering. My mother said, "Calm down, calm down. Just wait a minute, wait a minute." So she said, "Just ease out the car." She had the teachers in the back seat to get out of the car, and I was in the front. She said, "Come on." The man was standing there, wasn't helping her or anything. People were sitting down along the banks fishing and whatnot. So she said, "Now, Myrtle, when I tell you to give it some gas, you give it some gas." She and the teachers got behind the car and tried to push it so they could pull it back up on the ferry. When she said, "Give it gas," I gave it gas, we pulled it back up. But I tell you that old man just stood there and watched those women do that. He didn't offer a hand of help. | 33:11 |
Chris Stewart | When was this? | 33:47 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, lord, that must have been like seventh grade then, sixth or seventh grade, back in— | 33:48 |
Chris Stewart | What year? | 33:51 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | '56, I don't know, '58. In the mid fifties, mid fifties. | 33:57 |
Chris Stewart | Huh, interesting. | 34:03 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah, sure did. But he didn't do a devilish thing, he didn't do a devilish thing to help. Not one thing. | 34:04 |
Chris Stewart | So you went to school in Vanceboro then? | 34:10 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Uh-huh. I never went to school at James City. | 34:12 |
Chris Stewart | Why? | 34:15 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Why? Because my mother took me with her. I think she was kind of afraid. I don't know. She might not have been afraid that maybe I'd get beat up by the kids or I don't know. | 34:16 |
Chris Stewart | Well, you were a little ruckus. | 34:26 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I used to wonder why I never went to James City school. I guess because I had nobody there with me. I didn't have any sisters or brothers there to watch out for me. There was nobody to watch out for me. So she took me with her, and I went to Vanceboro with her from kindergarten. I went through eighth grade. I had never ridden a bus until I got in high school. I was looking forward to riding school bus. Kids seem to have fun riding school bus. So I rode a bus to J.T. Barber from '61 to '65. | 34:27 |
Chris Stewart | What was it like going to Vanceboro schools and having your mother be a teacher there? | 34:57 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, sometimes it was rough. Sometimes it was rough. Because the kids would get mad with you. Because see they cooked meals in the school, right? They cooked everything we ate and they'd always pile the food on my plate and all the other kids get little spoonfuls of this, spoonful of that. Boy, they'd get mad. "You get more food than we do just because your mother's a teacher." I said "Look, I can't help that." My mama always paid for my meals every month. I didn't ever have to worry about money. If I wanted an ice cream, I just got whatever I got because she always paid for it. The kids would get mad with me because they pile more food on my plate than they would anybody else's. | 35:02 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I don't know, sometimes—I had a little run-in one time with a little girl in second grade. At that time I had longer hair. I had shoulder-length hair, and my mother had two plaits in my hair. I went to sleep, and the little girl was mad and she took some scissors and cut the whole braid right off to the scalp. | 35:38 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, no. | 36:01 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | She cut the whole braid right off to the scalp. When I woke up and everything and saw what had happened, and the teacher said, "Oh my god." And there was one braid and no hair on the top. So we had to come up with a new hairdo. I told her, I was mad. I said, "I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you. If I have to get you in the eighth grade, I'm going get you." Sure enough, I waited until we got in the eighth grade. We got in eighth grade. By that time I was like a foot and a half taller than she was. Honey, I asked her one day, I said, "You remember when you cut my hair in second grade and I told you I was going to get you?" Honey, I beat her a little butt, good fashion. | 36:03 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Her sister who was in high school came out there one day. In eighth grade we always sat around in the classroom, wouldn't always go outside and play. She came and she says, "I want to see this Myrtle Davis." All the girls was sitting, standing around my desk. They moved and made a path through. I said, "You want to see Myrtle Davis?" She said yes. I said, "Here I am." I stood up. When I stood up she went—when she saw that I could eat off her head, she got scared to death. She says, "Well, I just want to tell you this. You just better leave my sister alone," and so and so and so forth, blah, blah blah. She backed off. I haven't seen that girl to this day. I haven't seen her to this day. I tell you, I don't know what happened to her. But the child, her sister was named Rosa, Rosa [indistinct 00:37:22] in Vanceboro. I did. I beat her. I couldn't imagine why she would cut my hair. Because she had beautiful hair. She had beautiful, a good grade of hair, very nice grade of hair. Honey child, she just cut mine right off. I said okay, okay. | 36:35 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Then one time I got into a fight with a boy, and the boy punched me in the stomach. His name was Archie Hooker. He punched me in my stomach, and honey, I lit into him. The school was shaped like a U and my mother's classroom was here and the eighth-grade classroom was there. We were like in the middle. She saw me out there fighting on the ground. She said, "What is that girl doing on the ground?" She come out, "What are you doing? What are you doing?" Anyway, we went to the principal's office. My mother told them, she said, "Look, I didn't bring my daughter here to be beat up by these boys. You better do something," and so on, so on, so on. Nobody did nothing. She said, "I'll tell you what, next time somebody hit, I'm going let her tear him up." She sure did. Tear them up. Because I never did bother the kids. I would not, you know, jump the ditches with the boys and play with the boys and slide and get all muddy. Be in the merry round, get dragged on the ground. | 37:34 |
Chris Stewart | Right. And then you were driving back with your mother. Those women— | 38:23 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yes, they would, that's because I would be so dirty. My mother always took two sets of clothes to school though. | 38:27 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, man. | 38:32 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah, she did. She'd take two dresses, two pair of pants, underwear, socks and everything, right up until I got in about seventh grade because she'd always have to change my clothes. Because I had my dresses be torn off at the waist and my hair be all messed up. Sometimes this would happen before eight o'clock in the morning. This is what happened before school even started. I got dirty before then. I'll never forget one time we went to an assembly, and those big old boiler pipes that stood in the hallway. I stood up against one of those pipes one day and burned my leg. I didn't know I burned my leg, right in the back here. Got a great big blister about that long. Got in the car, and I happened to be sitting in the middle between my mother and Miss Keys. I looked and saw that great big water balloon hanging off the back of my leg. I said, [indistinct 00:39:19]. Which leg was it? She said, "How'd you get that?" I said, "I don't know." | 38:32 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Miss Keys say, "Oh, please don't burst it. Don't break it. Don't break it or the water will go everywhere." Hon, I had that big blister on the back of my leg, and I got a straight pin real quick and popped it. Miss Keys got so mad because the water went [indistinct 00:39:37] like a water balloon. She hated that. But I mean it didn't hurt. I didn't feel it. Just didn't hurt. | 39:25 |
Chris Stewart | Sounds horrible. | 39:42 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | It sure did. It didn't hurt. But I had a good time in my elementary school years, in my junior high school years. | 39:45 |
Chris Stewart | How did teachers discipline students at school? Or how did people discipline you at school? | 39:54 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, I never got but one little spanking in my whole school career. That was when I was in eighth grade and I got spanked in the hand by my teacher, Mr. Badger, who was my eighth-grade teacher, with a leather strap for chewing gum. He gave me two licks and that was it. Other than that, that's the way they punish kids. You get spanked in the hand with a ruler or you got spanked with a strap or whatever. But other than that, kids, sometimes if they wanted to, they grab you by your arm like your mama do, and whip your backside. They sure would. Then if your parents found out about it, then you got another whipping. | 39:58 |
Chris Stewart | How long was the school year? | 40:36 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | How long was school year? 180 days, like it is now. But we would get out in May. A lot of the times we got out in May because it would be so hot, and the schools weren't air conditioned. A lot of the kids at that time, especially in Vanceboro living in the country, they worked in tobacco. So therefore they had to go out and help to pick the tobacco before it burnt up or whatever. So we'd get out, always got out of school in May. Then when I got in high school, I even think we still got out of school in May in high school. Yeah, they just recently started getting out in June, I think since I've been grown. | 40:37 |
Chris Stewart | So there were some kids in the Vanceboro school that you know of who—well, let's put it this way. Were kids absent from school during the school year, some kids in the Vanceboro schools because they had to work in the fields? | 41:13 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Some of them were, but see, school closed early because of that. So they would not miss so many days. They sure would. | 41:28 |
Chris Stewart | Would the teachers do anything special for students, make any kind of special effort or go visit the parents or do anything to try and help those students who got pulled from school to go work if they worked? | 41:33 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Probably so. I can't recall anything like that happening because like I was saying, when tobacco season came, they would schedule a school year around tobacco season— | 41:47 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah, so that when tobacco season came, they would close school ithin a week or two after that so it wouldn't be so long and the kids wouldn't lose a lot of time out of school. I had a girlfriend who worked in tobacco, and she was very, very smart. Her name was Martha Knight. She got bit by a tobacco fly. I didn't know there was any such thing as a tobacco fly. She got bit by a tobacco fly in the summer of the eighth grade and lost her leg from it. She got blood poison and she lost her leg. It was amputated above the knee, and she went to J.T. Barber with me in high school. | 42:00 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | She didn't know anybody in that school but me. So therefore she had to, she was allowed to leave the classroom early to get on the bus before the bell rang before all the kids got in the hallway. By me being the only one she knew, I had the opportunity to take her books out, which meant I could get out early too. Sure did. She would— | 42:40 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, I'm sorry. | 42:59 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Go ahead. She would have to, when she started wearing her prosthesis, she would have to go to the bathroom every now and then to rest her leg and take it off. I'll never forget one day she took that leg off and she had it sitting outside the door and somebody came in and saw it. Scared to death, and they screamed and hollered because it had a shoe on it and everything. But boy, you could always tell Martha was coming. She walked, she'd go, boom, boom, hear that leg stumping down the hallway. Man, she made a—but she was a bright student. She's very bright. Now she's a mother of two children. She sure is. Got two beautiful kids. | 42:59 |
Chris Stewart | How was Barber, how was J.T. Barber different from the Vanceboro schools? | 43:33 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, J.T. Barber of course was a high school. | 43:41 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 43:44 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And Vanceboro was elementary school. Vanceboro being in the country, J.T. Barber being in the city had a much more advanced, I guess you might say, clientele of students. Much more, let's see, kids who were better economically equipped than the kids in Vanceboro. But at that time, when I went to J.T. Barber, integration had not come. And so for a Black school, of course, until I got about 12th grade and then integration came, but I never went to school with White kids. I didn't start intermingling with White students until I got in grad school, in college, I guess at Elizabeth City. | 43:45 |
Chris Stewart | So when did you graduate from high school? | 44:33 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | '65. | 44:33 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. So you hadn't, even though some schools were integrating, New Bern city schools weren't integrated yet, right? | 44:36 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | No. In fact, there were not any, none of North Carolina city schools were integrated until in the late sixties. But I was just about out of high school then by the time they got integrated. And it was a mess. It was really a mess. Because I can remember all the picketing that went on, especially downtown on Miller Street, the little restaurant right across from McClellans, how we picketed. Well, older, upper-classmen picketed because you weren't allowed to eat in restaurants and you were not allowed to eat at the counter in the five-and-dime store. Not allowed to, of course go to White churches. The bus station was split in half. | 44:42 |
Chris Stewart | These are high school students? | 45:24 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Mm-hmm. | 45:24 |
Chris Stewart | Was there an organization in high school that people joined or was it just a group of students? | 45:29 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Just a group of students that got together that said they just had it. I can remember some of my classmates going to school on Broad Street, going to church on Broad Street, right across from the old St. Luke Hospital, which was a White hospital, and Good Shepherd was a Black hospital. They were asked to leave because see, integration had just begun or they were trying to get it, and the kids were asked to leave the church. So they did. It was a lot of KKKs came out the woodworks then. It was frightening. It was frightening. But it wasn't as rough here, I think, in this part of the South as it was further down, like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, stuff like that. | 45:32 |
Chris Stewart | Did you participate in any of the sit-ins in high school? | 46:16 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | No, because I was too young to participate in the sit-ins. No, I didn't participate in any of the sit-ins in high school. | 46:20 |
Chris Stewart | What did you think? How did you feel when— | 46:29 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, I never knew. I never knew. I never knew. It's silly. See, my mother didn't raise me to see color. | 46:31 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 46:41 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | At that time we weren't called Black, we were called Colored. Which one was first, Colored, then Negro, then Black, then Afro-American. We've had five names. But I had—it just did not dawn on me until in the late sixties that girl, you're Black. You can't go here. You can't go there. What? You're joking, really? My skin different color than yours. Oh, okay. And that's just when it hit me. I just could not understand what is the big fuss? What's the big fuss? Because by my father being a contractor, and my parents being in business, they associated with Whites all their life. And so I was always around White children. And when the White kids would come over here in this neighborhood when I was a kid, the other folk would look and say, what you doing with a little White kid on her bicycle. | 0:02 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | It was strange to them, but it didn't bother me because I just saw kids as kids. I didn't see kids as color. And even now teaching kids, I don't see kids as color. I can remember in teaching in Maryland, I had a class one year and they're all White kids. And it didn't dawn on me. I didn't realize until the end of the school year there was not a child in there that were Black. And I stood up and I said, kids what's the matter, I said, you're no Black kids in this room. I said, didn't you know that? I said, well, I just never paid attention. I didn't. And it was a strangest thing. They said, all year long you never, I said, I never thought, I just never realized that there was no Black kids in this class. And that was the first year I'd ever had all White class. | 0:48 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 1:28 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | All White. And I said, God, how do I go a whole year not realize I got Black—no Black kids. But like I said, I teach kids, I don't teach color. | 1:29 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 1:36 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I don't know. And when I never got called out on my name until, God, when I get called on my name? I never got called a nigger until I taught in Maryland. And I could not believe, I was teaching a church school, I could not believe that somebody actually called me that. | 1:38 |
Chris Stewart | In a church school? | 1:56 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | In a church school in Maryland. And all the kids in that class were White, every one of them. And I was writing on the board and I turned, I said, I didn't hear what I thought I heard, did I? That's when the kids said, yes ma'am. I wasn't married then so I turned around, I kept on writing on the board and I turned back and a guy said, I did—did I really hear that? Somebody actually called me a name. They—and the kids, they were all quiet because they didn't know what I was going to do. Because hadn't never had a Black teacher before. And they said, yes ma'am. I kept writing on. But all the time now I'm— my blood pressure's steaming and rising. | 1:58 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And I turned around again. I looked at him, I hit the desk. I said, who was it that called me a nigger? And somebody pointed to this little White boy. I said, do you know what one is? Yes ma'am. It's somebody who's, I said, wait a minute. I said, who told you that? That's what mama said. I said, I'm going to tell you something. I said, your mama is a liar. I said, she doesn't know what a nigger is. I said a nigger does not apply to color. I said, somebody who is ignorant and what you are right now is ignorant. I said, you—I made him get the dictionary, I said, you write it 500 times what the definition of nigger is. | 2:31 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And he rolled up, he didn't like that one bit. His mom got mad. I said, I didn't give a rip. I said, I just want you to know that nigger has nothing to do with color. I said, you could be one just like me. Anybody could be one just like—and that's not, I just, I don't know. I just got so upset. I said, great day in the morning. Because the first time I ever experienced that, I said I woo anyway, I finally got over that. And then I got called out again at Brister by a parent. And I told him, I said, you want to see what one is? I said, you come out here. And I said, I'll show you what a nigger is. I was so mad. I was crying on the phone. And folk know when I start crying that I am really mad. You better get out of my way. | 3:01 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And honey, somebody got the principal said, Ms. White, you better come down in there because Myrtle is upset. And she is crying said, and I don't know who she's talking to, but they have really made her mad. And he had, this man had a son who had called three of my little kids niggers. And I had gotten on him about it over and over again. And I said, now I'm sick and tired of it. I said, I will not tolerate name calling in my room and talking about people's parents. I say, you don't know their parents and don't you talk about them. Anyway, I called her daddy and I told her dad, I said, Greg has something to tell you. And Greg said, Miss Myrtle said I called her a nigger blah, blah blah. And I didn't say that. | 3:38 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, Greg, if you stand here and lie to your dad in front of me. And he did. And so I took the phone, I talked to him. I said, yes he did. I said, how did I know he called him. I said, let me tell you something. I said, this is the third time he's done it. And I have told him over and over about it. And I will not tolerate the name calling in my room. Well how do I know you might be a nigger? I said, I beg your pardon. He said, that's what you just might be one. I said, really? I said, do you all see one? I said, come out here honey. I'll be there. I said, come right on. | 4:10 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And he came and honey my principal came and got me. And he said, Myrtle, he said, calm down. I said, this man don't know who he's talking to. I went in the teacher's lounge and I was so upset. And so the man came and Mr. White talked to him and told him, you don't know this lady. Said she's a big woman. She is a strong woman and you don't know who you messing with. Now you done hit the wrong one calling her a nigger. And so he came and told me, he said, Myrtle, he said, Mr. [indistinct 00:05:08] is here. He said, you can talk to us if you like. He said—I said, Mr. White. I said, I don't want to talk to him. I said, but I will talk to him and I said, I'm not going to promise you that I'm going to be responsible for the reactions. He said, now come on Myrtle. He said, now you are better than that. He said, you're not going to do anything foolish. I said, I'll try not. | 4:37 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, but if he makes me mad, I said I'm going to knock him out. And honey, I went down to the office, went down to the office, and Mr. White had three seats sitting there. And the guy looked at me and stood up. And when he looked—he stood up he had to look up at me. He said, how you doing Ms. Myrtle? He says, I'm so sorry. He says, I do apologize. He said, I really didn't mean to say that. And I looked at him, I said, yes sir, Mr. [indistinct 00:05:44]. I said, if it had been my child, I said, or a Black child would call another child nigger, I said, I done the same thing. I said, I didn't do it because Greg was White. I said, but I just do not tolerate name calling. He says, I'm really sorry. He saw how big I was and he backed off quick. And I never heard from that parent again. | 5:21 |
Chris Stewart | Do you think that your height has been a benefit in your life? | 5:59 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh yes it has. Oh yes it has. I have found, and I hate that though, but I found out that my statue intimidates people. I mean it intimidates adults as well as children. Now, I don't want anybody afraid of me. And I have a lot of kids in my school. They love me to death, especially the little ones and all of, they love me to death because I can relate to them. I play with them outside on the playground. I play kick ball with them. I'm playing softball with them and whatever. And they can relate to me. And they know when I'm playing, I'm playing. And when I'm serious, I'm serious and I mean business. I'm their friend when I'm playing but I'm Ms Myrtle when I'm in my classroom and any other thing. But yes, my statue has intimidated a lot of folk. | 6:03 |
Chris Stewart | You used it too? | 6:43 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And well, I don't have to honey, just look at me. And sometimes I wear three inch heels and that really push me up there. And there's not a person in my school who's taller than me. I got teachers that hit me breast height and it's like, God, you're a big woman. I said, you won't bother me will you? No, I'm not going to mess with you now. I said, all right then. Just know there's no use. | 6:43 |
Chris Stewart | Have there been any downsides to that do you think? | 7:03 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yes, because it has frightened some children. And when they fear me it bothers me. Because I don't want any of my children afraid of me. And I don't want them to think that because I have a deep voice and I have a large statue that I'm going to hurt them. And sometimes I can give them this evil look. I don't have to yell at my kids. All I got to do is catch them doing something wrong. And I look at them funny and they'll stop. That's all it takes. But I don't want to be used as a disciplinarian for smaller children. I've had teachers to bring me kindergarten kids and first grade kids because they feel I'm going to scare the daylights out of them. | 7:07 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And they come in my room screaming and hollering, crying or whatever. I say, sit over there the corner, be quiet. I'm teaching class. I don't want to go back to my class. I said, you behave yourself you don't have to come back down here no more. And I just don't like that. And the [indistinct 00:07:57] brought me some kids, I said, that tells me you can't handle the children you bring them to me for me to do what? Scare them to death. Don't use me. I'm not—I said I'm not going to be used that way this year. I made up my mind, you not—nobody's bringing me anybody for discipline. You discipline your child. They bring them to me, Ms Down and so on, do his work and so on. And I look and I say, am I the principal? Take him down. I'm not the principal. | 7:42 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 8:19 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | But they look at me as if I am because they know that all I got to do, look at them one time, call the name one time, I'll say, Hey, everything stops. | 8:19 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 8:27 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | When the cafeteria gets too loud, I'll stand up, tone down people, everybody stop. Teacher stop talking. Everybody stop talking. They say God Ms Down you speak everybody shh. I say, yeah. But it has its advantages and the disadvantages. It really does. As far as teaching is concerned. Now, if I was in a junior high school, in high school, then they wouldn't bother me at all. | 8:27 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 8:49 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | But when I'm with elementary kids and these kids are little small and I walk around the corner and they love me now, the little ones not afraid of me. And they look up at me, Hey, Ms Down you a big woman. You so big. I say, yes, sweetheart. They keep on going and I disrupt the lines because the kids want to touch me and they want to hug me and they want to grab around my waist. They can't get the arms around me. And the teachers are standing trying to keep the lines quiet and keep it in order. And I kind of go, shh. And they smile at me. I want to be in your room when I get to fourth grade. I say, if I'm still here. If I'm still here. But I enjoy teaching. | 8:50 |
Chris Stewart | You mentioned earlier when you were in high school, when—that there were some—what—that was the sit-ins and things were happening in high school. Well not actually in high school, but while you were in high school. And you also mentioned that this was a time when the KKK started people, you started to find out who was in the KKK. What did they do? | 9:28 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well, let's see. Of course KKK burned crosses in your yard. They made themselves known in Craven County area. But I cannot recall of any incidents where a Black was actually strung up, hung or killed by one. Not going to say they weren't, but I can't recall. And I'm sure before then, sometime earlier maybe but I know in the deeper southern part of the states they were. But I know that unfortunately Bridgeton is considered to be a very strong KKK town. And- | 9:52 |
Chris Stewart | Bridgetown? | 10:31 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Bridgeton where I teach. | 10:31 |
Chris Stewart | Bridgeton. | 10:33 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | So I heard and out near, let see, where is it? Is it out near Cole City area? Pleasant Hill area, out that way. There are some out there, but I don't know any, I don't know anybody who is one. | 10:33 |
Chris Stewart | Do you know of anybody in— | 10:50 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | No, I don't. I really don't. Not in any county. But like I said, I'm not going to say that weren't, but I guarantee you there was some, but I cannot tell you anybody who has, because I don't know anybody who's had a cross burned in the yard. | 10:52 |
Chris Stewart | How was the town's reaction? What was the town's reaction to this beginning of a student, the students beginning to challenge the segregation laws? | 11:07 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, a lot of them were very rebellious. Very rebellious. Because at that time, Dr. King was just now becoming, beginning to become known. And he was going to come to New Bern while I was in high school to make a speech. And unfortunately he was killed the day before. And there was a group called RAF Munch Group, some kind of RAF, something to do with RAF Munch. And they had a meeting at the courthouse I'll never forget. And they had talked so much about how Dr. King was a troublemaker. He was this, that and they didn't want him in New Bern. I mean it was a big mess. They didn't want him in New Bern. They didn't want him to come. And they almost poised a lot of the Blacks against him who did not know him or know anything about him or what he stood for. | 11:18 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And so they thought he was a troublemaker. But Ralph Abernathy came and he came to the airport and he had a delegation, went out to meet him and whatnot. They spoke to him out there. They would not let him come in town. Because I guess they were afraid of what might happen to him if he came into the city of New Bern. But when the youth began to challenge the Blacks, I began to challenge the Whites at that time. Or try to get—try to integrate certain things. We got evil eyes. People just, now people really begin to come out and call us names and they would throw things at you and tell you, we don't serve niggers here. They ain't say—didn't say, some of them wouldn't even be courteous and say, we don't serve Coloreds, we don't serve niggers here. | 11:59 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | But I'll never forget this incident where they served my mother and her sister. And they didn't realize they were Black. Because— | 12:40 |
Chris Stewart | You have to tell the story. | 12:48 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah. God, I must have been, let me see, I was in junior high school at the time and my mother was very fair, but her sister was much fairer. And she had this real slim eyes and she looked like she was Chinese. And when she smiled, she had this pretty smile and her eyes were closed and she had jet Black hair, jet Black hair. And so she was here visiting from Hamlet and Aunt Charlotte said, sister, I'm thirsty. I'm going in here by Soda Monday. Momma said no, they don't serve Blacks at the counter. Well I'm going in here anyway. Aunt Charlotte strutted back there [indistinct 00:13:27] and asked the lady for a drink and this, that. And now the woman gave it to her and they didn't say a word about it. Then my mom she went strutting back down and the lady served her too. I say, gee, whizz. | 12:48 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, I'm going back here with my mom. And Lord knows when I went back there, my little [indistinct 00:13:46] they look at me, well I'm sorry honey, we don't serve Blacks here. I say, you do. I say, you just served my mom and her sister. What? Oh well we just, and honey, I—all I could do was fall out. I just laughed and laughed and laughed. I got so tickled. I said, see, they can't even tell us, honey. I said, God has blessed us. We come in a rainbow of colors. I mean we come in all colors, all shades, all kinds of hair, this, that and other. And they could not tell about those two. And the woman served them anyway. I said, I know she thought that was her job. | 13:39 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 14:19 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I know she thought that that was her job. But it was—I didn't experience a lot of it, but I know what we went through, the things that we could not do and places we could not go. It was really sad. | 14:19 |
Chris Stewart | When the businesses start opening up. I've heard that in New Bern especially that restaurants would totally shut out to glass, there were side entrances where you could get food to go. | 14:35 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | TO backdoor like Moore's Barbecue? | 14:47 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 14:49 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Moore's Barbecue used to be on Broad Street right there where Scotchman is now. And they would not serve you in the front. You had to go to the back and get barbecue. And people still cater to them today. Still cater to them. I cater to them, I admit, yeah, I cater to them because I love barbecue and they make best barbecue around for me. But it's sad though, that you could cook their food but you couldn't go in and eat the food. But honey believe me, I am sure that during that time some of those folk ate some the worst food in the world because they don't know what Blacks did to the food. Because they'd spit in them as far as they knew they could have, could chopped that little bug put and there wouldn't known any difference. And I know in some places, like in DC they did, somebody told me that they chopped up a mouse, found a mouse and chopped up the mouse and put it in chicken. | 14:49 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, whoa. You did what? They put it right in chicken. One lady said she bought a box of chicken and found a dead mouse at the bottom. A whole mouse at the bottom of the chicken barrel. I said, God. But they did. They did. I'm sure they did a lot of things. Excuse me. I'm sure they did a lot of things. Things that they shouldn't have done. But still, I mean, you tell me I can cook your food, but yet still I'm not good enough to eat with you. But I can cook it and you want to eat my cooking and you don't know what I'm doing to it. And you the fool, did you ever see the movie Color Purple? Did you see what she did to the glass of water? Oh God, I tell you. I tell you. It was strange. | 15:37 |
Chris Stewart | How was it inside in school? What were the, say between students in high school? Were all the students for those students who were going to picket? Or was there some tension amongst students in high school or that— | 16:21 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Some of the kids, I feel like, okay, all of the kids, all of the Black kids especially wanted better education, wanted all of the benefits that the White students was having. And a lot of them were supportive of those kids who were brave enough to go out in the forefront. But they might not have been brave enough to go out there with them. They might have come from families, some of them came from families where, well I can't do that, but whatever you do, I go along with you. But I can't do that. They let other people who they thought had less to lose than themselves or less embarrassment to their family as themselves if they—we had some students, we had some Black students whose parents were doctors. Dr. Bryant for one. | 16:37 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Now I don't think he had any children old enough or was she old enough? No I don't think his daughter was old enough at the time to remember, to have been involved in the sit-ins or whatever. But if they came from families who you might consider elite, they might not have stepped out and they let the other children do it. But there were a lot of kids who were really, really brave that actually got out there and fought for what they believed in. And they didn't cause trouble. They just go and sit and they wouldn't get served and whatever and stuff like that. | 17:09 |
Chris Stewart | What was the relationship between New Bern kids and James City kids? | 17:55 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh my goodness. New Bern kids and James City kids were like kids from two different countries. It's a shame. But that's—they, the New Bern kids, the Black kids in New Bern unfortunately treated us like we were nothing. It's like they look down on us because we lived over here and at that time James City was classified almost like Trip Park, Trip Court or Craven Terrace. And that's the way he looked at us. And I don't know why because the kids over here were just as decent, just as clean, just as smart as the kids in New Bern were. They really were. And more than likely quieter. And they're probably quieter and had just as many honor students and whatnot. And to come out of James City as they did New Bern. And we have kids who grew up in James City that are teachers, that are doctors, that are lawyers, that are principals like Mr. Hickson he grew up over here. | 18:00 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Okay, he's a principal now. But they would, they looked down on us and made us feel like we weren't as good as they were. Now the sororities have a pageant every year. | 19:00 |
Chris Stewart | Sororities? | 19:07 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Sororities like the Delta Sigma Theta or the Zetas or the AKAs. And so I'll never forget the Deltas had a pageant when I was in 11th grade and all of course they had contestants from Jones County, Craven County, Pitt County probably, Colorado County. And I was a contestant. I had a cousin by marriage who taught school who taught me in the 11th grade English, who had a cousin that was in my class that was also running for the same position. And she really wanted her to win. Now she lived in Perry Town, [indistinct 00:20:03]. She lived in Perry Town, I lived over here. | 19:15 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | She really wanted her to win. But she didn't win. I won. I won. Yes I did. We have had about three that I know of probably more girls from this area that were queens of these pageants. Nowadays these pageants consist of raising 10, 12, 13, $15,000. And this is how much they said how much money they raised to win now. But when I won I only won 400 something. Back then there wasn't a lot of money. You won 400 something. And I think Mr. Louise Deadly daughter, Deadly's daughter was one of the queens of the Jab Walk. It was called the Jab Walk pageant. I was one. And I think there's been another one since then. But I'll tell you honey, sure these people were almost killed to try to win these pageants. They should but there was sometimes a lot of rivalry between the New Bern kids and the James City kids. | 20:05 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And I just never understood why, I said, I guess they think they're better than we are. And it was a shame that they thought that. I said, you Black just like we are. I mean you have, and a lot of them didn't have any much more than we did. A lot of them didn't have as much as we did. And sure, at least some of us, a lot of us had both parents. Some of them didn't, they had one or they had—and we weren't troubled with a lot of alcoholics in our families over here. Parents drinking and drugs and whatnot. And no telling what those folk did over there. No telling. | 21:00 |
Chris Stewart | Speaking of alcoholics and things, were there any bad places in town that you weren't supposed to go to? That you were, across the highway? | 21:35 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah. Well, gee whizz there were bad place in town that people were not supposed to go to, but I don't even know where it were because I never went. Oh ships, oh, let's see. I don't know. I'm trying, oh, Main Street. When I got in high school, there was a place on Main Street. I don't know the name of the club. I went there one time. It wasn't all that bad, but they sold liquor in there. It was like a little bar and stuff. And I was go in there with a girlfriend of mine. But I wouldn't, I never drank. I never drank and I don't smoke. And so, believe me, I'm sure there were a lot of little, what they call honey holes around. I don't know where they were. I really don't know where they were. But I'm sure there was. Because I know there one over in James City though a little— | 21:43 |
Chris Stewart | Is there any in this area? | 22:25 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | A little honey hole across the highway where they call it honey hole. No, that's what I call a honey hole. But then you would call the honey hole and then some other area over here they had where that you weren't, that kids were not allowed to go to. | 22:26 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 22:39 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I don't know, but I'm sure. I'm sure there were. I'm sure. | 22:40 |
Chris Stewart | Miss Gavin was telling me that her father owned a pool. | 22:45 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | A pool hall. Yeah. The building's still standing now. | 22:48 |
Chris Stewart | Did—was—he still have it while you were coming up? Was that a place that you weren't supposed to go? | 22:51 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I never went there either. Now he would say all like she does, he sold all candy and stuff like that for the children. And I can't recall ever going there to buy anything. But I think his pool business might've been upstairs further in the back. Further in the backside. | 22:57 |
Chris Stewart | Tell me that all men. | 22:57 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah, basically. Kids, no, the kids weren't allowed to go and hang out then they didn't. | 22:57 |
Chris Stewart | What about, you said you didn't date at all? | 22:57 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I sure didn't. | 22:57 |
Chris Stewart | Were you interested in the other men? | 22:57 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Not really. There was not, there was not a man, a young guy in James City that I was interested in. And I was very well content. That was just not, I don't know. Well, I really don't know why, but I know my daddy just, my daddy was living. He would not allow a young man even watch us. But I was too young for anybody to come see me anyway. But I'll never forget when I was eight years old, he let me go to the store to Miss Anna's store was down here. And there was these group of boys, about six of them hiding in the bushes right over here. And it was just about, just dark. Hadn't gotten dark yet. He never let me go out by myself. And they jumped out after me. And when they jumped out after me, I screamed and ran back home and he got mad. | 24:01 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | He says, because he just knew they had attacked me and everything. And so he get in the car, get in the car, and we got in the car and drove down here and the boys came out there. Mr. [indistinct 00:24:24] we didn't bother. We didn't touch her, we didn't touch her. Mr. we didn't bother. We didn't bother. He said, if you did then I'd take you to jail. He's like, all you to jail like you. But that was the last time I think my dad ever let me go anywhere by myself that young and go out. But oh, I wasn't interested in the young boys over— | 24:15 |
Chris Stewart | What about any social clubs, your organizations in high school? | 24:40 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Let me see. I guess the social clubs that probably, that were was like the, no, this was the social club. The Tri High While was an Honor society. I was not a member of the Tri High. We had the FTA, Future Teachers of America. We had student government, we had the chorus. I was a member of the chorus. We had the debating team. I was not a member of the debating team. Homemakers of America. I was a member of Homemakers. What else do we have? I don't know if we had any science clubs or not. I don't recall. Basically that was it. Cheerleader, was not a cheerleader, but I was, like I said, I was quit job walking high school and that was that. Yeah. So we didn't have, I guess, enough for us. There was the band. I was not a member of the band. I was a member of the chorus. | 24:49 |
Chris Stewart | Where did you go to college? | 25:47 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I started at Fayetteville State. I went there for two years and I transferred, went to Elizabeth City. | 25:48 |
Chris Stewart | Why'd you transfer? | 25:52 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well my mom had had an accident. Broke her leg. | 25:52 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, okay. | 25:52 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And so I decided I'd go from where I considered closer and I was—I almost stayed up my junior year of school. But I went back so I went to Elizabeth City and finished out there and had a nice time at Elizabeth City. | 25:58 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah? | 26:08 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah. Quite a few experiences. That's when I had my first boyfriend. | 26:13 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 26:15 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah, sure did. He was a basketball player, captain of the basketball team. A senior. And I was a freshman because I had to go back. I lost credit so then I had to jump from a freshman to a junior the second year. And then I went on to be a senior. But Elizabeth City was pretty nice. It was pretty nice. It's all Black school, state supported school. And I majored in educational, minored in music. And they wanted me to major in music. But I said no because I knew it was a lot of headache. And I had a friend that majored in music and he was younger than myself. And he was bald before he got out of high, but before his junior year, lost all his hair. But he was an excellent musician. He was an excellent musician. And I became interested in another young man who taught in the system. | 26:19 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I was in college, he was older than me. I don't know how many years. Couldn't have been more than seven if he was that much older. And I was interested in him. But he was so quiet. He was so easy going. And he was shorter than me. I said, oh God no. But I was always attracted to musicians and always attracted to brilliant minds. And he was an excellent pianist too. Then I got interested in another young man who lives in South Carolina now, who was an excellent musician. Nice looking. I said, something has to be wrong with him because he is too pretty and he plays too well. And come to find out he couldn't talk. He's stammered like crazy. | 27:13 |
Chris Stewart | There you go. | 27:52 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, he was tall, nice looking. Yes indeed. And then unfortunately turned out that he had other interests. I said, okay, fine. That's what you want. Okay. I did my best to save you. And after that I left. He was gone so I couldn't save him. And my friend said, well Myrtle, they got him now. I said, okay. And I hated that. I really hated that. But he felt that that's what he wanted to do or felt that's the way he was. He said his mom and dad always suspected that's the way he was. I said, what I, oh, I cried like a baby. When he said Myrtle, we can't see each other anymore. And he gave me back my ring. I said, why? I said no. He said, I'm this way. He said, you know how I am. I said, no you're not. He said, yes I am. He said, and you just don't want admit it. He said, let's just do it. | 27:54 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | He said, I can't find it anymore. I wouldn't argue with him. But I have his address and phone number. I called every now and then just to check on how he's doing. And hopefully he's doing well. I said, well just be careful. Commit finally, and get in favor that you don't want to. | 28:36 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 28:50 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yeah. | 28:53 |
Chris Stewart | What would you do on a date? | 28:53 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Huh? | 28:53 |
Chris Stewart | What would you do on date? Where would you go? | 28:55 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | In college? | 28:57 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 28:57 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, basically— | 28:57 |
Chris Stewart | Away from home. | 28:57 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Away from home. Basically I stayed on the campus or either go downtown shopping a group of girls that go downtown shopping. I didn't like, I don't know I never took an interest in football games so I wouldn't even go to football games. I think I only went to two games the whole time I was in school. And if I went more than that, it's because I went with a friends or all I would do was sit around, holler and yell. And I didn't understand the game so didn't matter to me where I went or not. But by me being in the college choir, we had a chance, I did a lot of touring. And we would go to New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We would go to Pennsylvania, go to New Jersey. How far away did we go? I think the furthest we went was New York and we hit the East coast all the way down to Virginia. | 29:02 |
Chris Stewart | Did you ever go further south? | 29:49 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yes. Well, not in college, but I have traveled further south. | 29:49 |
Chris Stewart | But the college chorus? | 29:52 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | The college course, no, we didn't go further south. After I graduated, they ended up going to England. And I really, I was, oh man, I should take off a year and go with them. But yeah, they went to England after I graduated and I really missed that. I really did. | 29:54 |
Chris Stewart | Were there—did you get involved in any organizations on campus or in college? | 30:08 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I almost joined the AKAs sorority while I was in college. I started off, because I had 3.0 average- | 30:15 |
Chris Stewart | Almost? | 30:20 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Well the thing was a lot of the kids, the big sisters were younger than me and I could not have those little girls telling me what to do. I said, I'm not sitting in trash cans for anybody and I'm not going to stay on the sidewalk and say, good morning big sister and you standing don't say nothing to me. Walk past me and I got standing like a fool waiting for you to speak to me. I said, no, I'll wait and go and postgraduate, graduate chapters or whatever. But I have not joined a graduate chapter yet other than the one that I'm in now. | 30:21 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | So no, I was not in any organizations other than chorus again in the music club in school. And I had one professor that wanted me to major in biology. Because she said, oh you're very good, very good. I said, no ma'am, I don't like biology that well. She said, but your grades are so well and you just love these asylums and you love these classes of water and blah blah blah. I said, I don't like biology because I can't stand dissecting frogs. I looked at dead animals so no, I just went on elementary education because I wanted to teach children. I went to teach, I sure did. | 30:45 |
Chris Stewart | What time—where did your dream of becoming a teacher come from? | 31:19 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I think it came from my mom. By her being a teacher. I think I decided I was going to walk in her shoes. It was either that or nursing. And I had an experience of working in the hospital my senior year in high school just before I went to college. Because I had never worked before and I wanted to do something. Well we had the Coastal Progress Organization at that time and they were trying to find children from low income families to work and was going to pay them to train them to do certain jobs and whatever. And the lady came by here and she said, Myrtle, are you interested in working? I said, yes I am. She said, well, I'm afraid you don't qualify. I said, but why? She said, because your mother makes too much money. | 31:25 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, that's not fair. She said, well you can volunteer. I said, I'll volunteer then. And so I volunteered at Craven County and worked on the fourth floor. I learned everything the LPNs knew. | 32:06 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 32:20 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | The first week and they put me on payroll. | 32:20 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 32:22 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Made me a private duty nurse. And I enjoyed it immensely. I mean I was doing everything LPN nurses were doing and I just really enjoyed it so if I had not taught school, I'd have gone into nursing. I really would have. | 32:24 |
Chris Stewart | What is it about teaching that you love so much? | 32:36 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh, the reward is the progress and the glow in the children's eyes. And they having been able to accomplish something. Being around kids, I guess being an only child, I love kids. I just love children. I have 11 godchildren, 11. I sure do. And I'm still considering adopting a child when my high school kids get a little older. I really am. Crystal wants me adopt one so bad now she wants an older child that she can paddle around with. But I am considering adopting a child even to today. But I want an infant. One what will grow up with me. | 32:38 |
Chris Stewart | A baby? | 33:13 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Yes, I want a baby, but my reward is just seeing the children progress and learn. I really enjoy that. If I can just save one life or save one child from streets or help in some way to mold him to be a better adult or to be a productive citizen, then that's my joy. And I have talked to a lot of kids and taught a lot of children who have said, Ms Down, I want to be a teacher just like you. I said, really? They said, yes ma'am, I want to be a teacher just like you. In fact, I had a little boy that called me the other day who I had in the fourth grade that he is now in the eighth. And he said, Ms Down, he says, I'm going to teach school. | 33:14 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, really? He said, yeah. He said, I'm going to teach it just like you. He said, because you were hard on me and you made me see what was really in me and brought out the potential that I really had in me and made me really do well. And you didn't let me slide by and just do nothing. And I said, great. And they said, I'm going to be a teacher just like you. And I have heard that from a lot of kids. I've heard that from a lot of kids. And it makes me feel so good that children find something in me that they want to emulate. That I'm an example for them or a role model for them. Doesn't matter what race the child is. If I can touch them in a way where they see that education is rewarding and being a productive citizen is rewarding, then whatever I can do to help them reach that dream. | 34:04 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And I tell them, I say set your goals high. Set them higher than you probably can accomplish. Set them high and reach as high as you can. Just don't be satisfied doing mediocre stuff. Minimum. Be satisfied making minimum wage. I said make it. I said, no, I'll talk—do you want to be flipping burger all your life? No ma'am. Do you want to go down downtown standing bread line? Do you want to have to live on food stamps for all time? I said, now there are some people who do that. I said, but some of them cannot help but do that. And we are not knocking those that do. But if you can do better for yourself, then do so. Then do so. I said, because one thing I hate is a lazy person who is physically able to work and my tax dollars got to buy your food stamps for you and take care of your butt while you lay right here and have baby after baby after baby living on welfare. | 34:51 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, I have no pity for anybody like that. And I said, now in my classroom, I see, doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses. And I tell them all the time, they sit right there and listen. I give lectures, I tell myself getting off on a tantrum and do lectures in the classroom. And I hear the kids, oh there she go. Ms Down going to start talking there, talk us to death. And I tell them stories all the time. Every time we study something, I may run across a word or run across a picture of something that reminds me of something that's happened in my life. And I share my personal experiences with them. And the parents say, Ms Down I've heard so many stories about you and I just enjoy the story that the kids come home and tell about you. | 35:41 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And I have told them the story, my accident with my arm, with my foot, with the bicycle. We had ghosts in our house in Maryland. I told them a story about that. Yeah. | 36:19 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my goodness. | 36:27 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I mean real life ghost. Real, real dead ghosting. We had real ghost. | 36:27 |
Chris Stewart | Well tell me. | 36:27 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh God. It was, let's see. We lived on Kramer Court. The last house was village where we lived in the Maryland. The first time I saw one was in the lower area. The first, second house that we lived in, in that community. And my daughter was, I guess about maybe two if she was that old. But she stayed in the crib and she was in our bedroom. And this particular night my husband got up and went to the bathroom and I turned over and I just drifted off, went back to sleep. Well then when I woke up and I turned around and looked, this figure was peering down on me. And that's what you looking at me for? He didn't say anything. And he looked right at me like he was mad. I said, I get your butt in the bed before I hit you, stop staring at me like you crazy. And so he still didn't say anything. | 36:39 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And I kept looking. I said, I'm going to slap you in a minute if you don't get in the bed. And I reached up, I slap it in my hand right through it. I said, oh. And I turned the light on and went and looked and Bill was in the bed sounds asleep. I didn't even know he was back. I woke him up, he got scared. He said, oh my goodness, it's your daddy. It's your daddy. He don't like me. I said, my daddy don't know you. And he did. My daddy didn't know him. Well that was the first experience. Then we moved to a three bedroom house, apartment. And the kids were, Crystal was in the first grade. Lacy was in the third and Everett was in fifth, sixth, about sixth or eight. | 37:28 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And the way the house was situated, my room's in the front. And then you walk out my room and into the hall, you turn right and the kids, the boys' room and that my daughter's going to be on the same side of the bathroom, be over here and always let the light on the bathroom so they have some light upstairs. And we'd be downstairs sometime off either having dinner, watching TV, we always little rumbling and noise upstairs, dropping stuff and this, that and other. I said, Bill, who's upstairs? One of the kids, I guess. We didn't pay no attention to it. But before then, Crystal used to come in my room every night because Bill worked at night and Crystal be shuffling across the floor, coming, mommy, mommy, there's a little girl in my room. | 38:14 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, what? She says, a little girl standing at the foot of my bed. Well, I mean little three, four year old girl. I said, oh she's—no, no Crystal was first grade, about six years old. She's imagining things. She don't know what she's talking about. I said, honey, go back to bed. I said, there's nobody in there. Nobody in there. I said, you got a light shining in your room. And she had a canopy, right? She did that for about two weeks or more. There's a little girl standing foot of my bed. I would move all the clothes, anything was hanging on the bed post anything was hanging on the door knob and make sure nothing was hanging up that looked like a figure person. | 38:52 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | She kept on saying that and she'd come in my bed and climb my bed with me. And in the meantime, we continued to listen to and hear the noise and whatnot on the floor. I told one of my children one day, I said, go upstairs and see who it is. And they said, mom, you go look. I said [indistinct 00:39:34] I said well go upstairs and see who was upstairs. And we looked for all the kids downstairs. One night I was in the bed and Crystal, I said Crystal ain't come to my room tonight. I locked my door. Well in middle of the night I felt this little feel laying behind me. I said, oh Crystal come here and got in my bed with me right. I just stayed there. And that next morning when I woke up, I went to go out in my bedroom and bedroom door still locked. | 39:23 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And I asked Crystal, I said, Crystal, did you come in my room last night? She said, no ma'am, you told me not to come in there. I said, okay so I don't pay no attention. After a while, another night I was home and this huge figure got in the bed with me and it was a body of a man and threw his arms around my waist and held onto me and scared me to death. And now Bill wasn't home. And I said, oh my God. Oh my God, what is it? And the bathroom door was right here and the light was on, and I was scared to turn around, look over my shoulder. And I said, oh Lord, if I had to go to bathroom, let me go to bathroom myself, get up. And honey, he held onto me all night long. And when Bill came home that morning at seven o'clock, I heard him coming in, I ran downstairs. I said, tell me you came home last night. Tell me you came home. | 40:05 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | He said, no, I didn't come home last night. You know I didn't get home until seven. I said, Bill, yes you did come. I said, you came home. You went to bed didn't you? He said, no. Why? I said, somebody got in the bed with me last night. He said, oh my God. I said, it was a man. I said, because it's whole about the bed just sunk. Just sunk right in. And you can feel somebody getting in the bed behind you. Well, we went through those changes. We went through those changes. And one night we were sitting downstairs and Edward in the sixth grade was going upstairs. And all of a sudden he come barreling back down, said screaming, hollering, mommy, mommy. I said, what? He said that little girl, I saw a little girl. I said, well who expect it's Crystal. No it's not. No it's not. She got on a White dress. | 40:48 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, what? He says, little White girl, she got on the White dress. I said, oh my God. I said, that little girl that Crystal been saying, she been seeing every night. Sure enough, my next door neighbor, now we the only Black ones in this circle. My next door neighbor had company to come and we went outside and they introduced us to their company. They used to live next door to them. And so they said, I hear you live next door apart. I said, yeah. They said, how you like your new house? I said, oh, we like it fine. They said, any strange happiness over there? I said, like what? They said like things fall or footsteps. I said, why you asked? He said—I said, well yeah, we had some occurrences over there. They said, that's why we moved. I said, what do you mean? He said, the house is haunted. | 41:28 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, what? He said the house is haunted. I said, oh God. Well we had seen the little girl, had experience with the husband. But before all this happened, the man held my husband down by the shoulders on the sofa in the dining room. That's how it all started. Bill came in late one night and he didn't come upstairs and he laid down and watched television and fell asleep. And the guy got him by the shoulders and pinned him down to the chair. And Bill felt the force on the shoulders and he couldn't move. And he kept saying God. And when he finally turned him loose, he ran upstairs and said, and he cussed and carried on stair. I'm not going to ever sit downstairs. I said what you talking about, he said, somebody held me down to the sofa and I couldn't get up. | 41:41 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I said, oh Bill, you stink, you been drinking. He said, no, I have not. No I have not. And so anyway, when the people told us the house was haunted I said, yeah. I said, we've had experience with the husband, had experience with the daughter. I said, now all we got to do is see the wife. Sure enough, one afternoon when I was cooking in the kitchen, the kitchen was designed that there was a big open window here. And the door is right there and the stove was here. And I happened to turn around. I went to the dryer and I happened to turn around and got ready to come back to the kitchen to the stove and look and saw her going down the hallway. | 42:41 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | And that was the end of it. And we never had any more experiences. When they realized that we weren't afraid of them, it didn't bother us anymore. I tell you honey, it was an experience to behold. I said, my goodness. And folks, oh, you lying. No such thing as ghost. I said let me tell you something. I said, when your husband and your children experience it and you got more than three people in the house, they experience the same thing. Don't tell me there no such thing as ghost. Because North Carolina is known for his ghost. Now you go to the library and get some books. You will find out that North Carolina is full of stories about real live ghosts. Especially the woman. No. Is it a woman or a man? Lason is a man that walks around. Lason? Is it a man that walks around down by the railroad track looking for his head once a year, every year. It's a man, not a woman, right? | 43:10 |
Speaker 1 | It ain't no woman. | 43:55 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | It's a man. Looking for his head. | 43:57 |
Speaker 1 | When you went to the library. | 43:58 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Looking for his head, he walks down that railroad track a certain time of year every year. | 44:02 |
Chris Stewart | White man or Black man? | 44:05 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | A White man looking for his head. | 44:06 |
Chris Stewart | What is the story there? | 44:08 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | I don't know. I don't remember because I haven't read the story. But it's in the book. It's in the one that, what's it called? I don't know. It's a real thin book, to the library. If you get a chance, go get it. And he looked for his head. I think he lost his head. They said how the man lose his head? | 44:10 |
Speaker 1 | [indistinct 00:44:25]. | 44:23 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Train cut his head off. I said, God— | 44:28 |
Chris Stewart | You stayed in that house? They didn't— | 44:35 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Oh yeah, they didn't bother us anymore. We stayed right there. | 44:35 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 44:37 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | Because see, I'm not, and I'm not afraid of dead people anyway. Because I experienced my first death touching a dead body with my grandfather. My grandfather died in the night and we didn't know it. And my mother and father sent me upstairs to give him his breakfast. I said, my mother's in a wheelchair at the time because she had broken her ankle. She had broken it twice. And I took the tray upstairs to feed my granddaddy. I didn't like him, no I thought he was mean and crazy. But he wasn't. And I said, Papa, wake up. Eat your breakfast. He didn't wake up. And I shook him and shook him. I said, wake up, eat your breakfast. I stuck the straw in and I said, drink your milk. He laid up there sleeping. I said, shoot. I was tired messing with him so I took the tray and I touched him on his hand and everything and went back downstairs. | 44:37 |
Myrtle Davis Downing | That was an old homesteads. And took the tray back and my dad said, your grandfather didn't eat the breakfast. I said, he won't wake up. He said, what? I said, go up to talk to your grandma. Talk to your mom. If I wouldn't [indistinct 00:45:31], I said, mother Papa wouldn't wake up so I couldn't give him his breakfast. She said he wouldn't wake up? I said, no. I said, he's cold as ice. Lord, when I say he was cold as ice, she knew that he had died. Boy she [indistinct 00:45:41] the hallway, screaming and hollering, carrying on. I said, what? I said, oh Lord, he's dead. The man's dead. And I had been touching and carrying on, so I hadn't been afraid of death folks since. And I went up to bed about in a minute. My dad came back here after he died. He came back— | 45:07 |
Myrtle Downing | Yes. Let me see. How long was it? I don't know how long it was after he died that he came back. But my dad used to wear, it's a waxy kind of something, a stick. It was a black stick, a waxy black stick that people put in their hair to dye their hair to keep it from showing all the gray. And the day bed was right here that my daddy practically died on. And we always kept our walls clean and my daddy came back and left his head print on the wall. He sure did. | 0:03 |
Chris Stewart | You saw? | 0:30 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah, we saw the head print. It wasn't there and wasn't that I—one day I came through and I looked, I said, "What's that big old greasy spot over there?" And so I looked and a nice one round head print and I told her, I said, " [indistinct 00:00:42] look." She said, "What?" I said, "Look at that print right there." She said, "Where'd that come from?" I said, "I don't know." And then Lacy, she said, "Your daddy was on that, on the day bed when he practically died." I said, "Yeah." She said, "He came back and left his head print." | 0:30 |
Chris Stewart | Has he ever come back since? | 0:59 |
Myrtle Downing | Uh-uh. I've never seen him. I would love to see. I've dream about him but I've never seen him. I would love to see him. Now when my mother used to become ill, not feeling well depressed or whatever, her mother would come back through the window to stand at the foot of her bed. | 1:00 |
Chris Stewart | Really? Did she see her? | 1:14 |
Myrtle Downing | She would see her. She would see her. And my mother, she said her mother wouldn't talk to her necessarily but she was stand there and watch her until my mother would feel better and then she'd go on back out the window. I said, "Lord have mercy." But poltergeists and spirits and whatnot, the old folk call them haints. "I saw a haint." | 1:16 |
Myrtle Downing | Now my dad used to walk my nanny home every day. After he died, he walked home for a week. Because he always, when he was living, he'd always walk Aunt [indistinct 00:01:47] home in his stocking feet, in socks. He'd always walk down to the corner and walk her home, make sure she got home okay. Because she always left here at night when it got dark and he walked her home every day. And even after he died, he continued to walk home for another week. And she was scared to death. And she would hear—yeah, she was really scared. She'd hear his footprints, these little footsteps beside and she stopped. She said she turned around the street and look, she wouldn't see anybody and she kept and she walked some more and she'd hear them again and she would go home. | 1:38 |
Myrtle Downing | And for a while she couldn't think. And she told her husband George. He said, "Ain't nobody but Mr. Lacy." He said, "You know he used to walk you home, so he's not going to stop until he knows that you can get home by yourself." And after a while he stopped walking her home and she didn't hear him anymore. But he walked her home for the first week after he died. | 2:10 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 2:27 |
Myrtle Downing | I said, "Lord have mercy." But I mean to tell you, I don't know. I miss my dad. I miss my mom. And sometimes I feel like I missed out of my teenage life, but I really haven't, because unfortunately a lot of my classmates, kids my age, are now grandparents. I didn't miss out on anything. No indeed. I had my fun in a different way. I used to sit and watch Dick Clark. | 2:27 |
Chris Stewart | There you go. | 2:57 |
Myrtle Downing | What was it? American Bandstand on Saturdays. Yeah. I would entertain my own self. I sure did. | 2:57 |
Chris Stewart | How would you say that your life, whatever aspects of your life is different from your children? | 3:02 |
Myrtle Downing | From my children. Oh my. Much, much. Everything is a lot different. The children nowadays grow up a lot faster than we did. They mature a lot faster than we did. They're more girl crazy and boy crazy than I was when I was almost an adult. They're thinking about girls and girls and boyfriends, gosh, in fifth, fourth, third grade. And they don't know how to enjoy life like we did. They want so much and it takes so much to please them now, wherein it was the little things that pleased us. Like I told you earlier, we could go out and play with tire rims or tires or skip roping stuff and kids nowadays are into video. They're into electronics and in the computer stuff. And the simple things in life, they're just missing life because they're not looking at life as being something sweet and simple. | 3:08 |
Myrtle Downing | They're looking for the hard stuff. If you don't drink nowadays, you're nobody. If you don't smoke, you're nobody. All kids are not that way though. But some kids unfortunately have to be part of the crowd. In order to be part of the crowd, you've got to smoke or you've got to drink or you've got to do drugs and stuff like that. Or you've got to hang out all night. But kids nowadays are living such a fast life. I kind of think that's why a lot of them are dying so early because they're living in a fast life. They're not living a slow, they're living in a fast life. And they want so much as if every day, each day is going to be their last day. They're trying to cram everything they can in now instead of taking life day by day, enjoying what they can, being as young as long as they can, staying a child as long as they can and not worrying about boyfriends and then all of a sudden getting pregnant and having babies at 13, 14, 15, 16 years old and ruining their lives. | 4:07 |
Myrtle Downing | I don't know. I told them I would not be a kid in this day and time now for nothing in the world because first of all they are faced with so many different pressures. Peer pressure, family problems, school problems, teacher relationship and student relationship problems. There's just so many drugs, AIDS, there's just so many things out there confronting them that they have to be mature enough to sort out and prioritize what I'm going to do, who I'm going to hang with, who I'm going to go, what I'm going to do with my life, and stuff like that. They just, I don't know. It frightens me. It really frightens me. That's why I try so hard to continue to instill in my kids that you must stay in school. You must stay away from drugs. You must stay away from sex as often as much as possible. I know my boys haven't. I just know they haven't. But you've got to be careful if you do. | 5:01 |
Myrtle Downing | Now my daughter honey, hopefully she'll keep hers until she's about my age. She claims that she will. But anyway. And I try to let them know that whatever their endeavors are or whatever their goals is to always put God first. And if you put God first, you will not fail. You will always succeed. Remember to pray every night. Remember to pray. I don't care how often or how less you go to church. Pray. I say, thank God for something every morning you get up. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for letting you wake up to see another day. Thank him for anything. If you've got a toothache, thank him for it. Thank him for the toothache. Thank him for the rain. Just like you do. Thank him for the sunshine. There's always something to be thankful for. I said because kids are dying your age as well as they'll die my age. Just be thankful. | 5:58 |
Myrtle Downing | I said, you've got to be ready. I said, because you don't know the time or the hour God's coming back. I said if you're out here, call yourself having a good time, being in the world and enjoying yourself, and have not repented Christ and he calls you home, don't think you're going to heaven because you've got sins. You've got sins on you that you have to get off. And that old cliche about, your sin's not only until you 12 years old. I say bull. Ain't got nothing to do with it. No sir. I said sin, your sin's on you as soon as you're old enough to know right from wrong. And kids are old enough to know right from wrong before they even turn a year old. Don't even think about that, just because started preaching, Jesus started preaching when he was 12 years old. It has nothing to do with it. | 6:48 |
Myrtle Downing | But I tried to rear them in church cause I grew up in church. I grew up in church. that's all I knew was church. When we moved down here from Baltimore, I told the kids, I said, "Now I'm going to tell you something. When you moved to North Carolina, you're going to be living in the country." I said, "You will not have the big malls to go to like you have here. You going to have the civic center to go to like you have here and this, that and the other to go to." I said, "You're not going to be that close to King's Dominion. You're not going to be that close to Wild World." | 7:25 |
Myrtle Downing | I said, "All the folks know around here is church." I said, "It's church, church, church all the time." And hon, I churched them to death when they first came here. They were going so much they said, "Mom, I'm tired of going to church." They sang in the choir. I had them in Sunday school this day. And every time the choir went somewhere or every time I had to go somewhere, they were in church all the time. All the time. Two and three times a week. Every Sunday. And that really, now he got tired. He hadn't in church in two years, but I'm getting back here because he's only 16 years old and I don't want him staying out of church. | 7:50 |
Myrtle Downing | And I just knew that I make sure they all have their own Bible. I said, read it. I don't care what you read. Read something. And we have a youth hour in our church every Sunday. And you have the kids say Bible verses. And I tell them, I say, "I don't ever want to hear the same Bible verse twice. I don't. And whatever verse you say, you say all of it." And my daughter, she knows some real long ones, three or four verses to a chapter. She likes that. She really loves—but my son, since he's been in college, I'm sure he has not been to church since he's gone to college. But I want him back in church too. | 8:19 |
Myrtle Downing | I said, "Because first of all, people tend to forget from whence they came. And when they think they are becoming successful and they got this, they're able to go to college, they forget God." I said, "Because he's the one that helped you to get there. He's the one that helped your mom to help you get there." I said, "Because you have no financial aid. Your college money comes out of my pocket." And they have nothing. They don't. I pay for it myself. And I told him, I said, "Edward," I said, "When you get a job, learn to tithe." I said, "All you do is give God 10% of your earnings." I said, "If you do that, your money will continue to multiply." And sometimes they don't want to hit me preach to them, but I say, "I'll preach to you anyway." | 8:50 |
Myrtle Downing | I said, "Because I'm not going to be responsible for you going to hell if you go." I said, "Because if I have taught you and giving you and God has given you the opportunity to do what you're supposed to do, then you have no excuse." I said, "But if you don't know and you are ignorant to it, then you've got all the excuse in the world." I said, "But it won't be on my head. It's not going to be on me." Because see, their father was not a church goer. And I found myself staying out of church I guess about three or four years after we got married for quite a while. And that was not like me because that's all I knew was church. I'd never missed church in my life. Even in college I went every Sunday. And so then we started going, I got him going, and we went as a family. | 9:27 |
Myrtle Downing | And I told him, I said, "The Bible says our father, the male is the head of the household." I said, "You ought to take your family to church. Not send them but take them. And if you're not going to take them, then I have to pick up the slack and I have to take them." I said, "Because my children will be Bible oriented and church oriented." I said, "Because I grew up in church and because you did not doesn't mean they're not going." | 10:09 |
Myrtle Downing | I don't know. That's about all I know. And my life has been geared to children, to church work, and to community work. I have no life of my own. I do not. And I'm praying that God will bless me with another husband. And this time I'm going to let him be the one that chooses him, because I chose the first time and made a big mistake. This time I'm hoping that he will send me somebody good for me and my kids and someone that I'm going to really be able to love and be proud of and he'll be proud of me. But don't send me anybody short, Lord. Please send me somebody tall. [indistinct 00:11:14]. Don't send me anybody short. | 10:37 |
Chris Stewart | Please. | 11:15 |
Myrtle Downing | And somebody with education, somebody with money in their pocket. They can help me out. It don't have to be the best looking thing in the world, but look out for me. You know what I want. | 11:16 |
Chris Stewart | I'm sure you've been making— | 11:24 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh yeah indeed. Yes. And I talk to him like I'm talking to my kids. My kids say, "Who are you talking to?" I said, "I'm talking to the Lord." "Golly." I said, "Yep, I'm talking to him." I said, "Nothing wrong with that." | 11:25 |
Chris Stewart | I have one more question for you because you said your kid or kids, the church, and your community. How has your community changed? | 11:35 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh, the community has changed a whole lot. I can remember as a child, everybody was—they still do. Everybody knows everybody. You could live sleep with your doors open. You never had to lock your doors. And still don't. My door is never locked. My door hasn't been locked in two years. And you're in out of people's homes. What was theirs is yours, what was yours was theirs. And we were a close, close-knit community. I've watched it grow. I've seen places where there once were trees and now houses. And we are just church oriented community. There are five, six churches in the community now, which I think are too many. It's not enough people in James City to fill all these churches. But some churches grew out of other churches like Reform Shiloh grew out of Mount Shiloh. | 11:46 |
Myrtle Downing | And we're just a very close community. When families lose loved ones or grieve and everybody chips in, everybody goes and helps out. They cook for them and whatnot. The only thing that really hurts me about this community is that the kids that grew up along with me, because James City used to be flooded with children, flooded. The kids that grew up with me that have moved away have no wish to come back to live. And I think it's sad because I feel like if they've been blessed to go away and to get a good education or to prosper in any way, they should come back and give to the community what they have been allowed to get no matter what form it's in. It could be helping the elderly, it could be setting up programs. It could be doing tutorials, helping kids, helping to develop a playground for the children or something. | 12:40 |
Myrtle Downing | I'm sure that everybody can give back something. And that's what I call myself doing. Coming back, giving back of myself and enjoy my mother while can she's still here. Let her enjoy three grandchildren. And that's the only thing that really, really bothers me. "I'm leaving James City and never coming back." I said, "And James City soon will die." I said, "Somebody has to stay here and keep it going." I said, "We have a lot of history and folks should be interested enough to come back [indistinct 00:13:59] should come back." And I wish— Folk are beginning to move back home now, but not fast enough for me. Not fast enough. Not fast enough for me. I really would love to see a lot of folk come back home and stay, actually stay. I hope one day this community, we can have a James City homecoming, just a community homecoming and people from all over just come. | 13:34 |
Myrtle Downing | We have our family reunions and this, that, and the other, and church homecomings. But we need a community homecoming, plan a whole weekend just to have the community come back and see, what can I do to help? If you don't do anything but leave a financial donation to do something in the community. If you don't do anything but clear a lot, helped clear a lot, to beautify the community because we have a lot of abandoned homes in James City and a lot of abandoned lots that need to be cleaned off to beautify the community. We have to take some pride in ourselves. Because we don't, nobody else will. Nobody else will. | 14:22 |
Myrtle Downing | And when you've got on a handful of people that are interested and other folks sit by, "Well, as long as mine looks good, I don't care about the rest. People go out there and kill themselves. I'm not going to do it." We got a lot of senior citizens here. We got more senior citizens here than we've got anybody else. And a lot of them are female and they are widows. And so everybody needs somebody to look out for. Kids can go and, "Miss So-and-So, can I do something for you today? Would you like me to take out the trash or can I run an errand, go to the store for you?" This is what I'd like to see. This is exactly what I'd like to see. Children doing missionary stuff. That's what I call missionary work. I don't know. There's So much that I have in my head and in my heart that I'd like to see done and would like to do. I can't do it. I don't know. I don't know. | 14:58 |
Myrtle Downing | Life's just too short. And I would die first before I ever saw everything done. And who's going to think about it? "Oh, well, she was a good worker. She did this. She dead and gone." And then boom, that's it. Of course, I wouldn't be doing anything for credit for anybody to say, put me on a mantelpiece, nothing like that. But I like to leave some kind of legacy, leave something back here for folk to continue to work for just like Grace with the historical society. She, myself, and Ms. Thelma Wright are the founders of the James City Historical Society. | 15:43 |
Chris Stewart | I think that that's something that would be—what an incredible legacy for you. | 16:19 |
Myrtle Downing | We are the founders. And see, we need somebody, we need these young folk to get interested, to come along with us so that if something happens, when something happens, when we are gone, there'll be somebody to continue to carry on. Let James City stay on the map for as long as it can stay on the map. The community might be here, but it might be something else. By the time 2050, '60, '70 comes along, no telling. We just need somebody to continue the work. And we are getting older. We can't do it. We just can't do it. We can do all we can and hopefully we can accomplish a lot in our lifetime before we go on that folk will see and they will want to keep it going. They just want to keep it going, but—Lacy, is your grandmother's chair on? Looks like it's on. But anyway, we have so much to leave. We have so much to leave and so much to do. And it needs to be done by all of us collectively, not just a few of us. Just a few of us. | 16:25 |
Chris Stewart | Are there any questions that I should have asked you that I didn't? | 17:26 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh, let's see. Let's see. I think you've covered the fact of what it was like to be an only child, school, integration and segregation, religion, community. | 17:29 |
Chris Stewart | You're just like a teacher, listing these things off. It's great. It's wonderful. You've got them all in your head. | 17:47 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah, I think recreation, what we did for fun, recreation purposes, I think we just about covered it all. I can't think of anything right off hand that—Oh, did I tell you how I used to sneak my mom's car? | 17:55 |
Chris Stewart | You told me how you knew how to drive when you were nine. | 18:09 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah, but I used to sneak her car. When she found out I finally learned how to drive, she would tell me to go out and put the car in the garage and honey, I would just sneak it off and go for a little ride and run up on people. At that time, the so-called honey holes, you find Mr. So-and-So with Mrs. So-and-So. I'd say, "Oh look. What?" Yes, indeed. I would drive over to Pollocksville, 11 years old. | 18:11 |
Chris Stewart | Pollocksville you said? | 18:33 |
Myrtle Downing | Uh-huh. | 18:35 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, man. | 18:35 |
Myrtle Downing | And by me being so tall, I would sit up high and nobody would ever know. I used to go the back way through Bryce's Creek Road and whatever. But I'll tell you, I don't know. I had fun. I really had fun. | 18:36 |
Chris Stewart | Sounds like you were young child with a lot of, hmm. I don't know. A lot of guts. | 18:46 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah, I was. I did. I had a lot of guts. I used to do a lot of stuff. I didn't do anything that was degrading or anything that was bad. But I used to have adventures, so to speak. | 18:55 |
Chris Stewart | There you are. Adventures. | 19:00 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah. | 19:03 |
Chris Stewart | Well, I tell you I a questionnaire part of the interview, which is basically biographical information that accompanies the tape. If I can ask you these questions. | 19:03 |
Myrtle Downing | Fine. That's fine. | 19:17 |
Chris Stewart | Your full name. | 19:17 |
Myrtle Downing | Myrtle, M-Y-R-T-L-E. Louise. | 19:18 |
Chris Stewart | Now I'm doing this backwards. | 19:23 |
Myrtle Downing | Davis Downing. | 19:31 |
Chris Stewart | Davis Is your maiden. | 19:35 |
Myrtle Downing | D-O-W-N-I-N-G. D-O-W-N-I-N-G. | 19:39 |
Chris Stewart | And your current address is 400? | 19:44 |
Myrtle Downing | 404. | 19:47 |
Chris Stewart | 404. | 19:47 |
Myrtle Downing | Brooks Drive. | 19:49 |
Chris Stewart | And your phone number? | 19:50 |
Myrtle Downing | 636-5337. | 19:59 |
Chris Stewart | How would you like your name to appear in any kind of written material that might result from this? | 20:03 |
Myrtle Downing | Myrtle Davis Downing. | 20:08 |
Chris Stewart | Your birthdate? | 20:19 |
Myrtle Downing | 7/9/47. I used to think I was born on THE 19th. That's what they told me until I got my license. I was born on ninth. | 20:20 |
Chris Stewart | And you were born here in James City? | 20:31 |
Myrtle Downing | Well, James City is all I know, but according my birth certificate, I was born in Richmond County. | 20:35 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 20:38 |
Myrtle Downing | But you better put Craven. | 20:39 |
Chris Stewart | Should I? | 20:41 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah. | 20:42 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. And you're currently divorced. | 20:47 |
Myrtle Downing | Uh-huh. | 20:49 |
Chris Stewart | Your parents' names? We have your mother's name. —no, I should get all this— | 20:53 |
Myrtle Downing | You've got—yeah. | 20:58 |
Chris Stewart | I have all your mother's— No— | 20:58 |
Myrtle Downing | But you don't have her—no, you don't have my father's, anything. | 21:01 |
Chris Stewart | Right. Let me get your father's. | 21:04 |
Myrtle Downing | Okay. My dad's name was Lacy. L-A-C-Y. | 21:05 |
Chris Stewart | L-A-C-Y? | 21:09 |
Myrtle Downing | Uh-huh. Holland. H-O-L-L-A-N-D. Davis. In fact, I named my son after him. | 21:10 |
Chris Stewart | I see that. | 21:17 |
Myrtle Downing | He has his whole name. | 21:18 |
Chris Stewart | Does he really? | 21:20 |
Myrtle Downing | His whole name. Yes. | 21:20 |
Chris Stewart | And when was he born? | 21:23 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh God, I don't know. I guess 1896. | 21:24 |
Chris Stewart | And he died— | 21:33 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh, maybe 19—let me see. Wait a minute now. My dad was 59 years old when he died. And he died in 1957. You figure it out. | 21:34 |
Chris Stewart | 1898. | 21:38 |
Myrtle Downing | 1898. Okay. That's what I figured. | 21:40 |
Chris Stewart | He died in 1959? | 21:41 |
Myrtle Downing | No, '57. | 21:48 |
Chris Stewart | '57. And was he born here? | 21:51 |
Myrtle Downing | Where is he from? Jamesville. I don't know where he's from. I honestly do not know. | 21:54 |
Chris Stewart | Craven County? | 21:57 |
Myrtle Downing | I don't think it's Craven County. No, I don't think— | 22:00 |
Chris Stewart | He was an architect. | 22:04 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah. My dad? My dad was, yeah. No, my dad was a carpenter and a brick mason. | 22:07 |
Chris Stewart | Your children's names? | 22:21 |
Myrtle Downing | The oldest one is William Edward Downing III. | 22:23 |
Chris Stewart | And he was born when? | 22:35 |
Myrtle Downing | December 23rd, 1974. They're all holiday babies. | 22:37 |
Chris Stewart | 1974 you said? | 22:44 |
Myrtle Downing | Mm-hmm. | 22:45 |
Chris Stewart | And where was he born? | 22:47 |
Myrtle Downing | Baltimore, Maryland. | 22:48 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 22:54 |
Myrtle Downing | Lacy Holland Davis Downing, 5/27/77, Baltimore also. | 22:55 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 23:13 |
Myrtle Downing | Crystal Louise Downing, 4/14/79, Baltimore. That's all of them. | 23:14 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. Do any of your kids [inaudible 00:23:36] your father? | 23:33 |
Myrtle Downing | No. Oh, that's right. | 23:37 |
Chris Stewart | Stupid question. You lived here. This is residential history. You lived here in James City until you were how old? | 23:39 |
Myrtle Downing | Until—well, now What do you mean? You want me from up to college, till I moved away? Or when I moved away permanently? | 23:51 |
Chris Stewart | When you moved away, because your residence was still this, still James City— | 23:59 |
Myrtle Downing | Until I moved away in '72. | 24:03 |
Chris Stewart | And then you were in Baltimore? | 24:10 |
Myrtle Downing | Mm-hmm. | 24:11 |
Chris Stewart | For how long? | 24:13 |
Myrtle Downing | Until 1986. | 24:14 |
Chris Stewart | Right. Okay. Now we want your school history, starting from the beginning. | 24:33 |
Myrtle Downing | Okay. You mean elementary school? | 24:36 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. | 24:38 |
Myrtle Downing | Okay. Vance Borough Consolidated. | 24:39 |
Chris Stewart | And that was for grades one through eight, did you say? | 24:51 |
Myrtle Downing | Mm-hmm. | 24:52 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 24:52 |
Myrtle Downing | JT Bobber. | 24:56 |
Chris Stewart | And that was nine through 12? | 25:07 |
Myrtle Downing | Mm-hmm. Fayetteville State University. Two years there. Elizabeth City State University. Three years. | 25:10 |
Chris Stewart | What year did you graduate? | 25:42 |
Myrtle Downing | '72. | 25:44 |
Chris Stewart | And what degree? | 25:47 |
Myrtle Downing | BS. | 25:48 |
Chris Stewart | Is this a double in music and education or education- | 25:50 |
Myrtle Downing | Education and music. Masters. I mean BS in Education and a minor in music. And John Hopkins, that was grad school one year. Bowie State University. | 25:53 |
Chris Stewart | Just keep on going. How do you Bowie? | 26:23 |
Myrtle Downing | B-O-W-I-E. Some people call it Bowie. | 26:27 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 26:32 |
Myrtle Downing | That's where I got my MA. I was there for three years. | 26:34 |
Chris Stewart | What was your MA? | 26:41 |
Myrtle Downing | In reading. | 26:41 |
Chris Stewart | Used to go with a guy whose sister-in-law had her MA in reading. I've come to realize that really cool people get their MA in reading. She was very cool. | 26:41 |
Myrtle Downing | I declare. | 26:48 |
Chris Stewart | Johns Hopkins is in Baltimore, right? | 26:54 |
Myrtle Downing | Uh-huh. | 26:56 |
Chris Stewart | And where is— | 26:57 |
Myrtle Downing | Bowie? Bowie is in Bowie, Maryland. | 26:59 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 27:00 |
Myrtle Downing | And I plan to pursue a PhD degree in psychological counseling. | 27:09 |
Chris Stewart | Really? Where are you going to— | 27:16 |
Myrtle Downing | I don't know. I'm looking at ECU's program and then I'm looking to whoever that I can commute back and forth, unless I take a sabbatical. | 27:21 |
Chris Stewart | How far is ECU? | 27:29 |
Myrtle Downing | About 45 minutes. | 27:32 |
Chris Stewart | That won't be too bad. And you might even be able to— | 27:33 |
Myrtle Downing | I'll drive back and forth every day, three times a week or whatever. | 27:38 |
Chris Stewart | Right. Well, and you might even be able to work something out with professors in terms of coursework if you had— | 27:41 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah. | 27:47 |
Chris Stewart | Why a PhD in counseling? Why? | 27:49 |
Myrtle Downing | Well, because I seem to get along so well with the children. And I've, in my teacher experience, a lot of the kids, the kids confide in me. They tell me everything. They tell me something they wouldn't tell their parents or the principal. I just feel like it's a calling. I feel like it's a calling. | 27:54 |
Chris Stewart | You'll get there. | 28:13 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh yes. I intend to. I'm just waiting till the oldest one gets almost through college before I start. And then I guess two little ones, and I call them little ones, and I'll be in school at the same time. | 28:15 |
Chris Stewart | There you go. Sounds good. Okay, now we're to work history. | 28:27 |
Myrtle Downing | Work history. Okay. Let's see. Any kind of work? What kind of work? | 28:31 |
Chris Stewart | Any kind work. | 28:38 |
Myrtle Downing | Any kind of work. Well, the first time that I ever worked ever was when I was 18 years old and I wanted to work so bad. I cleaned this lady's house for her and it was supposed to be a week's job and I did it in two days. Oh wow. And then I had to cut grass third day. There was nothing else for me to do. | 28:39 |
Chris Stewart | She had you do that? | 29:01 |
Myrtle Downing | I asked her what else could I do? And she paid me. | 29:02 |
Chris Stewart | Was this after you were done with high school? | 29:05 |
Myrtle Downing | This was after I was doing high school because I could not, I didn't qualify to work a real job to make money. | 29:07 |
Chris Stewart | Right. It was like a summer job? | 29:14 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah, but it was only for— | 29:18 |
Chris Stewart | Three days. | 29:21 |
Myrtle Downing | Three days. | 29:24 |
Chris Stewart | Nice. Okay. | 29:24 |
Myrtle Downing | Housekeeper. | 29:30 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 29:31 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah. | 29:32 |
Chris Stewart | Was that here in James City or was that in— | 29:33 |
Myrtle Downing | No, that was in Newburn somewhere. | 29:35 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 29:36 |
Myrtle Downing | And then the next time I ever worked was at Craven County Hospital as a private duty nurse. | 29:37 |
Chris Stewart | And how old were you then? | 29:55 |
Myrtle Downing | Still 18. | 29:56 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 29:56 |
Myrtle Downing | And the other kind of work I've done was teaching and I've been teaching ever since. | 29:57 |
Chris Stewart | Have you been teaching always in Craven County school? | 30:00 |
Myrtle Downing | No. My first year teaching was in Richmond County schools. | 30:02 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 30:05 |
Myrtle Downing | I taught one year there. | 30:06 |
Chris Stewart | What year was that? | 30:10 |
Myrtle Downing | I started teaching '71, '72 I think it was. Oh, '72. I might've started teaching '72 because I moved in '72. I started teaching in '72, I do believe. | 30:12 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. And then where? | 30:26 |
Myrtle Downing | And then I moved to Maryland and I taught there until I moved here. Taught there until 1986. | 30:26 |
Chris Stewart | And then you're right now— | 30:30 |
Myrtle Downing | Uh-huh. That's Crystal. That's 14 year old. | 30:46 |
Chris Stewart | She's tall. | 30:47 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah. She's a track star. She's taller than I am. | 30:49 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. Really. Have you ever received any awards or honors through your church, through your community? Held any offices? | 31:10 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh yeah. Lots of offices. No, I can't say I've ever received any awards or honors. I don't remember any. But I have held lots of offices. I've held the Office of Basileus in my sorority. It's a teacher sorority for Phi Delta Kappa. | 31:20 |
Chris Stewart | What is the office? | 31:41 |
Myrtle Downing | It's basileus. It's like president. | 31:44 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, how do you spell that? | 31:46 |
Myrtle Downing | B-A-S-I-L-E-U-S. B-A-S-I-L-E-U-S. | 31:47 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. And that's kind of like president. | 31:55 |
Myrtle Downing | I hope I spelled it right. | 31:58 |
Chris Stewart | And that's for? | 31:59 |
Myrtle Downing | National Sorority Phi Delta—it's for my chapter, Epsilon Eta. Chapter Epsilon Eta. E-T-A. | 32:01 |
Chris Stewart | I'm sorry. | 32:14 |
Myrtle Downing | E-T-A. | 32:14 |
Chris Stewart | I'm not Greek. And this is what? | 32:14 |
Myrtle Downing | The National Sorority of Phi Delta Kappa. It's all over United States. Phi Delta Kappa, P-P-A. Of course you know I'm president of the James City Community Association. Let me see. I'm on the board of directors for the James City Historical Society Vice President. First Vice President for—okay. First Vice President, board of directors for James City Historical Society. | 32:16 |
Myrtle Downing | Let's see. Slipped my mind just that quick. It'll come back to my minute. I'm on the board for, let see what I'm on the board for. What's it called? Community Development Improvement. Oh, what is it? I've got the article. I'm on the board of directors for housing development plan. Let's put it like that. Sure. Can't think of the name of it right now. I have been superintendent of my son's school, church musician for three churches, Sunday School teacher, youth group director. | 33:08 |
Chris Stewart | Sunday school? | 34:18 |
Myrtle Downing | Teacher. Youth group director. I've been in a lot of committees in my school, such as in the planning committee, the staff development committee. That stuff, you don't need know that stuff. It's not important. Yeah. I can't think. I guess that's about it. | 34:19 |
Chris Stewart | What church do you belong to? | 34:51 |
Myrtle Downing | Mount Shiloh Missionary Baptist. Oh. I'm also a member of a lodge, a Masonic Lodge called Order of the Golden Circle. Member. | 34:53 |
Chris Stewart | You are? | 35:27 |
Myrtle Downing | Uh-huh. | 35:27 |
Chris Stewart | Is this a secret lodge? | 35:29 |
Myrtle Downing | Mm-hmm. | 35:30 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 35:32 |
Myrtle Downing | Yep. Order of the Golden Circle. | 35:33 |
Chris Stewart | Why did you join it? | 35:34 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh, I just wanted to be part of it. I wanted to be in another organization that had sisterhood and one that did a lot of charitable things for the community and for kids. Yep. Let's see. Is that it? | 35:36 |
Chris Stewart | I just hate that we can't ask any questions about that too. | 35:59 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh, of course we have secret secret knocks and this, that, and the other. And yeah. Oh, I'm also chairperson for my Xeno group. It's a youth group that's within the sorority, the Phi Delta Kappa Chapter sorority. I'm chairperson for my Xeno group. It's a group for girls. Yes. I guess that's it. | 36:04 |
Chris Stewart | You think you have enough going on? | 36:39 |
Myrtle Downing | Too much. | 36:40 |
Chris Stewart | You're a busy woman. | 36:41 |
Myrtle Downing | Too much. | 36:41 |
Chris Stewart | Are there any other hobbies or activities that you'd like to include? | 36:46 |
Myrtle Downing | I like bike riding. I like swimming. I like softball. | 36:50 |
Chris Stewart | Do you have a softball team? | 36:58 |
Myrtle Downing | No, but I've been trying to get one over here. I like tennis and I do all of them. What else do I do? I like playing board games like Monopoly, checkers. | 36:59 |
Chris Stewart | Checkers is pretty popular around here. | 37:15 |
Myrtle Downing | Uh-huh. Uno, regular card games like spades and 500, pinochle. Trivia Pursuit, Bible trivia pursuit. Both of those. I have both those games. And playing piano. Of course I do like playing piano. Yes I do. | 37:16 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. The final thing that I have to do now is to get your permission. We have interview agreement forms to get your permission to place this tape both in the collection, the big collection that's going to be made at Duke University and the collection that's going be- | 37:48 |
Myrtle Downing | That is fine with me. | 38:03 |
Chris Stewart | But of course there's a form associated with this, so let me show you. And what we have is we have two different agreement forms. There's an interview agreement form in which you place absolutely no restrictions on the tape. That means that really anybody who wants to, can come and listen to it, can use it in their classrooms if they'd like, can write about James City and use your tape— | 38:05 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh really? | 38:31 |
Chris Stewart | —to do that. Then there's also the form that does place restrictions on it, and you could place any kind of restrictions on it that you would want. Some people have placed restrictions on a tape by stating that they wouldn't want any part of their tape to be used without their permission. And that somebody would have to contact you— | 38:33 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah, true. | 38:54 |
Chris Stewart | —if they wanted to use any portion to quote from your tape for publication. | 38:54 |
Myrtle Downing | I understand. | 39:01 |
Chris Stewart | you can do with restrictions or without restrictions? | 39:03 |
Myrtle Downing | Well, I think maybe I'll start out with restrictions. | 39:06 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. How would you like to restrict it? | 39:10 |
Myrtle Downing | Well, just like you said, any portion of the tape, not knowing what portion might they might want. I like to know first what part they would like to use. | 39:12 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. And can I place that for publication purposes or would you like that for any purposes? Say for example, if the student was listening to the tape and had to write a paper or something for a class, would you want them to have to contact you regardless? | 39:21 |
Myrtle Downing | Or, gosh, that might be a big hassle for them to do that. | 39:38 |
Chris Stewart | It might be a big hassle for you too as well. | 39:44 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah, no, if they heard it. No, I wouldn't go through all that. | 39:45 |
Chris Stewart | Publication is the, I'm trying to think of anybody who wanted it. it's a good idea, I think to do for publication. | 39:50 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah, that's fine. | 40:00 |
Chris Stewart | Like student papers are student papers. | 40:01 |
Myrtle Downing | That's fine. I don't mind. | 40:04 |
Chris Stewart | Must get permission to quote for publication from you. They have to get permission in order to— | 40:34 |
Myrtle Downing | But you mean now for student papers and publication, that's same thing? | 40:42 |
Chris Stewart | No. | 40:44 |
Myrtle Downing | Oh, okay. | 40:45 |
Chris Stewart | For things that are going to be published, that means things that will be— | 40:47 |
Myrtle Downing | Publicly. | 40:48 |
Chris Stewart | —published in a journal or a book. None of the other things are published. | 40:48 |
Myrtle Downing | Okay. That's fine. | 40:49 |
Chris Stewart | you don't think you're going to be able to go tonight? You've got other things going on? | 41:04 |
Myrtle Downing | Yeah, I have a church meeting and I really needed to—because I really need to be there and I really needed to—Mary want me to bring a, what was it? A vegetable tray. I don't have any money for a vegetable tray and I need to get in contact with her so she can find somebody to do it. Do you know where she is right now or how to get into contact with her? | 41:07 |
Chris Stewart | We've just had her home phone number. That's all we have. | 41:30 |
Myrtle Downing | I wonder if she's at home, because I really need to get in touch with her. I don't mind sending chip and dip. And I just might. When you take me by to pick up the car, I might go and get some that, but I don't have any money right now for a salad tray and that's one of the biggest things she wants. I need to get in touch with her and tell her to do so. | 41:34 |
Item Info
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