Margaret Neal interview recording, 1993 July 19
-
Download
- Rights
- Files (3)
-
MP3
Part 1
-
MP3
Part 2
-
MP3
Part 3
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
- Document
- Share
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| Rhonda Mawhood | For Mrs. Neil. But you were born in Wilmington? | 0:01 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes, in November of '34. | 0:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | November of '34. And what part of Wilmington did you grow up in? | 0:10 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | In the south side. Partially. So we moved to the north side and I was in Taylor Homes for about six years with my mother and father. | 0:15 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what did your parents do? | 0:32 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, my father worked for a furniture company, home furniture company. He was a truck driver. He delivered furniture. My mother was then just a housewife, then she worked out and did domestic work for a while. | 0:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How old were you when she started doing domestic work? | 0:47 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, I guess I was about seven or eight. Somewhere along in there before. | 0:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your father, his truck driving took him only around Wilmington or out of this—? | 0:57 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Just right here in town. Yeah. As far as I know. I don't remember him ever saying he went any farther. He used to deliver furniture for a home furniture company. | 1:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And who else lived in your home besides you and your parents? | 1:14 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I was the only child. Yes. Up until later years. I have a sister that is 13 years difference in age. Yeah. When she started school, I finished high school. The year she started, I finished high school. And my mother and father separated though when I was about 12. And then we moved back to the south side. My aunt, grand aunt had a home there and she gave it to my mother, and we moved back on the south side, and I decided to stay at my grandmother because my grandfather had just died and they wanted someone in the house with her. My mother's sister taught school in Warsaw, North Carolina, and she was taking care of my grandmother. So she decided taking care of me. After that, I stayed there until I finished school, with my grandmother and my aunt. My mother's right around the corner because the houses was just a block apart. | 1:18 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And so just say I didn't see her, I saw her every day. And I even went there and had to help take care of my sister, even went there and cooked and did all, because she started working then in the laundry. After I would get out of school, I would go around there and cook for her and thing, because my grandmother had my food, she was there home all the time. She didn't work, she didn't do anything. So I would go home and do things for her because when she got in from that laundry work all day, she didn't have that to do and I was glad to do it because I always liked to cook. I always did. | 2:20 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | So after I finished school they wanted me to go to college, but I did not want to go. That's how I got into beauty school. I did not want to teach. I always wanted to be a secretary. I don't know. It was in my head. But during that time, there wasn't any jobs for Blacks for secretary work. And my aunt, she the one that sent me to beauty school. It took me about two years before I decided to go there. I did work in domestic work for about a year and a half with a lady that moved here with Timmy Cooperation. She was from White Springs, New York, White Plains, New York. And so that was her first time to the south. And I met her. | 3:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Where was she working? I'm sorry. | 3:49 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Her husband's job brought him here. Timmy Cooperation, used to be a plant here called Timmy Cooperation. And I started working with her, taking care of her kids. She had two when I first started, and she had three before I left. But she was very, very nice and she had to adjust to the southern ways and she used to question me a lot about different things. But I got along with her very well because she treated me more as a person than as a Black slave or a person just working for me. I was more like a friend because she was new to the area. And she had White friends around and she used to tell me how they would try to change her mind about the way she treated me, because I used to go in her front door. And that's something you didn't do back then. When you went to the person house to work, Black went 'round to the back. | 3:51 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And I always went in her front door and they said that wasn't a proper way. And she told me about that. She said, "Well this is my house, I can let you come in any door I want you to come in." She said, "Well, what's wrong with that?" I said, "Well, this is the South and things is different." And she said, "Well, I'm not a southerner and I'm not going to change my way. My mother had people working for us in New York," and she said, "They came in any door they wanted to." So she never changed that. And we would all sit to the table and eat if I ate with them. Now maybe when her husband was home, I did not. But just the three of us and the children, we all would sit there. And she helped me a lot far as telling me things about the north, and I told her things about the South. And we got along very well. I worked for her about, I'd say about two years, just about two years and a half. | 4:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did she tell you about the north? | 5:38 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, she was telling me about—Well she lived out, you know where White Plains is in New York. And when she grew up it was all White. She said there wasn't any Blacks there besides the people that worked for the White people. And she said that they didn't treat the Blacks the same as the Whites did in the south. Well see to me, I didn't know because I'd never been up north more than New York City. And she said that they always—I'm trying to remember now, it's been quite while. She told me about the Blacks there, the Blacks that she was in contact with, were just like a friend, not as a slave, not as a worker, but a friend. And she said that's how they were brought up to treat Black people as friends. And they were human beings just like they were. | 5:41 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And that's about the most that she said. She said that a lot of them that—She called some lady that used to work for her parents, but I don't remember the lady name, she said that they helped sent this lady son to school, and she had been there ever since she was a baby and raise her, and she was an old lady then. She was talking about her son was grown and he was a teacher and she was telling me all that. She said, "I'll try to help you as much as I can." I told her I didn't want to be a teacher because my aunt, she would've sent me to school because that's exactly what she wanted me to do. But that was something I never wanted to do was to teach to school. | 6:39 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Why not? | 7:16 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I don't know. I just didn't. I really don't have no reason. I love kids. I really do. But I just did not want to teach school. I think my aunt used to come on so much, she had so much work and I used to help her with it, and grading papers and doing all this stuff, and she would bring all this stuff home on the weekend when she would come home and she was always going to summer school and I said, "You never get out of school. I don't want to teach at the school." But things had changed then, when she started teaching during that time. What did they call it? You could finish school about eighth and ninth grade and go into teaching. So that's why she had to go to school until she got her degree. Every summer she was in school at Fayetteville State. That's where she went to school and that's where she graduated from. | 7:19 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well see during my time, you would go to school, you go 12 years of high school, four years of college. But they didn't do it that way. And when they went out, they could teach and they went to summer school during the summer and that's how she did it. And finally she got her degree. But I thought, I said, "Every summer?" Then after that she got her degree, she still was going to school, she got a master. But she never married, so that was her life, teaching. She loved teaching. And during her time of teaching, in the country, the children was very, very poor and she took up a lot of time buying clothes, buying shoes and bringing them home. She used to bring them home. They started a Xavier Festival here and she would bring them home, had about 10 or 12 of them pile them up in the house, some kind of way to spend that night and carry them back that Saturday after the parade. | 8:14 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But that was her life. She died about a year ago, the 22nd. This might be a year. And they really turned out for her. They kept up with her, the ones that she taught because she was so nice to even the families, they kept up with her. And they used to give her so much food and hams and turkeys, chickens and vegetables, she used to bring all this stuff home, because that's how the parents repaid the teachers. Back then, teachers took up a lot of time with the kids. It's a big difference. I work in the school now as a custodian and it's a big difference, but it's different the way children are being raised too. It makes a lot of difference. | 9:08 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was your aunt's name, Mrs. Neil? | 9:55 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Nesville Wright. | 9:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And where did she teach? | 10:00 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | In Warsaw. | 10:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | In Warsaw. | 10:02 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | She taught there for 40 years. | 10:02 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. You say she never married? | 10:03 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Never married. Well the reason she didn't marry, my grandmother said that it was some young man in her life and during that time, the old people were different. My grandfather, he wasn't good enough for his daughter and she said that she think that's what stopped it because he was very dominant she saying, and nobody was good enough for his daughters. And then after my aunt went to school and started teaching, oh she had to marry somebody in his standard, I say. And she never really got involved with anyone else. She had a friend, I remember when I was young, but that didn't work out either. But my grandfather didn't live long enough for him to get social security. Social security had just started when he had it, so I think she just dedicated her life to my grandmother. | 10:08 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | She started taking care of her and fixing the home and everything. So my grandmother had nothing to worry about, but she always wanted her to get married. But she never did. And she was just like a second mother to me. And because I went to her then I wouldn't go to my mother because I knew she would always do for me. Just like I knew every month that she got paid, I would have me a new outfit. That was part of her life, part of my life, part of hers. I didn't have to ask for it, she just had very good taste. And young people clothes because she could buy me the prettiest things. | 11:05 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I had one of the girls laughing. She would be talking about hard times. I said, "I can't remember hard times." And I don't really remember of having a hard time. Not worrying about where my food was coming from, worrying about where I was going to get some money or clothing. Because when I was brought up, I always got that. I told him, "I got poor if I got married." I said, "I had to work so hard to get to where I am today." But I appreciate every bit of it. And he said, "So you was spoiled." I said, "Oh, no, I don't think I was spoiled. I might have been." I said, because I never mind working and I always liked nice things. And I said, Martin never had to come home and say the house was dirty or anything. Her house, you could walk in anytime, her house was clean. Anytime. She didn't have to worry about stuff like that. I'd say, "If I felt like I was spoiled. I'd be sitting up there doing nothing when she come in." I say, Me and my grandmother or something. | 11:45 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But my grandmother, she was 90 years old when she died. Mm-hmm. And we were so close. I'd say in my adolescent years, I was there with them, not with my mother. But my mother was always in the picture though. She was right around the corner and she was there every day if I wasn't around there. But I lived in the house with my aunt and my grandmother. | 12:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did you do with your grandmother? | 13:07 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, she used to talk to me about old times. She always would talk. She talked about the riot here in Wilmington. She was 12 years old she said when that happened. And she would tell me about her parents and the hard times they had when they were growing up and how the type of home they live in, they could look up and see the sky. The house was so old. And she was raised by her grandmother. Her grandmother was an Indian and she was raised by her. She said she don't know who her father was. And she had two sisters and I don't think there was any boys. I never heard her mention of a boy, but she had some cousins and things like that. When she got married, she had two kids, two girls, but she raised my grandfather's brother's children. That was five of them. Because both parents died and they took them. I used to think they were my mama's brothers and sisters because they was always there. And she explained to me, no they weren't. They was my grandfather's brother's children. | 13:10 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And so she raised them and as far as I know, they had a good time in the home. Her house burnt down I'd say in about 1937 and they had to rebuild. She said that the lady next door told her her house was on fire, she said she was sitting on the front porch. And you cooked with a wooden stove then. And she told them, "No," she said, "That's the smoke coming out the chimney." She said, "Ms. Wright, your house is on fire back there in the back." And so when she went in, that's what she saw. All the smoke and fire. And all she could do at that, she just had me laugh, talking about she had all this money stuck around in the house and she had to run around and get her money because they would hide money. They didn't think about putting it in the bank during that time. She said she had to get around and get this money out. And she said the man that came down there to help her, all he did was pull out a piano. | 14:19 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | During that time, if anybody ever told you, but most all Black people had a piano in the house. The kids took piano lessons. This is something that they did back then. Whether you made anything out of or not, everybody took piano lessons. And she said he went in there and grabbed that big old piano instead of getting some of her furniture. She lost everything but the piano. And so the piano was—She said he guess he thought that was about the best looking piece of furniture in the house. So this is what he brought. And she said when the fireman came that the house was just about gone and the water wouldn't work and so she just lost it all. But they built it back. My grandfather built another home and it caught a fire about five years after that in the kitchen again. But it wasn't bad. It was just a small place in the area of the kitchen. That's all. | 15:24 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But I had a good life. I enjoyed my family. My grandmother, she talked a lot, and I slept with her till I was about 14, which I had a bedroom and my aunt said, "Get out of that bed, you get out." I just liked to be in there with her. And I used to lay back there with her, me and her talking, and she could tell me a lot of things about old times. That's what it was. | 16:22 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | She grew up in Wilmington? | 16:44 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. She grew up here. Far as I know of. She didn't ever tell me she was from any—My grandfather was from Ashton, North Carolina. That was where he was from. But she was far as I know was from right here. And all her children was born here. | 16:45 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did she tell you about the riot of 1898, Mrs. Neil? | 17:05 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well she was telling me about when they started. She said that she was working because she didn't get her education and this man came home, the man she was working for, and he told her, he said, "Della, you stay here in this house." He said, "We are going to kill some niggers now." Just like that. And she said, "What?" And so he came in and said he had a room with a lot of guns and came to get his gun. He said, "You stay here, you'll be safe because we going to kill some niggers." And she said the problem, what started the riot was that they found out that the people want to say it was about—I forgot. | 17:08 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But anyway, she told me that what started it, they found out the Black men was messing with the White women and they did not know it. And when they found out they were just going to kill all the Black men. And that's what they was after. They weren't worried about the Black women, just the men. And a lot of Black men had gave them a lot of trouble and they was after them too because she said her nephew, her sister's son, was always in trouble with the White men. | 17:47 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | So she said that when he left home, she ran out of the house to warn her sister so she could find her son. And she said she ran on home and she got home, they were living on Front Street during that time, she said when she got home she told her sister and her son happened to be there at the time. That they were so glad because she said he knew he would've been one of them that was killed. So they put him up under the house up in the chimney. During that time the house is set up high she say, and you could go up under the house and you could go up in the chimney, the way that they was built. Because the chimney was built all the way to the ground. | 18:16 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | She said when they came looking for him, she said they searched their house because they knew where he lived because he'd been in so much trouble. And she said that they ran all up underneath the house and everywhere. But he was still up in that chimney. They didn't go up in there to look. And they told them they would come back because they was going to get him. But they didn't come back. She said, and what happened, she said they didn't really kill that many but a lot of them was running from the White man and they ran to the river and they couldn't swim, a lot of them drowned. She said she don't think they killed that many. But she said the man they were looking for to put this article in the paper, he was just about as White as they were and they didn't know who he was. They was looking at a Blackface color and see his color was their color. And he got away. | 18:55 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | He was married to the Sadgwar's. I guess you heard all of that. One of the Sadgwar sisters. Them Sadgwar used to be a customer of mine. She told me all about that. I didn't never know who he was until she was telling me one day in the beauty shop. She was telling us about her brother-in-law and how he had wrote this article. And during that time his wife was singing in Paris. She was a singer and she was singing over there. And so they got him out of town, he went off and that's where they stay. They never knew who he was. And then she say he was riding around with them looking for the Black man. That's what she told us in the beauty shop. But it's just so amazing how things happen and you really don't know who is who, as far as our race because we got all colors. And a lot of them have passed and you can't fault them because the life was better over on the White side. You just don't know. | 19:42 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Because that's when she was saying Tom Jervay was not the first Black journalist in Wilmington, that had the first paper, because her brother-in-law had this little paper. And then Tom Jervay, they used to call it Cape Fear Journal, a long time ago, now it's the Wilmington Journal. Well they got big, quite naturally it was going to be first. And so she said her brother-in-law, I don't remember his name, I forgot what she said. No it wasn't Manly, I forgot, that's the other sister husband name. But they lived up north also. | 20:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Your uncle who had to hide in the chimney, what kind of trouble had— | 21:14 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well she said he would mess with the White lady. She said he was a good—looking boy, so he looked more like an Indian. And I never seen him. He was dead forever. He died young. She said the type of life he lived, somebody killed him. He was killed. And she said he was very mean. Said he had a very bad temper. He used to get in a lot of fights and things. Just listening to her talk, I don't know him, never seen him. She didn't even have a picture of him or anything. But she said he was a handsome young man. Never married. She said she don't know whether he had any kids around the town. If he did, they never knew anything about it because nobody never came up to say that this was his child or anything. | 21:21 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Can you tell me his name? | 22:05 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I don't really know. She never did say. I never did think to ask her. I don't know. No, but he was a Bonds, that was their last name. Bonds. Yeah, because that was the only son her sister had, and then when he died, she left and she went north and she stayed up there until about, I don't know, it was about sixties when she came back. Because she died here. She came home, she was sick and she moved back. And her house was the one that my mother got. She wheeled it to my mother. | 22:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So you say that you've spent some years, you lived some years in Taylor Homes with your parents. | 22:50 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah. | 22:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was that like then, Mrs. Neil? | 22:58 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, it was very nice. We moved over there in 1941 and they had just built it. Very nice place. It's a lot of us in my class, the class I graduated, we have meetings every month and we talk about it. We used to say we were rich because we weren't in a wooden house. We had steam, heat and running water and a bathtub and all this stuff, and you didn't have to worry about wood and cold and stuff. And I said, "Yeah, we were rich back then." But it was a very nice—It's nothing like it is today. It was families over there and it wasn't just a lot of single parents. And you kept your place, and now they do it for the people there. But my father had to keep his grass cut. He had to keep up his appearance of the apartment. | 22:58 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But we stayed there about, I think it was '47 when we moved. Me and my mother moved out because when my father left, he left saying he was going to send for us. We was going to move to New York, and New York to us as a child, when I was a child, it was exciting. I was going to move to New York. And it's about three of us in the class their daddy's did the same thing. And so we was talking about it in class meeting, how we all was going to move to New York and all of us were living in Taylor Homes, but we never got to New York. We was here with our mothers. Daddy's got to New York, they went to New York to get a better job. And that ended that. But my father and I got back together in '55 when I was in beauty school. | 23:50 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | My aunt was, as I say, was teaching in Warsaw and living there. He came home, he was going with a lady that was in that town and he came down with her and he went to the school to see my aunt. And he wanted to get in touch with me because I hadn't seen him. And so she told him where I was and she called me at school and told me that I would be hearing from him. So I said, "Well good." It didn't excite me. That's why I can't understand children. But you miss them. But they say this messes up home, but it didn't mess up my life at all. I feel like my life just went along. Things was good. But they claim now today that a broken home cause a lot of problems with children. It may, maybe the children is not as strong as we were. That's probably what it is. | 24:40 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | So when he wrote me a letter and he told me he wanted to get back into my life and everything, so it was fine with me. And so he asked me to send him a picture. So my friend and I went downtown and had this picture made when I was in Durham. And I said it was such a horrible looking picture. I said it don't make no difference, I sent it to him anyway. And so Alice said, "You're not going to send it." I said, "Oh, yes I am too." She said, "That don't even look like you." I said, "He probably won't see me no way." But he did. I did get to see. And so when I sent this picture, this lady he was living with when I met her, after I met her, she say, "I just can't believe that picture you sent and this is you." I said, "Yes, this is me, and that picture, that was me too." She says, "Well you changed." I said, "No, I look the same." Because it wasn't that many years because he came down in '59 and I graduated in beauty school in '55. | 25:33 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And so we corresponded. He sent me money, and I told her, I said, "I'm going to get all the money I can." That's how I thought. After all these years he had missed sending money for me. And anything I asked for, he would send it. And so when he came down, I was at my grandmother's during the summer months and he drove up and I was laying on the couch in the living room and I just lean up and I looked through the blinds and I saw him. I remembered him well because I wasn't small when he left. So I just laid back down on the couch. So I heard my grandma say, "Well Herbert Williams, how are you?" And so he said, "Fine." Call her Mama Dala. He said, "I'm doing fine, Mama Dala." And so he said, "I was looking for Margaret." He said, "I stopped around there to Agnes and she said she was around here." And she said, "She right in there on the couch." | 26:35 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And so she called me, I didn't answer at first. And she called me the second time. So I answered. She said, "Well somebody out here want to see you." So I went out there on the porch. I act like I didn't know him. I don't know, I guess I was just a teenager because I was about 20 I think. I wasn't no teenager, just a devil I'll say. So he said, "You don't know who I am?" My grandmother, "You don't know him?" And I kept looking. I said, "I think I do." But anyway, I said, "You're Herbert," like that, he said, "Yeah." I didn't say dad, I just said Herbert. So he grabbed me, and so we sat there and we talked. I can't even remember what I talked to him about to tell you the truth. But I do remember he said he wanted to go to Seabreeze and get some seafood because I was going with my husband during the time. | 27:29 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And so I said, "Well, okay." So we rolled down Seabreeze and he got us some seafood and I'm not a really a seafood person living on the coast but I'm not. Everybody don't understand that, especially when I went to Durham. But I think I had a clam litter. And so he was talking and telling about he wanted to get back into my life. Anything he could do to help me, he'd be glad too. And he wanted me to go to New York with him because that's where he was. And I said, "Well what about your later friend?" Because I hadn't met her then. And he said, "It doesn't matter, this is my home." He said, "You always welcome there." So I said, "Well it took a long time to be welcome." I remember saying that. | 28:17 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I said, "Well if I can get somebody to go with me," I wasn't going up there by myself. So he said, "Well if you get anybody, I'll pay their way." And then he said, "No," he said, "I'll pay their way back. If you go I'll take you back in the car with me and Bertha." That was the girlfriend name. So I asked my girlfriend's mother and she said yeah, she could go. And we went and I had a good time. I really did because he carried us all around. But the last time I been in New York, I think it was during World War II and before the war was over and all the lights was out. I guess you heard of that. But they had cut out a lot. Because we used to go every summer because my daddy's sister lived there and we used to go out there every summer. And the last time I went, I think it was in '45, '44, something, a little before the war ended. And we hadn't been back up there. | 29:06 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But anyway, yeah, he carried me around. I went to the Statue of Liberty. We went on a boat ride. My girlfriend had some friends there. Went up the Hudson River on a boat ride. Because I was growing then, I could really enjoy it more. And it was real nice. We went to some naval base, I don't remember the name of it, he carried me to. I wanted to go to White Plains by working with Mrs. Wineberry, I wanted to go to White Plains to see it. So he carried me over to White Plains. I said, "Well it looks like Wilmington." Because it's a lot of individual homes, wooden homes and all just like the suburb, that's really what it is. The suburbs of New York City. And I went to Coney Island, which I had been there as a child, but I was grown. He carried me back. What other place I went to? What is it? I can't even think the name of it. Been so long ago. Oh shoot, maybe it'll come to me later. | 30:00 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But anyway, he really gave us a good time. And his wife was very nice. I call her his wife. She was very nice. And she had a daughter, she was my age, and we all got along fine. | 31:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What did you think of New York compared to the South? | 31:26 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well they had a lot of places that Blacks could go to during that time. We didn't have that here. And it was just like a big downtown. That's what it looked to me, for a downtown here, because just buildings, buildings, buildings. But I didn't care much for the apartments. I didn't like living in an apartment. Now my daddy, where he lived, it was a very nice apartment and where my aunt lived, his sister, was right in Harlem, and I was young but I just didn't like it. And it was just too many people and seemed like they had all the food on the sidewalks or something other. I wasn't used to that, down here they didn't do that. And she carried me. | 31:26 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I remember my last visit up there, I went to the bottom of Bailey's Circus. She carried me there and it was the best circus I ever seen in my life. We stayed all day. It took us half day seemed like to get to Madison Square Garden, that's where it was. And we stayed over there all day. And the Bronx Zoo, I loved that. I loved it. It was so nice. And I love snakes. I don't know why, but it just excites me and I could see all these snakes in all these glass—They had them in glass cages, and they were so pretty. All colors. I didn't know snakes were so pretty. But I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed that when I was there. | 32:05 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And that circus, it was the best because they would bring a circus to Wilmington but quite naturally, couldn't bring all of that act like they had there. Then they had an intermission, you could go and leave, then you come back. It was really nice. It was a all day thing. The best circus I've ever been to. I haven't seen one since like that, unless you see a little bit on TV. But they can't bring all that stuff here. That'll be a lot of trains I guess they bring them on. Box cars and things, they would bring them in. | 32:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When you went to New York, did you ride the train up there? | 33:20 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. That's how we went up, on the train. That's all I ever rode was a train during that time. Because I used to go to Warsaw. You could ride the train from here to Warsaw and the train was the main thing in Wilmington, the Atlantic Coastline, that's what it used to be. It was the big thing here. People didn't even hardly ride a bus. Then when the train left, I think they made more money at the bus company then. And now everybody's flying. So the bus company's about out of business. But I used to love to ride the train. It was nice. But we didn't have nothing but the coach part. The Blacks couldn't have what you call the pulling cars with the bed and all of that. But that didn't bother me. I just like being on the train. | 33:22 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | When you're not used to something it don't bother you. And I think it would bother the kids today because things would go back. Because they are so used to doing things and going places that we never experienced in our lives until we were grown. And it didn't bother me. During the time they was demonstrating and rioting and all, I was in the beauty shop working and the kids used to come up and they say, "We going downtown now. We going to march in front of Chris today." I said, "Yeah, y'all do that good." I said, "Because I'm not going to jail." That's just how I felt about it. | 34:10 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I said, "My mama always told me don't you go to jail." I said, "I never been to jail. I'm not going to jail. They're not going to lock me up down there with all them bugs. I'm scared of bugs." I said, "And they say they got plenty of roaches in jail." And they were like, "Oh Miss Margaret." I said, "I'm not going to jail." I said, "I appreciate everything y'all do and I'll help you all I can," I said, "But I can't go down there and march and go to jail." | 34:48 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And they thought it was fun. It was fun to them. They were not angry. They would talk about it and be laughing. They talking about how they get locked up and they came on the cotton farm and they could prepare a peephole, they could peep in there, they say at the boys and the boys could peep over there on them, and they could see them going to the bathroom. That was funny. That was fun. And they just took it as strides. It's like a game because they weren't fighting anything during that time. They weren't rioting like they did during the time Martin Luther King died, and to me that wasn't necessary. But that's the way they did it. But it was a thing they wanted and they got what they wanted. Always going into to the five and dime. They could sit down and eat at the counters and all. | 35:11 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | It was years before I always thought about sitting down there, eating at that counter. Even when they passed it, that was something that wasn't a part of my life. But when I could do it, I didn't rush right in there to do it because it didn't excite me that much. But only thing that I used to do during my time, during segregation time, they used to have White water and Colored water, and I would never drink the Colored water. I told the lady in the store, I said, "I always drink White water and I'm going to drink White water." I said, "Because I don't want no Colored water because all water is supposed to be White." And me and my girlfriend do it just for devilment. And they used to see us come in, Chris is in the car and they knew we were going to go over there and drink that water. But they never really put us out or anything. They'd say, "You're not supposed to do that." And we said, "We don't drink Colored water." | 35:57 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And that was just children, just the devil. But that was the only thing that we ever tried to change, it was the water drinking. And as far as the movies, well you could go to the movies, you sat up in the balcony. And the best movie theater as far as the Blacks when it was mixed, segregated, it was the Bailey Theater to me. And it was real nice and it was very clean. I guess you heard somebody say that before me. | 36:49 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I haven't heard about about the Bailey Theater. | 37:19 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | It was the Bailey Theater. It was real nice upstairs and they had nice seats and the carpeting on the floor just like they had downstairs. Because we could look right downstairs at the White. And the only thing they had more, the concession stand was bigger. That's about the only thing I could see. And it was just as clean up there. Now the Royal, it was dirty up there where the Blacks had to go, and the Carolina, it was dirty. But the Bailey, it was nice. It was really nice. And we used to go down there to the movies, used to go down there to see the news. Because during that time you just had the news on and it was during the war. And we would go down there and I'll never forget when John Douglas McAfee was fired. I guess you heard about that. And he made his speech and we was all down there together. It was about six of us. And that was a great speech. You want to meet my husband? | 37:22 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Sure. Yes, please. It would be very nice. Okay, so where was the Bailey Theater located? | 38:18 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | On Front Street between Market and Princess. It's not even there anymore. No, they tore it down and made a parking lot, I think a part of it. But we don't have any theaters downtown anymore. No. They got cinema now. The cinemas. | 38:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | The Cinema Six, I think? | 38:47 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. They all scattered out now. They don't have any theaters downtown. All the theaters used to be downtown until they started building those cinemas. But the Bailey Theater was the best Black and White theater, I'll say, during that time, during segregation time. | 38:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you know who owned the Bailey? | 39:05 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No I didn't. I never didn't know who owned it. Probably you might find it in history down somewhere. I don't know who it was. I don't know whether it was a chain or not. But I know the Carolina, I think it was. I believe there was a Carolina in Durham when I went to school there. It might still be there. I don't know. | 39:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | There's one in Chapel Hill now. | 39:25 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, there is? | 39:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I think it's the same. | 39:25 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah. But the Royal Theater, it burnt down. That was another one down there. It burnt down, so they never did rebuild. And we had a Black theater over in Brooklyn, the Ritz Theater. And we used to go there on Sundays. You had to go to church and Sunday School first where you could go anywhere on Sundays. During my time. We used to go there on Sundays and spend the rest of the day in there, and had to be home for dark. And run all the way back to Brooklyn Taylor Homes, I would say. To get back home before night. But that was a nice theater It was a nice theater. The first Black theater we ever had here. I don't think we ever had another one. But somebody told me it's a club now. It's still over there, but somebody says it's a club. I haven't been there in years, but it just sat there for a while I know empty. But I heard somebody from New York came down and they made a nightclub out of it. | 39:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Which did you like better? Going to the Ritz or going to the Bailey? | 40:29 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well I don't know which one I like the best. One thing, the Bailey showed a lot of pictures like biblical pictures and technicolor pictures. What was that? That picture I was so crazy about? They were showing where you can get the tape, last night on TV. And I said I want to order it. Okay. | 40:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | The Ten Commandments? | 41:01 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No it wasn't biblical. Oh, shoot. It wasn't Gone with the Wind because I saw Gone with the Wind with my mother at the Carolina Theater. Yeah, she carried me. I used to love to go to movies. But I'm trying to think of the name of that picture. I had a very short attention span, I tell you that. | 41:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Well it might come back to you. That stuff happens, doesn't it? | 41:32 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah. | 41:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was it that you liked so much about going to the movies? I love going to the movies too. | 41:37 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I don't know, just seeing the movies. I just liked the characters. I used to keep up with them back then. I don't know who plays in movies hardly because I don't go. I liked the war pictures. I don't know why. I guess because I came up during that time and I liked the musicals and biblical pictures, and I'll never forget The Ten Commandments. The first time I seen that. And the robe and all that. But I just loved it. And when they started making them in technicolor, I thought it was a beautiful. The Ritz didn't show a lot of technicolor. They had a lot of cowboys and I've never been too much of a cowboy fan. And they had a lot of shoot them up and they may have had some Black pictures with the Black people acting so silly. | 41:41 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And we would go and see them and sit there and laugh. But it was funny. They had a lot of pictures about the—What was that picture? The Lord and the Devil, I think. It was a Black picture, and when you think back, it was very stupid. But it was a Black theater, it was in a Black area, so I guess they figured that's what we like. But children, it was fun to us because that's what where we spent our Sundays at, at the Ritz Theater. But I mostly started going to the Bailey when I moved back on the south side. And it wasn't but nine cent to go. And I went a long time because I was so short for nine cent. | 42:30 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | So we would go down there, walk downtown and go over there to Chris, wasn't supposed to carry no food, we'd get us a hotdog and hide it in our little pack. We'd probably go down there, buy some school paper or something like that, carry it up there. Even buy your soda at the theater, because you could get a soda and some popcorn over there. But we didn't leave nothing in there. We would bring our trash out. The people kept it up. But it's like now today I went to the cinema and my Lord, all this food and trash and popcorn and drinks, you didn't do that. I guess we didn't do it. Even when we just went with a bunch of children, we did not leave a lot of trash and stuff around. We would carry it back downstairs and put it right in the trash can. | 43:12 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And they had the can sitting there for you so you wouldn't leave. And they had Black—the lady that sold the ticket was Black and the lady that took up the tickets and worked at the concession stand was Black in the Bailey. And they used to tell us, "Now don't y'all mess up now." And so we wouldn't. And they didn't have no problem. And today one of the girls that worked there, she's a friend of mine, she lives in New York, she has a home here, but she's here right now, and she said when she go to the movie in New York, she said, "I ain't go to the movie in New York no more." She said, "It's so dirty, you'd be scared to sit in the seat. You might get your clothes get dirty." She said, "It wasn't like that when we was children." I said, "Sure wasn't." | 43:57 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | And they had nice felt seats upstairs for us. They sure did. And they didn't tear them up and it was just as nice. It was small up there. It was just one section all the way across. But we might have to stand in line, if it was something that the people really wanted to see. And that was probably the biggest out for families to go to during my time was downtown to the Bailey Theater. And I know when they had Cabin in the Sky, that was a movie, a Black movie, they had at downtown at the Bailey, and my mother and father and all us went down there to see it. And you'd see a lot of families, they would be down there with the children to see those movies, Black people. And we had to stand in line because it wasn't so much space. But we didn't mind it because we knew we going to get in there sooner or later. You go by the time for the movie to change, so you wouldn't have to stand out there too long and then people come on out and you go in. | 44:37 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What else do you remember about the war, the Second World War, Mrs. Neil? | 45:35 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, when I moved in town—I remember the day it started. It was on a Sunday and we had some company, because it used to be a Camp. Davis, used to be down here somewhere. Market Street, I think, out that way, Hamstead. But anyway, during that time it was a USO over there where the boys club is and they had built this USO, and we'd stand around and see them bring the Black soldiers in and they would put them off down there. They had buses that would bring them in and we'd be standing out there, because you pass right by— | 45:40 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Some of them would come by the house. That Sunday, the counselor, I remember his name, because he was the one that hung around us a lot. He was there. He had dinner with us. That evening, they were all in the house sitting around, and this news came on the radio, and it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt and he said that the United States had declared war on—No, Japan had declared war on the United States. I remember this man, he jumped up, he said, "Oh no." He said, "I know I won't see you all no more." He said, "Because we're going to ask all the servicemen return back to their base, return back to the base." He said, "Because we are in a war." I didn't know what it was all about, because I think I was about six or seven. I got so nervous, and all I could think about was I was going to be killed. | 0:01 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | After he left, I was talking to my daddy. He said, "No, no." He said, "It's not here. Not here. We hope it don't get into this country. It's in Japan. They in Hawaii." It was quiet. Then they started this air raids. We had air raid warnings. I remember they came around and explained to the families that when they had a air raid—When you hear the sirens, you had to cut your lights out. It was at night, pull your shades and be very quiet. The planes would fly over during that time, but it'd be an American planes. You never knew when these air raid warnings was going to come. It could happen in the broad daylight. If you was on the street, you had to go in. We used to have a closet, because Taylor Home is upstairs and there was a closet right there up under the steps. We always say that was our bomb shelter. | 0:54 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But we never went into it. That was just the kids saying this. That was our bomb shelter. But they used to—At night when they had the air raids, I don't know why, they would have the planes to fly over. You could hear the planes. It seemed like they were right down—They were real low. But I remember that part. I remember when they had them. A lot of people don't remember it, but I don't know why, they had a German prison camp right there. The 10th and Castle, right there where the Martin Luther King Center is now. I have told people that—They don't, "No, no." I asked the man that was here with his wife one day, and I said he was in service during World War II. He said, "Yeah, it was right over there." I said, "It sure was." I said, "Right over there by Williston School. That's school—Used to pass by there and say, "Hi, Hitler," at them. Sure did, they used to be out there. They had a barbwire fence. It's a little building sitting over there. They sure did. | 1:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did any of them ever respond to you? | 2:47 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, they didn't just look at us and pay us no mind. They didn't pay us no mind. The soldiers would be out there guarding them. They sure would. Right over there in front of that school. Because we would see them going to school and coming back. It was a very small camp, but they were there and they were German prisoners. The man said, "Yeah, I remember it." I mentioned to somebody else, my agency said. "Yes." Some of my classmates—They remember, but the ones that lived on the north side, they don't remember it. I said, "Well, we was coming back by them every day so we saw them." That's how we knew they were there. But that was about the biggest thing. Somebody—I read lately that they said German ship was down there, Carolina Beach and which I don't know, but I read that in the paper. How they couldn't go on the beach at night during that time because they didn't know whether you was a spy or what? | 2:49 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Nobody could be on the beach at night because they didn't know. Some of them could get off those submarines and come in on boats. But that's why I used to go to the bay. You could go down there and you'd see all the bombing and the whatever was going over there in those other countries because they would have news reel and they would show it. That's the only way we really knew what was really going on no more. You listen to the radio and I used to listen to the radio. My daddy was a news freak and I still likes news. I used to sit in there with him and listen to the news about this war and about the Korean war. I didn't keep up too much with the Vietnam War. To me, it was such a horrible war. It really was. Just what I've read of it. But I didn't keep up with it like I did the World War II and during my time at my young days, I'd say. | 3:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When do you remember learning about the atomic bomb? | 4:35 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | The atomic bomb? It was when they—First, I ever heard atomic, when they dropped it on Hiroshima. I had never heard of it before until that happened. | 4:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Nobody had. | 4:55 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. No, I never heard of it. I didn't know how bad it was until after they dropped it. So many people were killed from that. | 4:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did your teachers teach you in school about the bomb and about protecting yourself, the United States were attacked? | 5:12 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Not during that time, no. They didn't. Only thing they would tell us—When I was in school, they used—Only thing they talked about was helping the United States get strong. We used to buy saving stamp and that's all they talked about. They didn't ever talk too much about the war to us. What I learned about the war was my daddy mostly, listening to him talking. That's how I learned a lot about it and read things afterwards. | 5:22 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What did your father think of the war? Did he think that the United States should be in the war? | 5:53 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. Since they bombed Pearl Harbor. He always said the United States could win even when they was down, because we were down first, it seemed like we weren't going to lose. We was going to lose that war because even Germany had better equipment than we did. I know they say that the United States sold so much material, iron and steel or gave it to Japan or whatever and they were building up and we were sitting back. I guess that's why we'll never be that way again because now if we got enough to fight forever I guess. We are supposed to be the strongest country in the world. I guess we'll be all right, I reckon. I don't know. I don't guess we'll get caught sitting back with our hands folded again. | 5:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did your father ever talk about African American soldiers and White soldiers and the differences? | 6:47 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, no. I've heard more about that afterwards. When the men came back that was in the war and they were saying that how they were treated when they first went in. They were just saying that when they went to Germany, a lot of Germans had never seen a Black person before. They didn't believe that they were that color. They thought they had painted themselves. They used to rub them to try to get this black off their skin. But they found out it was Black men. I've heard them say that they went on the ships, they were always down in the bottom of the ship. If ship was bombed more Black died during that time. But they never did say what race died, more Blacks or more White died during that time. They just say Americans died period. They didn't separate the numbers. That was about it. | 6:52 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | They did a lot of kitchen work during the war. That's about all I heard about that. But they did—I think they said they would send them up first on the front line. They would be the first one to get killed, something like that. But I hadn't—If that wasn't my father, I just had heard other adults talk about it. Men talk about it. They were at war. Somebody say it was a Black hero on one of those ships that was bombed during Pearl Harbor, that shot down some of those Japan, Japs planes. I don't remember his name. I think they did have his name out once. | 7:45 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I have a picture of him in my mind. Yes. I wanted to ask you about school, Mrs. Neil. Okay. Where did you first go to school? | 8:46 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, my first—I went to Williston. We used to call it Little Williston. I guess you heard of that. My first year. Then we moved to Taylor Home, so I went to Peabody School until I got through the fifth grade. Then I went to Williston Industrial High School from sixth through the 12th. | 8:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you like school, Mrs. Neil? | 9:17 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes, I did. I did. Especially high school. I didn't ever want to miss a day. Yes. But as far as all of my school years, I liked the school. I really did. Not that I was a A student, but I liked it. I was so afraid of missing something. | 9:19 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Are there any of your teachers who you remember in particular? | 9:42 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, my favorite teacher was Mrs. Sparrow, my fifth grade teacher, she's dead now. Mrs. Robinson, Catherine Robinson, she's dead, too. I liked Mr. Harris, James Harris. I really liked him. He was very nice. Mr. B.T. Washington, he was my principal. He didn't teach me anything. He was just there for my last year of high school. But I guess I—Because he was my church member and I went through—Well, I'd been in that church ever since '47. I started going over there to Chestnut Street, but he was my high school principal because they changed principals my last year at school. | 9:45 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did these teachers teach you? | 10:39 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, Ms. Sparrow, I think I was her pet and she taught fifth grade. She taught all the subjects from reading, writing and everything. I don't know, I just took it like, she was such a pretty lady and I just admired her and she had very—I think I admired her hair because she had beautiful long hair. I can remember that so well. She was real, real nice to me. Even some of my classmates said, "You Ms. Sparrow's pet, you Ms. Sparrow's pet." I might have been. Now Ms. Catherine Robinson, she was my English teacher and she taught me English in the eighth grade. She moved up to the ninth and 11th grade. I had her three years. She was a very good English teacher and she was just admired by the way she carried herself. The way she dressed. I think all the students wanted to be like her. | 10:42 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | This is—I'm not the only one but most of us, "Oh, I like the way Ms. Robinson dress." People wear skirts and blouses, if she wore skirt and blouses, everybody had skirts and blouses. She wore sweater and a skirt, we wore sweater and skirt. Keeping up with her. But she was tough far as English. If you were walking down a hall and cracked a verb or put a adjective in the wrong place or didn't pronounce that word correctly, she would call your name and, "What did you say Margaret Williams?" Something like that. She would remember when you got back in her class. But she was good. She was just good. She was—During that time, the Black teacher had to do a lot. She wrote our class song for us. Not the class song, but the school song. We changed school songs the year I was in ninth grade. | 11:34 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | She wrote the words and James Thompson wrote the music to it and she was the, I said the director of the plays, she could really get those plays. We used to have a lot of plays at school during that time and our senior year, she directed the play and it was just perfect. The kids just seemed like they just wanted to do just like she said it. She had no problems. The kids just loved her. She was very lovable. Mr. Washington, well, he was my superintendent at Sunday school and I just liked him and he came over there. I said, "Well—" He came over there with—He was good. | 12:18 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But he came over there with an idea of trying to have the school to set up the same way he had a elementary school. They had to taught the children where the teachers worked with him and helped him because he wanted to separate the high school boys and girls and put the boys on one side of the girls on the other like they did it during that time. That's how they did the kids, separate them in elementary. Boys would be on one side, the girls. High school, everybody's courting away. | 13:01 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But anyway, he was good. I thought. I just was under him one year. That was my senior year. We other kids taught soon—That some of them didn't like him. But I liked him. I always did. He died so suddenly. He really did. He was at church that Sunday and that next weekend he was gone. I just could not believe. He wasn't sick. He just went like that. He was such a good worker at the church. He been superintendent of Sunday school all my years of there until he died. | 13:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | His wife taught school, too? | 13:59 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. Mrs. Washington. You talked to her? | 14:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | We haven't talked to her. | 14:05 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, yes. | 14:05 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | She declined. | 14:07 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, yeah. I guess she didn't probably feel up to it. She was a nice lady. I didn't have anything under her. I was with her friend. She had Mrs. A.C. King, I guess you heard of her since you've been here. She was a nice—I liked her. She taught me one year. That was my senior year and she was a very good English teacher also. I liked her. I don't know. Are you going to Mrs. Brown house? Gladys Brown or the other girl going? | 14:08 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Maybe one of the other— | 14:39 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Somebody supposed to go to her today. | 14:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 14:43 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | She was at church. Well, that was her aunt. Somebody supposed to go to her today. | 14:43 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 14:50 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I guess it's the other lady. | 14:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | There are five of us. | 14:52 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, it's five of you. Oh, yeah. | 14:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Speaking of church, you said you started going to Chestnut Street in 1947. Where did you go before that? | 14:59 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | First Baptist, the 5th and Red because I was on that side of town at 5th and Campbell. We all went to First Baptist. My people are Methodists, they all used to go to St. Luke. I started being with McCray family and I moved back on the south side. I would go to church. Thelma Jane, I was very close, they were Presbyterian. I started going to church with her because they had Sunday school after church and we would go after church and we used to walk over there and then we would go to church sometime and stay to Sunday school. It was a very small, I think they had about 50 members then. It's not very big now, but they were so nice. You met Mrs. Baskeville? | 15:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I haven't met with her. | 15:50 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But she was Mrs. Whiteman when I first started going and she married Reverend Baskeville after he got there because he wasn't even there when I started going, they just had a minister filling in until they got him. That was in '47 and I joined under him in '49. I been a member there since '49. | 15:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did the Chestnut Street Church organize fun things like picnics or something like that? | 16:15 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, not that much. They were mostly a little church to ourselves. During my time, we had Bible school and we used to go—I remember one year, I went to Winston-Salem to youth conference meeting for a week. But that was members from—I mean, Presbyterian from all over. They met at seven, eight teachers college during that time. There was about five of us that left from our church and went there. That's about the biggest thing I ever did. Now they're doing more things like picnics and stuff now, but back then they did not do all this. What they taught you was just the things we had, the Hargrave sisters, one of them had been to Africa and she used to tell us about her experience that she was a missionary person over there and she stayed over there about three years I think. | 16:22 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | They just had a regular Sunday school lesson. They do a lot now. We didn't do when I was a child over there. But they have a lot to offer younger people than they did when I went. But I guess it didn't bother us because we used to have to go to the St. Steven to BYP. Then you went down there to the other—We call it Little Presbyterian church, the 12th and Queen to—What you call it? Some kind of little Bible study. It was always something you had to do on Sundays and church, church, church. When we went to Williston School and you went to B.B. Leonard, everybody went over there to St. Steven that evening because she made sure that you, "Were you there? I did not see you at church, the BYP." You went. This is what we did. | 17:28 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But the Presbyterian church didn't go out for too much of that. But they are doing a lot now. They carry the kids on picnics and they had the Bible school, they went down to Jubilee Park because we just had Bible school and that's all. They end it there, have a little sermon and that was it. Then you go home. But really it wasn't a place to go unless they carried you to Sea Breeze. A lot of times they didn't want to be responsible with children down the Sea Breeze by it without the parents. They didn't carry you anywhere. But now they have a lot of places that they can carry the kids. Integration helped as far as that part because a lot of times we didn't have anywhere to go unless you go way down to Atlantic Beach, that was in South Carolina and who was going to be responsible for a bunch of kids? Our parents would have to carry us places like that. | 18:22 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did your mother or your grandmother or anyone take you to the beach? | 19:11 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | My mother carried me down to Sea Breeze on the weekends on probably during the day on a Sunday or maybe on a Saturday. They would get a ride at somebody because Black people didn't have too many cars. Once in a while, I didn't go down there that much. Now when I was staying in Taylor Homes, it used to be a lady lived over there, Miss Marion, she had a place on Atlantic Beach and she would carry us with her. Me and Geraldine would go—A friend of mine, we would go down there with her and we would stay about the whole summer. She had a little cabin. We would help her get her place set up for the summer, clean up and she had these little cabinets and we would stay in a little cabinets. Just play in that water all day until my mother would—Either her mother would come down there and get us and bring us back. | 19:16 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Our mother told me and—Both of us mother say the same thing, "You're not going back down there because you stay in that sun. You just as Black as tar." We were children. We didn't care about that then. We weren't even teenagers. We just down there in that water and that was fun. Just getting down there in that water. But I don't care nothing about a beach now. I go down to Merrill Beach. I mean, my husband may spend a weekend down there to stay at the Holiday Inn and maybe go over to the amusement park, maybe walk on that beach, but far as going in that water, I don't even think about it. | 20:06 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to ask you some about work, Ms. Neil. What was it that made you decide to go to beauty school? | 20:46 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, before I went to beauty school, I could do hair. I used to hang around the beauty shop with Irene and Gladys. They had a beauty shop 10th and Castle and I used to go up there, that's where I got my hair done. I used to go up there and sit around with them. I said, "Oh, I can do that." I just started doing hair. I can do it just like—I could do hair perfect when I went to school, only thing I had to get the theory, they call it and get my license. They told me, they said, "Well, if you can do hair, you ought to do something because your aunt is about to have a fit. You not doing nothing with your life." | 20:52 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I decided—I said, "Well, how long will it take?" They said, "Six months." I said, "I can stay away six months." I decided I would go and I really liked it when I got there and met all the girls and I had a good time in Durham. That's the first I have been to Durham and Mark gave me a round trip ticket so in case I didn't like it I could come back. But I did and I stayed and I met—We used to have to do a lot of the students' hair from—It was North Carolina State there, they call Central now. But they used to come down and get the hair done. That's the only thing I didn't like about it. It seemed like I was standing there working for nothing. Because see, we didn't get the money. The money went to the school. | 21:31 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | They would pay probably $2 or something like that, a dollar, $2, but it went to the school. But that was for us to practice, to get practice like they do now. You can go to the beauty school and get your hair done so much cheaper than you can at the beauty shop. But we used to have—They started wearing tint in their hair during that time. They didn't put tint in the hair, they used to bleach it. They used to bleach Black—You use peroxide and a paste and you put this up there and they would change the color of the hair. The tint came later after I had finished school. Because I remember Madam DeShay, she bleached her hair just about blonde. She was going to a workshop and she was going to wear her hair green. | 22:13 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | She did. It was green, it was sprayed. It was a spray. She put in it. We put it in and we bleached her hair. Her hair was just like I don't know what. It didn't even feel like hair because she used to bleach it all kind of colors to put different colors in her hair. She had this green. Oh, she looked beautiful when she left there that night. Her hair was matching her outfit. Her color, she was a reddish color, reddish brown. But it looked good on her. But she came back and washed it out. But her hair was still that blonde color so she sprayed in some dark brown hairspray on it. But that's when I first—I said, "She put all this all over her whole head to bleach it out." It did. It came out good but she did not lose her hair. | 23:05 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | She say she been doing it for years. Different things because somebody has to do it to show the children. That was her school and she could show us that this can be done just for a special occasion. You wouldn't wear your hair green around in the street. But this was just for a special occasion. This was a workshop for beauticians and directors of the beauty schools. They were coming down from everywhere, she said. We didn't go because we weren't supposed to go, we were just the students. But she went to this meeting and it was in Durham. Where, I don't know, she didn't tell us, but she was dressed that night. She let us see her after she got dressed in her silver and shoes and her green single silver dress. It was pretty, she looked real pretty. | 23:57 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | She sounds like quite a lady. | 24:43 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, she was. She really was. She was very nice. She told us that, "All of you all are grown." First thing she told us about that, "You come in here in this school and then people know that you are new in this town and the men will be after you." That's the first thing she said. She said, "So, don't mess these darn men because these women will be after you, too. Because you don't know whether they married or single." That was true. Then a lot of us did though because the women would come up to the school and I'll never forget that she said, "This lady going, 'My husband got red in the top of her hair.'" Everybody in the school had red streak up in the top of their head. | 24:43 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | It was so funny. We was all up there looking at her and she was out there fussing us out, cussing us out. Nobody—I said, "Well, she doesn't even know who she talking because red streak." Then half of North Carolina State students, they had started wearing this red streak in the top of their head. Something like that would happen. We would have to have a meeting with Madam DeShay and she would talk to us about it, "Be careful, girls, because you are away from home. We don't want nothing to happen to you." Which was true, but it was really fun. But it was a lot of work. You really had to study because they say anytime you take a state board in North Carolina you got to know what you're doing because they about the hardest state. That's what ever—They say the nurses say the same thing. | 25:29 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Doctors say this board here in North Carolina is harder. But we had a very good teacher and we missed a lot of days and had to make them up because I had to stay longer because of the weather. The teacher didn't live at the building. She lived out in the suburbs of Durham and a lot of times you couldn't get because of the snow. | 26:11 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But it snowed every day it seemed like to me when I was there. It just snow—Every night, it was snow. It would be so pretty like it is out there now. That night, it was snow. It was the all night, that evening, that morning, it'd be stopped and you couldn't get in where she was living. I guess it's better now. Back then, just she couldn't get in. She used to call and you wouldn't have class and have to have it on Saturdays and Madam didn't want you to have it on Saturday because a lot of the students would come up and want their hair done. You was in class, you couldn't work with the students. We had to stay over up until about the middle of June, about the first part of July before we got out because of the day we had to have those thousand hours. We had to do a thousand hours. | 26:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was the teacher's name who got stuck because of the weather? | 27:18 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Ms. Connors, her name is Miss Connors. She wouldn't stay at the building. She stayed with her mother and she didn't want to leave her mother. She wouldn't stay over there. | 27:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you live while you were going to DeShay Hair? | 27:32 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | At the school. It had a dormitory there and the school was downstairs and our rooms were upstairs. It was about 25 of us there. | 27:35 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you still know any of those women? | 27:45 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, none of them was from Wilmington but me. I had a friend that shared my room because our room was like an apartment. You could cook and everything. Alice. We kept up with each other for a long time. But I haven't heard from them about 20 years I guess. She lived in Edenton. That's the first time I've heard of Edenton, North Carolina. They said the first time they ever heard of Wilmington was when Hurricane Hazel came through, that did put us on the map. | 27:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Took it off. | 28:20 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I mean, just about. They said that first time a lot said, "Never heard of Wilmington until Hurricane Hazel. How did you survive?" I said, "It wasn't no—" Seemed like it was just a storm. That was the first hurricane I ever experienced and it was high winds and all that, but our house was perfect. | 28:20 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Didn't damage at all. It was the beaches that really got the worst part of it. Not the city people that you might had some tin. A lot of you had tin tops then lifted up or something. Maybe a tree fell down or something like that. The power lines, but it wasn't bad in town. It was out there in the water. Those on the beaches really suffered because I was working for a lady down there. Alton Lennon, he was a senator and they got the building downtown that's named after him with a custom house. They used to call it custom house. I was working down there with her in somebody's place because her regular maid was off for vacation. She mentioned—When we left and down there, I didn't know anything about a storm because during that time they didn't have TV. Most of the people was in and out the house. | 28:39 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | They was on the beach and having a good time. I got in town, it used to be a drug store over there, a White man ran, Manning Drugstore. He was real nice We had stopped in there and me and my girlfriend and he said, "They going to have a storm here tonight. You and Edith better stay home." Because we used to go off every night. That's what kind of stuff, he talking about a hurricane. I said, "Hurricane?" He said, "Yeah." It was just drizzling raining and a little wind. Not that much wind, you wouldn't even pay it no attention. Just like a regular little rain, wind. That night her aunt came down from New York and wanted to play Pokeno. She said, "Well, Aunt Jesse down here, you going to come by and we'll go around there and play some Pokeno." I said, "Yeah, we'll go around there." We did and it had started raining hard and the wind was stronger. | 29:28 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | We went on, we got our regular cab driver, we had a cab driver that we could depend on and knew he was very nice to us and we would call him to carry anywhere. We carried us around there. About 10:30, we left and we went down the casino. It used to be a club and he carried us down there. About 12 o'clock, it was rough then. I mean, that wind was blowing and he came in there, he said, "I'm going home and you all better come on." He said, "Because it's getting rough out there." We left and went on. When I got to my grandma's house, the wind had blown down her fence because she had a wooden fence up then. | 30:15 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I got in there, she said, "It's time for you to come in here because this wind is shaking this house." I said, "The wind can't shake the house." That's just how dumb I was. She saying, "It is, too." When I got in there, I was sitting, I got ready to get in the bed and I could feel this little vibration. She said, "You feel that?" I said, "Yeah." She said, "Well, that's the wind shaking the house." It did it again. I called my girlfriend, she lived on Wrightsville South. They call it all Wrightsville Beach now. But it used to be Wrightsville South. | 30:47 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | The line was still working. She said, "Child, I've been calling you and your grandma said you weren't home. Where you been?" I told her. She said, "Well, this sound and this ocean water is about to beat down here. We going to be washed away." I said, "You kidding?" I said, "You—" But she wasn't that far from Wrightsville Beach though. Because I guess it's about three miles or four miles from her where they were living to the beach. She said—You know where the Airlie Garden? | 31:21 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | No. | 31:53 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | You haven't been around there. | 31:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Airlie, the name is familiar to me but they don't want to go into that. | 31:55 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well anyway, she didn't live too far from it. But we talked and she said, "I can hear that ocean water." I said, "Baby, you don't hear the ocean water." "Yes, I do, too." But anyway, we talked to the phone went off because it was lightning and thundering and the house was shaking and everything. I just knew everything would be tore up. But because all our—My grandma used to have some Chinaberry trees. I don't know where you knew what they are but it used to be a lot around here, Wilmington. | 31:58 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But I think those hurricane taken them all down. They called them Chinaberry. They had little beads, little berries on them, little yellow berries and all of those were down and all her cherry trees and the plum tree, everything like that. That's the only thing that happened was just the trees because she had a lot of fruit trees and that was the only thing that happened at our house. We didn't have any damage at all and it was a miracle. Then I went down on that beach with that lady about three days or four days later and it looked like—It didn't really look like the beach. The sand dune was higher than this house. I just could not believe that was really the first time I knew what nature could do, what God can do, as Israel say because he can move mountains. | 32:24 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | He moved that water. He moved—You could see the top of the house. It's like that, out of the sand. It was something. They had all those troopers down there. It looked like a war zone because it was so many of those military men down there looking out. You could see washing machines sitting up on top of sand dune. She couldn't even find out where her house was. It was so—They just told her to go back because you couldn't get on there. It was sad. They really lost a lot that year because the storm came at a high tide and that's why it was so bad. It was mostly from the water. | 33:10 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did the churches or the schools or did the Black community in Wilmington try to help the people who had lost things in the hurricane? | 33:44 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Not as I know of. They did, it was probably in the White area because really the Black people didn't lose anything. Just like I said, we weren't on the beaches, we was in town and the people in town, their houses weren't that bad. They might have had—If they had a real raggedy porch or something, it might have been blown loose. But I don't remember them doing like they doing now. They might have, but I don't recall. I really don't. I don't think they did. | 33:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to ask you a bit more about your work. | 34:22 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. | 34:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | One thing I'm curious about though. This is Madam DeShay's green hair for that event. Did you know anybody else who would do that for a special occasion or was that just her style? | 34:27 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | That was her style and that's what she wanted. She was a very glamorous lady. Very glamorous. | 34:37 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I really wish that I could have talked to her. | 34:41 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | She's gone now. But she was very glamorous and their school is still there. They say. That's what someone told me. It's not on Fayetteville Street now, I don't think. | 34:45 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I think it just closed. | 34:54 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, it's closed recently? Oh, that's been about five years ago I think I had— | 34:55 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Right. | 35:00 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, yeah. I declare. I thought sure it would stay there because—I don't know maybe because now that you can go to the White beauty schools and they don't have to travel and I guess the people right there, most time when you live at home you want to go somewhere else to school. You don't go to your hometown schools. Probably that's what it is. | 35:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was it that made you decide to go to DeShay's in particular? | 35:23 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Because the ladies in the beauty shop I went to. That's where they went to school and they were saying how nice it was. That's why I decided to go there. | 35:27 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Were they from Wilmington? | 35:36 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes, they were from Wilmington, too. | 35:37 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You said they were Irene and Gladys. What was their beauty shop called? | 35:40 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | The name of the beauty shop was The Beauty Bar. | 35:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Beauty Bar? | 35:45 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah. That's where I did my apprentice and that's where I worked for about 25 years. Yes. | 35:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How did you start hanging around the beauty parlor? | 35:55 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I wasn't working and it was right up the 10th and Dawson and I lived on 10th Street between Wright and Dawson. That was what they ever built [indistinct 00:36:10]. I used to just go up there, sit around with them. Because I wasn't doing anything because I got my hair done there. Even without—When I graduated from high school, we had our yearbook and they just put in their things they thought you would do with your life and they put in it that I would be a beautician. I don't know why. I guess because I kept my hair done. | 36:00 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | My mother sent me to the beauty shop every two weeks. I had a standard appointment. I got my hair done. They said I would be a beautician with my own beauty shop. I could have had my own beauty shop, but I never wanted a beauty shop. I was so tickled. I read—I went back, I was looking through the book, I said, "Well, this is something." I said, "This is something they predicted." I never thought of being a beautician. I did not. When I was in school, I was just—Like I said, "I want to be a secretary." I don't know why. I just wanted to be a secretary. But I ended up being a beautician. | 36:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Why was it that your mother had this standing appointment for you? | 37:08 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, my mother couldn't do my hair. She couldn't braid hair. My hair was short. My mother had long hair. She wasn't used to messing with short hair. I started going to the beauty shop when I was—Before I was about the first grade, I guess. That's right. She would send me because she couldn't do nothing and she started—It wasn't but dollar and a quarter, that's all you had to pay. She would send me to the—I went to Miss Martha and then we moved on the south side. I started going to Irene and I had a standing appointment. Wherever I went, they said she had to raise fit that way every two weeks, keep her head done. I never went to school with a knotted head. | 37:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Who did your Mother's hair? | 37:58 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Irene and same ladies who did mine because she couldn't do much to hers. She had so much and she was very tender headed. My grandmother say when she was a child, said her hair was so long and they used to call her horse hair. She say that the beautician used to hate to see her come, said because she knew she was going to cry for the time she started until she finished. I said, "She didn't give me that hair." | 37:59 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Your mother's hair was long. Was it like curly? | 38:25 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, it wasn't curly but it was long kinky hair, you want to call it. But it was long and thick. I said, "Well, thanks Lord they invented the straighten comb." My grandma said, "Yes." My grandmother had long hair but her hair was a little straighter. Better grade of hair than my mother's. Now my aunt never did have that much hair. She didn't have—It wasn't that—It was about like mine. But my hair came about right here. Now my sister hair, it grown all down, too, but not mine. My sister's children had long hair. | 38:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Your grandmother's hair was straighter, you said that— | 39:03 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah, it was straight, I guess— | 39:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | —[indistinct 00:39:08] Indian? | 39:07 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Her grandmother was Indian. | 39:08 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Miss Martha, what was her shop called? | 39:12 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Martha's Beauty Shop. | 39:15 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Martha. | 39:15 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Martha Smith. She's dead now though. She had a daughter named Bernell Bess. I don't know whether you met her or not. She belonged to Saint Mark Episcopal Church. | 39:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You came back from DeShay's and you did your apprenticeship. I should ask you about the exam. What was it like taking the board? | 39:32 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, state board? | 39:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. | 39:42 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | It wasn't too hard. We had to do some Marcel Waving and put in a few curls and took the written tests and did about two nails. You'd have to do the pedicure between other feet. It took about two hours I guess. It was easier than I thought. I really did. But that's why I say we had a good teacher because she really taught us well. I made a 97. I couldn't believe it. They sent us our grades back. I was really surprised. We did. I said, "Well, it was worth it." Because I mean she really was a good teacher because they'd test us all the time. I thought every week we had a test, we had a test. But it was worth it. It really was. | 39:43 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What did your mother and your aunt think of [indistinct 00:40:40]? | 40:40 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, they was glad I decided to do something with my life. That was the most important thing. My aunt said she wanted—If so, that I could take care of myself, I could be independent. That is something that you—Even the lady in beauty school, I said somebody always want their hair done. That is so true. You would always have a dollar and that was so true. They was happy about it. | 40:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did they help you with the money to go to school? | 41:06 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | My aunt sent me to school. She did it I know, but I went to visit my father. He was saying that he carried me on his income tax. I said, "No, you didn't." He said, "Yes, I did." Well, two different states. While he was in New York, he carried me the whole time. My aunt did, too, but they didn't bother. I told them, I said, "Well, if it ever come back, you the one going to pay," I said, "because she took care of me." And she did. My mother didn't even have to worry about me period. She would buy me things but otherwise she didn't have to worry. She didn't even have to do that. Because my aunt did it all. He say, "Well, I knew I did wrong and I wasn't sending you anything." | 41:09 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | But he admitted that he did carry me. But I don't think they bothered either. The only thing that government used to get my aunt was my grandmother because they felt like she was supposed to be getting Social Security. But my grandfather didn't work that long. During the time she worked in the White people house, quite nice, they wasn't paying Social Security. She had a time—She had to get a lawyer and she had to have a thing notarized and all this. She had to spend a lot of money to prove that she wasn't getting anything. Then they decided to give her this something like an old age pension or something or other. They started to send about $50, the State then, which she didn't really need it but she took and put it in the bank because she really didn't have to pay the bill because my aunt took care of all that stuff unless she give me some of it. That's the way it was. | 41:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You came back to Wilmington and you were working in The Beauty Bar with— | 42:43 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. | 42:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | —Irene and Miss Gladys. Who were your customers when you started working? | 42:46 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, that's one thing, when you first start working, it just like anything else new, you have to sort of—Well, I had started doing some people here at home before I left. I had them then when somebody new come in and you do their hair and they find out that you just finished school and start, they won't come back because she don't know what she's doing. It gradually increased, increased like that with the years and you get your customers. I still got some, I've been doing it since I finished school. I got children I have done and they're grown and I'm doing some of their children's hair. That's just the way it is. I don't do that much because I work and I just—Some of them, they don't want chemicals in the hair and they'll come out here and I'll do the hair but I don't have them like I used to because I can't do that. | 42:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How long did you work at the Beauty Bar? | 43:45 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I worked in the shop about 25 years. | 43:50 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Sorry, the shop [indistinct 00:43:55]. | 43:52 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Twenty-five or more. I still have my license. I keep them up because I get some—You get them every three years now. You used to get them every once a year. But they cut back on—Because when I first started doing hair, used to have to go get a blood test and X-ray every year. They don't have to do any of that now. You just send the money. They used to say for health wise because messing with hair—I think it should be more now because of all that chemical inhaling. But they have gotten away from all of that. I know the girl that do my hair, she's saying that. Now that those chemicals really gets her down and gets in her throat all—She said, "I'll probably end up with lung cancer." Well, I have read where they say that they're worried about beauticians getting cancer from chemicals. | 44:01 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I think she must have read it, too. It bothering her now. She say, "Because I have inhaled all this stuff for years and years." She has cut back a lot. She say, "I'm not going to be in the shop all the time." She don't work at Saturdays at all anymore. She said, "Because it's too much." But they make big money in hair now. They really do. When I started, it wasn't that much. It was good living because things were cheaper. But as things go up quite natural, everything else have to go up because they make good money. | 44:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Was it considered a good job? | 45:17 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | It was. It really was. Beauticians—Now when we were beauticians, Mondays was all day off and a lot of people thought we were a teachers because we dressed, we were dressed up. I don't care where you would see us, we were always dressed. | 45:19 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | This is how we were taught. You are professionals and you look professional and Madam used to say, "You go out, you dress." We would. We'd go out, we were dressed, we went shopping, we were dressed. When I met my husband, I'd be all dressed up and he said, "Why you got to go to work like that?" I said, "This is the way I go to work." But see, I would change my clothes when I got to the shop and when I stepped out of that shop, I was dressed with my heels and all. That's just how it was. When I got a job to the factory in '70 and— | 45:36 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | —those dresses all the time. Yeah. I used to go down there to Belson. People was thinking, "Are you a teacher?" I said, "No." Because during that time Black dresses weren't teachers back then. But that's how we did, we were dressing. When I was at a lady's house and we was talking about it, Heidi King, the lady I was telling you about, we would laugh about how we used to dress up. She said, "Now we don't even dress up, we just get in these cars." Actually, we didn't have cars then. I said, "Now you can jump in the car or something on and run to the store." I wouldn't dare go out there in some pants and your hair not fixed. Because we kept our hair do it every week or whatever. That's just the way we were. I noticed the beauty now, they looks nice but they don't dress like we did towards when they're off dress up and be out. But they look nice. They keep their hair done. The shop I go to they keeps their hair looking nice. | 0:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did women talk about in the beauty shop? | 0:57 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Talk about most of their personal life, a lot of that. And another thing they did, for instance, they would come to the shop and you were doing someone else's hair. They say, "I want my hair just like that." Okay well you do their hair like that but it may not come out the same way because it's different grades of hair and they could not understand that. That was our biggest problem. They would talk about children most of the time, be about their children and most of their personal life. They didn't do too much. A lot of gossip about maybe families, other families, but nothing political. No, we didn't hear that. And they still do the same thing in the shop. They just talk about their personal life. They always say beauticians know everybody's business but they bring it to you. They really do. It's still the same. You carry it to them because we are in there, we don't know. This is how we find out it's from you. | 1:02 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did anyone ever ask you for advice, any your clients? | 2:04 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. Well as Madam said, we were a psychiatrist and that's the truth. I have found out that she was right about that. That's right. They would come in there and bring you their problems to you. I still have a customer now and she still—I've been doing her hair now 30 years and she still comes in here with the same stuff and you don't want hear it. And then you give them advice, but still they're going to do what they want to do. Yeah. That's part of it. I don't know why they do it because I don't do it. I can go to the beauty shop and I don't tell people my personal life, it's none of their business. I can't talk to my customers about myself because they're so busy telling me about theirs. I can't give them my problems so I'm going to listening to them most of the time. | 2:07 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I guess that's why I don't do it because even the girl that do my hair, if I go there and first thing she start talking about is her son, then his problems and all. I just have to listen. I don't know whether because I'm older than she is or what, but she does it. Every time I go she start talking about her son or either about her husband. She and her husband get along fine, it'd be nice things about him, but she worries about this one son. That's mostly what it is. So we listen and we give advice. It might be good advice, it might be bad, we don't know, but that's what they're asking for. I guess you have to tell your problem to someone and a beautician is the one that you are there with them and you're sitting there and they can talk to you and you listen and that's what they want. | 3:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you ever remember sharp disagreements between customers? | 3:52 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes, we've had that in shops where, just like I was saying about hair, they'll come back and they'll say, "Look at my hair. You half did my hair." And you say, "Well, I did it the same way I did it before." "No, you did not." I said, "What did you do last night? Where did you go?" And then they'll say they might have went down to Sea Breeze. If they ran out to Sea Breeze in that air, what they expect? And then they still argue with you because they're going to be right. People was taught that the customers always right. But uh-huh, they're not always right with me. I'm not going to do that. | 3:58 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I don't care if whether they come back or not, because when you lose one, you get two. That is the truth. If you can lose a customer, you get two new ones in their place. I've lost them and we've had arguments. Nothing that you're going to fight or nothing, but just disagreement. I just tell them, "If you're not satisfied you can go somewhere else, but I'm not going to give you your money back because I did my job. And if your hair didn't last before that it wasn't the first time." Especially if it was the first time I still wouldn't give the money back but I might apologize more. | 4:37 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When you were working in the beauty shop, did women ever come by just to chat a bit? | 5:17 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes, they did, a lot of them. We had a customer, she was an elderly lady. She would come up there when she started feeling bad. She lived alone and she said, "I'll come up here just to sit with you girls, because it seem like when I get up here I feel better." She would sit there maybe a couple hours, maybe not an hour sometimes, just according to how she would feel. And then she said, "Well, I'm going home now. I feel better." We was a healing process. That was a healing process for her. But she was a good customer. She would fix food for us and bring us dinner sometime. | 5:22 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | We had another one that would do the same thing. She was my favorite customer. She died suddenly. I had did her hair on that Friday and that Saturday her other friend, Miss. Margaret, called me and said, "Esther's in the hospital." I said, "In the hospital?" She said, "Yeah. Her brother called me and told me they had to carry her last night." I said, "Her back? Oh she was twisting down Castle Street in front of the mill." We always cut the food like that because she was a elderly lady, very proper and dressed real nice. She said, "Yeah, I'm going out here this hospital now and telling them that's what's wrong with her back out there twisting down Castle Street in front of the men." I know what a half an hour later she called back and they had called and told her she died. | 5:57 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | That's the first time I ever did anyone hair that had died. I did her hair. I'm not afraid of dead people because there's nothing they can do to you, but I just didn't want to do it. I kept trying. I said, "Well, her hair should look nice enough." And they said, "No, no, no, no. You've been doing Esther hair and there's nobody else we can find and I know you can do it." I went on up there and I did it. I talked to her while I was doing her hair. I know she couldn't answer, but it seemed like just talking to her made it easier for me. She just went so quick. She used to go to my church a lot with me. She was a member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church and she used to come over there a lot when we had evening programs. I used to invite her and she would be there. A lot of them thought she was some kin to me, but she wasn't. She was just a good friend. I don't know, something about me and old people started to click, older people. | 6:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was her last name? | 7:48 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Harris, Esther Harris. She lived there on Ninth Street, King Castle, I say in Martin Luther King Center because it's a cutoff street. She's been dead quite a while now, though. She has a sister, Mamie Harris. I know you haven't met her. She's a retired teacher sister-in-law. | 7:49 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I've heard her name. | 8:13 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | You heard her name. | 8:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Maybe she's been recommended to us. | 8:14 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Maybe so. Yeah. Yeah. I think her sister, they belonged to St. Stephen, I believe. But she belonged to St. Mark. | 8:15 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did anybody ever come by the shop to leave information about things that were going on in the community? | 8:32 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No. I don't remember. What you mean? | 8:38 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | A dance going on or music? | 8:44 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh yeah. Yeah, they would do that. Bring posters and put up in the shop, yes. If it was a dance, even if it was some singers coming in, because they used to have a place called The Barn. They used to have a lot of dances. It was the Black people down to 11th and Meares. Used to be big band coming in, like Buddy Johnson. Duke Ellington has been here. Lionel Hampton has been here. Fat Domino and Little Richard, Billy Eckstine. We've had all them back during that time, mm-hmm. | 8:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did organizations like maybe the NAACP ever try to get beauticians to help them? | 9:30 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, they did not. It wasn't strong back then. It was here, but it wasn't strong like it is now. They might be doing it now, but not during the time I was in the shop. | 9:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Were you a member of any beauticians organizations? | 9:49 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, I never did join any of the associations. That's why I wanted you to talk to Ida. One other lady here, Selena Hill, she's in that same association with Ida King. She still does hair, if you wanted to talk to someone else. | 9:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to. Maybe I can ask you about hairstyles a little bit. When you started working in the 1950s, what were the most popular hairstyles? | 10:20 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | A croquignole they call it then, curl all over. And then they had the feather, they parted to the side and you had curl all around and you had one part. And they used to do, we call it French roll, I don't know what they call it now. We used to do that, too. | 10:43 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Like roll— | 10:59 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Roll to the side. | 11:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I think it's still called a French roll. | 11:00 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Still call it the French roll because they have changed some of the names of the styles. And the pageboy. We call it the pageboy, but they call it bangs now I think in the Black shops. I don't think the styles have changed that much. With the finger waving, what they're doing now they're putting this stuff on their hair to hold the hair stiff so they don't move. That's what I say. And they're using perm instead of the hot comb. But we were using the hot comb making the same styles. That's the only difference I see in it where they're using chemicals instead of the hot comb. | 11:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | When the afros came out in the 1960s and some women were wearing those, what did you think of that style? | 11:40 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | It was all right, but it hurted the Black beauty shops a lot because see you didn't have to go to the beauty shop for that. It really hurt. That's when we could see our business falling off some, because they could go to the barbershop and let that man cut it because most of them didn't have it cut down and whatever they would do that. Most of them would go to the barbershop. I liked it. It looked nice on some people, but a lot of them didn't keep their hair clean because I say it was a lazy man's hairdo where they didn't have to shampoo the hair regular, or whatever. I liked it on them but I didn't ever go for it. It wasn't my style. Just like these braids, they're not my style. I don't like them things. Everybody to their own taste. | 11:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did any White women ever come into your shop? | 12:42 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No. The only hair I can say that we have done like White people hair, we have the man that run the Wilmington Journal, his wife and children hair was just straight hair. They would come just to get it curled because they said if they got it curled they wouldn't have to roll it so much with the hot curlers. That's the only person here ever done White. They're not White, but hair like White people. | 12:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you know any White beauticians? | 13:13 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No. In the south, well down here I'll say, I can't say all the south, but here in Wilmington the Black and White was separated. It's like where we lived on the south side, it was all Black area. And then the White might be downtown area, then the Blacks might be on the north side and the White family be in the east. We were just completely away from each other, unless you was shopping or something like that. You didn't really see them, unless the milk man come back or we got milk from the milk company and they had White men for that. And the mail man and some insurance man or something was coming around in the neighborhood. You just did not run into White people like we are living now together, all mixed up and sitting in restaurants. You just didn't see them during my time growing up. Now in the country, where my husband was, he said there were White families. In the country it was different because White families had farms right next to each other, Black and White. They were all right there together. But they separated theirself in the city. | 13:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What about men? Did any Black men come into the shop ever? | 14:21 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Once in a while they might come in there with their wives. Some of them might come in and want a shampoo. Other than that, they didn't come in, unless it's somebody that we knew, like some classmate or somebody was visiting and they knew some of the ladies in the shop they would come by to speak to you and talk to you. But other than that, we didn't do men hair. But they do men hair now. During our time we didn't. | 14:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did the atmosphere in the shop change at all when there was a man there? | 14:53 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No. They just talked and laughed and grinned just like women do. It wasn't any difference. I don't think it is today because I've seen men in the shop where I go and they don't make no difference. It's the same. | 14:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You said earlier that you didn't want to have a shop of your own but you could've but you didn't want to. What was that about? | 15:15 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, it would've been right there in my grandmother's yard and I didn't want it there. That's why I didn't want it. I always say I wasn't going to stay here in Wilmington. I end up staying here. That's why I didn't want to shop. And I liked it up there in that beauty shop with those ladies. The rent was very cheap, so it wasn't no problem. I told my aunt she didn't have to spend that money trying to build me a shop. | 15:23 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Why didn't you want to have it in your grandma's yard? | 15:55 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Seemed like I was home then. You want to leave home to go to work. See, I did. I wanted to leave home. That's why I didn't want it there. I wanted to get away from home. Not that my grandmother and I had problems, because we were tight, that wasn't a problem. She fitted in with my friends well. They all loved her. But I just did not want to be there doing hair. I wanted to get out and say I'm going to work. Because she had a whole lot on the other side of the house, it's still there. | 15:58 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you think I could ask you about your husband a little bit? | 16:28 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. | 16:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you meet your husband? | 16:37 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I was skating, roller skating over on the bridge, on Sixth Street Bridge. | 16:39 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Really? | 16:45 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I was in the 10th grade, I think. That's how long I'd been knowing him. I really didn't meet him that day. I saw him that day. I knew the guy was in the car. He was in a car and my girlfriend was with us. She saw my husband and I was speaking to Bill because I knew him from school. She said, "Oh look at that boy. They're driving that car. Isn't he good looking.?" I just said, "Mm-hmm." Because I really didn't see him. She said, "I sure would like to meet him." But it went on. | 16:45 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | That same weekend I went down to—just down to Mabel's and I was down there. He came down there and he said, "I seen you today." I said, "Seen me where?" He said, "On Sixth Street bridge skating." Because it was during the Christmas holidays. He said, "I was driving, you was speaking to Bill." I said, "Oh. My girlfriend saw you. She like you." That's how I started. I met him through her, my girlfriend, Mabel. He is first cousin's sister's children. That's how I got to know him. I met him right over there. He was driving this old car. | 17:19 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I didn't see him, I don't believe, again until about a year later after that. We met up again. Where was it? We was down on the town. He'd asked me about who was my boyfriend and all this stuff. They were asking could he come see me. I was going with Randall at that time and I told him no right then. But anyway, he started coming over there. That's how it started. I went with him for nine years before I married him off and on. It was a fun courtship. We decided to get married. He went in service and came back and then that's when we decided to get married. | 18:02 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Did you write to each other when you were in Durham? | 18:42 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. Yeah, a little bit. I'm not a writer. I hate to write. I wrote him a little bit. I would come home, I would see him. But I didn't see him that much because I was going with Randall at the time. Sometime I would call and let him know I was in town and sometime I didn't, I would be here just for a weekend and I went back to school. | 18:45 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What happened to Randall? | 19:09 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, I don't know. He never married. He died. He never did get married. He always say he was waiting on me. He drank a little bit too much, that was his problem and I couldn't handle that. But he did work. He drank, but he drank too much. I think that what killed him, liquor. | 19:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you have children of your own? | 19:40 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No. | 19:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | But you have a stepdaughter? | 19:41 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Stepdaughter, mm-hmm, yep. I call her step—And had men get babies on the outside, that was one. Yeah. She lives over in Kings Grant. I think she about 40 now, I guess. | 19:41 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And there are these pictures of her children? | 20:01 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, these are my sister's children. | 20:02 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Oh of course. | 20:06 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Those are grandchildren. That's her daughter there and that's her grandchild. I just say my children because we the one that raised them. She had them, but we raised them. She has four. My nephew, he just graduated from A and T. He lived here with me and he graduated this year from A and T. He's still there in Greensboro. He's going on for his masters. He had done real, real well. Graduated with just about a four point average, just about. He had to keep his grades because he got a grant. Because I know I couldn't send him to school and I know his mama wouldn't. | 20:08 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Now she was the one that was spoiled, the most spoiled. She was married, but she and her husband stay together. Until the children ended up with us because she was young and she just wasn't taking care of them and my mother just couldn't see them just throw it around. And my aunt, the one that raised, well I say the one that I was talking about so much, she adopted her first two oldest kids. Reason she did it, because when she retired she say that if anything would happen they could be taken care of through her social security. But they were real nice to her. They stayed right. They treated her like a mother. They knew she was their aunt and they know their mother, but they were real good to her. I don't think that was a bad choice. They all turn to me instead of their mama. If anything happened they call Aunt Margaret. They don't think about Carolyn at all. | 20:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Does your sister still live in Wilmington? | 21:51 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. She lives here. She's still young. She young. You know what I mean? She's a little closer to that one there, that's her baby, than she is the rest of them. Well, I guess, because I had the first two. And the boy, my mother's—But all the girls, all three of them stayed there with my aunt. At least my aunt took care of all of them, that's what I would say, because Carolyn really didn't. They got social security the last two. Now the first two was born out of wedlock. It was one my aunt adopted. The last two was for her husband, but he died. When he died they got his social security, not right away because seemed like it was—I don't know what was mixed up, but it was a few years. My aunt took care of them all. She was just that type of woman. Then my mother took the boy because she got married to someone else and moved to Greensboro. She brought him back. | 21:55 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | He didn't want to go back so she took him when he was in the fourth grade. He stayed with her until she died. He was a senior the year she died. He went on off to school. He tried to stay there because I took my mother house. She had gave it to me, but I signed it over to my sister because she always said she wouldn't keep it. I guess she's still on it, I don't even know. I keep looking in the paper to see if this is up, because if they do put it up or anything me and my husband say we would try to get it to keep from losing it. She claimed she paying it. She had some siding put on it. She said she paying the bills because the house was paid for. She wanted put the sign on it. It needed it to keep it up, keep it looking like something. The boy decided he'd move out here with me. He been out here with me ever since his first year of college. This is his home is what I would say. | 22:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I don't want to be too personal so please tell me if you don't want to answer. How was that for your grandmother and your aunt and your mother when your sister had her first two children? | 23:51 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, they was very hurting the first child she had because Mark was going to send her to school just like she did me. It wasn't no difference in the kids the way she treated all of us. First, people weren't having abortions back then, at least Black people weren't. It wasn't legal nowhere then. She's said, "I say that's a mistake that you have another one. You're going to have to work and take care of. We help you with this child." | 24:01 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | So the first child was just like the family child because she didn't have to work or nothing. She went on back to school and finished high school. Then she got another one. I think Nita was about nine months old when she left. But she was still there with my grandmother. I was married then. Well, I was married when the first one came along, or got married right before it came or something like that. But anyway, yeah, I was married because I think Cassandra's 27 and I've been married 33 years. But anyway, when Nita came along she got with this one's father. She went off one night and she never did come back. Next thing we heard she called us she was in Baltimore and left those kids with my grandmother. But I was living down the street. I hadn't moved out here. We was living down the corner from her. All of us chipped in and started taking care of them all and adopt them because my aunt retired that same year. She said, "Well I'm going to go ahead on and adopted them." | 24:37 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | When she got in touch with her, she didn't want to do it. But the lawyers say that you could charge her with abandoned children because, see, she didn't say I'm going away or what. She just left, just up and left. She said then she would have to pay you back for everything, money you have spent on the kids and all. She couldn't do that. He said, "You can get it without her consent." It just took a year. When the birth certificate came, just like my aunt had them, that's how the birth certificate looked when you adopt a child. He didn't have her name on it at all. It was just my aunt's name and her children. | 25:45 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I guess in a way it was a blessing because they were there with my grandmother and they were there with my aunt. My aunt got sick and they took care of her just like a nurse could take care of her. They could bathe her and do everything. I took her out here with me a year before she died and she stayed out here just about a year. She got down real bad so they had to put her in the hospital. She stayed in the hospital about two months and they put in a nursing home, a place I didn't want. But she didn't live for two weeks. We was there every day. Those kids was there, they were here. I felt like it was a blessing that she had them to look out for her. At least I'd have been there anyway, whether they was around or not, because that's just how close all of—It was a small family. We don't have a lot of people in the family. We were very close to each other. That's how it was. | 26:26 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Was there anything I haven't asked you about, Mrs. Neal, that you think I should have asked you about? | 27:24 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I'm trying to think. I don't think so. You went around to the whole families and high school days. Well, I can't think of anything. Can you think of anything? | 27:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Well, I'd just like to ask you a few quick questions. We have forms, biographical information and family history if you don't mind. Doesn't usually take too long. | 27:51 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Okay. | 28:02 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then if you think of something else along the way— | 28:03 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah, I'll let you know. | 28:14 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | So your last name is N-E-A-L? | 28:15 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | That's right. | 28:17 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your middle name? | 28:18 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I used to use Williams, my maiden name. | 28:21 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your first name is Margaret? | 28:28 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Margaret. You did say N-E-A-L? | 28:29 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Yes ma'am. 4910— | 28:36 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Cantwell. | 28:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Cantwell. Thank you. And what is the zip here please? | 28:43 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | 28405. | 28:49 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And when I write your name on the tape and on any transcript of the interview, how do you want your name to appear? | 28:53 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Margaret W. Neal. That's what I use. You better put the Williams so if anybody remember see it. | 29:00 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. All right. Now what day of November were you born, ma'am? | 29:22 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | 11/21/34. | 29:25 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you were born in Wilmington? | 29:27 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes ma'am. | 29:27 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your husband's name? | 29:28 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Samuel Neal. He don't have a middle name. | 29:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what is your husband's date of birth, please? | 29:41 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | September the 8th, '32. | 29:47 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And he's born in Brunswick? | 29:49 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Brunswick County. | 29:56 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Is there a name of a town or township? | 29:59 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Northwest, that's the community he lives in. | 30:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And what is your husband's occupation then? | 30:09 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Well, he works the Corbett Package Company. He was a supervisor. I don't know what he call it now. He just do anything. He was supervisor there. We don't even say it like that. | 30:12 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to ask you about your parents. What was your mother's name please? | 30:27 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Agnes Wright Williams. | 30:31 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And do you know her date of birth? | 30:44 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | 1910, I think. August 22nd. | 30:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | August 22nd? | 30:48 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. | 30:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. And what year did your mother pass on? | 30:49 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | 1980. | 31:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you told me she was born in Wilmington? | 31:02 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. Let me see. '80, one, two, three, four. I believe that's '88, '87. | 31:07 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And your father's name was Herbert Williams? | 31:26 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. I don't know his mama name. Nothing but his sisters. | 31:28 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Do you know when your father was born? | 31:39 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, I don't. | 31:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And has your father passed on? | 31:43 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. He died in 1961. | 31:44 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And was he born in Wilmington? | 31:46 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, I think he was born in Pender County. | 31:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Excuse Me. Thank you. Did he stay a truck driver after you moved to New York City? | 31:55 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, he was working in a steel plant. | 32:04 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And could you tell me your sister's name please? | 32:24 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Her name is Carolyn Belems. | 32:27 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How does she spell her last name, please? | 32:28 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | B-E-L-E-M-S, I think that's what it is. | 32:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | She was born in 1947? | 32:38 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Uh-uh. She was born in 19—What? Because it's 13 years difference in the age. I have to count back. I'm 58 now, and she'll be 47. That would be 19 what? 50? No, 40— | 32:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Well, if she's 13 years younger then 34 plus 13 is 47 or 48. Depending what month she's born. | 33:09 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Born in, mm-hmm. She born in March. | 33:21 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. She was born in Wilmington? | 33:35 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. | 33:36 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Let's see. You told me that you went to Williston Primary School, then Peabody, and then Williston Industrial High School? | 33:51 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | High school, That's right. | 33:57 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What year did you graduate from— | 33:58 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | '52. | 33:59 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | '52. | 33:59 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. | 34:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And then you were at Deshazor's? | 34:06 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | I went there in '55. | 34:09 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | '55, okay. | 34:10 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Was there six months. I went in December. I went in January, the second. | 34:16 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | January? | 34:20 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm, January. | 34:20 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What work are you currently doing, Mrs. Neal? | 34:30 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Custodian. | 34:32 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Custodian? | 34:32 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. Blair Elementary. | 34:34 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Which elementary, I'm sorry? | 34:36 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Blair. | 34:38 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Blair. How long have you been working there, Mrs. Neal? | 34:38 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | About eight years. | 34:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Are there any offices that you've held that you'd like me to write down here, in the church or something like that? | 35:02 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, I never took an office in the church. I'm just in the choir and teach Sunday school. I never wanted to be officer in the church. I've been president of my class and now I'm treasurer or something like that. | 35:08 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. You told me about your churches. Do you belong to any organization now, Mrs. Neal, like the NAACP or something like that? | 35:23 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No. | 35:53 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | No? Okay. Are there any other activities or hobbies or things that you'd like me to put down down for the record? | 35:56 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, I don't do anything. That's terrible. I just like singing. | 36:02 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You like singing? | 36:03 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Uh-huh. | 36:03 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | One of the things that we ask people is if there's a favorite song or hymn or quote or something like that that you want us to note down for people to— | 36:15 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | My favorite song is Lead Me Guide Me. I love that. | 36:24 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Lead Me? | 36:29 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. Lead Me Guide Me. That's the name of it. It's a hymn. | 36:30 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I heard you singing in church on Sunday. | 36:36 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah. | 36:38 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Pretty choir. I mean, it's a small church, a small choir, but you sound really nice. | 36:42 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Thank you. | 36:46 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | You wouldn't want to sing by any chance? | 36:50 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No, no, no, no. | 36:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Just in case, just in case. (laughs) | 36:52 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | No. | 36:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Sometimes people do. | 36:52 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. | 36:52 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | We love it. Sometimes people don't, but sometimes they do. | 36:59 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah, that's true. | 37:02 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I wanted to ask you just how to spell a couple of things. I'm sorry, I'm not so familiar with this area yet. Your aunt's first name? | 37:04 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | N-E-S-F-I-E-L-D. It's hard. Very, very hard. My grandma said the lady she was working for named her. | 37:13 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | It's unique anyway. | 37:23 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Uh-huh. | 37:27 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | And you mentioned a teacher, was it Miss. Sparrow? | 37:30 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes. | 37:33 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Like the bird? | 37:37 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes, that's right. | 37:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | I didn't want interrupt your story about the hurricane, but what game was it that you were going to play? | 37:41 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Pokeno. | 37:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | How do you spell that? | 37:48 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | It's P-E-K-E-N-O, P and a E and a dash K-E-N-O. Or P-I dash K-E-N-O. | 37:48 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Is that a card game? | 37:56 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | It's a card game. You play with money. It's a big card that got the names of the cards on it. You play Bingo? | 38:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Right. | 38:10 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Where Bingo got numbers, they got the card, the playing card face on the big card. You put the chips over on the playing card. The card, they call a king of diamonds. You look on your big card, you got a king of diamond you put the chip there. You fill it out just like you do Bingo. You holler Pokeno. Or if you got corners, you say corners. You got all four your corners filled, you say corners. You have one called zombie that's crossways, zig-zag, and you went like that. This is a money game. I played pennies. I be playing nickels and dimes. I can't afford that but pennies. We play with pennies. We still play it every now and then now out here. | 38:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Just the neighbors? | 38:54 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Just the neighbors. Yeah. I guess it may be against the law in North Carolina, I don't know. You can buy the game right here at Toys R Us. They're the only one that sell it now. They used to get them anywhere, but I don't think people buy them as much. Bingo is big in Wilmington. They win money so you can do that. And that's a thing they can go out to different places and play. I don't know why they're hollering on the lottery so bad. Gambling is gambling, I don't care how you do it. But they do play Bingo in churches so I guess that's why they don't figure that's gambling. | 38:54 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Right. | 39:37 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah. | 39:40 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | What was the name of the berries again that your grandmother had in her yard? When you were telling about the hurricane you were telling me about your grandmother having fruit trees. | 39:41 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Oh, chinaberries. That's how it's supposed to be pronounced. | 39:51 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. So it's chinaberries and people here say chinaberries? | 40:00 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yes, it's chinaberry tree. She had a cherry tree and a plum tree. | 40:01 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Because you used to get the fruit off of them when you were— | 40:07 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Yeah, the plums would be that big. We got some out here now. The girl next door got them about that big right behind me. | 40:11 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | [indistinct 00:40:21]. | 40:18 |
| Margaret Williams Neal | Mm-hmm. | 40:21 |
| Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. All right. Let's just— | 40:21 |
Item Info
Related Items
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund